CHHAPRA (Bihar): On 12 March 2014, the court of chief judicial magistrate, Chhapra, issued non-bailable warrants against the producer and director of the film Videsiya. On the complaint of Bhikhari Thakur’s grandson Rajendra Prasad, the CGM had registered a case of copyrights violation against Abhay Sinha, producer, and Ranjan Kumar Singh, director, along with Yashi Films Pvt Ltd. The script, dialogues and songs of the film have been taken from Bhikhari Thakur’s first play Videsiya but the director Ranjan Kumar Singh has been credited as the writer. The film is being publicized as based on Bhikhari Thakur’s Videsiya but no credit has been given to Thakur. In the complaint, it is alleged that the play was tampered with while rendering it into a film.
When Bhikhari Thakur’s family members tried to meet the producer and director of the film, they refused. The entire corpus of Bhikhari Thakur’s writings was published by the Bihar Rashtrabhasha Parishad, Patna, in 2005. The Parishad holds the copyright for the collection while the royalty from its sale goes to the family of Bhikhari Thakur.
Published in the April 2014 issue of the Forward Press magazine
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