Actor-politician Ravi Kishan, who has a three-decade-long film career, admits that he has been called a “national crush” and the “Brad Pitt of Bihar”. Ravi was recently asked about the recent censorship issues surrounding Diljit Dosanjh starrer Satluj, which did not get a certificate and even after releasing on OTT platforms, it was pulled down after just two days. Ravi, who calls himself an “encyclopedia of cinema”, was also asked about the situation with accreditation bodies and how he would feel if one of his projects came under the scrutiny of the CBFC.Asked about the recent censorship issues Satluj has faced, Ravi said it was definitely a “sensitive” issue. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said, dropping the subject, “I just know that the movie came and was taken off the shelves. To be honest, I don’t know the specific details. “He went on to add that artistes must be responsible when making films, saying that in order to make an entertaining film, they “must not harm any community or distort any historical event”. Ravi then cited the examples of Dhurandhar, Maa Behen and Netflix show Maamla Legal Hai and said that these projects have been successfully released. Ravi has acted in Maa Behen and Maamla Legal Hai.“We have to be responsible to society because what we do affects young people. We have to be responsible when we write scripts and make movies,” he told Screen. He added that in the past “books were burned and people were taught the wrong history,” and he said movies have to be very careful to correctly represent historical events.Ravi was then asked how we would feel if, as an artist, his work was censored by the CBFC, or if one of his films was removed from the long list of censor boards. To this, Ravi said: “I would ask, ‘Why?’ I would ask, ‘What mistake did I make?'”He then said that India has a long history of censorship issues, referring to the Emergency era of the 1970s. “This also happened during the Sholay period. This happened in thousands of films. This happened during the Congress government as well. Kishore Kumar Banned from broadcast. Itihaas mein bahut tandav macha hai (History is full of such examples). But now if anything happens, I ask, “What was the problem?” I ask if I’ve hurt the community, distorted history, told a false story, and then I edit myself. Because there’s a lot of money invested in the movie,” he said. Ravi said the film also had 50-100 cuts.Ravi will next be seen in the film Mirzapur. The film, based on the Amazon Prime Video web series, was heavily criticized for its use of profanity. The film will be released in theaters on September 4.
