Akshay Kumar and Ananya Pandey starrer ‘Kesari 2’ has been widely praised since its release last week. Directed by Karan Singh Tyagi, historical drama Indian lawyer C. Shankaran Nair and Jallianwala Bagh are inspired by the events around the massacre. With a strong opening, the film has earned of 75 crores at the box office and has benefited from civilized to positive words-mouth reviews.
Kesari 2 dialogue dispute
However, recently a controversy has emerged online which is putting a shadow on the success of the film. A spoken word artist, Yahya Butwala, has accused the film’s dialogue authors of lines of lines from his 2020 poetry.
Taking it on Instagram, Yahya posted a video that was originally performed for the unaccounted Poetry YouTube channel, with footage from Kavita Jalianwala Bagh of April 2020, compared to a clip from Kesari 2. In the film, Ananya Pandey gave a dialogue that Yahya claims that his spoken word is similar to the lines.
Poem
“So @nisoooooooooooooooorg sent me a clip from the film Kesari 2 4 days ago, which he felt that he felt a copy of the Jalianwala Bagh from my poem, which was published on @UNESEPOTERY YouTube channel 5 years ago. There are two clips, and it is not a clear copy-pest here.
Yahya continued, calling the film’s dialogue writer directly: “As authors, the worst thing for a fellow writer is that you can pick up your content, use it without credit – and this is what I think I think the dialogue writer @Ananyapanday so that it reaches them.”
Necasis reaction
The post quickly went viral, attracted extensive attention from the film industry to both nebisense and personality. Actress Shreya Dhanwantari remarked, “It’s a mess,” while the film critic Suchchrita Tyagi reacted, “Oh Nuuuuu Ugh.” Yahya made a comment from his own, wrote, “@dharmamovies @karanjohar – next time you can contact me directly. Main Likh Dunga original dialogue aapke aapke liye.”
The controversy caused disappointment with social media users. Many people expressed disappointment over the alleged literary theft, calling it “so wrong” and “a new low” for the industry. One user commented that he had now loved the line in the film, now to know that it could have been removed from someone else’s work. Another has written that literary theft from Hollywood was once common, it was now a creator who was being copied. Some users criticized the lack of originality and effort, with a sarcastically that they did more work to avoid being caught during the exam, which the manufacturers did here.
So far, no official statement has been made from filmmakers or artists who addressed allegations of literary theft.
