Shabana Azmi blames Sunny Deol’s Muslim role for Batwara 1947’s flop

Shabana Azmi has offered an unexpected theory behind the box office failure of Batwara 1947.

Shabana Azmi has offered an unexpected theory behind the box office failure of Batwara 1947. The 75-year-old actor thinks audiences simply could not accept Sunny Deol playing a Muslim character.

The partition drama released on August 14 and has earned only Rs 53.96 crore so far. Emraan Hashmi’s Awarapan 2, which opened the same day, has already crossed Rs 200 crore.

Speaking to Zoom, Azmi said the gap between the film’s praise and its earnings genuinely shocked her. She explained that people close to her kept saying they loved the film, yet theatres stayed empty. Those who did watch it reportedly left with mixed and confused reactions.

Azmi also pointed out what she sees as a double standard around Muslim characters in Hindi cinema. She noted that Amitabh Bachchan played Muslim roles comfortably in films like Coolie, and even displayed “786” in Deewaar without backlash. She questioned why Deol faced a different reaction, and wondered aloud whether such responses were being encouraged deliberately.

She added that some viewers were also confused about the character itself, mistakenly assuming Deol was playing a Pakistani rather than an Indian Muslim.

Azmi is not the only industry voice raising this point. Director Rajkumar Santoshi has said something similar in the past, revealing that the film struggled for 15 years before it finally got made. He told India Today that audiences generally resist stories built around Pakistan or Muslim protagonists, and that Deol’s casting made things even harder for some viewers, given his image as a Hindu-hero figure in Bollywood.

Santoshi also praised Deol for taking the role despite the risk. He said most actors avoid such parts out of fear, but Deol agreed to it anyway, even reciting lines from the Quran on screen.

Batwara 1947 continues to underperform commercially, even as conversations around its themes and casting keep growing louder across the industry.