Forget #LaalSinghChaddha, Internet is boycotting even Sholay... 47 years after its release

The hatred towards Bollywood is rising with almost every weekly release, be it Laal Singh Chaddha or Brahmastra. But every now and then, even a classic like Sholay often draws the ire of the boycott gang. 

Ever since the death of Sushant Singh Rajput, self-proclaimed ‘anti-Bollywood’ factions have been asking to boycott popular stars (mostly the ones who come from star families - nepo-kids) and their films as a means of going against nepotism. But the hatred that Sholay gets from such elements is mostly on the grounds of being a ‘Hinduphobic’ movie. 

Asking for a film’s ban on grounds of offending a religion is not new. Leaders from several religions asked for a ban on PK in 2014 while Kamal Haasan’s 2013 thriller Vishwaroopam drew the ire of Muslim clerics. In most of these cases, pre-release backlash was the norm by people who hadn’t even watched the films. 

But how on earth does someone find Sholay offensive?

To begin with, taking offence is the norm rather than the exception.

Yes, Sholay is definitely a product of its time with outdated themes like reducing Basanti to a damsel in distress (even though Basanti’s stunt double and India’s first stuntwoman Reshma Pathan got to undertake several stunts that were ahead of their time). But the ones asking for its boycott have other issues: particularly in terms of religion. 

Rahim Chacha gets the spotlight: In an independent blog article from 2020 titled “Hinduphobic Bollywood”, the blog author Hari Om Rawat writes, “In Sholay, an elderly Muslim Rahim Chacha (AK Hangal) is shown going to the Namaz on the death of his son…while the hero Veeru (Dharmendra) is shown teasing a girl in a temple (sic).” The point is to show that only the Muslim character is diligent and well-mannered.

Rawat adds that this is "a planned conspiracy by Bollywood to attack Hindu society and culture". The fact that the classic was penned by the duo Salim-Javed (both of whom are Muslims) would add to some further arguments. 

Rahim Chacha ,who serves as the imam in the village, is a minor character who has to undergo personal tragedies at the hands of Gabbar Singh. So, it is surprising that with an ensemble that boasts fan-favourite characters like Jai, Veeru, Basanti, even her horse Dhanno, Gabbar and even his minions such as Sambha and Kaalia, why is the focus on Rahim Chacha? Many modern viewers might not even remember the character’s name in the first place. 

Are the screenwriters to blame? Another tweet by the account BrijKinkari points out that “the nicest spiritual guy in the movie is invariably Imam sahab”. Similarly, other tweets point out that Rahim was the only character who was true to his faith. According to such sources, they claim that Sholay is just one of the many movies written by Salim-Javed that demonise Hindus and show Muslims in a good light. 

If you sit down and check out Salim-Javed’s collective filmography, this claim again seems dubious given how the lead characters of Don, Deewar, and Zanjeer are all named Vijay. Seeta Aur Geeta, Kaala Patthar, Mr India, and others similarly feature a majority share of characters with Hindu names. 

But does religion really matter in Sholay? The theories that allege Sholay of furthering Bollywood’s Hinduphobic propaganda seem quite bizarre given that the two heroes and heroines are Hindu themselves. Yes, Jai and Veeru are crooks with the latter even being a drunkard and someone who clearly doesn’t worship in temples. But they are also the macho men who save Basanti and the rest of the village. Even if Gabbar Singh and his accomplices are Hindu, so is the righteous ex-police officer Thakur. 

Sholay has endured in Indian pop culture as one of the country’s most popular (if not greatest) films. And hardly in those decades anyone might have thought about religion in Sholay. 

But how do you even "boycott" a film that was released half a century ago?

Even though the calls to boycott a yesteryear film like Sholay haven’t gained as much traction as other boycott movements on Twitter, it is an amusing example to understand these trends today. If Sholay indeed gets boycotted and calls are made to remove it from streaming platforms, what would that mean for Bollywood? Will people start overanalysing the religious backgrounds of characters from all vintage Hindi movies? Where does it end? Guess that only time will tell. 

Till then, the average Bollywood watcher can go to the empty halls of recent times and just reiterate Rahim Chacha’s famous words: 

(Meanwhile, you can stream Sholay on Amazon Prime, MX Player, and YouTube.)