Popular actor Shah Rukh Khan, known as the ‘King of Bollywood’, has completed 27 years in the Indian film industry. He has been known for his work in films like ‘Darr’, ‘Baazigar’, ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’, ‘Swades’, ‘Chak De India’ etc, for which he has been showered with love from the affectionate audience. Fans adulated him so much that Shah Rukh Khan was once considered as the ‘lifeline of Bollywood.’
However, millions of his Indian fans were heartbroken when Shah Rukh Khan in an interview to India Today had said that intolerance in India was on the rise, and the tolerance level in people was constantly decreasing. Needless to say, in an extremely tolerant and peace-loving India, people didn’t take Shah Rukh’s distasteful comments lightly and since then, his films have hardly fared at the box office. His previous release ‘Zero’ tanked at the box office without a credible fight. Consequently, he made a statement, “I don’t feel like doing more films right now.”
Last year, Shah Rukh Khan’s much-awaited film ‘Zero’ had released at the box office, and Shah Rukh had high expectations from the same. This was so because, since 2013, when Chennai Express had released to mindboggling revenues at the box office, no film of Shah Rukh Khan has managed to earn the status of a ‘Blockbuster’ domestically. Right now, the situation is such that none of the Shah Rukh Khan movies are even in the top 10 list of the highest grossing Bollywood movies. Even Chennai Express comes at the 11th place overall. Likewise, ‘Zero’ flopped as well, becoming another addition to Shah Rukh’s ignominious list of unsuccessful films in Bollywood.
Shah Rukh Khan is so dejected after the failure of Zero, that he hasn’t signed any new film as of now. He even turned down the much-awaited biopic on India’s first space traveller, the then Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma, titled ‘Saare Jahan Se Achcha’. Recently in a statement to the media, he said, “Right now I’m not working in any movie. Normally when I finish one movie, I start working in another. In this way, I’m busy for the next three-four months. But after working in ‘Zero’, my heart does not allow me to work on more films. I feel that I need some time, watch some films, listen to stories and read more and more books.”
However, Shah Rukh had written his own downfall in 2015. He had then given an interview to India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai. When he was asked as to whether intolerance existed in India, Shah Rukh had this to say, “Yes, intolerance has increased in India. Extreme intolerance is rising by leaps and bounds in India. People are raising doubts mid air without even thinking once about the repercussions. On one side we talk about a new India, a modern India, but we just talk, and for many, this country is still ‘secular’.” He even suggested to the youth to stay away from religious intolerance.
Shah Rukh Khan was highly castigated for his comments on the social media, and people called for the boycott of his movies, and consequently, none of his films have fared very well on the box office since then. Since 2015, Khan got 6 films released, of which ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ and ‘Zero’ sank without a trace, ‘Dilwale’ and ‘Dear Zindagi’ were just simple hits, and ‘Raees’ and ‘Fan’ barely managed to recover their costs in terms of domestic collections. Now the situation is such that Shah Rukh Khan doesn’t want to do any movies.
India is the world’s largest democracy, where everyone is allowed to practice the religion of their choice. This is not all, where people from different religions co-exist peacefully since time immemorial. However, post the victory of Narendra Modi in the 2014 elections, there has been an increase in the activities of the ‘Intolerance Gang’, who wail ‘intolerance’ at the drop of hat. This is why people have completely rejected Shah Rukh Khan, and his career is on the way to an ignominious decline.