NEW DELHI, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- A popular Bollywood actor has been forced to opt out of a Hindu festival by a regional far-right nationalist party "because he is a Muslim".
The actor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, was supposed to go on stage in Ramlila, a theater festival based on the Hindu religious epic Ramayana and performed across India, in his village Budhana in northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
But he was forced to pull out of the performance at the last moment after a section of Shiv Sena, the western state of Maharashtra-based fundamentalist political outfit, told organizers that they were against "a Muslim actor going on stage in Ramlila".
The actor has, however, said it was his childhood dream to act in Ramlila, the dramatic folk re-enactment of Hindu god Ram's victory over the 10-headed demon king Ravana.
The Shiv Sena, a junior coalition partner in the Maharashtra government headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, often resorts to violence to take forward its agenda. It came into existence in the 1960s to keep south Indian migrants out of the state.
