People in various parts of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi took to the streets on Monday to protest against the Hindi film Adipurush, PTI reported.
Directed by Om Raut, the film is an adaption of the Hindu epic Ramayana. It stars Prabhas, Saif Ali Khan, Kriti Sanon, Sunny Singh and Nage.
The film has been criticised on social media for its gangster film-style dialogue, the over-reliance on visual effects and its casting choices. Many pointed out that the dialogues in the film are not only anachronistic to the period setting but also disrespectful of the source material.
Following the criticism, the makers of Adipurush on Sunday announced that they will rewrite portions of the dialogue and issue new versions of the film.
On Monday, seers in Ayodhya demanded an immediate ban on Adipurush, saying that its dialogues made their “blood boil.”
“In the movie, the characters of Ram, Hanuman and Sita have been shown as Muslim characters,” Acharya Satyendra Das, the chief priest of the Ram temple in Ayodhya said, according to PTI. “It has been done intentionally.”
Mahant Ram Das, the chief priest of the Hanumangarhi temple in Ayodhya, alleged that the film was a “foreign conspiracy” against Hindus and their culture.
“The dialogues delivered by the characters playing Lord Ram, Lord Hanuman and Goddess Sita will destroy the ideal culture of Ramayana,” Das said. “We urge the Centre that the film should be banned immediately. A religious film, before being cleared, should be reviewed by Hindu religious leaders.”
In Lucknow, members of the Hindu Mahasabha filed a complaint at the Hazratganj Police Station and demanded that a case be registered against the actors, producer and director of the film.
“The illustration in the film, the costume worn by the artists, dialogues and choice of words are wrong,” the Hindutva organisation said in the complaint. “They have also portrayed the real Ramayan in a wrong manner.”
Protests were held outside cinema halls in Varanasi and Mathura as well.
In Maharashtra’s Palghar, a group of people disrupted the film’s screening in a mall in Nalasopara. The protesters, who claimed affiliation with a group called Rashtra Pratham, shouted slogans of “Jai Shri Ram” and asked people to boycott the film.
As the protest intensified, the film’s screenwriter Manoj Muntashir Shukla was provided security by the Mumbai Police after he cited a threat to his life, according to PTI.
Meanwhile, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said that nobody has the right to hurt people’s sentiments. “The writer and the director of the film have stated that they would make necessary changes,” he said.
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