“Sometimes you have to forsake accuracy, but you must never forsake truth.”

That’s how Peter Morgan defended the expansive creative liberties taken in , the acclaimed Netflix series that he created and scripted. The show tells the story of the British royal family through .

Though the show’s creators have clearly said that The Crown is a “fictional dramatisation … inspired by real events”, it has been criticised for inaccuracy. One critic derided it as “”.

The debate about how much creative liberty the creators of dramatised works based on real events can take played out in India this week, as a controversy broke out about actor-director Kangana Ranaut’s biopic Emergency about Indira Gandhi.

Veteran journalist alleged that distortions and misrepresentations in the film are being blamed on her 2015 book, The Emergency: A Personal History, for which she had signed adaptation rights with Ranaut’s Manikarnika Films Private Limited.

Kapoor told The Telegraph that the facts about Indira Gandhi’s life are in the public domain. “ and present wrong facts,” she said.

Kapoor has sued for defamation and breach of contract.

Responding to the legal notices, on April 10 said that the film was based not just Kapoor’s book but on other material too. It said that the agreement explicitly allowed for creative liberties “to...