In what is another example of censorship, an official complaint was filed against the Anurag Kashyap-directed film, Manmarziyaan where some members of the Sikh community protested to a scene where Abhishek Bachchan smokes a cigarette. While Kashyap had stated that he would not be removing the scene since it is impossible to edit a film after its release, the distributors (Eros) went ahead and deleted the scene.
Kashyap was vocal about his disapproval and sarcastically tweeted that all the problems of the Sikh community would hereby be solved – in the tweet, he had also made the phone number of Eros chairman Kishore Lulla public. Hence, Twitter took down the tweet.
Before my tweet is taken down -Congratulations . Here by all problems of Punjab are solved and Sikh youth have been saved . Happy to be back in LaLa land again. Next time you are threatened by a film please call Kishore Lulla directly on Eros knows how to solve matters in minutes pic.twitter.com/4yqU3T9utK
— Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap72) September 20, 2018
The lead actress in the movie, Taapsee Pannu has been equally vocal about her ire regarding this move to censor the movie and naturally, received hateful tweets from trolls. Pinkvilla reports that one tweet read “I swear i wish i was her father, all i need is my belt and a jutti. Shittar mar mar ke I would of taken the actress vala bhoot out from her.”
Actors Arjun Kapoor and Vicky Kaushal were quick to reach to Pannu’s defence.
Dharam da maan rakhna jaande ho, apni thee da nahi. Phaaji bohot maan rakh laya apne Guruaan da ehe gal karke 🙏 https://t.co/Bv4B1PtTdG
— Vicky Kaushal (@vickykaushal09) September 21, 2018
No religion allows violence. Nothing in this world justifies what this man has said. The more I read this the more it fuels anger towards this crass thought process. Who gives any man the authority to raise their hand on someone and make them decide what they should do or not do. https://t.co/o8XQJWPWsh
— Arjun Kapoor (@arjunk26) September 21, 2018
This is what Pannu tweeted:
My religion never taught me to censor someone’s feelings. I don’t know who gave these bunch of self proclaimed religion saviours the authority to decide what a woman can think and what not. Did u ? And if not will u stay quiet when they tell u what to think n what not ! I won’t ! pic.twitter.com/7plIgpEUi4
— taapsee pannu (@taapsee) September 21, 2018
According to Hindustan Times, Abhishek Bachchan has taken a different stand on the matter. “Each individual has a right to react and if people have felt bad over some scenes, then I feel there is no harm in deleting those scenes from the movie unless it does not change the narrative of the film,” he said at the Jagran Cinema Summit on Friday.
Vikramaditya Motwane also came out strongly against the studio’s decision to censor the scene.
The one time the censor board showed maturity and our spineless studios shat and ran. What a terrible precedent to set. https://t.co/Oz3BoKumRz
— Vikramaditya Motwane (@VikramMotwane) September 20, 2018