After Oppenheimer’s release in the nation with a scene showing the main character reading from the Bhagavad Gita in a private setting—the most recent controversy in India’s history of film censorship—vocal members of the country’s right wing are demanding answers from the Central Board of Film Certification, which is in charge of censoring films deemed objectionable.
J. Robert Oppenheimer reads aloud from the Bhagavad Gita, a revered Hindu text, while engaging in sex in the popular historical thriller Oppenheimer, which Christopher Nolan directed and which was released in India on Thursday.
Many on the religious right were still incensed that the CBFC permitted this scene to enter Indian theaters, despite the fact that it had been censored using a CGI outfit and that the cover of a hardcopy of the scripture had been pixelated.
Anurag Thakur, the government’s minister of information and broadcasting, has publicly demanded responsibility from the CBFC and threatened to take harsh action against those responsible for sanctioning the movie, according to The Times of India.
Uday Mahurkar, the information commissioner, expressed his indignation over the incident on Twitter, calling it “a scathing attack on Hinduism” and “a direct assault on the religious beliefs of a billion tolerant Hindus” that “almost appears to be part of a larger conspiracy by anti-Hindu forces.”
However, some responded to the criticism. Bollywood director Ram Gopal Varma used an alternate spelling of the book to write on Twitter, “Irony is that an American nuclear scientist Oppenheimer read the Bhagwad Geeta which I doubt even 0.0000001% of Indians read,” in response to the criticism.
Many Hindu Indians were thrilled to see their sacred scripture depicted in a significant international blockbuster film in the days before the movie, according to The Hindu. But many people were offended by how the book appeared. The book is said to have had a significant influence on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who oversaw the creation of the atomic bomb and is the subject of the movie. Oppenheimer was introduced to the book and the Sanskrit language it was written in while he was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Oppenheimer purportedly cited from the book before the first atomic bomb was detonated, declaring, “Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds,” the same passage he reads during the controversial sex scene.
Over the past few years, Narendra Modi’s administration has tried to tighten film regulation in India. According to the Associated Press, his administration outlawed a BBC documentary that criticized his involvement in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots and prevented its online sharing.
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