How The Bollywood Lawsuit Against 2 News Channels happened,And What Next? An Insider’s Story

A leading filmmaker  who has  produced and directed several blockbusters in recent times  shared these details on condition of anonymity.

“For now we’ve all decided to keep  completely quiet about the  lawsuit. It’s  something  we  were planning for  about a month. Now that it’s out in  the public domain, we  just want to  stay away  from all media interaction  until the  next  move,” says   the  Filmmaker

And what  is the  next move? “That’s what the  problem is. We don’t know as  yet.After deciding to take the big plunge(the lawsuit) we are yet to  meet on  video conference to chalk out the  next move. To be honest we  just took the plunge without thinking  of  the ramifications. It was something we  had to do. Now that it’s done  we are going to have a  virtual meeting over our next move in the on week.”

What  prompted them to  file the lawsuit against  Times Now and  RepublicTV?

Says  the Filmmaker. “It  was brewing for a while. But we  kept thinking the vilification  and abuse would  die down with time. I mean,  kab tak hamare pe keechad  uchalega ?Kabhi toh thakjayega!  But no. These two channels specially one  new anchor who shouts  louder than the others, were tireless. As  the abuse got more personal , and people like  Karan Johar and Salman  Khan  were being repeatedly  pulled  up like schoolboys  by a tyrannical teacher with a personal axe to  grind, we  finally decided  enough is  enough.”

The lawsuit was  filed in the Delhi  High Court as the proceedings there are said to be speedier.

Says  the Filmmaker, “We want this to  move fast before the Channels use their  muscle power  to  try and  silence us.”

He reveals that it  wasn’t easy getting all the A-listers to be part  of the  lawsuit. “For the lawsuit to have  some wazan(heft) the  first thing we needed  to do was to  get all  the three Khan superstars(Aamir, Shah Rukh, Salman) on board.  It wasn’t easy to get them all to agree.Also, you must remember that this is  not a homogeneous industry. There are many differing  ideologies and interests. We  had to convince  Akshay Kumar and  Ajay Devgan that the lawsuit was not anti-BJP. And even  if the BJP  has  stakes in  the Republic channel , our lawsuit was  in no way a challenge to the  Government.  Finally  everyone agreed  to be part  of the  lawsuit. We’ve never been so united on any issue  before. If we had been united we wouldn’t be  vulnerable  to such attacks.”