A day after Indian Air Force had written a letter to the Censor Board Of Film Certification about the Netflix movie Gunjan Saxena: the Kargil girl, the real-life Gunjan Saxena has come to the aide of IAF. She opened up about her experience in the air force and said that she had always had the support of her colleagues, supervisors, and commanding officers.
IAF had written a letter to Dharma productions as well as Netflix and CBFC, complaining of the negative portrayal of the Indian Air Force in the biopic of Gunjan Saxena, who was the first woman fighter pilot in the IAF during the Kargil war. Following this, Gunjan had reacted to questions by media personnel about her portrayal in the movie. She said, “Indian Air Force is at the core and the heart of this film. It is the very training of the Indian Air Force and the strong ethos of the Indian Air Force, which gave me the courage to do all those extraordinary things that I could. And not only me, I think it is the strong values and rich culture of the air force that is really the driving force behind all the women officers from all the different branches of the Indian Air Force who have served or are still serving in this organisation.”
“Yes, as a commercial movie or as a work of fiction, this film has creatively tried to capture my story or my journey. But what cannot be denied is that even in this film the doors did open and opportunities were given,” added Saxena, who graduated from Hansraj College in Delhi, and cleared the entrance exam and joined the Indian Air Force in 1994.
The real-life hero continued: “Equal opportunities were there for me to perform, and I think they are still there for all the women officers who are in this organisation. We don’t need any other or bigger proof than the fact that over the last 20 years the number of women officers in the Indian Air Force has gone up at such a high rate. So, this shows that the Indian Air Force, which is such a deeply respected institution, has been so progressive and positive about bringing about this change in itself. So I think that’s how I would like to address this question.”
Source: Swarajya