Filmmaker Hansal Mehta has spoken about the humiliation that he had faced at the hands of the undivided Shiv Sena 25 years ago, his revelation coming a day after stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra’s office was ransacked by supporters of Maharashtra minister Eknath Shinde for a show on YouTube that lampooned the politician among many others.
“What happened with Kamra is, sadly, not new to Maharashtra. I’ve lived through it myself,” wrote Mehta, a National Award-winning filmmaker on his X (formerly Twitter) handle.
“Twenty-five years ago, loyalists of the same (then undivided) political party stormed into my office. They vandalised it, physically assaulted me, blackened my face, and forced me to apologise publicly – by falling at the feet of an elderly woman – for a single line of dialogue in my film.”
The “disputed” single line was from the 2000 film Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar co-produced and directed by Mehta and written by Saurabh Shukla with Tabu and Manoj Bajpayee in the lead.
Mehta said he was assaulted on November 1, 2000 in his Santa Cruz office – not far from the Khar studio where Kamra cracked in his now infamous jokes – by men and women from Koliwada, Mumbai upset over one line in the film that they found offensive.
A week before the incident, 25 members of the Bharati Vidyarthi Sena, the student outfit linked to the Shiv Sena, had met him at his office and sought an apology, which Mehta gave and also asked for time to remove the sentence.
“The line was harmless, almost trivial. The film had already been cleared by the Censor Board with 27 other cuts. But that didn’t matter. At the so-called “apology” venue, at least 20 political figures arrived in full strength to oversee what can only be described as a public shaming—with 10,000 onlookers and the Mumbai Police watching in silence,” wrote Mehta recalling the incident.
On the day of the incident, Mehta had received a call from a resident who insisted on meeting him that day. Mehta came to his office in the evening accompanied by eight constables. The meeting turned abusive as Mehta’s clothes were torn and ink splashed on his face.
Next morning, Mehta went to meet the residents and gave a public apology in the presence of two Sena MLAs.
“That incident didn’t just bruise my body. It bruised my spirit. It blunted my filmmaking, muted my courage, and silenced parts of me that took years to reclaim,” he wrote. “No matter how deep the disagreement, no matter how sharp the provocation—violence, intimidation, and humiliation can never be justified. We owe ourselves, and each other, better. We owe ourselves dialogue, dissent, and dignity.”
After the vandalism at the venue for Kamra had shot the video that offended Shinde’s followers, former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and the Sena Rajya Sabha MP and party mouthpiece Saamna executive editor Sanjay Raut rallied in Kamra’s support.
"I have known Kunal Kamra since long. He used to comment on us in a similar way. However, I believe that there is a freedom of speech. If there is no personal comment, then that should be accepted,” Raut told the media on Monday. “If the comment is on any political line of thought, then it should be accepted. This is the beauty of our country's democracy. Kunal Kamra's office, studio were vandalised. This is hooliganism."
In 25 years no one has said a word on what happened at Mehta’s office the evening of November 1.