Hello, friends! Shah Rukh Khan's new film Pathaan is about to be released on 25th January. And the way this film was targeted.
Perhaps no other film in our nation was targeted so bad. Several months ago, when even the teaser of this film wasn't released, some people were trying to protest against this film. And when the song Besharam Rang filmed on Deepika Padukone came out, the targeting reached an extreme level.
"We have burned Shah Rukh Khan's poster, and I'm seeing if I can get my hands on him, Jihadi Shah Rukh Khan. " The ruckus is caused under the #BoycottBollywood narrative. Wherein some people claim that Bollywood films are Hinduphobic.
The entire Bollywood industry is against all Hindus, that it attacks Hinduism, and Muslims are always portrayed in a positive light in Bollywood films. Pathaan isn't the first film to be facing such allegations. Previously, several other films have been accused similarly.
Boycott trends had been started. Laal Singh Chaddha, Shamshera, Raksha Bandhan, Brahmastra, Tandav, Aashram, Article 15, Ludo, A Suitable Boy, Laxmi, Even before these, the Sacred Games, Leila, Toofan, PK, Oh My God, and Kedarnath. This list of so-called Hinduphobic list keeps getting longer with each day.
Apart from films, some songs are also termed Anti-Hindu nowadays, such as the song Radha from Student of the Year. Some Twitter accounts have also popped up, that share clips from old films, to say that the film that you watched 10 or even 20 years ago, was Anti-Hindu. I'm not kidding.
They're targeting films from the 1980s, and 1990s, and tagging them as Anti-Hindu. Films like Sholay, Deewar, and Vaastav. Films like Karan-Arjun.
They are looking up scenes in these to share to claim that it was Anti-Hindu. "Swear by this Gita. I will not swear by the Gita, Your Honour.
Why? Are you not a Hindu? I am a Hindu, Your Honour.
But before being a Hindu, I am an Indian. " The question arises, is Bollywood truly anti-Hindu? Come, let's try to find out.
"Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone's film Pathaan has been facing a boycott trend. "Shah Rukh Khan is shameless, not the colour. " "Deepika Padukone is Muslim.
" "When will the politicians speak up on unemployment ruining the youth? " "Every religion0 has chosen a colour, but colours do not have a religion. " Before we investigate the whole Bollywood industry, come let's take a look at Pathaan.
Why was the film Pathaan declared Hinduphobic? Friends, this controversy took off when the song Besharam Rang was released. In this song, Deepika Padukone wore different coloured costumes.
One of them was saffron/orange coloured. The people who were offended, said that the words Besharam Rang [shameless colour] claimed that the colour saffron is shameless. That we're saying orange should be ashamed.
So the question is, in Bollywood film Pathaan's song Besharam Rang, what does the lyricist mean by the term shameless colour? Friends, there's another song in which the colour orange was used. We need to decode that as well.
"Baby is dancing drunk on beer. " In 1995's film DDLJ, Kajol said, "let me get a bit tipsy. Let me see the world.
" The literary world was engulfed in the debate on how can one get tipsy. After a long journey to enlightenment, lyricist Manoj Tiwari came out with the solution, one can get tipsy by drinking beer. Cha cha cha.
It's weird that whenever someone has a connection with the BJP, no one feels offended. All the boycott hashtags disappear. Is it that the people running this boycott narrative are affiliated with a political party?
What do you think? Whenever people like Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan are involved in something suddenly the floodgates are thrown open, and they get hurt to such an extent and want to let others know how offended they are. "They wanted to show a shameless colour, they'll have to face criticism now.
" "Why didn't they show green colour? " "The colour isn't shameful. Shah Rukh Khan is!
" "You can use the colour, but how can you term it shameless? " *Such hypocrisy. * Shah Rukh Khan, a Muslim, married to a Hindu woman Gouri.
An actor who visits Mecca as well as to the Vaishnodevi shrine. He celebrates Eid and Diwali both. In his films, he has played numerous Hindu characters.
Whether that's Rahul or Raj. "I am Raj Aryan. " "I'm Rahul, you would've heard about me.
" But he has also played numerous Muslim characters as well. Whether that's in My Name is Khan, or in Chak De, India. In his home, they practise Hindu worship and Muslim worship both.
And to the world, he represents India. "Remember the Gayatri Mantra. The main worship will be done by him.
-Allah. -Okay. -Thank you, Allah.
-Thank you, Allah. " In 2015, Shah Rukh Khan made a statement, that religious intolerance is a terrible thing. If it increases, India will be pushed into the Dark Ages.
"In our country, we keep on talking about religion. we're gonna go back to the dark ages. " That's sensible.
