In a first, an Indian actor stepped down from a role over political backlash. Vijay Sethupathi will no longer be playing the role of Sri Lankan cricket legend Muttiah Muralitharan in his biopic.<\/p>\n
The actor stepped down after backlash from Tamil Indians over the Sri Lankan civil war. Tamil Indians don’t look too fondly at Sri Lanka, who successfully defeated the Tamil Tigers’ uprising in the island nation a few years ago.<\/p>\n
Therefore, when a Tamil actor Vijay Sethupathi was cast as the Sri Lankan leg spinner, politicians seized at the opportunity for playing identity politics.<\/p>\n
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This Indian Star Has a Very Good Reason For Not Playing Ms Marvel [Video]<\/a><\/p>\n Tamil politicians from the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) party in India accuse the legendary cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan, of betraying fellow Tamil Sri Lankans during the Lankan civil war that ended in 2009.<\/p>\n The war led the Tamil separatist movement to be defeated in Sri Lanka, thus retaining the rule of the majority Sinhalese.<\/p>\n India’s MDMK opposes Sri Lankan Sinhalese. The government is accused by the United Nations and international rights groups of killing at least 40,000 minority Tamil natives in its final campaign against the Tamil Tigers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Soon enough many Tamil Indians joined in criticizing under the #ShameOnVijaySethupathi<\/a><\/p>\n Amid all the backlash even Muttiah Muralitharan asked the Indian Tamil actor to withdraw and save his career from the political row. Vijay shared his letter with a ‘thank you and goodbye’<\/em>‘<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want one of the finest actors in Tamil Nadu to face any kind of trouble, hence I request him to drop out of the project, … There should be no obstacles for Sethupathi in the future because of this movie.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u0ba8\u0ba9\u0bcd\u0bb1\u0bbf.. \u0bb5\u0ba3\u0b95\u0bcd\u0b95\u0bae\u0bcd \ud83d\ude4f\ud83c\udffb pic.twitter.com\/PMCPBDEgAC<\/a><\/p>\n — VijaySethupathi (@VijaySethuOffl) October 19, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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