Under fire Vikrant Massey visits Godhra station ahead of ‘The Sabarmati Report’ release

Ahead of the release of his upcoming film The Sabarmati Report, actor Vikrant Massey made a surprise visit to Godhra station in Gujarat, which allegedly inspired the film. Photos of the actor looking around the station dressed in a gray sweatshirt paired with denims and a white baseball cap have been doing the rounds of social media.

Massey seems in pensive mood as he is photographed. Part of the reason, one assumes, is the social media backlash over his comments about India's 'so-called freedom in 1947'. As well as his observation in a podcast that "Muslims are not in danger in the country".

The apparent volte face by this once trenchant critic of the BJP has dismayed many long-time admirers, and many of them have not bothered to hide their feelings on social media.

Among those who took on the task of trolling Massey was celebrity comedian Kunal Kamra, whose post on X read, "Brother that was a movie you don’t actually have to Join UP Police as an IPS," referring to Massey's standout performance as a UPSC aspirant who becomes an Indian Police Service officer in the 2023 film 12th Fail.

The Sabarmati Report is based on the tragic and controversial fire on the Sabarmati Express on 27 February 2002, when a mob allegedly set fire to the S6 coach of the train near Godhra station, in which 59 Hindu pilgrims lost their lives.

Accusing Muslims of orchestrating this tragedy, Hindutva mobs then went on the rampage across Godhra in a horrific chain of events which became the 2002 Gujarat riots during the tenure of then chief minister Narendra Modi, in which more than 1,000 Muslims were killed.

In the film, the actor plays a journalist from an English publication, who stands up to the system because he wants the truth to be uncovered, along with a fellow journalist played by Raashii Khanna. The Sabarmati Report is set to release in theatres on 15 November.

Massey, who was born to a Christian father and Sikh mother, would ordinarily be upheld as a model for secular India. On the contrary, he is now under fire for what many are seeing as a U-turn in his stance, thanks to statements like, "I was a big critic of BJP. But as I travelled across the country, I realised that things are not so bad, Muslims are not in danger in the country."

Two days before this profound statement, he appeared on the Top Angle podcast by journalist Sushant B. Sinha and came up with: "We are a young nation. It's been 76-77 years (since independence). After hundreds and hundreds of years of oppression from the Mughals, the Dutch, the French, and the British, we gained so-called azadi (independence).

"But was it really independence? The colonial hangover that they left, stayed with us. I feel Hindus have finally got an opportunity to ask for their identity in their own country. We sometimes don't pay attention to this concept of identity, the concept of sentiment. The biggest wars have been fought on sentiment; most of the decisions in our lives are driven by sentiment and how we feel.”

Novel historical narrative aside, much of this rhetoric eerily echoes the kind of sentiments normally espoused by the saffron brigade, with little regard for accuracy or truth.

Of course, Massey provides no explanation for why adherents of a 5,000-year-old religious belief system feel the need to carve out an 'identity'. Nor why he felt the independence gained at the expense of thousands of lives was 'so called'.

Tellingly, Massey made news earlier this year when he issued a public apology on X after his tweet from 2018 went viral, in which he had posted a cartoon of Sita telling Lord Ram: "I’m so glad I was kidnapped by Ravan and not by your bhakts!"

Also inevitably, comparisons with BJP MP Kangana Ranaut's statement that India gained freedom only in 2014 have come up, with many wondering if Massey is in search of a similar political career. With the same party, needless to add.

With IANS inputs