After all, which country would benefit from religious intolerance? But based on this one statement, Shah Rukh Khan was labelled anti-national, by BJP politician Kailash Vijayvargiya. VHP member Prachi called SRK a Pakistani agent.
"Shah Rukh Khan is definitely a Pakistani agent. " And UP's CM Adityanath, compared SRK with the terrorist Hafiz Saeed. "I see no difference in Shah Rukh Khan's speeches and Hafiz Saeed's.
" It's not surprising that a liberal, secular, Muslim actor like SRK, became very problematic for the religious extremists of both religions. People who want to divide the country based on religion, This was very problematic for their agenda that the top actor of the country was promoting unity and brotherhood between both religions. "My wife's a Hindu and I'm a Muslim.
And my children are Indian. " Friends, this is the real reason. The excuse about colour is simply a front.
If for argument's sake, you believe that orange is a very important colour in the Hindu religion, you can ask, which colour could they have used if not orange. If you use the colour blue, blue is also an important colour in the religion. The colour of Lord Shiva.
He is known as the Neelkanth. Yellow? That's the colour of Lord Krishna's clothes, Pitambar.
If you use Green colour, they'll claim that it is the colour of Muslims. So which colour remains? Shall we go back to making black-and-white films?
And then they'll start having problems with the colour black as well. Because black is the colour of Lord Krishna. In fact, the word Krishn means black.
Anyway, in this case, this is a completely farcical issue. But if we consider the Bollywood industry in general, what about the allegations where Bollywood films are said to be Hinduphobic? Some problematic instances can be pointed out.
A soulful devotional song from 1960 Radhika dances in Madhuban on the tune of Giridhar's flute. Interestingly, this song was composed by 3 Muslims. Singer Mohammad Rafi, Lyricist Shakeel Badayuni, And music composer Naushad.
The actor in this song was also Muslim, Dilip Kumar. This is India's beauty. But about 60 years later, another song was released with the same title, in the form of an item song.
Objectification of women like this poses a separate issue. But the question here is why was this devotional song chosen? And why did they have to use the name Radhika?
Instead of Radhika, they could have used any other name. Such as Premika, Kanika, Navika, Jessica. Without altering the song.
And this happened, after this was subjected to a controversy. They changed Radhika in Madhuban to Premika in Panghat. Similarly, in a recent film, India's Most Wanted, that was said to be inspired from real incidents, most probably by the real-life arrest of the terrorist Yaseen Bhatkal.
But the trailer of this film showed the terrorist quoting verses from the Quran and Gita. Does this make any sense? To show this?
Because realistically, this wouldn't have happened. For this film, the CBFC ordered that the parts with the religious verses be removed from the film. And it was later removed.
Additionally, many films and TV shows are made on fake religious men. Such as Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Asaram, Rampal, Mirchi Baba, Jalebi Baba, and many such fraud "saints" who con people in the name of religion. If a film or web series is made exposing them, I don't think that's wrong.
They are a bane to any religion. And are insults to the religion. So films like PK and Oh My God, or web series like Aashram, I believe that they are very useful to society.
By the way, I'd like to recommend an audiobook on KUKU FM on these fraudsters, that shows how these fake saints are related to politics. In case you don't know, KUKU FM is a brilliant platform for audio learning, on which you can listen to many knowledgeable audiobooks. On many topics.
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You can go try it out. But at the same time, the one that I consider problematic, is the Sacred Games. A popular web series on Netflix, in which it showed that the police and RAW were trying to catch an underworld don.
In it, there's a preacher who likes to repeat the hymn "I am Brahma. " That's the central thought of Vedant. That all souls are the manifestation of God.
But the way this phrase was misused in this series, it was not necessary. They could have easily used any other phrase. And nothing would have changed in the story.
You will definitely find such individual examples in the films and TV series, that can be considered to be problematic. But the propaganda that's being spread here, by the troll army, will make you think as if the film producers, actors, and the OTT platforms, are involved in a weekly secret meeting where they discuss how they could target Hinduism. That they make strategies and plans to include elements in their films to hurt Hindu sentiments.
This doesn't happen. That's simply rubbish. To impose such an imagination into your mind, you are repeatedly shown false, out of context narratives.
For example, Love Jihad. They repeatedly claim that Bollywood promotes Love Jihad. As an example, they claim that in SRK's film, My Name is Khan, a Hindu girl gets married to a Muslim boy.
In Kedarnath, Sushant Singh Rajput's film, Hindu girl, Muslim guy. Hritik Roshan's Jodha Akbar, Akshay Kumar's Atrangi Re, And Laxmi. They put these examples in front of you to make you think that they make a good point.
But does anyone show you examples from the other side? The same number of, if not more, reverse examples can be seen. SRK's Veer Zaara, the boy was Hindu, and the girl was Muslim.
