People all over the world are still pouring out compliments for “Squid Game”, but in Pakistan, this drama only received criticism.
An English magazine in India called “The Print” reported on October 19th saying Pakistanis are complaining about the Indian actor who played the role of a Pakistani worker in “Squid Game”.
In the series, Indian actor Anupam Tripathi (33 years old) took on the role of “Abdul Ali” in “Squid Game”. This character is a migrant worker, who came to Korea with a “Korean Dream”, but was not paid and had an accident at the factory.
Anupam Tripathi was cast for the drama while studying at the Korea National University of Arts with a major in theater. However, after the drama release, the national pride of Pakistanis seem to have been hurt when they saw an Indian play the role of a Pakistani. It is said that the conflict between India and Pakistan is even more intense than that of the South and North of Korea,
These two countries were originally one. However, after they gained independence from England, the Hindu region became India while the Islamic region was named Pakistan. Nowadays, the two countries are still in dispute with each other over the Kashmir territory.
A Pakistani netizen posted on Twitter saying, “It feels like a slap in my face when I saw an Indian actor appear as a Pakistani worker in Squid Game””. This tweet was retweeted by numerous users and people also left many comments under the post, making it became a hot topic.
Other netizens also tweeted similar content to this post, saying, “Not only did the Indian actor play a Pakistani, but he was not even a Muslim”, “There are many Pakistani workers in Korea, so why must they cast an Indian for the role?”
However, some people expressed that they could understand the decision of the production team. It is said that the actor himself went to Korea to learn acting and he is also fluent in Korean. Therefore, he was cast because he could appear in the drama without having any difficulty.
Pakistani famous comedian Ali Gul Pir said, “Since Pakistan’s economy scale is not as large as that of India, I think it is reasonable to cast an Indian actor to make a box office success. His Korean fluency must have had a great impact on why he was cast for the role. The actor did perfectly portray the character in the drama.”
