Akshay Kumar Suggested Kesari 2 Title For Film On C Sankaran Nair And Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, Here's Why

Akshay Kumar, R Madhavan and Ananya Panday starrer Kesari Chapter 2 is running in cinema halls now. The courtroom drama is doing well at the box office despite its limited release in over 1000 screens in India, and has already crossed the ₹50 crore mark at the domestic box office in just over a week of its release. The movie, although receiving critical and commercial acclaim, has been targeted online for depicting "historical inaccuracies", a charge defended by the film's director Karan Singh Tyagi.  

Kesari: Chapter 2 is based on the book The Case That Shook The Empire by Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat. It delves into the life of lawyer C Sankaran Nair, played by Akshay Kumar, and what happened in the aftermath of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. About deviation from factual realities of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Karan said that they may have "compressed timelines" to limit the source material in a two-hour-long film, but have not compromised on the facts of the killings, orchestrated by General Dyer under the British Empire.

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“With full respect and all humility, I want to say that we were compressing a court case which lasted over months into two hours. When that happens, you compress timelines, you combine characters. We were not deviating from the fact that the incident of Jallianwala Bagh occurred the way it is depicted in the film," Karan shared in an interview with PTI.

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He also revealed that the original title of the film was based on Akshay's titular character and names like Sankaran Nair versus the Crown and Sankaran were considered, but it was Akshay who suggested the movie be called Kesari 2. "It's the themes of bravery and resilience" are common, he remarked about Kesari and Kesari: Chapter 2. Kesari, released in 2019 and starring Akshay, is about a Sikh battalion fighting invaders. Karan also credited the leading actor, saying, "He is as much of a writer on the film as he is an actor".