Recently, Shahrukh Khan was detained at Newark airport for approximately 2 hours. The problem, his name cropped up as a potential terrorist on US immigration system and hence taken to a separate room for questioning. This resulted in major hue and cry in India with condemnations coming in from all flavours of people ranging from bollywood celebrities to cricket stars to our 'beloved' politicians.
Our Information & Broadcasting minister Ambika Soni even suggested that India should do a 'tit-for-tat' towards Americans (And I always thought politicians are supposed to be diplomatic in matters pertaining to two countries)
Anyways I don’t want to debate on what happened there... I also feel it was inappropriate. 15 minutes of reasonable questioning / internet search would have eased the authorities anxiety on his indentity. This only highlights the inefficiencies in US immigration system. But my blog questions the justification of the reactions of us Indians post this issue.
My first comment on what happened: Let me put back an alternate scenario. Let’s say someone like Tom Hanks or Eddie Murphy lands here at Indian airports and face immigration enquiries by someone who is least interested in Hollywood movies. Their name crops up as a “suspect”. What do you think would have happened? Don't you think Indian authorities would have questioned them as well? Wouldn't the Indian officer complete all possible investigations and release them only after he is 100% sure that the person he is allowing inside India is definitely not a terrorist. Please note I am not even talking of celebrities from other countries like China, Europe etc... God knows if anyone would be able to recognize them.
Second thought on the reaction: Every year, thousands of people are questioned extensively at immigrations by US authorities. I know lot of my friends whose visa has been denied. Even in Bollywood, recently Kabir Khan and John Abraham were questioned extensively because of their trips to Afghanistan for their movie “Kabul Express”. I am sure all those who have travelled to US will agree that the authorities work on a “robotic” basis and are totally dependent on what steps their system suggests (I will reserve my personal experience of entering US for a later blog). Well no one raised issues then. Why is it that someone like Shahrukh Khan’s case has to prompt this kind of national ? Also does it justify a diplomatic channel to expect an apology?
Will end this blog with a question? Is it because we worship our celebrities to such an extent, that they are not considered as normal human beings and are a part of different league all together?
1 comment:
We indians as a whole are too much into idolizing and hero/heroine worshipping literally.this leads to the yeti sized bloated egos of the stars. APJ abdul kalam went thru the same ordeal in india itself but noone came to know about it until 3 mths that too after some news media fished it out.i think SRK is too pampered here.if Mr. Kalam can cooperate with the process then who or rather what is SRK?just an actor who got lucky hamming his way thru B-town??? So what if the americans are paranoid about their security..it has helped them avoid another 9/11....we should be similarly diligent if not paranoid if we ever hope to prevent another 26/11 or 11/7 or 12/3.......the list will go on....
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