In an hour-long podcast with the YouTube channel Digital Commentary, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has slammed Bollywood for its ruthless hypocrisy. He remarked that leading producers and directors "bad-mouth stars in drawing rooms and then zip their lips when the cameras roll." The comments come at a time when Bollywood's big stars are under the radar for their prolonged silence over the escalating tension between India and Pakistan.
The Kashmir Files director aimed at the recent controversy around Ranbir Kapoor's violent hit Animal. Agnihotri said insiders who privately trash Kapoor "don't have the aukaat (nerve) to do it on record," adding that online boycott calls fizzle because "nobody in the business will stick their neck out." He further added that people only dare to criticise the director and writer, and not the heroes.
Agnihotri linked this silence to "a culture of fear" fuelled by box-office stakes, brand deals and, in some cases, the spectre of tax or investigative raids—echoing recent complaints from other outspoken artistes. Yet he insisted that audiences now expect clearer moral stands. "Digital media records everything. Saying nothing is also a statement," he warned.
Vivek Agnihotri also added that he left mainstream Bollywood as he thinks the industry claps for people who stay quiet and hurts those who speak hard truths. Working outside big studios now gives him freedom as he can make films his own way without pleading with stars or money-men for approval.
When asked about people labelling his films as Islamophobic, the director pushed back, daring them to cite even one scene or line that strays from documented truth. He denied the movie was anti-Muslim—"It is against terrorism, not religion"—and insisted he is "no BJP mouthpiece," noting he has never taken a party post. Agnihotri closed the segment by teasing the final part of his "right-to-truth trilogy," The Delhi Files, which he hopes to release on 15 August 2025.
