Veteran actor and thespian Amol Palekar attended the Jaipur Literature Festival 2025 on Sunday, accompanied by wife Sandhya Gokhale, and during his rivetting conversation with the audience recalled the time when he was accused of ‘insulting politicians’ by none other than Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray.
Palekar, who was one of the trustees of the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) Film Festival during its inception year in 1997, shared how the team’s decision to not invite politicians and ministers on the festival’s stage caused a massive stir in the city. “We had said that no minister or no government official will be on stage because this is the one festival that was being organised without any government funding. This was the first film festival which was designed by the film industry itself without any governnment support. So there was no reason for any government official or minister to be on stage.”
He went on to say, “But this didn’t go well with the government and we got a message that unless we honour the ministers, we won’t be allowed to go ahead with the festival.”
Recalling the moment everything changed, Palekar shared, “We then called for an emergency meeting with the organisers and trustees and in the middle of the meeting, we received a phone call. Balasaheb Thackeray had called Kiran Shantaram, who was a co-trustee, and as soon as he received the call, he stood up. He spoke for a minute and he said, ‘Why don’t you talk to Amol about it’, and handed over the phone to me.”
“Balasaheb Thackeray asked me, ‘Why are you insulting our ministers?’. I clarified that we were not insulting the ministers and explained to him how the festival was being organised without any government funding to begin with. I said that the first five rows were kept for the ministers anyway, but on stage, there will be only film personalities. I told Balasaheb that as an artist himself, he must appreciate it rather than criticising it,” Palekar said.
“He immediately said that he was not aware of all of this, and hung up. In 15 minutes, we got a message from Mantralaya that we can go ahead with the festival as decided with the front rows reserved for politicians,” he added.
Palekar also recalled another tryst with Thackeray when the latter had slammed legendary litterateur PL Deshpande for criticising the government while receiving an award from the same government on stage. Calling himself an apolitical person, the Golmaal actor stated that he never shied away from questioning politicians, just like he also gave them credit where credit was due.
