Bhasha Sumbli, an actress from Vivek Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files, has criticised Bollywood for excluding actors and failing to provide them with work.
Since it was revealed, The Kashmir Files, featuring Anupam Kher as the lead, has been making headlines. It generated controversy after its March 2017 release and was derided as propaganda by critics. Since then, the film’s director, Vivek Agnitori, has been on a rampage to disparage and expose Bollywood’s actors and directors for the camps and organisations in the business. Bhasha Sumbli, the star of TKF, has now joined his league after criticising the Hindi cinema business for producing “dumb stars.”
With Sharda Pandit’s role, Bhasha gained notoriety. Her persona is partially based on the true account of Kashmiri woman Girija Tickoo, who was split in half while still alive. In addition to Kher and Bhasha, Darshan Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty, and Pallavi Joshi play crucial parts in TKF.
In a recent interview, Bhasha Sumbli claimed that the Hindi film industry favours stupid people when discussing nepotism. She continued, “Stars isolate actors and make sure they don’t get work even though they have proven themselves in other films.” “The audience is made to see some faces repeatedly, it is an example of nepotism. This is why you lose faith in talent. You feel if these people only have to go forward, then there’s no space for real talent to actually come (out). If there is some space then they have to make (that) space, for example Irrfan (Khan).”
She further said, “When I was not in films, I used to sit with my batchmates from the theatre in Bombay and say ‘Let me just get one chance then I will prove myself and get a lot of work.’ But, reality turned out to be something else. You don’t get work even after proving yourself. Why? Hindi film industry prefers dumber people to make the dumb people look better; the dumb majority of stars try to isolate actors who stand out because of their talent. it’s a very unfortunate state of affairs.”
The real-life exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley served as the inspiration for The Kashmir Files. The audience’s reactions to the movie were conflicting, especially among members of the same group.