Rajdeep’s loaded question and Naseeruddin’s answer are 2 sides of same coin: Inability to see beyond religious identities

“Et tu, Naseeruddin Shah?” many of his liberal admirers are asking after he invoked his religious identity as the reason for being trolled on social media over his allegedly “pro-Pakistani” and “anti-national” remarks at the launch of former Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book launch in Mumbai. With a touch of dramatic flourish, borrowing the title of Shah Rukh Khan’s film on the post-9/11 Islamophobia in America, “My name is Khan…”, Shah said in a TV interview that he reckoned he was being “picked on” because “my name is Naseeruddin Shah”. “My name is Naseeruddin Shah and I believe that’s why I was targeted,’’ he has been quoted as saying. To put it in perspective, however, he didn’t quite put it this way. What has been reported is partly the result of a little creative editing by news agencies though that doesn’t alter the fact that he did end up sounding a bit like a victim of an anti-Muslim witch-hunt. [caption id=“attachment_2470382” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Naseeruddin Shah in a file photo. Reuters[/caption] But first let’s see what he actually said. I watched the footage of the interview after reading about it. Asked by the interviewer, Rajdeep Sardesai, why did he think he was being “targeted”, Shah’s initial reply was that he didn’t understand why he had been singled out when others such as AS Noorani and  had made similar or rather “far more relevant” points than he did but had been “ignored”. This is what he said, “I was quite astounded at the way what I said was reported in a certain news channel where everything I stated was interpreted as being anti-Indian and there was nothing of the sort that I actually said… I’m very dejected at the way it has been reported. There were mis-statements… I don’t understand why I am being picked on.” At this point Sardesai rather sarcastically says, ”You don’t understand why you were picked on . Do you believe there’s this climate of hate today, there are many hate mongers who think a Naseeruddin Shah becomes a soft target because over the years you have promoted the idea of India-Pak friendship?” To which Shah responds, “Absolutely. On top of that my name is Naseeruddin Shah. If it had been something else perhaps what I said wouldn’t have made so much news.” Wrong, Shah sahib. You were picked on not because of your name, but because you’re a famous film star. Which makes you more newsworthy for ratings-chasing TV channels and attention-seeking trolls than Noorani and Padgaonkar. A celebrity by any name is a sitting duck for those fishing for controversies. So, even if your name was Shatrughan Sinha, you would have targeted by the “mob”. Coming back to Shah’s TV interview. At one level, it was Sardesai who egged him on, hoping he would fall into the trap. Which Shah promptly did. In an ideal world, one would have expected a liberal and secular Muslim like Shah to retort, “What nonsense! Why should it have anything to do with my name? The hate-mongers you’re talking about would go after anyone who doesn’t agree with their viewpoint. So, if you’re looking for a sexy headline, sorry, mate, you won’t get it from me.” That would have been a more accurate description of the prevailing climate of hate in which all liberals, irrespective of their religion, have become fair game for both the Hindu and the Muslim Right. By declaring that he was singled out because his name was Naseeruddin Shah and that if it was “something else” he would have been spared he played into the stereotype of a “typical” Muslim paranoid about his religious identity. More importantly, his claim flew into the face of the fact that barely hours before the Twitterati got on to his case, a Hindu called Sudheendra Kulkarni was in fact physically attacked and his face was blackened by hate-mongers protesting against Kasuri’s book launch. In comparison, Shah was only trolled: something all of us suffer in some measure almost on a daily basis and have learnt to shrug off. Shah is right in saying that he doesn’t have to prove his patriotism to anyone and that he is as much an Indian as anybody else, but as one liberal admirer of his pointed out: is it right for a person of his stature “loved and respected for his acting brilliance” and for his secular credentials to link everything that happens to him to his religion? “By saying that he was picked on by the radicals because is a Muslim, he is not being unfair in broad- brushing all Indians?” And that’s the nub of the problem. Indian liberals—both Hindus and Muslims—have in recent years become more conscious of their religious identities than they were—a legacy of LK Advani’s notorious “garv se kaho hum Hindu hain” campaign as part of his “Hindutva” project. While Muslims are quick to blame Islamophobia for anything that happens to them even if it is self-inflicted, Hindus see every Muslim as a closet religious bigot. Shah’s statement that he had “never been aware of my identity until now” will resonate with many liberal Muslims. Here’s what a young Muslim academic wrote on his Facebook page, “Like Naseeruddin Shah, for so many of us, the awareness of being of a different religion, of having a different image in the eyes of others is a gift of the rise of right-wing politics, especially in the last five years. I too grew us, especially in the last five years. I too grew up with very little sense of being different. My brother and I went to the same schools as everyone else. We had the same friends as everyone else. But today, at 30, I am far more aware of being thought of as different, and usually, negatively so, than I ever was, purely because of my name.” Right or wrong, this is the reality of modern India. More and more Muslims believe that their religious identity makes them vulnerable to attacks. Rajdeep’s loaded question to Shah suggesting whether he thought he was being picked on because of his name and Shah’s answer are two sides of the same coin. Both the interviewer and the interviewee are known and respected for their secular and liberal worldview; and, yet, both can’t seem to see beyond religious identities. Doesn’t reflect very well on the prevailing intellectual climate in India, to put it mildly. Accusing a certain unnamed TV channel of misinterpreting his remarks at the book launch and of quoting him out of context, Shah said that it mischievously “juxtaposed” scenes from a film where he played a terrorist-hunter with comments at the launch suggesting that from a terrorist-hunter he had become a “friend of terrorists’’ because of his call for friendship with Pakistan. I haven’t seen that TV report but I noticed similar comments on Twitter. I would ignore the latter but if what Shah’s version of that TV report is correct it calls into question the role of the media in polarising opinion and whipping up potentially dangerous controversies. For, there’s a difference between a silly tweet and what is reported on an ostensibly responsible TV channel. I have problems even with Sardesai’s interview which seemed designed to create another controversy by tempting Shah into saying what he did. Shah clearly over-reacted by allowing himself to be dragged into a divisive terrain. That he did says something about the state of play in India today. I will end with another Facebook post by a Muslim youth Kaif Mahmood, who wrote that it is unfortunate that “70 years after a bloody partition, there is a partition in our hearts that doesn’t leave us’’. “It keeps us from seeing others as real human beings rather than objects to be slotted into categories to be liked or disliked, to be afraid of or to be embraced. A fact that many people misunderstand is that the sorrow from this is not really about what one goes through as an individual - which one deals with like all sorrows, but about what has happened to one’s nation and one’s culture.” A good question to ponder.