A Surat court has issued a bailable warrant against Anurag Kashyap after the filmmaker failed to appear before it on Monday in a case related to the alleged offensive remarks he made against the Brahmin community on his X handle last year. Multiple summons were issued against Kashyap, including via a newspaper. The court has now listed December 24 as the date of the next hearing.“We initially filed an application and requested his presence for verification, but he failed to appear. The trial court subsequently initiated proceedings against him. A summons was then issued, yet he did not show up. The court directed that a public summons be published in a newspaper. We arranged for this to be printed in a prominent newspaper (in its Mumbai edition), but he still failed to appear,” Kamlesh Raval, a lawyer representing Hindutva outfits Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, told PTI.The bailable warrant now requires Kashyap to furnish bail from court in order to avoid going to jail. As per Bajrang Dal and VHP, Kashyap posted “an objectionable message on social media (X) that cast a slur upon the entire Brahmin community” on April 16 last year. When an X user objected to a tweet by Kashyap, the filmmaker responded, “What have you achieved by being a Brahmin?”The Hindutva outfits have alleged that with that remark, Kashyap attempted “to disparage the Brahmin community, and this post constitutes an insult to the entire Brahmin community”. They also claimed it posed a risk of promoting enmity between different religious and caste groups across India. “His actions constitute an attempt to disrupt India’s national unity and disturb peace and harmony,” claimed Raval.Why did Anurag Kashyap allegedly defame Brahmin community?When he responded to the X user with that contentious remark, Kashyap was objecting to Akhil Bharatiya Brahmin Samaj and Vipra Sena’s demands to boycott Ananth Mahadevan’s period social drama Phule, starring Pratik Gandhi and Patralekhaa as social activists Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule respectively, who fought against caste discrimination. The Hindutva outfits alleged the film is anti-Brahim.“The first play I ever did in my life was on Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule. If casteism didn’t exist in this country, why would they have needed to fight against it? Now, these Brahmin groups either feel ashamed, are dying of shame, or perhaps they’re living in some alternate Brahmin-only India that we’re unable to see. Someone please explain—who’s the real fool here?,” Kashyap wrote on X.Following his remarks, cases were filed against him in Surat, Jaipur, and Varanasi. However, Kashyap later took to his X handle to apologize for his remarks. “In my anger, I forgot my decorum while responding to someone and ended up speaking ill of the entire Brahmin community. That community, whose many members have been part of my life, are still there, and contribute greatly. Today, they are all hurt by me. My family is hurt by me. Many intellectuals, whom I respect, are hurt by my anger and the way I spoke,” he wrote.Story continues below this ad“By saying such things, I myself derailed my own point from the issue. I sincerely apologize to this community, to whom I did not intend to say this, but in the heat of the moment, I wrote it while responding to someone’s vile comment,” he stated. “Going forward, I will work to ensure this does not happen again. I will work on my anger. And if I need to address an issue, I will use the right words. I hope you will forgive me,” added the filmmaker.Also Read — ‘I want to be a star’: Shah Rukh Khan rejected ‘intellectual films’ early in his careerPrior to that apology, he had issued another backhanded apology on his Instagram handle. “This is my apology, not for my post but for that one line taken out of context and the brewing hatred. No action or speech is worth your daughter, family, friends and colleagues getting rape and death threats from the kingpins of sanskaar (manners). I won’t take back what I said. Abuse me all you want. My family didn’t say anything. If you want an apology, here it is,” wrote Kashyap.