Akshay Kumar and director Dr Chandrapraksh Dwivedi have been actively promoting their upcoming film Samrat Prithviraj in Varanasi and Somnath, among other Indian cities. In a recent chat, the actor-director duo was asked why they chose these holy places to promote the film based on the warrior king.
Akshay, in a chat with ANI, said that he did not go to Kashi for “religious reasons. I have gone for the culture thing. I have gone to tell people that this is our culture. And why it is essential.” The actor shared that the city of Kashi is related to Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan. He added, “I have gone there and I have paid my respect. I have not gone there to ask ki meri film chala dena (please make my film successful).”
#WATCH | Samrat Prithviraj’s dir Chandraprakash Dwivedi, says “…You used the term Hindu nationalism, I call it cultural nationalism too. Nothing wrong in reviving Hindu nationalism/cultural nationalism as this nation’s character is Hindu, when I say Hindu it means culture….” pic.twitter.com/OrMWimIZYp
— ANI (@ANI) June 1, 2022
The Pinjar director chimed in and spoke about the phrase ‘Hindu nationalism’ that was used by the interviewer earlier in the chat. Dwivedi said that he “would call it cultural nationalism and there is nothing wrong in the revival of Hindu nationalism or cultural nationalism because the character of this nation is Hindu, and when I say Hindu it means culture.”
Talking about why the team of the film visited Varanasi and Somnath, Dwivedi said that Varanasi is the “cultural capital or the spiritual capital of India.” The director added that he would like to iterate that the first person to destroy the temple of Kashi Vishwanath was Qutb-ud-din Aibak. “Because there is so much debate going on in the country, I thought that I should remind people that the first time the temple at Kashi Vishwanath was destroyed, it was by Qutb-ud-din Aibak. Who was Qutb-ud-din Aibak? He was a slave of Muhammad Ghori, who is there in our film. So that was also a relation (for us to visit.)”
The director said that India had been under invaders for over 1500 years, since 1192. He added, “Kayi prakaar ke atyachar hue, dharm parivartan hua, sab kuch iss samaj ne sahaa (There was a lot of torture, so many religious conversions, this society went through a lot). Aaj azaad desh mein humare paas ek avsar hai ki hum uss sanskriti ka ghosh vapis karein. Aur uska prateek bana bhagwan Somnath ka mandir jise 1948 se shuru kiya gaya (Today, in this free country, we have an opportunity to bring back our culture. And Somnath temple became an example of that in 1948, as it was reopened.)”
He further spoke about rebuilding Hindu temples and called it the ‘centre of our culture’. He said, “Toh main kayi baar kehta hun ki apne hi mandiro ka punar nirmaan karna, jeernoddhaar karna koi galat baat hai? Kyunki voh sirf ek mandir nahi hai, voh humari aastha ka kendra hai, centre of our culture (I ask this many times that is rebuilding and renovating our own temples wrong? It’s not just a temple, it is the centre of our faith).”
Akshay Kumar also spoke about the history that is taught in schools and said that while a lot is written about invaders, the same attention is not paid to the other rulers of the country. “Unfortunately, our history textbooks only have 2-3 lines about Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan, but a lot has been mentioned about the invaders. There is hardly anything mentioned about our culture and our Maharajas. I was taken aback that there is so much about Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan that we don’t know about.”
He requested the authorities with folded hands that ‘it should be written about in history books’. “I would like to appeal to the education minister to look into this matter and see if we can change it. We can balance it. I am not saying that we should not know about Mughals but balance it out, know about our kings also. They were great too. Bring it in front of everybody,” he said.
Samrat Prithviraj releases in theatres on June 3.
This article first appeared on indianexpress.com