What’s behind India’s fury over ‘Oppenheimer’ sex scene?

The blockbuster film ‘Oppenheimer’ by Christopher Nolan, which was released last Friday, triggered a raging controversy in India over an intimate scene in which the protagonist recites a line from the sacred Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. As Indians poured into the movie theaters over the weekend to watch Nolan’s latest and much anticipated work, social media was soon boiling with calls to boycott the film.

The drama narrates the story of American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer – often referred to as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’ – and explored the creation of the infamous Manhattan Project, which culminated with the US bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945.

In the film, Oppenheimer, played by Irish actor Cillian Murphy, is shown making love with Jean Tatlock, played by Florence Pugh. In the controversial scene, Pugh stops during intercourse and picks up a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and asks Murphy to read from it. “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” Oppenheimer’s character says.

On Monday, Indian Minister for Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Anurag Thakur lashed out at the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), popularly called the censor board, over the ‘objectionable’ scene and asked for it to be removed. The government has initiated action against officials who are seen as responsible for it.

Questions for the censor board

Earlier, on Sunday, Uday Mahurkar, a journalist-turned-information commissioner of the Indian government, lashed out at the CBFC for approving the movie. Mahurkar took on the CBFC as the founder of ‘Save Culture, Save India Foundation’, which he launched in December 2022 with the aim to “unite India against perverted content makers” online and on TV. Mahurkar linked escalating instances of sexual assault in the country with the rise in porn addiction.

“One is perplexed as to how the CBFC could approve the movie with this scene,” Mahurkar wrote on Twitter while sharing a press release from his foundation. He called the scene “a scathing attack on Hinduism” and urged the I&B ministry “to do all that is needed to uphold dignity of the revered holy book of the Hindus, punish those involved and [set] processes in place that such things do not happen in future.”

In June, the foundation hosted an event in which Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk and Chief Minister (CM) of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, honored ‘cultural warriors’ and released a film “exposing makers of perverted content that leads to cultural degradation, including rape.” He said that the digital age is as beneficial as it is dangerous, sounding the alarm about school children being lured to convert to another religion from Hinduism through online gaming activities.

‘Oppenheimer’ is the first Nolan movie to receive an R rating from the Motion Pictures Association of America, which means it contains adult material and those under 17 require accompanying parent or adult guardian to watch the film. However, India’s CBFC gave it a U/A rating, which means moderate adult themes, after Universal – the studio which produced the movie – cut out some shots of the “intimate scenes.” The cuts were reportedly made by the studio itself because it did not think the censor board would allow the scenes. As per this certification, the content is not considered strong in nature and can be watched by a child below 12 years of age under parental guidance.

Though the censor removed some abusive words from Oppenheimer as well as some shots of the sex scene, while also editing a scene in which Florence Pugh is nude – in the version shown in Indian cinemas, she appears to wear a black dress – it allowed the scene which has caused the uproar.

Earlier, Nolan, who is known for never including sex scenes in his movies, defended the intimate scenes, explaining that they were vital to accurately portray the passionate relationship between Oppenheimer and Tatlock. Neither Nolan nor Universal have responded yet to the raging controversy in India.

Lost in translation

Meanwhile, the interpretation of the quote from the Bhagavad Gita cited during the scene that created the controversy was questioned by renowned Indian author Devdutt Pattanaik. In an interview with Indian Express pegged to the global release of the film, he suggested that the quote translates differently. 

When he discovered what Oppenheimer quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, he was stumped, as he wasn’t familiar with the quote, Pattanaik told the publication. “I did some research on Oppenheimer, and I had never come across this line. I had never heard this line. Someone said it was chapter 11, verse 32, which really says ‘kaal-asmi’, which means ‘I am time, destroyer of the world’. So, his translation itself is flawed. It is not ‘I am death’. It is time, time is the destroyer of the world,” he said.

A similar observation was shared by Professor Stephen Thompson, who has spent more than 30 years studying and teaching Sanskrit, with Wired. Thompson suggested that Oppenheimer “was obviously very attracted” to Hinduism.

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Oppenheimer famously cited the passage from the Bhagavad Gita after successfully carrying out the Trinity test in New Mexico in 1945. “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One… I am becoming death, the destroyer of worlds,” the passage is often cited as saying. It made its way to Nolan’s drama as well. 

Pattanaik explained Oppenheimer’s interpretation of the verse from the Bhagavad Gita by the need to find some consolation, as he witnessed his scientific research turning into a real means of destruction. “He gets excited because he’s seeing death and destruction at a massive scale, and he’s obviously seeking some kind of a spiritual background… He comes from a Judeo-Christian background, where God is known to punish people with floods and fire. This act of killing humanity with violence is very much a part of Biblical traditions; it’s not a part of Hindu traditions, not a part of Jain or Buddhist traditions… I think he was looking for some solace, and he found this verse very dramatic,” the writer said. 

Initially, the American physicist reportedly celebrated his feat, but later suffered from a guilty conscience following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which claimed over 110,000 lives. A lesser known fact is that Oppenheimer was invited to immigrate to India by the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, as noted in the biography of Indian physicist Homi Jehangir Bhabha (1909-1966) by Bakhtiyar K Dadabhoy released in April. 

Oppenheimer’s pacifist views and allegations that he and his wife had communist links led to a probe by the US government in 1954, resulting in him being barred from taking part in policy decisions. Against this backdrop, Nehru offered Oppenheimer citizenship, which he politely declined as he still wished to be cleared of the charges that the US government made against him. According to Dadabhoy, Bhabha, who had become a good friend of Oppenheimer, was instrumental in convincing Nehru to send a secret letter to Oppenheimer offering him Indian citizenship. However, the scientists feared that he would be refused permission to visit India, and requesting a permit could increase suspicion about him.

Cinema and sentiments

This is not the first time that right-wing Hindu nationalists have taken offense to films, television shows, or commercials for their portrayal of Hinduism since the Modi government came to power in 2014. Some have been boycotted or even taken off the air following outcry from conservative and radical groups.

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In 2020, Netflix received backlash in India for a scene in the series ‘A Suitable Boy’ that depicted a Hindu woman and Muslim man kissing at a Hindu shrine. That year, Indian jewelry brand Tanishq was forced to withdraw an advertising campaign that was released during Diwali – the Hindu festival of lights – featuring an interfaith couple following online criticism. Analysts and film critics have pointed out a discernible paradigm shift in the tonality of Indian films as nationalist and Islamophobic narratives have gained momentum among a large section of the audience, allegedly tacitly supported by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Last year, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘The Kashmir Files’, a runaway hit at the box office and based on the mass exodus of Kashmiri Hindus as they fled violent Islamic militants in the 1990s in the troubled northern Indian state that shares a border with Pakistan, drove a sharp schism among the audience. The film gave rise to mixed reactions, including “gut-wrenching,” “truthful,” and “Islamophobic,” depending on the political views of the polarized audience. 

Similarly this year, the release of ‘The Kerala Story’ about a Hindu girl from India’s southernmost state, who was enticed to join the Islamic State terrorist group, provoked another round of controversy, and many called it propaganda to further marginalize Muslims – the country’s largest minority group – under the Modi government’s rule.

Joydeep Sen Gupta, Asia Editor