BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya has supported filmmaker Subhash Ghai’s campaign #DontCallItBollywood on social media. Vijayvargiya recently called to rename Bollywood industry. According to a report in Indian Express, Vijayvargiya said, “A few days ago, filmmaker Subhash Ghai came to see me in the BJP headquarters. He told me that the Hindi film industry got the term Bollywood after the BBC called it so, to show that the films made here were just copies of Hollywood movies. We just adopted the term used to ridicule our film industry. We should stop it.”
Vijayvargiya further said that he will write to Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore against the use of term ‘Bollywood’ for Hindi film industry. Vijayvargiya asked that when Indian film industries have had great filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Dadasaheb Phalke; the movie business has crossed Rs 165 billion, it’s not fair to say that they were copying English film industry. He said it would be better if the labels were Hindi film industry or Tamil film industry, Bangla, Odisha or Bhojpuri industry.
“This is slave mentality. Media should come forward to get rid of this usage.”
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that Kailash Vijayvargiya has made controversial remarks. Earlier, on Shah Rukh Khan, Vijayvargiya said, “Aisa lagta hai, woh rahte Hain Hindustan Mein, lekin unka aatma Pakistan main hai (It seems he (Shah Rukh) lives here but his soul is in Pakistan).”
For Congress President Rahul Gandhi he said, “Congress ke manhoos upadhyaksh Rahul Gandhi ne videsh mantri Sushma Swaraj pe ghoos ke aarop lagayein hain (Congress’s ominous vice-president Rahul Gandhi has levelled corruption charges on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj).”