Son of Sardar Controversy ends with Ajay Devgan’s step down

The controversy related to Bollywood movie Son of Sardar has been almost settled down after Ajay Devgan has agreed to chop out the objectionable content from the film. Devgan have convinced the All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF), who raised the objections on few dialogues and scenes. AISSF has sent the final report to Akal Takhat who will take the final decision. 

 

The film was involved in a controversy after AISSF and Advocate Navkiran Singh objected to certain dialogues and said that these were portraying Sikhs in poor light. The film courted controversy after the AISSF complained to the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of Sikhism, regarding the objectionable scenes in the movie and sought action against Devgan, who has produced it. Advocate Navkiran Singh has sought the intervention of the Censor Board in removing certain ‘objectionable’ scenes and dialogues from the movie.

The AISSF had approached the Sikh religious authorities after Devgan did not respond to a legal notice demanding the deletion of allegedly derogatory remarks against Sikhs. The seven day notice was sent on August 16. AISSF president Karnail Singh Peermohammad said, “Devgan had made ‘blasphemous remarks’ against the community.” He added that Devgan’s Sikh protagonist in the film paints the community in bad light. The trailer of the film contained dialogues such as ‘If there weren’t any Sikhs, who would have invented abuses?’ Another statement that goes thus: ‘On whom would the jokes be made, had there been no Sikhs’, is demeaning to the community, he said. Peermohammad pointed out that the actor plays a turban-wearing Sardar who has a tattoo of deity on his chest. This was against the Sikh principles, he said, adding that Devgan has promised to replace the tattoo with a ‘Khanda – a Sikh symbol’. Son of Sardar, directed by Ashwin Dhir, is scheduled to release in November. According to a press statement Devgan has said that at first place there was no intention at all to ridicule Punjabi or Sikh community and rather Sardar was hero of the film and it showed the Punjabis in good light. “When film is focusing on Punjabis and Sikhs how I can hurt their sentiments,” he held. “I have cleared the objections and explained everything about the film and the context of the portions about which there were objections. We shall remove the portions which needed to be removed to clear the objections,” he said. Devgan pointed out that his family hailed from Attari village in Amritsar and thus “knew the Punjabi culture well and can never hurt sentiments of Sikh community”. “Devgan has promised to remove the contentious matter from the movie,” (AISSF) president Karnail Singh Peermohammed said, adding that his organisation will now report to Akal Takht chief Giani Gurbachan Singh for a final call on the issue.