‘Gunjan Saxena’ portrays armed forces in bad light

Sandhya Suri, among the first women officers to serve on a warship, has strongly condemned the wrong portrayal of facts in the newly released flick “Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl” and said that the story has been distorted badly only to promote its actress Janhvi Kapoor and has nothing to do with the real character of Gunjan Kapoor.

“As an officer, I refused to watch the film because its initial portrayal in the trailer was wrong as they projected Gunjan to be the first woman officer to fly in the Air Force, which is a wrong fact. Next, the way she has been shown ragged and abused, projects the armed forces in a bad light. It never happens the way it has been shown,” the ex-officer told IANS.

Sandhya was the third batch woman officer who wanted to join the armed forces even before the induction of women came into force. “I wanted to do something worthy and was inspired by the uniform,” she said.

“In the forces, you have to work and prove that you don’t need protection and special treatment. The qualification and criteria remains the same if someone needs to be sent to the front,” she said, adding that this film, however, shows feminism, which is not okay. Sexist things have been shown in the film contrary to the real fact that the whole training is to enable you to lead your men, who are also in uniform, she said.

“We were two women and 250 men while serving on board a warship. We all knew what it meant to be in uniform,” she said, adding: “The story it seems has been distorted to promote one person, who is none other than Janhvi Kapoor.”

Surprisingly, Gunjan has not spoken even once on this issue.

“The film shows the importance of Janhvi Kapoor; in fact, it’s all about Janhvi. Had she really wanted to do justice with the film, she should have sat with Gunjan and spoken to her to dig into her role. Had she done her homework, she could have known how the story is being overplayed and then she could have put her foot down,” said Sandhya.

“For armed forces, it is a very wrong projection; I know some of these girls who were officers in the initial years in the Air Force. They also said it is the extreme which has been shown in the film,” she added.