“One is perplexed as to how the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) could approve the movie with this scene. A divine gift to human civilisation by Bhagwan Sri Krishna, the Bhagwad Geeta, is one of the most revered scriptures of Hinduism. Geeta has been the inspiration for countless sanyasis, brahmcharis and legends who live a life of self-control and perform selfless noble deeds,” Government of India’s Information Commissioner Uday Mahurkar tweeted, sharing a statement from Save Culture Save India Foundation.
“We do not know the motivation and logic behind this unnecessary scene on life of a scientist,” the statement read. “A scene in the movie shows a woman makes a man read Bhagwad Geeta aloud while getting over him and doing sexual intercourse.”
The scene in question is where the main character Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) quotes a line from the Bhagavad Gita while making love to Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh).
Save Culture Save India Foundation in the release further said: “We believe that if you (Christopher Nolan) remove this scene and do the needful to win hearts of Hindus, it will go a long way to establish your credentials as a sensitized human being and gift you friendship of billions of nice people.”
“We urge, on behalf of billion Hindus and timeless tradition of lives being transformed by revered Geeta, to do all that is needed to uphold dignity of their revered book and remove this scene from your film across world,” the statement said. Some Twitter users have called for a boycott of the movie. “I’m calling for a boycott of the movie Oppenheimer. I just learned there is a highly offensive scene involving the Bhagavad Gita in it. I will not repeat it here, but it involves something explicit,” said an user.
Though Christopher Nolan focuses on focuses on the Manhattan Project during World War II which led to the bomb, and America’s subsequent interest in nuclear program policy in the years post the war, ‘Oppenheimer’ also dives into the physicist’s personal life.
According to reports, ‘Oppenheimer’ is director Christopher Nolan’s first R-rated movie in 20 years. But in India, the censor board gave the film a U/A rating, after the studio cut some scenes to reduce its length, news reports said.
India’s censor board had also recently come under focus after some users pointed to controversial dialogues in the movie ‘Adipurush’ . The producers of ‘Adipurush’ later made some changes to the dialogues amid criticism for disrespect towards the Hindu epic Ramayana.
