Two Nepal Cities Ban All Hindi Films Including 'Adipurush' Over Mention Of Sita As "India's Daughter"

On Monday (19 June), authorities in the Nepal capital Kathmandu and tourist town Pokhara banned all Hindi films, including Adipurush, due to the controversy surrounding its dialogues, in particular the reference to Sita as "India's daughter."

To ensure that no Hindi films were screened, police personnel were deployed across 17 halls in Kathmandu. The film at the centre of the row was Adipurush, which retells the story of the Ramayana and is directed by Om Raut, with Prabhas and Kriti Sanon in the lead roles.

Kathmandu Mayor Balendra Shah announced on Sunday (18 June) that no Hindi films would be allowed to run in Kathmandu Metropolitan City until the dialogue "Janaki is a daughter of India" in Adipurush was removed.

This was not only to be done in Nepal but also in India.

Sita, also known as Janaki, is believed by many to have been born in Janakpur, which is located in southeast Nepal.

Following Kathmandu's lead, Pokhara also banned Adipurush from screening starting Monday.

The Kathmandu mayor has stated that screening Adipurush without removing one of its dialogues will cause "irreparable damage."

"Screening of all the Hindi films will be barred within Kathmandu Metropolitan City from Monday, June 19, as the objectionable words in the dialogue of the film 'Adipurush' has not yet been removed," he said in a Facebook post on Sunday.

"We issued a notice three days ago to remove the objectionable portion of the dialogue that 'Sita is India's daughter' from the movie within three days," he added.

On Sunday, Manoj Muntashir Shukla, the dialogue writer for Adipurush, announced that the movie's makers had decided to revise some of the dialogue due to heavy criticism of the pedestrian language used.

Shukla, who wrote the Hindi dialogues and songs for the multilingual saga, stated that the amended lines would be incorporated into the film by the end of the week.

In accordance with the mayor's instructions, Raju Pandey, the Police chief of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, led a police inspection of the city's cinema halls on Sunday. "We received a positive response during Sunday's inspection, and we will now be monitoring all cinema halls from Monday morning," Pandey said.