Riddhi Sen on boycott: The majority of the people who are calling for boycott did not bother to watch the films for once

n Indraadip Dasgupta’s Bismillah, Riddhi Sen plays the character of a young Shahnai player. While the musical has so far failed at the box office, Indraadip’s film has also faced boycott calls on social media. This is the second Bengali film in a row to face boycott calls after Raj Chakraborty’s Dharmajuddha. Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha and Akshay Kumar’s Raksha Bandhan were the latest Bollywood film to face boycott calls. 

Riddhi said that it was a sad situation. While talking about the culture of writing a film off on social media, he said, “It is a very sad situation. First, it was Dharmajuddho and now it is Bismillah. It is sad because the majority of the people who are crying to boycott any of the films did not bother to watch them even once. More often, it is the faceless trolls from fake profiles asking to boycott the film. By now we all know that they are politically motivated paid netizens funded with a clear agenda in mind. This is not what common people want. These are hatemongers who want to upset the syncretic ethos of our society.”

Riddhi also identified this culture as a ‘detrimental force’ in the economy. The actor said that the film industry also generates employment. “ If such boycott calls go on and if the business of the films is affected by this then producers and makers will be discouraged to invest in films. That will not be good news for our economy as a whole. Anyway, the pandemic has hit us so badly. Also, today it is a film, tomorrow it could be something else. We have seen instances that TV commercials had to be retracted because of online trolls. We cannot just give in. Let people judge a film by its merit,” he said.