Aamir Khan is known to be an
intelligent actor and a person. A large number of persons have vouched that he
does not say or utter anything unless he means it. He has himself reiterated
that he stands by all that he stated during that infamous interview on 23rd
November 2015 at Ramnath Goenka Awards for Excellence in Journalism 2015. Aamir has been able to evoke or rather provoke the response that
he must have desired. Even I felt compelled to analyze the reasons that
motivated him to make that statement. In fact, the thought that came to my
mind, in response to Aamir's utterance was involuntary. I got reminded of Allama
Muhammad Iqbal. It is because, Iqbal was perhaps unique in exhibiting the
change of heart from flip to flop. It was Iqbal who wrote Tarana-e-Hind
(Anthem Of India) ' Saare Jahan Se Achha Hindostan Hamara' which remains
even today ( and will remain, forever, the best known unofficial Anthem of
India). And he was the one who later authored and moved the paper on ' Two
Nation Theory' which Jinnah translated into a demand for partition of India to
carve out a separate nation for Muslims.
(See the Reference 1
below.
The reference also includes
Iqbal's transformation and another version of 'Sare Jahan se Achha' which he
now titled as 'Tarana-e-Milli'. A semblance of (a worldwide) Islamic
State is noticeable in this poem.
Also included is another link
which gives another interpretation of Iqbal's thoughts on Muslims in India and
on India at large. )
Aamir
is a brand ambassador for the campaign 'Atithi Devo Bhav- Incredible
India' launched by the Union Ministry of Tourism. Aamir endorses the
campaign at various platforms across the mass media and therein he
extols the greatness of India and Indians (himself included) who treat every
guest as a god. He thereby beckons all foreigners to come visiting India
without fear. (See the Reference 2 below)
Aamir also produced and hosted 'Satyamev Jayate' , a highly acclaimed TV Series. Not only was there no opposition to his content and exposition, but also both the Series and Aamir received all round praise including even from Bal Thakre, a self proclaimed Bete Noire of all Muslims and all things Islamic.
Now Aamir too has done an about turn and exhibited change of heart similar to Iqbal's.
Agreed that Aamir Khan was made a brand ambassador during the Congress regime but he has not been eased out as yet.
Iqbal was not comfortable
with Nehru and Gandhi. He did not trust even Maulana Abul Kalam - one of
Aamir Khan's ancestors (See Reference 3 below).
May be Aamir is uncomfortable
with the current Prime Minister for some reasons best known to himself.
I am totally confused.
Is it Aamir who is
uncomfortable with being in India or is it Kiran Rao who is actually concerned
(and with what is another moot point)?
I get the feeling that it is
Kiran Rao, who is afraid of intolerance owing to her being a true
secularist, having descended from time-honoured inter-religious nobility of
Hyderabad (See Reference 4 below).
And because of the above mentioned fact, the intolerance that Kiran is afraid of, is not exhibited by any Hindu organization but the one manifested by the increasingly unfettered rise of radicals like Owaisis who would want total submission (staring with conversion) from independent and secular women like Kiran Rao.
Alternatively, it may be that Kiran Rao has been feeling uneasy at home with Aamir and has bravely expressed that she was afraid for her son going wayward like Aamir. She might have wanted to leave and live separately far removed from Aamir to minimize his interference with her life and to eliminate his influence on her son. In the process, she might have considered moving to a foreign country as a wise, easy and viable option. There exist any number of examples, where a wife having irreconcilable problems with her husband, has exercised this ostensibly amicable option, has made a clean break and has lived happily thereafter.
It is also notable that Aamir is a kind of a history-sheeter in familial disharmony. He ditched Reena. His treatment of his brother Faisal and his problem with his own father are well documented and are in the public domain (See Reference 5 below.)
Aamirs's penchant for one-upmanship (rather brinkmanship) has soured his relations with many of his friends and colleagues in Bollywood. Juhi Chawla, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan would have volumes to speak about his shenanigans. There would certainly be many others who would have felt abraded by his ‘holier than thou’ attitude.
