The Prabhas-starrer Fauzi has moved from a birthday teaser to a formal historical dispute, after Subhas Chandra Bose’s grandnephew asked the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry to investigate the film’s promo and act against those responsible for clearing it.
On 27 October, Chandra Kumar Bose, a socio-political activist and former BJP vice-president in West Bengal, posted a letter addressed to I&B Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on X. He also tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and made a direct appeal to Fauzi director Hanu Raghavapudi.
“We take strong offence to this trivialisation of Netaji,” Chandra Kumar Bose wrote.
What the teaser shows
The teaser, titled File No. 25, was released on 23 October to coincide with Prabhas’s 47th birthday. It is set in Berlin in 1942 and shows Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose approaching Adolf Hitler for support in India’s struggle against British rule. The film itself is announced for 19 March 2027.
Bose’s objection centres on that framing. He asked that the teaser be pulled down, corrected and released again, and that the responsible officials at the Censor Board be punished in an exemplary manner.
Why the demand carries weight
For an audience that follows Hindi cinema’s engagement with the freedom movement, the dispute is not only about one promo. It raises a familiar question: where does dramatic reconstruction end and distortion begin, and who decides before millions see the image?
The letter also turns the argument procedural. Chandra Kumar Bose is not asking only about creative choices; he is asking how the Central Board of Film Certification could clear a teaser the family considers objectionable. That gives the complaint an institutional target and a standard for action.
There is also a timing problem for the campaign. The teaser was tied to a birthday event, which put it in front of the widest possible audience at once. When an objection lands at that moment, the correction has to match the scale of the launch.
What happens now
- The teaser arrived on 23 October as File No. 25.
- The family’s letter to the I&B Minister was posted on 27 October.
- The demand: pull the teaser, correct it, re-release it, and take action at the Censor Board.
- No response from the makers has been reported so far.
The campaign is now in a holding pattern. A big pan-India date is on the calendar for 19 March 2027, but the immediate promotional task is less about reach than about resolving a historical objection before the next asset goes out. The episode is a reminder that teaser images travel farther and faster than context, especially when they involve a national icon, and that pre-release history is often judged as history itself.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
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