{"id":35693,"date":"2026-08-07T03:52:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T03:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=35693"},"modified":"2026-08-07T03:52:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T03:52:43","slug":"indias-sunny-deol-faces-backlash-for-quoting-father-dharmendra-referring-to-pakistan-as-maternal-aunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=35693","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s Sunny Deol faces backlash for quoting father Dharmendra, referring to Pakistan as \u2018maternal aunt\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The actor, known for his hyper-patriotic movies, faced the ire of the internet.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pakistan inevitably came up as a topic of discussion as Bollywood actor Sunny Deol fielded questions from the Indian media during a promotional press conference on Sunday for his upcoming movie\u00a0Batwara 1947<\/em>. His response led to a heated debate online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The actor, accompanied by his son and co-star, Karan Deol, was asked by a journalist to weigh in on \u201cPakistan as a nation\u201d and its \u201catmosphere\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deol didn\u2019t give a direct answer and instead quoted his late father, Dharmendra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t talk about how [we] feel about it because both countries were once one. As my father used to say, \u2018This [India] is my mother and that [Pakistan] is my maternal aunt.\u2019 You all know that. We\u2019re all connected, in one way or another,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dharmendra, who passed away<\/u><\/a> last November, was a vocal proponent<\/u><\/a> of strengthening relations between India and Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Declining to comment further on Pakistan, Deol highlighted his duty to tell stories as an actor without politicising his craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t wish to get into all that. We are actors. We are makers. We choose stories and make stories. We don\u2019t want to take them in a political direction, nor do we.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite not wanting to \u2018politicise\u2019 the matter, the former BJP politician has been known for extremely political and hyper-patriotic films, such as\u00a0Border<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Gadar<\/em>. His attempt to distance himself from politics and echo his father\u2019s softer stance towards Pakistan was not received well online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One X user criticised the actor for using \u201cnationalistic jingoism\u201d to fight elections in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others called him \u201copportunistic\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many others online slammed him for what they perceived to be his \u201csupport\u201d for Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While political relations between Pakistan and India have always been strained, the hostilities reached a crescendo in the wake of a four-day military conflict<\/a> in May 2025. India also put into place digital restrictions on Pakistani entertainment content, including bans<\/a> on YouTube channels and Instagram profiles of celebrities, even going as far as pulling songs<\/a> and removing imagery from music streaming platforms, such as Spotify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A heated debate on social media was, therefore, more or less expected as Batwara 1947<\/em> is set during the time of Partition. It tells the story of a Muslim family forced to flee to Pakistan following the violence caused by the Partition of British India. However, tensions continue \u2014 and escalate \u2014 after they discover a Hindu woman, played by Shabana Azmi, occupying the house they\u2019ve been allotted in Lahore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Rajkumar Santoshi, Batwara 1947<\/em>\u2019s cast also includes Preity Zinta, Ali Fazal and Abhimanyu Singh. It\u2019s set to be released on August 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/images.dawn.com\/news\/1195632<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The actor, known for his hyper-patriotic movies, faced the ire of the internet. Pakistan inevitably came up as a topic of discussion as Bollywood actor Sunny Deol fielded questions from the Indian media during a promotional press conference on Sunday for his upcoming movie\u00a0Batwara 1947. His response led to a heated debate online. The actor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[29623,33067,33064,33065,8098,33062,27172,1125,8097,33066,9793,483,24651,33068,33063],"class_list":["post-35693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-anti-muslims-2","tag-anti-pakistan-2","tag-backlash","tag-dharmendra","tag-extremism-2","tag-facist-2","tag-fanatic-2","tag-india-2","tag-intolerance-3","tag-maternal-aunt","tag-minorities-2","tag-pakistan-2","tag-rss-3","tag-state-terrorism-2","tag-sunny-deol","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35694,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35693\/revisions\/35694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}