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If you stand by India against Pakistan, ban on actors is justified

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Surendra Veer Vikram Singh
Surendra Veer Vikram SinghOct 06, 2016 | 13:13

If you stand by India against Pakistan, ban on actors is justified

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul.” - John Keats

India, in the last two weeks, has witnessed testing and turbulent times, and it continues. Looking back, it was September 18, 2016, when terrorists infiltrated from across Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK), attacked an Indian Army camp in Uri in Kashmir with grenades, and opened fire at security personnel. Eventually, 19 soldiers laid down their lives for their motherland.

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The whole nation mourned their death. People felt enraged, sentiments flared.

In this narrative of what should have been a collective unified sentiment of rage, there is a sub-narrative that warrants a deeper dive. And these were the statements coming from the Hindi film industry, from those who enjoy celebrity status and hold a large public appeal.

The rue began on September 23 when Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) issued an ultimatum to Pakistani artists working in Bollywood to leave the country within 48 hours, amid tensions between India and Pakistan.

Film producer Karan Johar took the first hit when he reacted by saying: "I understand the anger and anguish that surround us and I empathise, my heart bleeds for the lost lives. There is nothing that can justify this terrible feeling of terror. Then you are faced in a situation such as this (asking for a ban on Pakistani artists). If this was truly a solution, then one would take it. But this is not a solution. I don’t believe it is. The larger forces have to come together and sort the situation and this cannot be banning talent or art."

To be noted, Johar’s film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil starring Pakistani actor Fawad Khan is pitched as one of the most awaited releases of this year on Diwali. 

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Soon it was Salman Khan joining the bandwagon, rejecting the demand for a ban on Pakistani artists.

When asked to comment on the matter at a press conference, he said: "They are artists. We have killed the terrorists. Artists are not terrorists. These are two different subjects. They come to our country after acquiring a visa, and it’s our government who allows them the work permit. The ideal situation would have been love and peace, but now it has happened, so obviously it was a reaction to some people’s action. In this day and age, I feel handling things with love and peace would have been better, especially for common people. But after Uri attacks, it seems (like) proper action because they were terrorists."

Soon more flurry of support followed. While the sub-narrative continued to play, the government of India had already started pressing to make Pakistan accept the responsibility of the Uri attack, backed by the evidence that trained terrorists came from across the Line of Control (LoC).

However, Pakistan’s repeated denial pushed India to manoeuvre the isolation of the neighbouring country in the international arena.

Coming back to the sub-plot, a certain section of the Hindi film fraternity came forward in unequivocal support of the government’s strategic stance.

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In particular, film actor Randeep Hooda, in articulated tweets, wrote: “We are trying to isolate Pakistan economically and diplomatically so cultural isolation must follow #BanPakArtists #IndiaComesFirst #India.” He further tweeted: “It is only by isolation that the people of Pakistan will be able to pressure their government and army to act against the #terror organisations.”

Before one tries to understand why we should or should not ban Pakistani artists working in India, let’s dig a bit deeper. If we watched the media frenzy and countless TV debates on the same, we heard people making arguments like "art has no boundaries", "we should talk peace, not war", "it’s the responsibility of the governments to deal with the issue", "kill terrorists, not talks" and other such. All these banalities, generally, coax one’s mind to think along similar lines. But the issue is not as simple as it seems.

Before we begin to fall for the comfortable narratives around, let’s pause, learn the definitions and role of words in the vocabulary we use frequently – art and artist, nation state and citizen, and war and soldier.

Unless there’s an alignment between these three combinations, any country would be staring straight into irreversible catastrophes in the near future.

Let’s move now to complex peeling of simple semantics. Art is a form of human expression. It won’t be wrong to say that it signifies human evolution. In Leo Tolstoy’s words: “To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced, and… then, by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling - this is the activity of art.”

soldier1-embed_100616010258.jpg
We haven’t ever heard a gunfire shot, let alone imagine the scenario of war and dying of a bullet or grenade explosion. (Photo credit: India Today) 

Expressing a set of simple and complex human emotions in different forms is an artist’s job. Nonetheless, art requires truthfulness and honesty as a prerequisite, with a pinch of salt, often to make us realise, as humans, how far we have come. Pablo Picasso once said: “We all know art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth.”

Let’s begin with art and artists. The moderate ambivalence in the current state of affairs may allow the esteemed list of artists in the film industry, from both countries, to claim a temporary moral high ground. However, that comes with the responsibility of showing morality in its entirety, not in selective ommision.

Not by themselves, but when Pakistani artists in Mumbai were requested to condemn the Uri attack as an act of terrorism at least as a goodwill gesture, they refused and silently left the country.

Here, it would be interesting to recollect memory from 2014 when terrorists cowardly attacked a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, and 132 children were killed. That was the moment of grief and people from both countries mourned together.

