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A sorry tale of two films

A sorry tale of two films

Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: May 29, 2006
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/290506-editorial.html

Aamir Khan is easily one of the best actors of his generation. Thoughtful in choosing scripts, he emotes well on the screen, and, what is more, displays a certain devotion to the one or two projects he does at a time without being distracted by a common failing of most actors of his age to sign as many films as come their way before fickle box-office success turns its back on them.

And unlike most actors, Aamir hitherto was an intensely private man, refusing to play ball with the tittle- tattle film press. However it seems the political bug bit him ever since the stupendous success of one of his recent films. He apparently has this erroneous impression that the shoddy political content in that film accounted for its box-office appeal.

The success of that film did not in any way sanction the innuendoes and lies his character flung at a senior minister in the NDA Government. The truth is that contrary to the propaganda by the then opposition Congress Party not a single coffin was actually imported.

Two years ago when Manmohan Singh became Prime Minister, George Fernandes challenged him to have the charge examined by the CBI so that the canard could be exposed once for all.

Two years later, the PM was yet to acknowledge the letter from the senior opposition leader! Who was behind giving currency to that low-level conspiracy need not detain us here. Suffice it to say that the Khan film picked up that lie and gave it wings in his super-duper hit.

Indeed, it was at the time of the release of that film that Aaamir Khan also plunged into the Narmada controversy. As a respected and well-known citizen, he has every right to express his opinion, take sides in a divisive debate and have himself counted one way or the other for all that it matters. But then the other side too cannot be denied a chance to respond whichever way it deems fit so long as it is within the four corners of the law.

That is precisely the other side in the Sardar Sarovar dam dispute has done. It is noteworthy that the ban on the latest Aamir starrer ` Fanaa' has not been imposed by the Gujarat Government, though the Modi obsessed secularist media can be excused for being blind to that fact.

The ban has been inspired by a section of the ruling BJP and the Gujarat exhibitors' association. Together they have decided to protest against Aamir's illinformed intervention in the Narmada controversy. Secularists who combat their own poverty by bashing Modi day in and day out too would do well to remember that the Gujarat unit of the Congress Party has fully endorsed the boycott of the Aamir film.

Admittedly, the right of Aamir Khan and others to screen `Fanaa' in Gujarat has been curbed on an extraneous issue wholly unrelated to the quality of the film. Even the fans of Aamir Khan and numerous others in Gujarat who may not necessarily be in agreement with the actor's views on the Narmada project might feel aggrieved at the denial of an opportunity to see his latest film. But then Narmada is an emotive issue with the people in Gujarat.

And when you choose to hurt emotions by expressing ill-informed and untenable opinions, which get wide currency not because of what is said but because who is saying it, Aamir ought to be prepared to pay the price for his half-baked activism. Being Aamir Khan, it is not surprising that he is anti-BJP.

But the question is: must he be anti Narmada project, too? Times without number various authorities in Gujarat have reiterated that they are not lagging in the relief and rehabilitation of the oustees of the dam. Before jumping into the Narmada fray, Khan ought to have boned up on basic facts. Professional `jhollawallahas' do not hold a monopoly on truth. Nor are they the sole promoters of public welfare.

Quite clearly, Khan is confused. He latched on the anti-Narmada bandwagon in the mistaken belief that it was a Modi project. It might be painful for him to acknowledge that even the `secular' Congress Party of Sonia Gandhi is one with those who have kept `Fanaa' out of Gujarat theatres.

As for his concern for creative freedom, it will be courageous of him to lead a protest against the Congress Chief Minister Amarinder Singh for the latter's decision to ban the screening of `The Da Vinci Code' in Punjab. There can be no justification for such a ban after the film had been duly certified for screening by the censor board.

Singh in all probability did not have the minuscule Christian population in his state but someone else in Delhi when he unilaterally imposed that ban. The ban on the Code is most deplorable. The State is expected to uphold basic freedoms of the people, not suppress them.

Of course the peoples' ban on `Fanaa' in Gujarat too is regrettable, though Aamir could have done more to assuage their feelings of hurt, instead of offending them further on the eve of the release of the film.


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