Amartya with daughter Nandana, star of Colours of Passion, at the film’s world premiere in London

London, Oct. 31: Amartya Sen urged “ordinary citizens of India, not just art lovers, to stand up” to defend the cultural freedoms of the country, when he turned up in London last night for the world premiere of Colours of Passion, Ketan Mehta’s sensuous biopic of the 19th century artist, Raja Ravi Varma.

With his daughter Nandana, the movie’s female lead, standing next to him, the Nobel winner gave his review: “This is the best thing she has done.”

“I am so proud of my father,” said Nandana who, it has to be said, glowed both on screen and in real life last night.

If the $3.5m movie proves to be a commercial success, as her father hopes it will be, Nandana has the potential to become the Indian actress most sought after by foreign filmmakers.

She plays Sugandha, the painter’s muse who inspires Raja Ravi Varma to give human form to gods and goddesses in Hindu mythology.

Since the film required some nudity — demure by western stands but uncharted territory for mainstream Indian cinema — Nandana confided to The Telegraph that she consulted both her father and her mother, the former Jadavpur University academic Nabaneeta Dev Sen, before accepting Mehta’s offer.

“I wish her mother were here tonight,” said Sen, with a fond glance at his daughter. “She would also be very proud.”

Asked whether intolerance in India was growing, Sen shook his head. “It is not growing, it has always been there.”

Nandana revealed that she often turned down foreign movies that required nudity she considered inappropriate for her and not essential for the film. But in Colours of Passion, where the painter was using the female form to depict the close connection between sensuality and spirituality, she considered she had to relax her rules.

Her parents, she said, gave their blessings.

“I did not want to hurt people I love,” said Nandana, whose elder sister Antara, a magazine publisher and columnist in Delhi, also turned up.

“I did not want to hurt my father and my mother,” repeated Nandana, who, like many members of the cast, including Randeep Hooda, who portrays the painter, was seeing this “wonderful film” for the first time.

The film is getting a big release in India with 800 prints in four languages.

“It has been passed by the censors without any cuts,” said Mehta, who admitted he was heartened by the audience’s warm reception yesterday.

Sen, who was returning to Harvard from a conference in Beijing, made a point of breaking his journey in London so that he could catch up with his daughters and see the movie.

He met the producers, Deepa Sahi and Aanand Mahendroo, and generously went out of his way to compliment Mehta’s direction and “superb acting” by several of the other actors, including those playing some of the smaller roles.

What he was pleased about, he told The Telegraph last night at the traditional post-premiere party, was that Mehta had given Colours of Passion a political edge.

Although Raja Ravi Varma lived from April 29, 1848, until October 2, 1906, and was hauled to court by self-appointed guardians of “Hindu” culture, the movie begins in contemporary times in Mumbai with demonstrators breaking up an auction where the painter’s work is fetching record prices.

If there is an echo of the manner in which M.F. Husain has been driven out of India by the culture police, it is entirely deliberate.

Mehta said he wanted the people of India to understand why they had to rise up and not allow the cultural freedoms of the country to be hijacked in the name of religion.

“That is why I did the film,” explained Mehta.