Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap on Thursday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advice to Bharatiya Janata Party leaders against making unnecessary remarks on movies has come too late as the “mob is out of control now”, PTI reported.
On Tuesday, during the BJP national executive meeting held in Delhi, Modi reportedly told BJP members that no one should make unnecessary comments that would overshadow the hard work done by the party.
On Thursday, at the launch of the trailer for his upcoming film Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat, Kashyap said the prime minister’s advice will not make a difference. “If he had said this four years ago, it would have made a difference,” he added. “It was about controlling their own people. Things have gone out of hand now. I don’t think anybody will listen to anyone.”
The director also raised concerns about the rise in hatred in the country. “When you stay silent, you empower prejudice and you empower hatred,” he said. “It has now got so much empowered that it is a power in itself.”
Shariq Patel, an executive of Zee Studios, the distributor of Kashyap’s film, welcomed Modi’s advice. “It is very good that he said that and I hope it will lead to something good and end whatever negativity is there against the industry,” he said. “I don’t share Anurag’s views on this, and I hope he is proved wrong.”
The prime minister’s remarks came amid a call to boycott actor Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone’s upcoming spy thriller Pathaan. Hindutva groups held protests across India against a song titled Besharam Rang as it features Padukone’s character in a saffron dress for a few seconds.
Last month, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra had objected to Padukone’s costumes and threatened to block the theatrical release of Pathaan on January 25 in the state.
Mishra, who has often targeted filmmakers and actors in the past, on Wednesday told reporters that Modi’s words are important for the party members.
On October 4, he had warned makers of the Hindi film Adipurush of legal action, claiming it depicts Hindu religious figures in a “wrong way”. The film is based on the Hindu epic Ramayana.
In July, while commenting on Canada-based filmmaker Leena Manimekalai’s documentary “Kaali”, Mishra had said that he would write to Twitter asking it to screen posts that hurt religious sentiments. The Madhya Pradesh Police subsequently sent a notice to Twitter, asking it to remove access to a poster of the documentary.
In October 2021, the state home minister had demanded that the name of the web series Aashram should be changed. He had made the statement a day after Hindutva group Bajrang Dal vandalised the set of the web series when it was being shot in state capital Bhopal. Members of the group threw ink on filmmaker Prakash Jha.
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