No one's ever approached me to make an agenda film, says S S Rajamouli

Filmmaker S S Rajamouli's Baahubali films and "RRR" have been blockbuster hits, but the director, who has often been accused of pandering to the majoritarian view, says he distances himself from either Hindu or pseudo-liberal propaganda.

In an interview with the US publication The New Yorker, the filmmaker took on questions related to the politics of his film, which is nominated in the best song category at the Oscars 2023 for Naatu Naatu.

He was asked whether there was any political pressure on him to tell certain kind of stories from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

No, never directly, never. No one's ever approached me to make an agenda film, whatever the agenda is. Still, for a long time, less prominent people sometimes found objections to my films. Sometimes Muslims have had objections, sometimes Hindus, sometimes different castes, the director told the publication.

The Telugu filmmaker said his agenda is to provide entertainment" to the audience coming to theatres, irrespective of what their ideology may be.

I distance myself from either Hindu or pseudo-liberal propaganda. I know there are audience members from those extreme groups in my audience. I know that, but I'm not catering to them. I'm just catering to the emotional needs of the audience, Rajamouli said.

Rajamouli also responded to the criticism that his films are nationalistic in nature and distort history. First of all, everyone knows the 'Baahubali' movies are fictional, so there is nothing for me to say about whether it is a distortion of history to portray historic characters to suit the present BJP's agenda. As for 'RRR', this is not a documentary. This is not a historical lesson.

It's a fictional take on characters, which has been done many times in the past. We also just talked about (film) Mayabazar. If 'RRR' is a distortion of history, Mayabazar is a distortion of the historic epic, he added.