Citing promotion of 'love jihad' in the upcoming Hindi film 'Kedarnath', priests of Kedarnath temple in Uttarakhand have demanded that a ban be imposed on the movie.
“We will launch an agitation if the movie is released as we have been told that it hurts the Hindu religious sentiments,” said Vinod Shukla, chairman of Kedar Sabha, an organization of Kedarnath priests.
Kedarnath priests had strongly protested against the film, claiming that 'vulgar dance sequences' were being shot around the shrine. Locals too have started protesting against the release of the movie.
A New Yorker article has described 'love jihad' as a supposed form of religious warfare by which Muslim men lure Hindu women away from the faith. While there is no proof of any such 'organized' practice, many social and political organizations believe so.
On Thursday, a day after a poster and teaser of the movie were released; a group of people at the district headquarters town of Rudraprayag organized a protest against the film. “A similar demonstration was also held at Kotdwar,” said Ajendra Ajay, a state BJP leader.
In a social media post, Ajay has also urged the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, Prasoon Joshi, to ban the film. It shows bold scenes of the lead pair in the background of the floods in which thousands were killed, Ajay claimed. He also raised objections to the film’s poster that shows a
Muslim boy carrying a Hindu girl in a palanquin with the Kedarnath shrine in the background. “That is factually incorrect because you will never see a Muslim ferrying pilgrim to the shrine,” he said, adding, the tagline of the movie ‘Love is Pilgrimage’ is also offensive.
The BJP leader also said that the heroine Sara Ali Khan went a step further while posting the film’s poster on social media with the caption reading:‘No Tragedy, No Wrath of Nature, No Act of God Can Defeat the Power of Love.’
Speaking to the New Indian Express, Ajay Bhatt, president of Uttarakhand BJP, said he can’t comment on the issue as the movie hasn’t yet been released. "If it is true that Hindu sentiments are hurt in the movie, then it should be banned as such content can't be associated with a shrine like Kedarnath," said Bhatt.
Though many filmmakers have refused to comment on the objections raised by the BJP and the priests, Sudarshan Shah, a film director and producer based in Nainital, stated that storylines influenced by religion would always create controversy. “Having said that I am also of the view that every filmmaker is
entitled to some cinematic liberty without which it becomes difficult to tell stories, especially fictional ones,” he said.
While Sushant Singh Rajput plays the role of a Muslim pithoo in the movie, Sara Ali Khan portrays a pilgrim.
The calamitous floods that struck Kedarnath in 2013 forms the background of the film directed by Abhishek Kapoor which is scheduled to release on December 17 this year.