New Delhi, (The Telegraph): Lift from facts if needed for a Bollywood film, but don't bloat the movie with only hot air- that's the message India's foreign office sent out today on a rare film that deals with its work directly but also threatens a proud 25-year-old legacy.

The foreign policy establishment today fought back to reclaim the history of the 1990 Kuwait rescue operation, the largest civilian evacuation in history, from a narrative of a bumbling, unresponsive government painted by the Akshay Kumar-starrer Airlift.

The evacuation of close to 170,000 Indians, plucked out of Jordan by a series of Air India flights after dogged - and deft - diplomacy by an otherwise unstable government in New Delhi, formed the template India has since used for multiple subsequent rescue missions from war zones.

"Films often take liberties with facts, and this particular film has also taken a lot of artistic liberties with the depiction of events," foreign ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a short video message made public this evening.

"Those of you who remember the 1990 evacuation will know the very proactive role that the ministry of external affairs played."

The film, which has grossed over Rs. 120 crore in the five days after its release last Friday, portrays an Indian businessman in Kuwait played by Akshay as leading the 170,000 Indians in that country to safety from Iraqi soldiers who invaded the nation on August 2, 1990.

Akshay's character - called Ranjit Katiyal in the film - combines the street sense of a sharp businessman, the negotiating skills of a diplomat and the physical strength of a muscleman in this effort.

He has an ally in the foreign office in New Delhi, but the joint secretary, Sanjeev Kohli, is shown as a sleepy babu sitting amid a pile of files in a giant hall that also serves as the office of dozens of other officials - far from the cozy rooms officers of his rank actually work in.

In fact, K.P. Fabian, the joint secretary in charge of relations with the Gulf, came to know of the Iraqi invasion not from an Indian businessman in Kuwait as the movie suggests - but from a friend in the UN posted there.

The risks to the Indians in Kuwait were obvious, and the response to the invasion needed diplomatic wording.

"We did not use the word "condemn" in our statement, for two reasons - one, we were concerned about our nationals there, and second we still believed there was some scope for a negotiated solution," Fabian told the Indian Foreign Affairs Journal in 2011, recounting the episode.

"If we condemned the development openly, it would have been difficult for us to deal with Iraq."

The film shows Kohli, the fictional joint secretary as struggling for an appointment with the foreign minister, who is shown as uncaring. The minister eventually gives up on trying to avoid Kohli and tells him to do what he can.

But I.K. Gujral, the then foreign minister, was far from evasive once he was told about the invasion and the challenge of an unprecedented evacuation, according to veteran diplomats.

"The depiction of the then foreign minister, (I.K. Gujral) as a person with little time for suffering Indians in Kuwait is totally off the reservation," former foreign secretary Nirupama Rao wrote on Facebook. "I was disappointed with the lack of attention to some crucial details in depiction of the government and its role."

The film shows Katiyal, the businessman wangling a meeting with Tariq Aziz, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's trusted deputy Prime Minister and foreign minister to try and win support for the evacuation.

The Indian ambassador in Iraq is shown as helpless - at one stage in the film, he offers Kumar a biscuit when he pleads for help.

But it was Gujral's famous visit to Baghdad and his infamous hug with Hussein that clinched an understanding that Iraqi troops would not harm Indians in Kuwait, and would allow them to leave the country. Kamal Bakshi, the ambassador in Iraq, facilitated that meeting.

The movie suggests the Indian mission in Kuwait emptied out whereas in reality only non-essential staff were sent back, and core diplomats - including the ambassador, A.K. Budhiraja, stayed in Kuwait.

For the foreign office, coordinating the rescue mission was the next challenge. Diplomats were pulled in from multiple nearby missions, and an elaborate plan was charted. Some evacuees moved from Kuwait to Iraq and then Jordan. Others took a more circuitous route - cutting through Iraq into Turkey, then Syria, before crossing over into Jordan.

Many of India's senior diplomats now serving cut their teeth in the rescue operation. Syed Akbaruddin, now India's permanent representative to the UN and former spokesperson, was just six years into the foreign service when he joined the evacuation effort.

Swarup, his successor as spokesperson, had just completed four years as a diplomat when he was tasked with manning the Syria route into Jordan.

"I know this from first hand experience because I was at the frontlines," Swarup said today.

India's refusal to criticise Hussein drew flak initially in 1990, especially from the US.

But the success of the strategy - quietly ensuring the safety of Indian nationals before diplomatic grandstanding - formed the basis for a policy multiple governments in New Delhi have since replicated.

During the Lebanon war in 2006, India rescued over 2,000 people - mostly Indians but also some from other countries. Indian diplomats at times risked their lives in rescuing multiple batches of Indians from different parts of Libya after 2011 - not just in one operation, but during repeated bouts of violence and civil war.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, over 2,000 Indian students were trapped in different parts of Ukraine including territory occupied by Moscow. Through talks with both Moscow and Kiev, they were brought home.

Last year, India rescued over 6,000 nationals and foreigners from Yemen after most other nations had closed their missions in that country.

The movie does have an upside though, the foreign office acknowledged.

"The fact that such a theme has been selected for a film shows how important it is," Swarup said. "We hope that this film will inspire people to read about the events that actually took place."