Ramayana Ravana Poster on Janmashtami Sparks Controversy — Makers Release Ram Poster Same Evening

What Happened

In September 2026, the promotional team behind Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana released a new poster featuring Yash as Ravana on Janmashtami — the Hindu festival that celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna. The choice of timing was immediately questioned by a section of Hindu groups and devotees online.

The criticism was direct: Janmashtami is one of the most sacred days in the Hindu calendar. Releasing a poster of the demon king Ravana — the primary villain of the Ramayana — on this day was seen as insensitive at best and disrespectful at worst. Social media lit up with objections within hours of the poster going live.

The Response

The Ramayana production team acted quickly. The same evening, they released a contrasting poster — this time featuring Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Ram — accompanied by a message of respect for the occasion. The Ram poster was described as a gesture of balance and reverence, acknowledging the sanctity of Janmashtami.

The dual poster strategy — showing both Ravana and Ram on the same festival day — was interpreted by some as a statement about the eternal conflict between good and evil that both Ramayana and Janmashtami, in their own way, represent. Lord Krishna himself, after all, is considered an avatar of Vishnu — as is Ram.

The Shri Ramlila Mahasangh Request

Separately, the Shri Ramlila Mahasangh — a prominent Hindu organisation — formally wrote to the producers of Ramayana requesting a special preview screening of the film before its release. The organisation expressed concerns about the potential misrepresentation of the Ramayana epic and its characters, and asked for an opportunity to review the content.

This kind of request is not unusual for films based on religious epics in India. Films like Adipurush, Brahmastra, and others have faced similar requests and scrutiny from religious groups before release. The producers of Ramayana have not publicly commented on this specific request as of the time of writing.

Why This Controversy Is Different

The controversy around the Ravana poster is relatively minor in the context of the film's overall reception. But it is notable for one reason: it reveals the extraordinary level of scrutiny and emotional investment that Indian audiences have in this film.

Ramayana is not just a movie for its audience — it is sacred. People who have prayed to Ram all their lives, who have grown up watching Ramanand Sagar's television adaptation, who have performed Ramlilas in their neighbourhoods — these people are not watching this film as passive consumers. They are watching as custodians of a story they love deeply.

That scrutiny is not a threat to the film. It is, in its own way, the highest compliment the film could receive. It means the audience cares — and an audience that cares is an audience that will show up on Day 1.

What Nitesh Tiwari Has Said

Nitesh Tiwari has consistently spoken about the responsibility of adapting the Ramayana with respect. In multiple interviews leading up to the film's release, he has said that his team consulted scholars, religious leaders, and multiple versions of the Ramayana across languages and traditions during the writing process.

"The Ramayana belongs to everyone," Tiwari has said. "We have approached it with the humility it deserves." The controversy over the Ravana poster timing, and the team's quick response, suggests that the production is aware of the sensitivities involved — and is taking them seriously.

The Adipurush Lesson: What Ramayana Is Doing Differently

The Adipurush controversy of 2023 looms large over every Ramayana adaptation that follows it. That film — which depicted Ram, Sita, Hanuman, and Ravana in ways that many Hindus found irreverent — faced massive backlash, Supreme Court petitions, and forced re-editing of several scenes even after release. Its box office numbers, while decent, fell significantly short of initial projections precisely because negative word-of-mouth among the core devotional audience cancelled out commercial momentum.

The Ramayana production appears acutely aware of this precedent. The speed with which the team responded to the Janmashtami criticism — releasing a Ram poster the same evening — suggests a communications strategy that is actively monitoring religious sensitivities in real time. This is not accidental; it reflects a deliberate production culture shaped by what happened to Adipurush.

The visual language of the two films tells the same story. Where Adipurush used a heavily stylised, near-animated aesthetic that many found jarring and un-devotional, Ramayana's trailer shows grandeur grounded in traditional iconography. Ram's costume, Sita's appearance, Hanuman's form — all reflect the visual vocabulary of classical Hindu artistic tradition rather than reimagined or Westernised versions. That visual choice is not just aesthetic; it is a statement of intent about how the film approaches its source material.