[lbo-talk] Fanaa, Aamir Khan, Narmada, and the BJP (was Re: Indian Beatles)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 6/10/06, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
> Fanaa is also an example of one of the many things Bollywood can accomplish
> that Hollywood cannot, which show part of how they are different in essence.
> It's a standard Romeo and Juliet plot.  But what makes it mind boggling to
> think about is that the obstacle keeping the girl and boy apart is that she
> is Miss India and he is an anti-India terrorist. And he's not only the
> film's romantic hero, he's also an action hero-type superman mastermind.
> You see him kill Indian soldiers face to face while smiling and bragging.
> You hear about him blowing up iconic Indian buildings and killing hundreds.
> And yet he's the hero of the film, the guy you identify with, and who the
> girl falls in love with, and who is clearly the manly superior of anyone in
> the film.
>
> An American equivalent would be like recasting Matt Damon's Bourne character
> as a Zarqawi character and having Jennifer Lopez fall in love with him after
> we've just seen him blowing up buildings across America and killing our best
> agents with his bare hands while laughing.  It's impossible to imagine
> anyone in America even conceiving that film, never mind producing it or
> being allowed to show it. And yet in India, which is more traumatized by
> terrorism than America (because there it's not only scary but stuck like
> scab to nationalist wounds), it not only got shown but was a success.
>
> And if you see it (which I don't really recommend unless you're a Bollywood
> fan -- beginners should start with the works of genius), you'll see the
> secret is not that it accomplishes some new political synthesis.  (Its
> politics and sociology are just as rote as everything else.)  And it's not
> that it allows us to identify with the other side.  Because that part
> doesn't really work and by the end induces a kind of vertigo.  But *that's*
> what works -- the vertigo!

Watch Fanaa by all means, out of solidarity with Aamir Khan.
Apparently, the BJP is angered by Khan, the handsome star of Fanaa
(who plays Rehan Qadri, a Kashmiri boy who is serving in the Indian
military but secretly working for the Kashmiri independence movement
-- Rehan gets betrayed and killed by his love Zooni, a Kashmiri girl
who is "a patriotic Indian," choosing her country over her man),
because he supported the anti-Narmada Dam campaign.

<blockquote>Anti-Narmada dam agitators, sitting on Dharna and hunger
strike at the Jantar Mantar Road in New Delhi for past 20 days
demanding that the height of the dam not be raised, got a shot in the
arm when leading film actor Aamir Khan paid them a visit on Friday.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Aamir listened to the grievances of the agitators with patience but
did not utter a word. Clad in black T-shirt and jeans, the film actor
also visited the 1984 Bhopal gas victims who have been demonstrating
for release of relief fund.

"Last week when I was in Delhi, I passed by Jantar Mantar and was told
about the two campaigns. I decided to come back and learn more about
their problems," he later told reporters.

Khan said he was pained upon learning of the sufferings of the dam
displacees. "I do not know about the technicalities involved in
raising the height of the dam. What I do know is that farmers have
been displaced from their land and they have lost their livelihood.
Till the people who have already been displaced by the dam are not
rehabilitated, the height of the dam should not be raised."  (Onkar
Singh, "Aamir Lends Support to Narmada Campaign," 14 April 2006,
<http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/apr/14nba.htm>)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Aamir's remarks against the Gujarat government and Chief
Minister Narendra Modi evoked violent protests in Gujarat.

The state has even decided not to screen his new film, Fanaa, which
releases worldwide on Friday.  (Rediff Entertainment Bureau, "Aamir on
Narmada: I Won't Apologise," 25 May 2006,
<http://in.rediff.com/movies/2006/may/25aamir1.htm>)</blockquote>

<blockquote>Describing the virtual ban on screening Fanaa in Gujarat
as an indication of "extreme intolerance" displayed by the ruling
party and its organisations in Gujarat to any dissent, the Communist
Party of India (Marxist) demanded that the Modi Government uphold the
law of the land.

In a statement, the party Polit Bureau said the reported assurance by
Chief Minister Narendra Modi of police protection to cinemas showing
the film was an eye-wash as it was under his leadership that front
organisations of the Sangh combine were threatening cinema owners
against showing the film.

The ire of the protesters was against the solidarity expressed by
actor Aamir Khan with the demand for rehabilitation of thousands of
tribals and peasant families displaced by the Narmada project.  ("
CPI(M) flays ban on Fanaa in Gujarat," 26 May 2006,
<http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/26/stories/2006052619511500.htm>)</blockquote>

<blockquote>The controversial Aamir Khan film Fanaa was released in
Gujarat on Tuesday in the presence of a strong police contingent in a
single cinema owned by a high-profile Congress family.  (Manas
Dasgupta, "Fanaa Released in Gujarat amid Security," 7 June 2006,
<http://www.hindu.com/2006/06/07/stories/2006060704281600.htm>)</blockquote>

-- 
Yoshie
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