When Amitabh Bachchan was banned by magazines for ‘blue-penciling’ their stories during 1975 Emergency: ‘His name was replaced with a comma’

After the Emergency was lifted, a few film magazines believed Amitabh Bachchan was involved in the censorship of their content.

By: ANI

Mumbai | March 12, 2025 02:43 PM IST

2 min read

When Amitabh Bachchan called Komal Nahta post his Hum review. (File Photo/Dilip Kagda)

Amitabh Bachchan is one of the biggest stars in Indian cinema, whose presence in films and the media has been constant for decades. However, at the height of his career, when almost all of his movies were superhits, the actor faced an unexpected situation during the Emergency of 1975, when some film magazines banned him from being mentioned in their content.

Film critic and author Bharathi S Pradhan spoke about the incident in an interview with ANI and explained that after the Emergency was lifted, a few film magazines believed Bachchan was involved in the censorship of their content and accused him of being responsible for “blue-penciling all copy,” including articles in well-known magazines.

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“Just after the Emergency was lifted, a few magazines got together and banned Amitabh Bachchan because they felt that he and VC Shukla were all one gang of Congress people and they had been blue-penciling all copy,” she said.

Pradhan also revealed that the boycott led to strange situations where magazines started avoiding mentioning his name. “If there was a filmography of, say, Hema Malini, and Amitabh Bachchan was her co-star, they would just put a comma instead of his name because Amitabh Bachchan was banned, so you can’t put his name in the magazine,” Pradhan added.

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Pradhan further stated that the Sholay actor was well aware of the situation and, to make it easier for editors to remove his image from group photos, he used to adjust his position.

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“Once he got to know that this is what they were up to, when there would be a group picture, he’d go stand on the extreme right or extreme left,” she said. “He told me, ‘Just to facilitate their cutting, I would stand on the extreme right or extreme left,'” Pradhan recalled.

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