November 29, 2015

Remembering Iqbal Yet Again-This Time Courtesy Aamir Khan-Matinee Idol in Tolerant India

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



2 comments:

kage said...

As always, well researched, articulate, cogent, timely and poignant!

kage said...

Divide and rule is alive and well. All the opposition is doing something that always comes naturally to them. Particularly because they feel threatened ; they perhaps perceive that economic and, consequent, social progress would expose the toxicity of their mis-leadership and thus forever weaken their grasp on the productive capacity of the populace.

Some might actually fervently believe that the nation is headed towards a fundamentalist, intolerant future. Others yet might ardently welcome any perceived resistance to a culturally, socially and economically oppressive regime disguised as religion. Others yet might cheer the gradual tendency away from communism and communalism to liberal capitalism.

It would be a truly astute leader who can ignore the straw men and focus simply on the much needed economic metamorphosis. The rest will fall into place.

On the other hand, it might be the mark of a political maestro who uses the oppositions own vehemence to rally the masses against the oppositions' malevolence.

I can only pray for the former, hope for the latter, and wish for all Indians to choose wisely in every subsequent poll; because a country doesn't get the leadership it desires, it gets the one it deserves.