When talking about the incident in a TV show, not able to accept the gruesome attack, some Pakistani artists broke down in tears. Terrorism has no borders and Peshawar was an act of terrorism. They even condemned the act of terror in far-off lands in Paris.

The borders only arose in the minds of the same Pakistani artists when the act of terror was unleashed on Indian soil. Whatever may be the circumstances, it is difficult to ignore hypocrisy.

Second, a nation state is a large group of people with strong bonds of identity, sovereignly governed by a political entity within its borders. As defined, people who share the strong bond of identity of a nation – citizens - think “for” the nation collectively.

There is an argument floated generally in times of crisis that “the world is one” and “humanity is borderless". That might be philosophically true, but one needs to get real that the nation state is a reality. We don’t live in John Lennon’s Imagine.

There is no doubt about helping and serving humanity, but without losing the sense of justice and righteousness.

People from both countries who are all for “peace and talk” and appealing that art and artists should be exceptions to turbulent relations between India and Pakistan because they bring people together, were quiet for 43 years when Indian films were banned in Pakistan following the 1965 War until 2008, only to be banned again after the Uri attack.

They were quiet when actor Anupam Kher was denied a visa to travel to Pakistan. They were also quiet when director Kabir Khan was heckled at Karachi airport.

These accounts are only to present the hollowness of some people’s claim to the moral high ground and unjust advocacy of peace talks.

When the nation is going through tough times, when its sovereignty is challenged and humanity is compromised, as a citizen, there must prevail a stronger and collective sense of sympathy, solidarity with fellow citizens and a larger sense of justice in the wake of national interest.

Indian film artists who do not support the boycott of Pakistani film artists, perhaps, haven’t understood what this boycott stands for. This is, in essence, a small supporting gesture towards those fellow citizens facing the tough fist of terrorism; this is the least the film fraternity can do to demonstrate their collective support for the nation and the government in its strike against terror and a terror sponsoring state; this is a small gesture to claim that we can coexist with only those likeminded nations and people who are for humanity and condemn terrorism unapologetically in unison.

All these gestures depict only one thing: that we, the people of India, are together and stand by each other.

Mahatma Gandhi started the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920. It was a collective boycott by citizens against the colonial oppressor to register a strong protest against the atrocities, which would hurt the oppressor economically.

In other words, in today’s world, what are the sanctions put against non-abiding nations? It is an economic non-cooperative measure taken by the responsible nations. Similarly, here, cultural boycott is a strong gesture of protest against terrorism and a terror-sponsoring state.

War, by definition, is a state of armed conflict between two or more states/non-states. With the history of India-Pakistan conflict taught in schools, almost every citizen in India knows it in honest terms.

The conflict, which was between only two states earlier, is no more. Pakistan, along with all its military might, now fights the war with India along with jihadis and terrorists.

One should not shy away from calling a spade a spade, be it a celebrity or a common citizen. Leave the political correctness for politicians. Art, in particular doesn’t resonate with dishonesty, and this demands artists to remain outright honest.

Amid the war and the proxy war waged against India, the person who is gambling with his life to protect the sovereignty of the nation is the soldier on the frontline, so that we in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai and the rest of India can talk about morality sitting in our cushy air-conditioned homes.

We haven’t ever heard a gunfire shot, let alone imagine the scenario of war and dying of a bullet or grenade explosion. We don’t know the cost incurred for our security, which is paid for in lives than the money we can think of. Do we have thoughts for the slain soldier?

As a fellow citizen, how do we support, empathise with and show solidarity with his family? We haven’t lost our kin on the battleground in order to understand the pain of the martyred soldier’s family.

Generations of soldiers have defended the nation for decades and the structure of this strong and peaceful nation stands upon the corpses of slain soldiers.

For the people claiming that artists are not terrorists and we have good relations, sample a simple analogy: suppose you are regularly hit and abused by the son of your longtime friend, and your friend keeps mum against the wrongdoings of his son.

How long will you be friends with an unjust and biased person on account of your separate relationship with him and not include his son in the equation? Also, what solidarity would you feel if your son becomes friends with your abuser on account of having a separate and independent relationship with him?

Shallowness of character and duplicity of actions is easily detectable in challenging times. It is convenient to believe we’re not in the war, so that we don’t have to pay the cost.

The intelligentsia in India sells us the notion of peace at a micro level, camouflaged with art and culture. On the contrary, art and culture cannot exist, survive and flourish without peace.

As film director and producer Vivek Agnihotri noted: “Art doesn’t take place in vacuum. It takes place in a society.”

Hence, as a society and nation, this is the time to stand together against terrorism.

Last updated: October 06, 2016 | 13:13
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