Christopher Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer has prompted outrage among the Hindu right wing in India, who have alleged that a sex scene featuring a sacred text has offended religious sentiments.
The blockbuster tells the story of Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb and includes a sex scene in which the tortured physicist, played by Cillian Murphy, reads the Bhagavad Gita to his lover Jean Tatlock, played by Florence Pugh.
The words he reads aloud, which he translates from Sanskrit, are those of the god Krishna – “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” – a quote the real Oppenheimer recalled after the first detonation of the atomic bomb he had invented. Oppenheimer taught himself Sanskrit and during his life, he spoke of drawing from the Hindu text.
The presence of the Bhagavad Gita in the middle of the sex scene prompted a member of India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government to call the film an “attack on Hinduism”.
In an open letter, Uday Mahurkar, an information commissioner, said the scene was “a direct assault on religious beliefs of a billion tolerant Hindus”. He alleged it amounted to “waging a war on the Hindu community” and almost appeared to be part of a “larger conspiracy by anti-Hindu forces”.
Anurag Thakur, the information and culture minister, was among those to demand that the scene be removed and called for action to be taken against India’s Central Board of Film Certification. The film was rated U/A, which recommends parental guidance for viewers aged under 12.
Oppenheimer has proved popular with Indian audiences, taking £1.2m on the first day alone, the biggest box office opening day for a Hollywood film in India this year.
The blockbuster is not the first to fall afoul of rightwing Hindu groups since the BJP government came to power. The BBC/Netflix television adaptation of A Suitable Boy was also accused of hurting religious sentiments by senior BJP ministers and subjected to police complaints for a scene of a Hindu girl and Muslim boy kissing near a temple.
Tandav, an Amazon series, was forced to delete several scenes after its creators faced charges in court and were summoned by the BJP government for allegedly insulting Hindu gods and the office of the prime minister.
