Film adaptation of Midnight's Children may never be screened in India Literary critic Nilanjana Roy, speaking to the Daily Telegraph today, said she believed Rushdie and Mehta rather than the content of Midnight's Children were the cause of the film's problems in India. "Rushdie is seen as controversial, Mehta is seen as controversial, and some political party will cause a fuss," she said. One thing that has silenced people in the last few years has been the threat of violence. I think that official and unofficial censorship has risen sharply in the last two decades, though the debate surrounding the issue has also become mainstream too. [With] works of art in particular there is often a demand they be shut down, almost as a kneejerk reaction. We have this idea that minorities should bow to the interests of the majority. Mehta is no stranger to controversy. Her 2005 film Water suffered setbacks when violent protests shut down production, including burning of sets. Cinemas showing the film were also picketed by fundamentalists who disliked the film's negative portrayal of conservative Hindu values, and the filming of Midnight's Children was completed in Sri Lanka for this reason. The widow of Indira Gandhi's late son Rajiv, Sonia Gandhi, is the president of the ruling Congress party. Her own son, Rahul, is considered a future prospect for prime minister as a member of the long-running Indian political dynasty. But the film would not be expected to sell, its political problems aside. "It wouldn't make a profit," Roy conceded. Films popular in the West that are set in India such as Slumdog Millionaire often fail to make an impact among audiences at home, who prefer the aesthetic and storylines of Bollywood cinema. Writer and historian William Dalrymple believes it is the film's Western influence, and not its difficult film's political aspects, that has left it without a distributor. "There is a complete disconnect between Western and Indian tastes," he told the Daily Telegraph. Nobody has bridged the taste gap. There are a lot more Western films than there were in India, but anything 'arty' gets a pretty bumpy ride. Bollywood is what sells well in India, as well as in China and the Middle East.