Actor Anupam Kher, who is critical of the writers and filmmakers’ move to return their awards to protest alleged “intolerance” in the country, is set to lead a tolerance debate march to the President’s House on Saturday. The 60-year-old actor said the march will take place on November 7 and will include artistes, writers and painters.
Kher would be joined by notable names in the film industry, including top filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar and Ashoke Pandit.
“We all have to speak up. Otherwise sometimes lies repeated constantly do tend to sound like truth,” Kher tweeted. “Will give details about our March to the Rashtrapati Bhavan on 7th by artistes, writers, painters, etc, by tomorrow,” the actor wrote.
On 3 November, the Congress had marched to the Rashtrapati Bhavan and submitted a memorandum to the President asking him to directly “impress upon the Prime Minister” that recent incidents of increasing intolerance in the country were “not acceptable”.
The counter march by Kher comes against the backdrop of intellectuals, writers and filmmakers returning their awards as a mark of protests against crackdown on dissent and the right to freedom of expression.
Kher has been critical of those from within the film industry returning their awards. Kher protested when Dibakar Banerjee, director of Khosla Ka Ghosla, in which he played the central character, returned the national award won for the film.
Reacting to the trend, Kher had tweeted last week, “This #AwardWapsiGang has not insulted the Government, but the jury, the chairman of the jury and the audience who watched their films. Some of these usual suspects of #AwardWapsiGang were instrumental in getting me out of Censor Board the moment the Congress came in power.”
Film fraternity is the latest to join the debate on “intolerance” and “freedom of expression” which was initially started by Sahitya Akademi award winners returning their honour to protest against rationalist MM Kalburgi’s murder and the lynching of a Muslim man in Dadri.
The actor also came out in support of his “Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge” co-star Shah Rukh Khan after Yogi Adityanath compared the Bollywood superstar with Pakistani terrorist Hafiz Saeed for his comments over intolerance in India. Kher slammed the controversial statements made by some BJP leaders against Shah Rukh.
“Some members of the BJP really need to control their tongue & stop talking rubbish about @iamsrk. He is a national icon & We r PROUD of him,” Kher tweeted.
Hitting out at Shah Rukh two days after the actor added his voice to the protest by the intelligentsia against the “climate of intolerance”, Adityanath had suggested that the actor should go to Pakistan.
The controversy started with senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya’s series of tweets on Tuesday where he painted Shah Rukh as an “anti-nationalist” and said that the actor’s “soul” is in Pakistan though he lives in India.
The BJP has, however, distanced itself from the controversial statements of Adityanath and Vijayvargiya saying they are not the party’s line.
Kher has emphasised that “there is no intolerance in India” and that “vested interests were out to malign the country”.