Bollywood film Sooryavanshi starring Akshay Kumar has been ruling the box office in India. However, Washington Post has termed its success in India worrisome.
“Its success contributes to the climate of hate and discrimination that India’s estimated 200 million Muslims must face everyday,” states the author of the article in the Washington Post.
Sooryavanshi” is dangerous. After watching it, it’s impossible not to think of Nazi Germany, where Hitler cultivated a film industry that paid obeisance to him and made propaganda films against Jews
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) November 15, 2021
The author called a scene in Sooryavanshi, where a young Muslim man, who watches his wife being killed in the name of jihad, “nauseating.” She discussed how the leader of the terrorist group, who came to recruit this man, killed her in cold blood. Soon after, the audience can see the husband and other men praying as they gear up for an attack.
“The film does not even pretend to mask its agenda — which is the right-wing Hindu nationalist agenda of Modi’s government. It justifies the abrogation of the special status accorded to Kashmir,” she further explained why she calls the success problematic.
“The film stokes the dangerous ‘love jihad’ conspiracy, which paints Muslim men as colluding to seduce or kidnap Hindu women or girls and convert them to Islam. But other Islamophobic tropes are the center of the film,” she wrote adding that the lead actor (Akshay Kumar) is, “a big fan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and an actor famous for his jingoistic, hyper-nationalist films.”
British actor Riz Ahmed has expressed disgust with a disgusted emoji on Twitter.
— Riz Ahmed (@rizwanahmed) November 15, 2021
Pakistani President Arif Alvi is also disappointed by the ‘Islamophobic’ Indian film.
“Dangerous for India. In this Islamophobic hatred India will destroy itself, no less. I hope & pray that sane elements within Indian society prevent this,” he shared on Twitter.
“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture,destroy its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was… The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” he concluded with a quote by Milton Kanderia
Dangerous for India. In this Islamophobic hatred India will destroy itself, no less. I hope & pray that sane elements within Indian society prevent this.
— Dr. Arif Alvi (@ArifAlvi) November 16, 2021
Milton Kandera wrote that 'the first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, https://t.co/gcyX1sNnIE
Starring Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif, the film features cameos by Ranveer Singh and Ajay Devgn. Sooryavanshi is the first Bollywood to be screened in Indian cinemas after the coronavirus lockdown.
