"India will
remain incredible with or without me – Aamir Khan." The
"Perfectionist" actor Aamir Khan recently accepted his exit as the
"Incredible India" campaign brand ambassador, quoting the above line.
So, better late
than never! At last, Aamir "Intolerant" Khan has been kicked
out from the "IncredibleIndia campaign" (Okay, I can read
between lines "contract not renewed" to be politically correct). But
more than to it, I really wonder why didn't he break the contract by himself,
with all those repercussions when he and his wife had found that "India
had become Intolerant" few months back? I mean how could he still remain a
face of "Incredible India" while in reality he believed it was
"Intolerant India"?
Let me clear,
before anybody tags me with anything opposite to "Liberal or Adarsh
Liberal (I hope you all are aware of these terms)" how I define "free
speech". My definition of free speech is very simple- You are always free
to move your hands the way you wish to and at any speed if you're standing
alone. But if someone is standing near in less than a hands distance, you need
to restrict the movement of your hands because it may hurt the person near you.
Because in that case there will be an immediate reflex action and you can't say
that your freedom is restricted.
In simple terms
there is always a sense of "responsibility" attached to "free
speech".
But human are
humans. It seems that some people have forgotten this sensibility may be
because of abundance of fortunes bestowed upon them in terms of wealth,
accomplishments and affluence. Our age old wisdom says "too much of
everything is always bad". It's a universal truth that everything should
fall into a range. You can reach the boundaries of the range but as soon as you
decide to cross that boundary, you just end up disturbing the general balance
of life. For example…Excessive drinking leads to falling down a lot and cursing
yourself in the morning. Excessive eating leads to bellyaches and obesity.
Excessive speed leads to cliff edges and telephone poles. These are aspects
that most people would agree are harmful.
I wish the
perfectionist Aamir Khan would have given some nit-picker thought to his
"specific and substantial" utterance in terms of
"perfection" before imperfectly making his "private"
conversations with his wife Kiran Rao "public". Before jumping
into the podium to play the sinister game of "Intolerance", he should
have thought about the mega success of his movie Pk that had released on 18
December 2014. At least after seeing the public reactions to Shah Rukh Khan's
statement he should have restricted the movement of his tongue thinking that it
would badly hurt the already wounded fans. Sigh!! He didn't do anything like
that.
When he said
"India has become Intolerant and his wife wants to leave" it was
clear at that very moment that the "intolerance misadventure" itself
had crossed all boundaries.
Believe me, I had
felt like he had tight slapped me particularly because I was the one of the few
who had defended the controversy over his movie Pk on this platform before. I
always believe "art, culture or any creative venture" is beyond any
religion, cast or creed and the people involved with them have no religion
other than the "religion of humanity". But probably my belief is
wrong.
Well, as force
breaks inertial the first law of Newton goes, I must agree that the
"intolerance misadventure" was a really a boon for people because it
broke their siesta and it was actually something that made people wake up from
their deep slumber of "tolerance".
We know about the
aftermath. The immediate reflex action was seen in terms of cacophonous outrage
on Twitter. People realized that "speaking sensibly" was no more a
rule of "free speech". It was one of the most surprising and ironical
moments for the Indian public to see "the brand ambassador of Incredible
India" terming "India as an Intolerant nation". The first target
of anger of people was Snapdeal, which had engaged Aamir as its brand
ambassador. Millions down rated the Snapdeal app and uninstalled it. Snapdeal
was late to react and issued a statement for damage control when the damage had
already been done. The protest continued till Snapdeal was forced to remove
Aamir from its Twitter home page. May be it was a recreated moment of
"Ashahayoga Andolan – The Non co-operation movement" for Indians in
recent times. It was the first time such severe commercial damage had been
inflicted over a mere public statement.
Well, the positive
side of this insidious episode of intolerance was that people broke their inertia
of tolerance. It also cured the "Ghajini" symptoms (short term memory
loss) of Indians who normally forget any kind of offence after a few days.
People haven't forgotten about it so far. Recently the Shah Rukh starrer
"Dilwale" fell flat at the box office and was not that successful
like previous Shah Rukh movies. Irrespective of an apology note from the King
Khan (though it was a business
move) people were seen "tolerantly showing intolerance" in front of
theaters urging movie goers to boycott the film. Never before the winning
argument had to donate the ticket money to charity instead seemed to be
catching the spirit of public.
#BoycottDilwale
and Snapdeal fallouts were clearly successful campaigns, resulting into
commercial disasters and it was perhaps the first time shown what happens when
people lose their tolerance and become "intolerant". Similar fate is
perhaps waiting for the upcoming movie of Aamir Khan "Dangal" as
well. People now understand that "they should hit where it hurts the
most".
Aamir Khan did not
spare a thought before crossing the line, as if there was something waiting for
him more valuable than the "pride of the nation".
India was always
incredible with its pluralistic culture that was the hall mark of its
"tolerance". But a few lost hypocrites (read the gang of people who
jumped into the "intolerance debate") perhaps couldn't digest it and
scratched it for mere self interests.
Moral of the story
is "Dear Aamir Khan – India has
really become incredibly intolerant, because it has stopped its
"tolerance" to be taken for granted".
Well, while people
are rejoicing the ouster moment of removal of Aamir Khan from "Incredible
India" campaign, is there going to be any more award wapsi for this
ouster?
#justasking
