Adipurush row: Protests break out in different cities; Nepal bans screening of Hindi movies

Here are all the developments surrounding the Adipurush controversy.

Protests in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi

People in various parts of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi took to the streets against the film. While seers in Ayodhya demanded a ban on the film saying its dialogues made their “blood boil”, in Varanasi, a group of people staged a protest and tore posters of the film. In Lucknow, a police complaint was lodged by the Hindu Mahasabha with the police against the film’s makers and actors.

In Maharashtra’s Palghar district, a group of people disrupted the film’s screening in a mall in Nalasopara. According to a police official, the protesters claimed they belong to a group called Rashtra Pratham. The official said that the protesters shouted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans and asked people to boycott the film.

In Delhi’s Shahdara area, some people were seen raising slogans outside a movie theatre, a senior police official said.

AAP, Samajwadi Party raise objections against Adipurush 

The Aam Aadmi Party also objected to some of the scenes and dialogues of the movie. The national spokesperson for the party, Sanjay Singh, described some dialogues of the movie as a “grave insult” to Lord Ram, Goddess Sita and Lord Hanuman as well as the Hindu society.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor also demanded a temporary ban on the screening of the movie, until the scenes and dialogues are re-examined.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party joined the chorus against the film and said the faithful are hurt by its “cheap and superficial dialogues”. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said the censor board should check the “political character certificate” of those who play with the faith of people by making films with an agenda using the money of their political masters.

Ban in Kathmandu, Nepal

Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah had issued an order banning the film in Kathmandu, objecting to a line in the film, which is an adaptation of Ramayana. Mayor Shah tweeted that until and unless the line, ‘Janki is a daughter of India’, remains in the film, no Hindi film would be allowed to run in Kathmandu Metropolitan City. He also said that the makers had three days to correct the error. However, in a letter to Mayor Shah, T-Series said that the mistake has been corrected and assured that the error was not intentional. The Pokhara Metropolitan City had also enforced a ban on the screening of Indian films following the dialogue controversy.

The line in the film has raised the ire of the neighbouring country, as Sita, also referred to as Janaki, is believed to have been born in Janakpur in southeast Nepal.

Controversial dialogues to be revised

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Adipurush was criticised over its pedestrian language, with dialogue writer Manoj Muntashir Shukla saying that the makers had decided to “revise some of the dialogues” and that the amended lines would be added to the film by this week. Muntashir has also received security from the Mumbai Police, after citing “threat to life” after the criticism over the movie’s colloquial dialogues. According to production banner T-Series, it has grossed Rs 340 crore in three days at the global box office.