Explosive pic puts Rishi Kapoor in a spot in Gandhi-Nehru renaming controversy
From the last month, Rishi Kapoor has been in constant limelight over his exposures on India’s oldest political outfit the Indian National Congress (INC) and its party members renaming various landmarks across the country, under the names of the Gandhi-Nehru family.
But a new (or rather old) photograph that has surfaced on the Internet has put the Kapoor scion in a spot, who is now being trolled on Twitter for it. The black and white photograph has Rishi Kapoor’s father, the legendary Bollywood showman Raj Kapoor, sitting cross-legged at the feet of the one-time Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, signifying that he was either a fan or a staunch supporter of Gandhi.
While the picture shows the then PM as the only one sitting on a chair, she is flanked by some of the most influential and powerful names of the film industry including BR Chopra, Dharmendra, Dilip Kumar, Feroz Khan, GP Sippy, Gulshan Rai, Lata Mangeshkar, Manoj Kumar, Pramod Chakravorty, Rajender Kumar, Sahir Ludhianwi, Saira Bano, Sharmila Tagore and Vinod Khanna.
The photograph attains more significance in the light of the current PM Narendra Modi’s recent radio broadcast Mann Ki Baat, highlighting the period of ‘the Emergency’ that democratic India faced during the reign of Indira Gandhi, who was dubbed The Iron Lady of the country.
While surfacing of this pic could embarrass Rishi Kapoor, who started a movement against the Congress for having unabashedly renamed various institutions, places and even sports events in the name of the Gandhi-Nehru family members, public relations expert Dale Bhagwagar feels that one should not give too much importance to this photograph.
“The past need not be a precedent for the present,” he remarks. “Mindsets and thought-processes change with time. And change is what takes us ahead. Trolling Rishi Kapoor on social media for a blast from the past, is like denying change itself,” analyses the PR guru; a master with crowd psychology.
“Moreover, the film industry stalwarts would have met Ms Gandhi at some occasion or event with respect to the PM’s chair she held, and not because they supported the Gandhi clan,” Dale points out. “To troll Rishi Kapoor over it now is ridiculous.”
