Abhay Deol
Abhay Deol

Abhay Deol received both, flak and praise from Twitterati after he voiced his opinion on the ban on Pakistani artistes in India. During the Jio MAMI Film Festival 2016, the actor was asked about his views on the ongoing debate. He pointed out that banning the artistes was a half hearted attempt and if the government really has to ban something, it should go the distance.

Here’s what he said:

If you want to ban anything to do with Pakistan, then go the distance. Don’t just ban the filmmakers, then ban imports, exports etc. When you do half a job, no one is going to take you seriously. I don’t take the government seriously, because they are only banning us from collaborating with artistes. They are not banning businessmen from doing business. So if you really mean what you say, then go the distance and I’ll take you seriously. Right now, it’s not looking like you mean it, it just looks like it gets you a lot of publicity and makes noise. I will support if you think banning anything to do with Pakistan is going to help our jawans. But I don’t see the whole distance – sounds hypocritical to me.

When questioned about the ban on Indian films in Pakistan, he said:

Tit for tat – jo woh kar rahe hai, woh hum kar rahe hai, jo hum kar rahe hai woh woh kar rahe hai. Unme aur hummein kucch fark humne dikhaaya hai. Agar aapko kuch karna hai toh bada banke ban mat karo na – aap dikha do maturity. Kyun na hum kuch alag karein jo woh na kar rahe ho?

This loosely translates to:

Tit for that – we’re doing what they’re doing and they’re doing what we are doing. We have not shown any difference between us and them. If we really want to do something, we should act mature and not ban anything. Why can’t we act differently?

Twitterati had quite a mixed response to his statement:

What do you think?