We erect huge facades for celebrities. And maybe that is the reason for us undermining their individuality. This is to say that, we expect them to do a lot of things and say a lot of stuff or not say particular things and in this we undermine their capacity of being just another human and citizen with same messed up life and most importantly, the right to an opinion, just as anybody from amongst the magnitude of 1.25 bn. has. To us, they must do what we expect of them and not what they want.
It's just like yesterday when all the opinion platforms were stormed in a reaction to an apprehension of one of the most acclaimed actor, Aamir Khan, which he rather braved to voice and notwithstanding the tornado his way, stood by. And in the continuum to this sad state, we again had an almost same episode repeated.
Just less than a week ago another person, again an acclaimed celebrity, took the same path and boldly voiced his opinion or anger to be more precise, against what he called “forced religiousness”. In a series of tweets, starting from his own situation of being awakened by the sound of amplified Azaan to a general comment on temples and gurudwaras. Just as the celeb maintained the bold tradition of speaking up on issues that matter them, “we the people” also didn’t fail to maintain our’s, that of blowing things out of context and condemn in silence, the one who dares to speak up.
Though the issues in the both the cases were different they had a lot of similarities. From being presented as targeted against a particular group, implicitly against Hindus in Aamir’s case and Muslims in Sonu’s – the whataboutery in response – the violent threats and abuses – or the worst, vulgar abuses on the women in their families. All these things boiled down to the same level.
Except for the similar reception, there was one more surprising commonality in the both.
Aamir said that he feels worried about the safety of his family on account of rising intolerance, which was proved to be well founded, considering the reactionary storm it led to and then Sonu ended the series of his tweets with a note “ Gundagardi hai bus”, which again was proved quite germane by the reaction it bumped into.
Apart from the similar contours of reception, the central ideas were quite similar as well and unfortunately though, the elephant in the room, went unaddressed both the time.
Aamir raised a pertinent question. And what would have led to a serious introspection of the collective conscience of us as a society, was misinterpreted, deliberately enough. The thing to worry about then was that we have come to point where one of the most loved Bollywood stars has started to feel insecure, just because of the background he comes from and what might be the level of fear in commoners sharing the same background. But thanks to the mess we made, we missed a chance of self-assessment as a society. Demagogues then went so far as to question his patriotism and many even had the audacity to certify him as an ‘Anti-National’.
Similarly, Sonu Nigam also had a germane point. And what should have been taken up as a question on the legitimacy of putting our prayers and call to them on loudspeakers, was mispresented as a bigoted comment on Azaan itself, when all the celeb questioned was the loudspeaker. Maybe he was well aware of the reaction that it would incur, he also made his stand on all religions clear. But that wasn’t what few sought, to them the line had been scratched on the stone, and Sonu Nigam ceased to be a brilliant singer and now was just a ‘Sanghi’, ‘Modi Bhakt’, ‘An Islamophobe’ and what not.
One couldn’t have expected any better from the society we are, but there is a thing this time which is more worrisome. Identifying as a free thinker one had a faith in a handful of our compatriots, who always held the flag of freedom of speech high and they were the very first to come into the support of Aamir when he was targeted but this time neither these people showed up nor did the flag they earlier held high. The articles, editorials, cartoons, debates and discussions were all missing, and I’m talking of those in positive natures. And in fact, the opposite happened. The very people who used to stand for big principles, were in different notes this time. Few chose to remain silent and the rest had the hypocrisy of setting an intellectual precedence to the diatribe that was being channelised Sonu’s way.
This has made few things very clear. Primarily, the people who were thought to be very bold on their opinions ain’t bold enough and secondarily, the so far neutral commentators deemed to be upholding rationality ain’t unbiased enough. In fact, this was what the right wing often talk of these people. It seems there neutrality has lost to their set audience and that very audience holds more importance than intellectual honesty. They appear to be idolaters of the preconceived truths, and of course ‘liberal’, and inquiry has become tantamount to blasphemy. This is alarming. This implies that we are genuinely short of rational people and all we have are some right wingers and some tunnel visioned, though self-proclaimed liberals.
And for free thinkers out there, people you are in difficult times. You can’t air your opinions boldly now. You have to conform to the opinion of these people, else be ready to be branded as ‘Bigots’, ‘Bhakts’ or ‘Anti-Nationals’, ‘Pseudo-liberals’ and ‘Sickulars’.
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