In Mumbai, Raj Thackeray, the leader of the MNS, a small but powerful fringe party, has issued a fatwa against all Pakistani artistes currently working in Bollywood and giving concerts. The social media is awash with such demands. These noises naturally have consequences, some intended, some unintended. The MNS has specifically targeted Pakistani artistes like Fawad Khan (Ae Dil Hai Mushkil) and Mahira Khan acting opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Raees to leave immediately, failing which their shootings will be stalled. Of course there may be other considerations for this too. These films have crores invested in them and producers, most vulnerable before a big release, will be more inclined for out of sight settlements.
But don’t react just yet to MNS banishing all Muslim-Pakistani artistes from Bollywood. Wait for the real irony to play out in Mumbai theatres, first on October 26, 2016, and again, on January 26, 2017, and react then.Ae Dil Hai Mushkil releases on the Diwali weekend, and Raees on Independence Day. And if that’s not ironic enough, according to an order passed in 2003, all cinema halls in Maharashtra must play the national anthem before the start of all films. So on that day, when the national anthem, written by the same man who wrote Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, begins to play, take a few seconds before you decide to stand — a few seconds to decide what exactly you are standing up to honour, why your head is held high.
And if you decide to sit, be clear what you are protesting against. Think about why your head is hanging in shame. I will sit. More out of a sense of bereavement than in protest. I will shed a tear for Bollywood that once was. The Bollywood that shaped India. There was a time when you couldn’t tell between Hindus and Muslims in Bollywood. Nothing illustrates this than the immortal bhajan from the super hit movie of 1952, Baiju Bawra, ‘Man Tadpat Hari Darshan Ko Aaj’ with great lines like ‘tumre dwar kaa mai hu jogi, humari or najar kab hogi? Suno more vyakul mann kaa raj, Man tadpat hari darshan ko aaj!’. It was written by Mohd. Shakeel, composed by Naushad Ali and rendered by the great Mohd. Rafi. All Muslims.
Khan triad Unlike the earlier generation of Muslim actors, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan didn’t have to assume Hindu professional names to become endearing to Indian audiencesNo one questioned their faith or their devotion to their work and country. Dilip Kumar (Yusuf Khan) was born in Peshawar but he was invariably first off to the border to entertain the troops. As were Nargis and her husband Sunil Dutt. So was Waheeda Rehman. They went because they were full-blooded Indians, committed to the vision of a new nation of Indians bound together by a set of common aspirations and not defined by narrow divisions.
Nargis and husband Sunil Dutt
But the times were changing. When the actor Hrithik Roshan made his debut in his father’s film Kaho Naa Pyar Hai in 2000, the approving comment in certain predictable circles was that the Hindus have now got their answer to Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan. But the real difference they didn’t note was that unlike the earlier generation Muslim actors didn’t have to assume Hindu professional names like Dilip Kumar or Ajeet or Meena Kumari to become endearing to Indian audiences. In that generation only Waheeda Rehman kept her name. But she came somewhat later. The three Khans are still bigger actors than Roshan.
Hrithik Roshan and Amisha Patel in his debut film Kaho Naa Pyar Hai Like always it takes two hands to clap. In 1995, Mani Ratnam released his great movie Bombay. It was the story of Shekhar (Arvind Swamy) and Shaila Bano (Manisha Koirala) and the love that blossoms between them spanning the huge religious and socio-cultural chasm separating the two. The movie was set against the larger backdrop of the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the communal riots that broke out. The movie had some deft direction, brilliant acting and superb music by A.R. Rahman. Incidentally I saw the movie at a private screening hosted by L.K. Advani at the Films Division auditorium in New Delhi. The film also depicted the Advani Rath Yatra. But Advani didn’t seem to mind. He seemed reasonably chastened by the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition.
But the objection to the movie came from another quarter. It was from Syed Shahabuddin who was a leading light in the Babri Masjid Action Committee. Shahabuddin, a former IFS officer and Indian ambassador to Algeria, had serious reservations about Shaila Bano leaving home with a copy of the Quran. His objection seemed to be that once she decided to marry a Hindu she was no longer a Muslim and hence had no business with the Quran. Predictably it was ignored. Shahabuddin either didn’t have the nuisance value of Raj Thackeray or those were still different times?
In the huge outrage in media, real and social, we seem to miss one point. There is not one Pakistan for us to deal and live with. There is the constitutional Pakistan headed by an elected government. There is a dominant military establishment directed by the Army. There is a lunatic fringe of the jihadis, and there is a Pakistani civil society of reasonable people mostly committed to the values our founding fathers cherished and espoused. Yet we now seem unable to separate between them.
While the apparent threat of Indian power and Kashmir gives the Pakistan Army a reason for perpetuating its strangle hold on the country, Kashmir gives the political establishment a ready crop of emotion to harvest. The jihadi lunatic fringe is the tail which seems to wag the dog. Between them they squeeze the civil society that is now our only living link with that country. By hitting at their artistes who are the ambassadors of Pakistani civil society we are only pushing them into the hands of those inimical to India in all respects.
