Anurag Kashyap on PM Modi’s direction to ministers: Things have gone out of hand, won’t make any difference now

Commenting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s direction to party workers to avoid “unnecessary remarks” on films and film personalities to grab attention, Director Anurag Kashyap said on Thursday that the PM’s advisory “won’t make any difference now.”

As per a report in The Indian Express, at the trailer launch of his upcoming film Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat, when asked if Modi’s caution to party workers will help decrease anti-Bollywood sentiment and boycott Bollywood trends, Anurag said, “It would have made a difference if he (PM Modi) had said this four years ago, I don’t think it will make any difference now. It was about controlling their own people. I think things have gone out of hand now, it’s not that anybody will listen to anyone. When you empower prejudice with silence, when you empower hatred with silence, it has become so powerful by itself that it has become (their) strength, that mob is out of control.”

However, Zee Studio’s Shariq Patel, who is distributing the film under the corporate banner, welcomed PM’s statement, and said, “We’re happy that such a statement has been made. It was actually Anna, Suniel Shetty, who spoke about it first in the meeting with Shri Yogi ji when he was in Mumbai a few weeks ago. I’m happy it has happened because nobody was able to make sense of why it (Boycott Bollywood) has been happening. But now that the honorable Prime Minister has said it, I hope it at least slows down. We make films to entertain, sometimes they end up getting made well, sometimes they don’t but that’s ok. But it is good, it is laudable and the industry is happy about it.”

At BJP’s national executive meeting in Delhi on January 16 and 17, PM Modi advised BJP members against making “unnecessary remarks“ on films. According to reports, the Prime Minister, in his address to party workers at the BJP national executive, said, “No one should make unnecessary comments that would overshadow the hard work we do.”

This comes in the backdrop of several BJP ministers, including Madhya Pradesh’s Home Minister Narottam Mishra, calling for “appropriate changes” to the song ‘Besharam Rang’ from Shah Rukh Khan’s upcoming film Pathaan. The film has also been facing boycott calls on Twitter and is amid a spree of Bollywood films facing backlash.