Vivek Agnihotri, whose directorial The Tashkent Files featuring Naseeruddin Shah and Mithun Chakraborty is releasing today, discusses the genesis of the film
MUMBAI MIRROR (April 5, 2019)

How did you research the subject of your film, which revolves around the death of former prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri?
The idea was conceived when I expressed my frustration about the fact that October 2 is known only as Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, when it is also Lal Bahadur Shastri’s birthday. People reached out to me and asked me to make a film on the Shastri ji’s mysterious death. After I started researching, I realised the most authentic way to dig deeper would be to ask the government and I decided to become a whistle-blower. For almost a year, I filed around two dozen RTIs with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Foreign Ministry, the PMO with the Parliament and national archives. To my surprise, nobody could furnish any information on Shastri ji’s death.

I was aghast. How could we not have documents or information on India’s second prime minister, who went to the USSR immediately after winning a war with Pakistan. That’s when I decided that I must make the film and crowd-source the research, asking anyone who knew anything on the subject to share it with me. Thousands and thousands of people sent me links, books, ideas, articles, context and I started getting connected from one person to the next.

Did you speak to the Shastri family as well?
Yes, they have been involved in the process right from the beginning. His sons, grandchildren and a whole lot of other people who knew him were consulted, including veteran journalist Kuldeep Nayyar, who passed away recently and was present when Shastri ji died. I also got a lot of inputs from people who had worked closely with Shastri ji or knew somebody who had worked closely with him. So, in a way, I had access to the entire close ecosystem.

People are saying this is a propaganda film that attempts to portray the Congress party in a bad light...
I haven’t met anyone from the general public who thinks it’s a propaganda film; people don’t look at films like that. Yes, some people from the media and politics are claiming so. But then the media people who are saying this are doing propaganda for somebody else. So, it doesn’t matter. It takes an idiot or someone guilty to call it propaganda, because let’s not forget, Shastri was a Congress prime minister. If there’s any party which is going to benefit by revealing the truth of Shastri ji, it is going be the party he belonged to, unless they are guilty. It’s like you have a senior citizen in your family—your grandfather or somebody—they die mysteriously and 53 years later somebody comes and tells you the truth behind his death. Would it be against you or in your favour? I think this kind of talk can come only from people who are guilty or idiots.