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.