Aamir Khan is, without doubt, a past master of the craft of turning an adversity into an opportunity. (See Reference 5 below). And contemporary Indian electronic media is very happy to provide a mega stage to anyone who can take a pot shot at the current dispensation at the center.
Whatever be his reasons for the
statements he made, I am pretty sure that Aamir will not leave this country
because he must be aware that he is of any value only in India. In Pakistan, he
will be treated as a Mohajir and a second class citizen unless he shows that he
is the fountain head of a crime or terrorist organization a la Dawood Ibrahim.
In any other country, he will be treated according to vocation he adopts and
the success he achieves for which there is no guarantee because he would have
to start from scratch in untested grounds and unfamiliar ambience.
In fact, I would like Aamir to join politics, win an election and be part of a government and set all wrongs right to make India the ideal, secular, progressive nation with all Indians living happy, safe, healthy and wealthy lives forever, irrespective of caste, creed, religion, gender, colour and any other conceivable physical and mental parameter of distinction or discrimination.
Iqbal was perhaps lucky to have died before creation of Pakistan. He may well be turning in his grave seeing the culmination of his efforts into creation of Pakistan and decadence that has become the way of life in that country.
I would not wish Aamir Khan to meet the same fate in India or any other place.
Finally, in the unlikely event of his actually thinking of migrating away from India for the reason stated by him, I would exhort him by saying ‘Mat bhaag ro roke mat bhaag’. It is in ‘Tolerant India’
that idiocies like PK and DK (Bose) are not only tolerated but ironically also appreciated, enjoyed
and encouraged to thrive.
References
1. "The poet
philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), (the poet of East),
provided the philosophical exposition and BarristerMuhammad Ali Jinnah (1871–1948) translated it into the political reality
of a nation-state. Allama Iqbal's presidential address to the Muslim League on December 29, 1930 is seen by some as the first
exposition of the two-nation theory in support of what would ultimately
become Pakistan."
Excerpt From
Iqbal's
transformation and Tarana-e-Milli
In
1910, Iqbal wrote another song for children, Tarana-e-Milli (Anthem
of the Religious Community), which was composed in the same metre and rhyme
scheme as Saare Jahan Se Achcha, but which
renounced much of the sentiment of the earlier song. The sixth stanza
of Saare Jahan Se Achcha (1904), which is often quoted
as proof of Iqbal's secular outlook
Maẕhab nahīṉ sikhātā āpas meṉ bair
rakhnā
Hindī
haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai Hindūstāṉ hamārā
(Religion
does not teach us to bear ill-will among ourselve
We are
of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.
contrasted
significantly with the first stanza of Tarana-e-Milli (1910)
reads: Cīn o-ʿArab hamārā, Hindūstāṉ hamār
Muslim
haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai sārā jahāṉ hamārā
(Central
Asia and Arabia are ours, Hindoostan is ours
We are
Muslims, the whole world is our homeland)
Iqbal's
world view had now changed; it had become both global and Islamic. Instead of
singing of Hindustan, "our homeland," the new song proclaimed that
"our homeland is the whole world." Two decades later, in his
presidential address to the Muslim League annual conference in Allahabad in 1930, he was to support a separate nation-state in the Muslim majority areas of the sub-continent, an
idea that inspired the creation of Pakistan
3. He is related to the
Indian philosopher Abul Kalam Azad who
is related to him through his grandmother.
excerpt from
4. Kiran Rao and actor
Aditi Rao Hydari are maternal first cousins. Hydari’s maternal grandfather, J
Rameshwar Rao was the Raja of Wanaparthy, a town in Mahbubnagar district while
her fraternal grandfather Sir Akbar Hydari was the Prime Minister of Hyderabad
State.
Excerpt from
5. Aamir's troubled relation with
father