Saif Ali Khan's Agent Vinod. Hindu boy Muslim girl. Ishqzaade, Saawariya, same story with Ek Tha Tiger, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Ranbir Kapoor Hindu, Anushka Sharma Muslim.
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Raanjhana, The Hero: Love Story of A Spy. You can find numerous such examples. Similarly, you will also find examples where there's a Hindu boy and a Christian girl.
Race 3, Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani, Sagar, Bobby, And then there are examples where the boy is a Sikh and the girl a Muslim. Such as Gadar, an all-time blockbuster. The same thing was shown in Mausam as well.
Shahid Kapoor's film. The people running the Boycott Bollywood trend hide these examples from you. Because they want to convince you that something's wrong with Bollywood.
They have reached to the extent that they are looking up supposedly anti-Hindu elements in classic blockbuster films. In blockbusters like Sholay, Deewar, and Vaastav, where no one had any issues at the time of the release of the film. But now they claim that the films that were released 30 years ago, as a Hindu, you should be offended while watching the film.
The situation has worsened so much that in a recent film named Hindutva, they had a problem with the film because its name was Hindutva. "This film Hindutva is propaganda for secularism and brotherhood, if the scenes aren't changed in it, no Hindu will go to watch this film. Propaganda for secularism and brotherhood.
When did brotherhood and unity become propaganda? If we stop showing unity in the country, should we show Hindus and Muslims fighting each other? Do they want to show civil wars in the films?
People killing each other. They want that? But friends, getting back to our topic, As I told you, there are individual instances that can be considered problematic.
Why do these happen? Sometimes it might be the creative choice of a person. That the filmmaker chose it intentionally.
Or the reason may be mindless behaviour. That the filmmaker didn't think it through before executing it. They didn't think about the impact it would have And the conclusion that could be drawn from it.
Friends, such individual instances, aren't against the Hindu religion only, rather, you can spot it against people from various sections of society. The first example can be said to be the tribal people. Whenever the tribal community is depicted in Bollywood films, They are shown to be very barbaric.
That they go about with a spear at all times. And are ready to kill others. Have black paint on their faces, and sing Jhingalalahu.
In several classic films, such as Yeh Gulistan Hamara, Shalimar, and in fact modern films like Bahubali, the tribal community is depicted like this. The same thing can be said about caste. Have you noticed that most of the heroes in Bollywood films, are always upper caste Hindus?
Their surnames would often be Sharma, Trivedi, Mishra, Shukla, Dubey, Pandey, Verma, Khanna, Kapoor, Malhotra. How many films do you know of where a lead character, the main hero of the film, is shown to be a Dalit? The same can be said for Muslims as well.
When Muslim characters are shown in Bollywood films, they are depicted in a stereotypical fashion in most films. Either the Muslim would be a suspect, Like in Chak De India, My Name is Khan, Shahid, New York, Or the Muslim would be shown to be a terrorist. Neerja, Fiza, India's Most Wanted, Mission Kashmir, Kurbaan.
Or Muslims would be shown as gangsters. Once Upon a Time in Mumbai, Raees, Gangs of Wasseypur. In historical films, Muslim rulers are depicted as invaders, They are given the same type of outfits.
Padmavat, Tanhaji, Panipat. Can you recall a Muslim character from a Bollywood film, where a Muslim character is shown to be a normal person? Similar mindlessness is seen when people of the Sikh community are represented in the films.
They are reduced to a caricature. These roles are always a bit dumb and comedic, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Mohabbatein, Raja Hindustani, Singh is King, Son of Sardar, Santa Banta Pvt Ltd. Stand-up comedian Jaspreet Singh made a video on this.
If they cannot put a Sikh character in their movie, they will have some other characters dress up as a Sikh for some situations. In the same way, the LGBTQ+ community is also reduced to a caricature and ridiculed when they are shown as characters in the films. Kal Ho Na Ho, Dostana, Student of the Year, Houseful, Humshakals, Laxmi.
These are some of the major examples. Not only this, even regional identities have been stereotyped in Bollywood films. When South Indians are represented.
They are mostly shown in the manner they were in films like the Chennai Express. When Haryanvi people are shown, they are always shown to be either wrestling, or committing honour killings in the film. Northeast people find little to no representation in Bollywood films.
And when it comes to the portrayal of disabilities, mindless films use disability as a joke. The entire Golmaal series, Mujhse Shadi Karogi, Houseful 3, Crazy 4, Tom Dick and Harry, Phir Hera Pheri, People being blind, deaf, amputee, everything is being made fun of. They are never shown to be a normal part of life, and a normal character in the film might be blind, deaf or an amputee.
