Karan Johar has come up with a video message for all Indians. To be fair to Mr. Johar, he has tried to put his best performance there unlike the “overacting” actors in most of his movies. But I will tell you why this piece of heartbroken video is just a desperate act of a scared man.
Let’s wind our clocks a month back
When Uri Attack happened on 18th September, entire nation was mourning the loss of 19 soldiers. Social media was flooded with posts and messages of agony, pain and need to avenge Uri attack. The entire nation was shaken at the lowly and cowardly hit by Pakistan. The government was under great pressure to retaliate and rightly so. People were not in a mood to forget and forgive this time because it was enough and Indians had lost all patience.
But Karan Johar didn’t find it worthy enough to even condemn or tweet. No problems with that. I get it, with such busy schedules and a film waiting to get released maybe it skipped Karan Johar’s mind.
Then came a raging debate of banning Pakistani artistes. 7 days later A busy Karan Johar, found time to express his opinions, when he got hints that his film can be targeted in which Fawad Khan, a Pakistani actor was in a lead role. He said, and I quote–
“I understand the anger and the 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 ban on Pak artistes). If this was truly a solution, 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.
I feel vulnerable and scared while even saying this. I completely feel the pain and anger. If my film is targeted because of this, it will make me exceptionally sad because my intent was to put out a product out of love and nothing else. I beseech everyone to look at it holistically and understand the situation, that there is a larger situation here and it has nothing to do with banning talent. Let’s look at it from a larger perspective and find the answer.”
I am not somebody who can find the answer. I am nobody in that scheme of things. I am just a filmmaker, telling a love story. Today I feel, I am a vulnerable soft target. I have faced it, felt the repercussions of it in the past and I have constantly combated that.
Sometimes, you just want to fold your hands and say, ‘We are creative industry. Please leave us alone. We make movies, we spread love. There are millions in the world, in our country who are happy with the work we do, allow us that…’ I think we should not be those soft targets anymore. We don’t matter in the scheme of things but we can make things happier and better.”
Well, this news channel interview came after MNS started raising their voices about banning Pakistani artistes. And finally the Uri situation had Karan’s attention. Because, ofcourse, his Ae Dil Hai Mushkil was in Mushkil.
Today Karan Johar’s video message seems to be a hollow rant, a good performance and a desperate attempt to save his movie. Why? Because he can’t afford to lose money. It’s really about the movie and not the nation, otherwise he would have expressed his pain and sentiments right after the Uri Attack, in stead of waiting this long when the fate of his own movie is in doldrums.
Karan Johar says that it took him time to speak because he was deeply hurt by people calling him anti-national. For him India comes first and nothing else matter to him but the country.
We are not here to judge anyone’s patriotism but it’s not just one or few of them who think that. Lot of people have expressed their anger on Karan’s backing Pakistani artistes then.
He goes on to say that all he does is spread love through his cinema which is the best way to express one’s patriotism. (hiring Pakistani artistes and supporting them when they don’t even condemn the Uri attacks and prefer to return to their wretched country, well, it speaks a lot about how deeply he feels for those martyrs)
Karan Johar says that he would of course not make films with Pakistani artistes in the given circumstance but 300 people have put their hard work into the movie Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and they should not suffer on account of other fellow Indians.
Rightly said by Mr. Johar, why should anyone suffer? Because suffering is all for Indian Army to take. They will continue to fight at the borders, continue to die at the hands of enemies, continue to feel cheated by people like Karan Johar, who think banning those Pakistani artistes is not a solution because Oh..Art has no boundary, Literature has no boundary, Music has no boundary- ONLY Soldiers have a boundary and they die for that boundary. While a Jawan selflessly suffers and sacrifices, it’s people like him who get hurt and decide to speak when their movies get stalled at theatres and they fear losing money. Afterall, where was this video message when Uri attack happened? he never expressed how sorry he felt for the martyrs and how pained he was with their losses. Why now?
He says that he respects the Indian Army from all his heart and salutes them for protecting us. He says that he condemns any form of terrorism specially which affects our country and our people. But he possibly doesn’t know that he is a month late to express these sentiments of his. Oh and he says that his romantic movies are a way of expressing patriotism. Why not? We all came out of Student of the Year chanting Vande Mataram.
It’s high time, that people of India call the hypocrisy of his likes. It’s not that Bollywood is incapable of feeling for martyrs, Ajay Devgan, Akshay Kumar, Nawazuddin Sidhiqui and many others have expressed and called for the ban on Pakistani artistes.
Karan’s Dharma creates romantic movies, the Dharma of our army men is Keeping the Nation safe, even at the cost of their lives. Between the two Dharmas, I’ll go for the latter. Any given day.
Jai Hind