Randeep Hooda reveals why ‘certain political party’ maligned Savarkar's reputation: IANS Interview

Actor Randeep Hooda who is making his directorial debut with the upcoming bilingual film lsquoSwatantrya Veer Savarkarrsquo has opened up on what led to the negative image of his filmrsquos subject freedom fighter and politician VD SavarkarThe actor recently spoke with IANS about his film the taxing journey of his directorial debut the source of his perseverance and the causes that led to the maligning of Savarkarrsquos reputation in the public eyeThe actor feels that Savarkar is one of the most misunderstood men in the history and that his name has been purposely maligned in the eyes of Indians Furnishing the reason behind the same he told IANS ldquoMost of it is political He was the man who coined lsquoHindutvarsquo the political ideology of freedom which was allencompassingrdquoldquoAfter Bapursquos assassination certain political sections started vilifying him although there was no judicial proof of his involvement in the assassination After the assassination they vilified the Hindu Mahasabha and it came across as the Hindus were responsible for Bapursquos assassinationrdquoHe then pointed his guns at a ldquocertain political partyrdquo that enjoyed unchecked powers and ldquoelectoral supremacyrdquo for years before they phased out of public opinion and relevance and were replaced by another political party whose backbone is in the Hindutva ideologyHe told IANS ldquoWhen the electoral supremacy of a certain political party started declining and that of the other party whose backbone was Hindutva gained prominence the former attacked the second party for political gains And what better way to curb their rise to prominence than to attack their ideologue himselfrdquoHe further mentioned that the former party gave names like lsquoMaafiveerrsquo to Savarkar ldquoIt started from there If he was a lsquoMaafiveerrsquo why was he kept in jail for 27 years These are the questions that I wish to raise for the audience and want them to look for the answers after watching the filmrdquo he addedRandeeprsquos journey in the film has been a testing one The film which has been granted a 12A rating in the UK by the British Board of Film Classification BBFC was more than 2 years in the making with several challenges coming Randeeprsquos way However he found strength in his perseveranceHe said ldquoThe journey was honestly quite testing given that itrsquos my first film as a director However I invested my energy in making the story more detailed Normally anyone would start with a film on a smaller scale or a short film for their directorial debut but it was really not in my hands and it was not my intention to become a director of the movie but it happened as the film took its own course The opportunity came my way and I told myself lsquoOkay now you gotta do it well like how you put your 100 per cent in the actingrsquordquoldquoI gave it my all and also learned many nuances of filmmaking As an actor you somewhere know about these things but you donrsquot really pay much attention to them But when you don the hat of a director you need to closely monitor these thingsrdquo he addedProduced by Zee Studios Anand Pandit Sandeep Singh Randeep Hooda amp Yogesh Rahar and coproduced by Roopa Pandit Sam Khan Anwar Ali and Panchali Chakraborty the film is set to release on March 22 2024 in Hindi and MarathiThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever