Mumbai, March 16 : Actor Randeep Hooda, who is making his directorial debut with the upcoming bi-lingual film 'Swatantrya Veer Savarkar', has opened up on what led to the negative image of his film's subject, freedom fighter and politician V.D. Savarkar.

The actor recently spoke with IANS about his film, the taxing journey of his directorial debut, the source of his perseverance, and the causes that led to the maligning of Savarkar's reputation in the public eye.

The actor feels that Savarkar is one of the most misunderstood men in the history, and that his name has been purposely maligned in the eyes of Indians. Furnishing the reason behind the same, he told IANS, 'Most of it is political. He was the man who coined 'Hindutva' the political ideology of freedom which was all-encompassing.'

'After Bapu's assassination, certain political sections started vilifying him although there was no judicial proof of his involvement in the assassination. After the assassination, they vilified the Hindu Mahasabha and it came across as the Hindus were responsible for Bapu's assassination.'

He then pointed his guns at a 'certain political party' that enjoyed unchecked powers and 'electoral supremacy' for years before they phased out of public opinion and relevance and were replaced by another political party whose backbone is in the Hindutva ideology.

He told IANS: 'When the electoral supremacy of a certain political party started declining and that of the other party, whose backbone was Hindutva, gained prominence, the former attacked the second party for political gains. And, what better way to curb their rise to prominence than to attack their ideologue himself.'

He further mentioned that the former party gave names like 'Maafiveer' to Savarkar. 'It started from there. If he was a 'Maafiveer', why was he kept in jail for 27 years? These are the questions that I wish to raise for the audience and want them to look for the answers after watching the film,' he added.

Randeep's journey in the film has been a testing one. The film, which has been granted a 12A rating in the UK by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), was more than 2 years in the making with several challenges coming Randeep's way. However, he found strength in his perseverance.

He said, 'The journey was honestly quite testing given that it's my first film as a director. However, I invested my energy in making the story more detailed. Normally, anyone would start with a film on a smaller scale or a short film for their directorial debut but, it was really not in my hands and it was not my intention to become a director of the movie but it happened as the film took its own course. The opportunity came my way and I told myself, 'Okay, now you gotta do it well like how you put your 100 per cent in the acting'.'

'I gave it my all and also learned many nuances of filmmaking. As an actor, you somewhere know about these things but you don't really pay much attention to them. But, when you don the hat of a director, you need to closely monitor these things,' he added.

Produced by Zee Studios, Anand Pandit, Sandeep Singh, Randeep Hooda, & Yogesh Rahar, and co-produced by Roopa Pandit, Sam Khan, Anwar Ali and Panchali Chakraborty, the film is set to release on March 22, 2024 in Hindi and Marathi.

/IANS