After hearing all of this, does this mean that Bollywood is not only Hinduphobic but also Tribal-phobic, Dalit-phobic, Islamophobic, Sikh-phobic, Homophobic, South Indian-phobic, Haryanvi-phobic, Northeast-phobic, and even Disability-phobic? We'll keep on counting all types of phobics here. Rather than that, let's stick to using only one word, Mindless.
When writers add these scenes to the films, they do not pay much attention to it. But as I said, similar to the case of Love Jihad, and Hinduphobic, these are all individual examples. If you cherry-pick like this, there can be a counterargument as well.
Films where tribals have been portrayed beautifully. 1942's film Roti, or Mrgya. Films where Muslim characters have been shown to be normal people, 3 Idiots, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Dhoom, Iqbal, Rang de Basanti, Gully Boy.
Films where their identities went beyond simply being Muslims. There are films where the LGBTQ+ community has been given proper representation, My Brother Nikhil, Aligarh, Fashion, Kapoor and Sons, Badhaai Do, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga, Made in Heaven, Similarly there are films where Sikh characters were represented in an appreciable way, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Border, Ghazi, Sardar Uddham Singh, and then there are films where disabilities have been shown positively. Black, Barfi, Margarita With a Straw, Paa, My Name is Khan, Iqbal, Taare Zameen Par, Mukkabaaz, even Zero, Shah Rukh Khan's film in which the person with a disability, interacting with the rest of the world was the central theme.
You'd ask if there are such examples in favour of Hinduism as well. Absolutely. In fact, most films show Hinduism in a positive light, as compared to the examples I pointed out earlier, those which can be considered problematic.
Since Hinduism has been the dominant religion in India, Even in Bollywood, Hinduism is shown everywhere in a positive light. The devotional prayers that you sang in school, and there's a long list of this, where did these songs come from, friends? Bollywood.
Several films became megahits, where religion was a central theme, and religion was shown positively. 1975's Jai Santoshi Maa, The Ramayan series was a super hit. There was a TV serial on Mahabharat as well.
2007's My Friend Ganesha, And there were 2 animated films on Hanuman, and now recently, there was a film on Ram Setu, Similarly, there are many films where characters are shown celebrating Hindu festivals. Whether it's Holi, Diwali, or Dussehra. Mother India, Sholay, Deewana, Mohabbatein, Badrinath is Dulhaniya, Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, Ranjhana, Ram Leela, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Swadesh, songs from these films can often be heard during festivals.
These songs have already become a part of our tradition. Other Hindu festivals such as Karva Chauth, is shown in films like DDLJ, Biwi No 1, Bagban, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Yes Boss. If this is showing Hinduism in a positive sense, what will?
For comparison, how many films can you think of where Eid, Christmas, Good Friday, or Guru Parab is celebrated by the characters? And the final argument that is raised by the ones boycotting, even if they accept that many Bollywood films show Hinduism positively, they do not like that Hinduism is criticised in some Bollywood films. Friends, there are films that depict the social evils in our society.
Such as Article 15, Jai Bhim, Diksha. I'd say these films are masterpieces. If you aren't a casteist, you will have no problem with these movies.
If the social evils in our religions and cultures is depicted, it is a step in the right direction. In history, the same thing was done by They spoke about the problems present during their time, due to which, many social evils have been eradicated from the country. Such as Sati.
This draws in the biggest arguments from the ones boycotting, they point fingers at Islam, and ask if there are no social evils in Islam. Why does no one talk about that? Why does no Bollywood film show that?
Friends, once again, there are several examples of this. Netflix, Prime Video, and several OTT platforms have these films. Secret Superstar, Lipstick Under My Burqa, Hum Do Humare Barah.
Bol, Earth 1947, Trance, Caliphate, Material, Farha, Breadwinner, The Flower of Aleppo, the thing is that, the entire narrative of Boycott Bollywood, is worthless. If one has to cherrypick individually, I can present films against any topic, or in favour of any topic. Bollywood is such a large industry, that you can find tonnes of examples, if you want to call Bollywood Hinduphobic, Islamophobic, Tribal-phobic, or Dalit-phobic.
On the other hand, there are tonnes of examples, if you want to present Bollywood as progressive. It has films favouring tribals, Hindus, in favour of Sikhs, because Bollywood is an industry. An industry which represents the soft power of India.
This is why it makes no sense to be boycotting the entire industry. The things that are problematic, the scenes in the films that are problematic, only those should be protested against. To imagine that there is a big conspiracy in Bollywood against Hindus is simply laughable.
Because as I told you, Hinduism is largely celebrated in Bollywood. And is still being done so. Friends, it's very simple.
if you like watching action films, go watch Pathaan. If you don't like action films, don't watch this one. But anyhow, don't fall for this propaganda.
Thank you very much!
