Saturday, 13 Dec, 2025
By: Yash Gupte
One of the most controversial topic in India as of now is the boycott of the recently released Amir Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan starrer Lal Singh Chaddha on 11th August. It was estimated that the boycott trend against the movie could possibly hit it at the box offices across the country.
One of the most controversial topic in India as of now is the boycott of the recently released Amir Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan starrer Lal Singh Chaddha on 11th August. It was estimated that the boycott trend against the movie could possibly hit it at the box offices across the country. Netizens had been sharing ticket reservation screenshots showing that only a few seats had been booked for the movie which was way less than what was expected. Along with Lal Singh Chaddha, a boycott of the movie has also been trending over Twitter owing to Amir Khan’s controversial “India’s growing intolerance” statements he made in the past. Lal Singh Chaddha is a remake of the Hollywood classic 'Forrest Gump'. Lal Singh Chaddha happens to be an official remake of the 1994 American film Forrest Gump which itself is based on Winston Groom's 1986 novel of the same name.
After its release, the international cricketer from England, Monty Panesar took to twitter and wrote that the Amir Khan-starrer is disrespectful towards Sikhs and the Indian Army. He called the movie a disgrace and tweeted “Forrest Gump fits in the US Army because the US was recruiting low IQ men to meet requirements for the Vietnam War. This movie is total disgrace to India Armed Forces Indian Army and Sikhs! Disrespectful. Disgraceful #BoycottLalSinghChadda.” The matter has become even worse as a police complaint has been lodged against Amir Khan for portrayal of the Indian Army in a bad light. Lal Singh Chaddha recorded 15-20% occupancy, which is a worrying figure for an Amir Khan film. The opening day figures, according to a report by Box Office India were 11.50 crore.
The controversy had sparked even much before its release. Amir Khan had met the Turkish first lady in Turkey during the shooting of the movie. This brought widespread criticism for the actor and the movie as Turkey had supported Pakistan against India at various International forums. In order to know the on ground reality and the people’s views, TEAM CVOTER- INDIA TRACKER conducted a nationwide survey. People belonging to different social backgrounds, gender, age groups, and location and voting opinions were asked on ‘Several organizations have announced to boycott Amir Khan’s film Lal Singh Chaddha, calling the actor anti-Hindu. Do you support the campaign to boycott the latest movie of Amir Khan?’ The chart below shows the number of people in favour and against the question posed.
Source: Team Cvoter- India Tracker
There was not much difference among the opinion of the people as 50.9% of the people responded in favour of the notion while 49.1% responded against it and said that there should be no boycott of the Amir Khan starrer.
Source: Team Cvoter- India Tracker
There were diverse opinions among different age groups, voters, ethnicities and locations but majority of the people (50.9%) feel that the movie should be boycotted and the remaining 49.1% are of the opinion that it shouldn’t be. Among all the communities/ ethnicities, Sikhs registered the strongest opinion of not boycotting Lal Singh Chaddha with 73.1% of them against the notion. 60.4% of the opposition voters feel that the movie shouldn’t be boycotted while the 66.9% of the NDA voters feel that it should be boycotted. Majority of the youth and senior citizens feel that Lal Singh Chaddha should be boycotted. In the Urban areas, majority of the respondents (56.5%) are in favour of boycotting the movie while in rural areas, the majority (50.7%) is against the boycott of the movie. Even though there is a very thin margin between the opinions of respondents, only the further box office collections of the movie will tell its fate and the effect of the boycott campaign.
