As Karan Johar celebrates the premiere of his production, Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound, at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, another Dharma Productions venture faces a tough time back home. Dhadak 2, helmed by Shazia Iqbal, has finally been cleared with a U/A certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) after as many as 16 cuts.
Here are the changes made to the film for it to obtain a U/A 16+ certificate, as per a report by The Hindu:
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Contention: A Hindi dialogue which translates to “3,000 years of backlog will not be cleared in just 70 years.”
Changed to: “The backlog of age-old discrimination will not be cleared in just 70 years.”
Contention: Another dialogue, “Nilesh ye kalam dekh rahe ho… Raaj kar rahe hain” (Nilesh, look at this pen… they’re ruling the world), referring to Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram’s popular analogy referring to the upper caste as the nib of a pen.
Changed to: “Yeh chota sa dhakkan puri qalam ka thoda sa hissa hai aur baki ke hai hum phir bhi hamare sir per baithe hue hain, kyun?” (The cap of the pen is such a small part of it, yet it’s sitting on top of all of us. Why?).
Contention: Caste slurs like bhangi and chamar.
Changed to: Muted and dubbed as junglee (wild).
Contention: “Dharam ka kaam hai” (this is religious work)
Changed to: “Punya ka kaam hai” (this is work towards a good deed).
Contention: “Savarnon ke sadak … humein jala dete the” (The savarana’s streets … they would burn us alive)
Changed to: “Na sadke humari thi, na zameen hamari thi, na paani hamar tha, yaha tak ki zindagi bhi hamari nahi thi. Marne ki naubat aayi to sheher aa gaya,” translating to “Neither were the streets ours, nor was the land, nor the water, nor even the life; I was on the verge of death, so I came to the city.”
Contention: Violence against a woman
Changed to: Black screen
Contention: A Tulsidas doha translated by author Ajai Kumar Chhawchharia to, “On the banks of a river in Chitrakoot, there is a crowd of saints and holy people. Tulsidas is rubbing sandalwood to make a paste, and Raghubir (Lord Ram) uses this paste to make the mark of the Tilak on their foreheads.”
Changed to: “Shoot arrows that may seem small but inflict great damage when they hit” (roughly translated).
Other cuts:
A 20-second disclaimer at the start replaced by a longer, 51-second version, read aloud.
A swear word muted.
A shot of someone urinating on Nilesh (a Dalit character played by Siddhant Chaturvedi) censored.
A replacement involving Om Prakash Valmiki’s poem Thakur ka Kuan, which revolves around the upper caste’s control of resources.
Dhadak 2 follows Siddhant Chaturvedi’s character as he navigates a love story that breaks through societal expectations and class barriers. Triptii Dimri is cast opposite him. Produced by Zee Studios, Dharma Productions, and Cloud 9 Pictures, it is the Hindi remake of Mari Selvaraj’s 2018 Tamil film Pariyerum Perumal.
Dhadak 2 is the sequel to Shashank Khaitan’s 2018 romantic drama Dhadak, which marked the Hindi film debut of Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor. It was the Hindi remake of Nagraj Manjule’s 2016 Marathi film Sairat.
