Amid objections to the portrayal of an intimate scene in the presence of the Bhagavad Gita in the recently released Oppenheimer, Uday Mahurkar, the founder of Save India Save Culture, a right-wing organisation, has written to director Christopher Nolan to remove the scene. Uday, who claims to be a historian propagates the “contributions of Savarkar in keeping India united.” He is also the Information Commissioner from the Central Information Commission, and author of Veer Savarkar: The Man who could have prevented partition.
“The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most revered scriptures of Hinduism. Gita has been the inspiration for countless sanyasis, brahmcharis and legends who live a life of self-control and perform selfless noble deeds. We do not know the motivation and logic behind this unnecessary scene in the life of a scientist. But this is a direct assault on religious beliefs of a billion tolerant Hindus, rather it amounts to waging a war on the Hindu community and almost appears to be part of a larger conspiracy by anti-Hindu forces,” he wrote in his letter to Nolan.
Drawing parallels between how Hollywood films have been sensitive around the portrayal of Muslims, he said, “We are living in a very polarised world. The agencies, media, politics and even your Hollywood film industry is very sensitive about the fact that Quran and Islam is not depicted in any manner that may offend the value system of a common Muslim, even if you make something based on Islamist terrorism. There is a term that has become popular for those who attempt to cross this red line - Islamophobia. Why should not the same courtesy be also extended to Hindus?”
He added, “You have great admiration in India for your art of filmmaking. We believe that if you remove this scene and do the needful to win hearts of Hindus, it will go a long way to establish your credentials as a sensitized human being and gift you friendship of billions of nice people. We urge, on behalf of billion Hindus and timeless tradition of lives being transformed by revered Gita, to do all that is needed to uphold dignity of their revered book and remove this scene from your film across world. Should you choose to ignore this appeal it would be deemed as a deliberate assault on Indian civilisation. Eagerly await needful action.” (sic)
Oppeheimer released last Friday. It chronicles the journey of physicist J Robert Oppenheimer. The film is based on the book American Prometheus. The film stars actors Cilian Murphy, Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, and others