A few years ago when Salman Khan got to know that the words that he was supposed to mouth for an AIDS awareness video were written by Javed Akhtar he simply got up and left the shoot. The young assistant director who was assigned to Khan did not know how to react.
There are many instances within the film industry where a professional rift between two artists has gone on to create camps and sometimes careers have come to a crashing end due to this. This incident is hearsay, of course, and so is the whole episode of Vivek Oberoi being ostracized by the film fraternity for calling Salman out when the former was supposedly dating the latter’s rumored ex-paramour.
Salman Khan’s recent statement backing Pakistani actors saying that they were artists and not terrorists after the Mumbai-based Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) passed a resolution to ban Pakistani actors from the industry in the wake of the Uri attack, reeks of hypocrisy.
Salman Khan does not work with anyone who has caused him or his family or, in some cases, even his close friends any harm but readily forgets this when it comes to the soldier guarding the border.
Some might argue that Salman Khan’s personal stance should not be compared with a national situation but isn’t a nation made of individuals? There is a great deal of truth in what Salman has said. Many of us would agree with him that the likes of Fawad Khan and Ali Zafar aren’t terrorists but they do support a regime and an Army that functions on the core idea of destroying India. So, while Salman Khan praises the Indian army for its surgical strikes, his batting for the Pakistani actors by saying that they are non-state performers at the same time somewhere supports the Pakistan cause?
Fueled by the likes of Salman Khan and Karan Johar, who waxed eloquent about how banning Fawad Khan is not going to stop terrorism, the Pakistani press has gone on to say that its actors do not need Bollywood or India as much as we need them.
Truth be told, no one in the world would have cared about a Salma Agha or a Fawad Khan or an Ali Zafar or a Rahat Fateh Ali Khan or an Atif Aslam as much had it not for Hindi cinema. Even in the late 1980s and early 1990s, singers such as Hassan Jahangir and Ali Haider rose to global fame only after they featured in India.
One of the biggest platforms that the recent bunch of Pakistani actors has enjoyed has been Zee’s Zindagi channel that transformed Fawad Khan and Mahira amongst others into overnight sensations. Launched with the aim of bridging gap between India and Pakistan, Zee’s chairman Subhash Chandra is said to have requested Pakistani actors to condemn the Uri attack, but they refused to do so. Following this, Goel withdrew Pakistani shows and said that Rs 60 crore loss was "not important" but “country's pride and countrymen's feelings are.”
A handful of journalists and opinion makers have somehow reduced patriotism and the decision to put the interest of one’s nation before everything else to be an unintelligent trait.
But the simple fact remains that praising the Army for protecting the border against Pakistan and working with Pakistani actors who earn a living here yet dare not utter a word against their country’s anti-India campaign does not reveal a first rate brain that can hold two opposing thoughts and continue to function.
In fact, hearing Karan Johar fight Fawad Khan’s case or Salman Khan suggest that because the Indian government issues work permits to the Pakistani actors it’s fine to work with them is a sorry experience.
Are we to take what Karan Johar says seriously when he won’t work with Ajay Devgn because of some bad blood between him and the actor or listen to Salman Khan’s pearls of wisdom when he doesn’t bat an eyelid in making camps based on his prevailing mood seriously? These gentlemen think they understand human emotions because of the art they create but in reality lack basic sympathy and common sense.
Perhaps that is why hearing Nana Patekar’s straight talk on the whole issue restores faith in that not all in Bollywood are the same. Maybe in the future, like Subhash Chandra said relations between India and Pakistan might improve and no doors are closed permanently but for the moment when the Army is on a war footing to articulate the importance of Fawad Khan over the soldier who guards the border only reveals the mind of an ingrate.
(Gautam Chintamani is the author of the best-selling Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna (2014) and was on National Film Awards jury for Best Writing on Cinema in 2016.)
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