Amir Khan and Intolerant India

Amir Khan is learning what many common citizens of India who happen to be minorities know for a fact, that they've to bare their souls, every day, to show loyalty to Mother India lest they be called traitors. When India plays against Pakistan in a cricket match the Muslim neighborhoods of Mumbai have to fly the Indian tri-color outside their homes but the Hindu homes need not do so because their patriotism is axiomatic.

Amir Khan is also learning the perils of speaking carelessly in a social media age when few take care to know what he really said but eagerly join a lynch mob baying for his blood based on what they read in Facebook and twitter, both of which are now the most convenient avenues to show one's love for India, preferably sitting at a client's place in US or UK.

My first surprise was that a mediocre and inarticulate actor was invited to address a ceremony for a journalism award instituted in the name of a fire brand publisher who, at great personal cost, stood up to the corrupt and venal regimes of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. I wish people had objected more to that as an insult to the many brave journalists of a storied newspaper. Amir Khan had not even distinguished himself through any topical movie on a related subject to be invited to such a gathering. For instance I'd rather tolerate Robert Redford, star of 'All the president's men', at such a gathering.

Only in a movie crazed country like India would Amir Khan not only be invited at a function to honor journalists but the country would work itself into a neurotic frenzy over innocuous remarks and actually ignore the more offending parts of trying to make a Muslim actor, because of his religion, take a stand against every mistake that some crazed jihadi has done across the globe.

To anyone watching the video it is apparent that Amir Khan was rambling off in response to a question on what he feels about the current rash of protests by artists and intellectuals. Also the interviewer quite literally egged on him to answer whether he specifically agrees on the protests. Amir does start out by hedging his reply that there are better qualified people in the audience to answer. Then he goes on to say that "as a society to feel "secure, two, three things are very important". First, "a sense of justice" where the common man feels that justice is being meted out. Second, when somebody takes the law into their own hands the common man derives a sense of security seeing elected representatives "take a strong stance". "When we see that happening there is a sense of security and when we don't see it there's a sense of insecurity. No matter who the ruling party is. It has happened across the ages" (what he's referring here is the insecurity due to the silence of the elected representatives). Then, as an after thought, he recounts a personal conversation that his wife had had with him when she expressed fear for the safety of her children and if they should move out of India. Amir Khan added "it was a disastrous statement for her make it to me". Nowhere does HE say he wants to get out of India. He only shared a sentiment, a momentary one at that, that his wife expressed. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with any of that.

Amir Khan Interview Video from You Tube (https://www.youtube.com/embed/jnZTcee5H7o) 

During my last visit to India the father of a girl expressed mortal fear for his daughter when she travels to Delhi. The girl, her father recounted, would first look for an authorized cab sent by her firm, if the driver has the credentials, get into the cab, call her parents, chit chat with them, all the while telling them subtly the roads being traveled etc hinting to the driver that there is somebody else on the other end keeping a tab on her. This my dear readers is in the capital city of India. Mera Bharat Mahaan. Out of my great regard for the dad I did not ask "why bother? She's a highly accomplished individual who'd be embraced by America".

When a law college student was beaten within an inch of his life by his classmates even as cops were standing a few feet away a relative wrote to me saying "I never want to go back to India". I remember driving my scooter on a road that was a silly excuse for a road and muttering to myself "whither deliverance". I bet that the many thousands of Chennaiites who were stranded for hours in rains would more than gladly emigrate if only the US consulate in Chennai had an open door policy. As I was typing this I saw a friend post a satirical (actually an attempt at satire) by IIT Mumbai students, of course patriotic, ripping into Amir Khan. I applaud them and I hereby appeal to the home ministry to confiscate their passports and prohibit the IIT grads from emigrating.

Muslims and Christians are probably a distinct minority of those who emigrate to the West and settle down in the West. It is then rich hypocrisy for others to lecture members of  those communities of showing a willingness to emigrate elsewhere. A persistent canard is that members of the minority communities have other homelands and only the hapless Hindus are left with just one homeland. Technically speaking it was Amir Khan's Hindu wife who expressed a willingness to exile herself.

To me the most offensive part was the interviewer linking terrorism to Islam, not just the extremist section but all of Islam without a qualifier or caveat, and asking Amir Khan to comment. I don't remember the last time a Hindu actor was asked about the demolition of Babri Masjid or the Mumbai Riots. Not satisfied with Amir Khan emphatically suggesting that terrorists have no religion the interview then innocently asks if Amir Khan would lend his strong voice as a moderate muslim. At this point Amir should've slapped him.

Najma Heptullah a fawning courtier who changed parties in pursuit of office then attempts to play the 'model muslim', the kind that the BJP-wallahs would love and hug, by asking, what she herself admits is a 'politically incorrect question'. Heptullah asks Amir Khan whether he is worried about Wahhabism infiltrating the Indian Muslim population and she helpfully warns him that he'd be chopped off in an ISIS administration. This is beyond the pale. Indecent and grotesque. Bollywood used to cower before Bal Thackeray who showed that Wahhabism can exist in any religion.

Many Facebook posts I saw indignantly informed Amir Khan that his riches are due to the many Hindus buying tickets for his movies and how in any other country, usually the implied reference is to Pakistan or a Middle Eastern country, he'd not have become what he is today. This is plain bollocks. Patriotism, as Johnson taught us, is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Amir Khan is what he is today by virtue of his talent and hard work. Yes, India provided a climate where he could flourish but that is the duty of any decent country towards its citizens. India did not give Amir Khan anything on a platter. If India made Amir Khan rich then I wish it extended such gratis to every hapless poor soul living below poverty line in India. Nobody bought tickets to his blockbusters out of a generosity of soul to ensure that poor Amir Khan lives in a bungalow.

Hollywood is often accused of being anti-American but I've never seen a clamor for any actor to exile himself or herself. Even as George Bush was ratcheting up the war rhetoric against Iraq actor Sean Penn went to Iraq and announced that he was against the war. Accepting an Oscar director Michael Moore decried the 'fictitious war' from the stage. Hollywood actors, mostly dyed in the wool liberals, have often mouthed nonsense when it comes to politics and America laughs it off. India needs to take a chill pill.

The real tragedy of India that one of its largest metropolises, Chennai, is reeling under an onslaught of torrential rains and the entire nation appears to be riveted on an innocuous remark by a mediocre actor. Between corrupt governments and greedy consumers the city of Chennai has seen rapacious development with little thought of exigencies like the current one. Literally life is in a standstill in Chennai for nearly 10 days. I'm sure that most of North India does not even know that Chennai is submerged in water and is now practically Venice without the beauty of Venice.

The lynch mob crying against Amir Khan has only proved him correct. There indeed is a climate of intolerance in India.