'Not a crime to be an atheist': Ram Gopal Varma stands by SS Rajamouli amid God-remark controversy

During the event, Rajamouli was unable to play a glimpse of his upcoming film Varanasi starring Mahesh Babu, Priyanka Chopra and Prithviraj Sukumaran due to technical issues.

Visibly disturbed by the glitches, Rajamouli recalled his father, writer Vijayendra Prasad's words where he said Lord Hanuman's blessings were with the team.

"Is this how he (Lord Hanuman) is helping me," said Rajamouli, who claimed he does not believe in God.

Stating his wife Rama also believes in Lord Hanuman, the filmmaker said as quoted by The Times of India, "My wife has a great devotion to Lord Hanuman. She talks to Him like He's her friend. I even got angry with her for a while. Let's see,"

"..Father, if your Hanuman saved me once, let’s see if my wife’ Hanuman does it again," Rajamouli said while attempting to play the sequence again as reported by the daily.

Rajamouli was slammed for his remark with several netizens even giving a call to boycott Varanasi.

In Rajamouli's support, Varma wrote on X that anyone has the right to be an atheist as per the Constitution of India.

On the criticism of why Rajamouli made films on God, Varma argued that it's not mandatory to "become a gangster" to make a film on a gangster.

An excerpt of his X post reads, "In the context of all the venom being spewed by the so called believers on @ssrajamouli
they should know that being an atheist in India is not a crime. Article 25 of the Constitution protects the right to not believe.

"So he has every right to say he doesn’t believe as much as the venom spewers right to say they believe Now coming to the dumb argument that “if he doesn’t believe in God why does he show God in his movies?” By that logic, should a filmmaker become a gangster to make a gangster film, become a ghost to make a horror film?"