Anubhav Sinha on claims of sensationalising Partition, removing PM Modi’s speech from Bheed trailer: ‘Every film goes through various challenges’

The visual unit lead to an uproar, with a section on Twitter dubbing the film “anti-India”. Soon, producer and presenter Bhushan Kumar reportedly distanced himself from Bheed, with his company’s name T-Series disappearing from posters and social media tags. Even the film’s trailer, which began with a voiceover of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing the lockdown and juxtaposed it with visuals of migrant workers being beaten up by the police, was replaced with a new trailer, completely omitting the earlier audio video.

When asked, why was PM Modi’s voice over removed the new trailer, Sinha told indianexpress.com, “There are more changes in the trailer, but this makes more news for you.” When explained that it’s the biggest change, Sinha agreed but added, “Every film goes through various such challenges. In Thappad I wanted to use Amrita Pritam’s poem. I couldn’t use it so one day before the film release, I had to change it.

“It didn’t matter to anybody, why? Did you ask me? I had to overnight write a poem, sync with a Punjabi lip sync. I was in Delhi, Kumud Mishra was dubbing it from Mumbai. I had to write a poem to match Amrita Pritam’s lip sync in Punjabi! That’s an interesting story, not this (removal of PM Modi’s voice over). Let’s talk about Bheed the story. I don’t want to distract people from the story of Bheed, as it’s way more interesting.”

The teaser of Bheed had also made a section of people on the internet feel that it attempted to sensationalise the crisis with its deliberate reminder of the traumatic partition. Sinha, however, said he doesn’t take seriously what people on Twitter feel. “Who are those people? On Twitter? Internet is not a farce but a lot of it is. People have opinions. Like how in small towns people gather around pan shops, the same way Twitter has a lot of these discussions. On Twitter, even Elon Musk talks stupidity and he’s such an intelligent man.”

The director said he is by now used to people labelling him “anti-national”, after having helmed acclaimed socio-political dramas like Mulk and Article 15. So when he was alleged to have made Bheed with vested interest to show the country in poor light, Sinha said it didn’t bother him at all.

“Yes I have heard I am anti-national before. I do hear it for most of my films. But it didn’t surprise me. I love India, I love the original idea of India. Anybody who loves India more than I do, I respect that person. I’m trying to do my best as a lover and I’m sure even they’ve done their best as lovers of the country.

“The teaser got that reaction because it’s the angle. When you see a black spot on the road it may look like sh*t or a coal tar. It’s how you see it and the angle is always of convenience. These things happen when the other angle is inconvenient. Then you want to shift to the convenient angle, see it and reject the inconvenience. So I am fine with it really,” he added.

Bheed stars Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Pankaj Kapur, Ashutosh Rana, Kritika Kamra and Kumud Mishra. The film is scheduled to release on March 24.