Karan Johar Opens up on PM Modi and ‘Politicization’ of Bollywood

Karan maintains that the agenda was simply work.

Sidharth Malhotra, Varun Dhawan, Ayushmann Khurrana,  Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Ekta  Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, Bhumi Pednekarm Ranveer Singh, Rohit Shetty,  Karan Johar and Ashwini Iyer Tiwari take a picture with PM Narendra Modi. 

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

Filmmaker and television host Karan Johar has opened up on his multiple meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and whether Bollywood has been “sucking up” to the government.

Recently Karan was part of two different delegations of Bollywood personalities which met with the PM to discuss various issues. Photos from the meetings, particularly selfies taken with PM Modi went viral and were also criticised by many on the internet.

Speaking with Huffington Post, Karan was asked about the purpose of the meetings and whether they were simply photo ops before election season.

All I can say is what has happened when industry met with the Prime Minister a month ago to bring up the causes and many of the things which we brought up were addressed.

Karan Johar

Karan shared that main issues discussed were GST, clearance for shooting across the country and laws against piracy. He added that the prime minister addressed these immediately.

The Prime Minister has been very proactive on industry needs and has promptly addressed them. Now, everyone can look into various meanings out of this. We look at it as a positive step ahead for the film fraternity, which has an industry status but really has never been given the empowerment of one. It finally feels like we are a soft power with relevance.

He went on to say that industry delegates had not been asked for anything in return from the government.

...art must exist in its own independence and politics must exist as its own force and entity but if there is a coexistence of the two, done in a very amicable and peaceful manner, then why not?... We had a work agenda. Why should one read between the lines and stop the process of improvement and development in the industry by overtly analysing it?