“Kangana nahi bole toh achcha hai” as Nepotism debate Rocks IIFA awards stage

Amidst the humour that most Bollywood celebrities seem to harbour between each other, the occasional shot is fired. The latest controversy over nepotism turned a few heads at the IIFA awards stage when Kangana Ranaut revived the recent debate again, as Karan Johar, Varun Dhawan and Saif Ali Khan took over the stage, calling out her nepotism.

Karan and Saif hosted the awards ceremony this weekend joking and quipping as usual until Varun came up on stage to receive his award for ‘best performance in a comic role’ for the movie Dishoom. Saif made the initial jab with his joke directed at Dhawan, observing, “You are here because of your Papa,”; referring to David Dhawan, the acclaimed Bollywood director.

Varun immediately replied,” You are here because of your mother”, making a reference to Sharmila Tagore. Karan, not slow to catch on to the joke, chimed in, claiming that he was only in the industry because of Yash Johar, his father. The trio then shouted in unison, “Nepotism rocks”.

Best Performance in a Comic Role – @Varun_dvn for Dishoom. #IIFA2017 pic.twitter.com/RnF3rGroC7

— IIFA Awards (@IIFA) July 16, 2017

Kangana Ranaut had perpetuated the argument on nepotism in Bollywood during her recent appearance on Johar’s chat show, ‘Koffee with Karan’ earlier in February when she referred to Johar as “the flag bearer of nepotism”, which seemed to have somewhat vexed the director.

Saif and Varun had gone on to sing the song ‘Bole chudiyaan bole’ from Johar’s film Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, to which the director immediately retorted, “Kangana Nahi bole toh achcha hai”.
A barrage of negative responses on social media followed these remarks, as people on the internet seem to be quite unhappy with the spirit in which these celebrities joked about nepotism.

Whether nepotism is a harsh reality or not is yet to be seen, as Johar remarked, ”Let’s not forgotten that I started as the son of a producer with five failures behind him.”