When Akshay Kumar played Prithviraj Chauhan in the 2022 film Samrat Prithviraj, he received a lot of criticism for his performance. At the time, Akshay had appealed to the authorities, requesting them to make changes to the history books so students could learn more about the king. Now, 4 years later, when Akshay was asked a question about the king on the quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati 18, Akshay said that he had never heard of the Battle of Tarain. He then added that he knew about Train to Busan (South Korean film) but had no clue about the Battle of Tarain.

Akshay was a guest on KBC 18 along with Saif Ali Khan and they were promoting their upcoming film Haiwaan. Akshay and Saif were asked the ‘Maha Sawaal’ where the contestants are not given any options for answers, and if they answer correctly, they win a lifeline. In case they answer incorrectly, they don’t lose any money.

Amitabh Bachchan, the host of the show, asked: Which Indian ruler was victorious in the first Battle of Tarain? Akshay and Saif initially acted like they were clueless about the answer. Saif looked at Akshay said, “I have never heard about the Battle of Tarain. Have you?” Akshay did not respond to this.

Saif then said, “I am telling you, (either) Prithviraj Chauhan or Chandragupta Maurya.” He then added, “I’ve never heard of the Battle of Tarain.” Akshay continued, “I have heard of Train to Busan, not Battle of Tarain.” After a brief pause, he said, “Let’s try Prithviraj Chauhan.” The duo then locked Prithviraj Chauhan, which was the right answer.

Netizens were not impressed with Akshay Kumar for getting confused while answering the question, since he played the king in a feature film just a few years ago. A post on Reddit had one of the users saying, “Kinda sad that we couldn’t get an actor who was at least pretending to be passionate to play the role of such a historic figure.” Another user wrote, “He had to finish the shoot in 43 days. Had no time to study. Poor fellow had to depend on the teleprompter for dialogues.” Another user called him “teleprompter star.”

When Akshay Kumar spoke about Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan

In a chat with ANI in 2022, when Akshay was promoting Samrat Prithviraj, he said that history textbooks in schools did not teach much about Indian kings, and he requested the authorities to look into the matter. “Unfortunately, our history textbooks only have 2-3 lines about Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan, but a lot has been mentioned about the invaders. There is hardly anything mentioned about our culture and our Maharajas. I was taken aback that there is so much about Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan that we don’t know about,” he said.

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He added, “I would like to appeal to the education minister to look into this matter and see if we can change it. We can balance it. I am not saying that we should not know about Mughals but balance it out, know about our kings also. They were great too. Bring it in front of everybody.”

The film tanked at the box office as soon as it released.