Actor Abhay Deol, who starred in the 2013 Bollywood film Raanjhanaa took to Instagram this week to post criticism of the film, saying that the “history will not look kindly at this film for its regressive message.” The film also stars Dhanush, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Zeeshan Ayyub.
Raanjhanaa has been called out over the years for glorifying and normalising stalking. In the film, Dhanush’s character Kundan follows Zoya (Soman Kapoor), stalks her, harasses her, and even threatens to kill himself if she doesn’t give him attention.
The film follows the story of Kundan Shankar who spends much of the movie chasing the affections of Zoya, even without knowing her name initially, and after his dogged pursuit, she finally relents and agrees to meet. However, once she realises that they come from different religions — Kundan is Hindu, while Zoya is Muslim — she breaks ties with Kundan for fear that her family will not approve. The story continues with Zoya attending college at a university in Delhi, and falling in love with another man, Akram Zaidi (Abhay Deol). Years later though, Kundan continues to chase Zoya, despite her impending marriage to Akram. When Kundan finds out that Akram is not Muslim, but is actually a Sikh named Jasjeet Singh Shergill, he storms into their wedding and reveals the secret to Zoya’s parents. However, Zoya had told Jasjeet to pretend to be Muslim so they could be together. Jasjeet is badly beaten by Zoya’s family, and ultimately dies due to his injuries.
Posting screenshots of observations made by Instagram user Swadha Agrawal regarding the film, Deol said, “History will not look kindly at this film for its regressive message. It’s been a theme in Bollywood for decades, where a boy can (and should), pursue a girl until she relents. Only in cinema does she do that willfully. In reality we have seen time and again that it leads to sexual violence of some sort. Glorifying it on screen only leads to blaming the victim, as @oldschoolrebel9 explains it so brilliantly.”
Swadha in her post, calls watching the film a “constant conflict,” and refers to a scene between Jasjeet and Kundan.
“Jasjeet sits beside a man who stalked his girlfriend for so long, threatened to slit her wrist if she doesn't reciprocate, sabotaged their wedding, got him almost killed and he very conveniently puts the blame for all it on the lady he claims to love. What was Zoya's fault? Yes, she made a very silly plan of faking her boyfriend's religion but didn't Jasjeet agree to go along with it? Yes, she could have been more upfront about her refusal to Kundan but when from the very beginning was he ever considerate or respectful to her consent?” she asks.