How Shah Rukh Khan's family is the illustration of a secular India!

There was a time when the Khan superstars of Bollywood could do no wrong. Now, we have come to a stage when they seem to do nothing right. After Aamir Khan and Laal  Singh Chaddha, Shah Rukh Khan and his Pathaan are being targeted in every way possible.

On Independence day this year, Shah Rukh, his wife and two of his three children were seen posing in front of the flag. Trolls got their cue. They started their work on Shah Rukh and his family for disrespecting the flag by standing in front of it with their shoes on. Some helpful trolls also put a picture of Kannada star Yash, his wife and child without shoes.

The assumption that Shah Rukh in shoes is less respectful to the Indian flag than Yash without shoes smacks of a huge cultural bias.

You, the terribly misguided troll, are trying to create communal discord when none exists. Shah Rukh’s family is the illustration of secular India. He is Muslim. His wife is Hindu and his children are free to practice any religion they  wish.

Don’t push these icons of our nation to the wall. Do not question Shah Rukh Khan’s right to do a film called  Pathaan . Why would he not play a Pathan when he is one in real life and looks forward to playing one whenever possible? I remember 22 years ago, in Kamal Haasan’s vastly underrated film Hey Ram, Shah Rukh Khan got to  play a Pathan, and that too named after a Pathan actor that both Kamal Haasan and Shah Rukh loved: Amjad Khan.

When Kamal Haasan told Shah Rukh he would get to play a Pathan named Amjad Khan, he jumped at the offer. Not every day does an actor get to play a character named after one of his favourite actors. Shah Rukh didn’t charge a single penny for the role.

Not many know that the much-missed Lata Mangeshkar ’s favourite contemporary actor was Shah Rukh Khan. “If there is any one actor that I like after Dilip Kumar it is Shah Rukh,” Lataji would often say to me. She had lost count of the number of times she had seen Devdas.

The love was mutual. Shah Rukh would repeatedly tell Lataji how he wished she could sing for him. There is a reason I bring this up here. Lata Mangeshkar is the ultimate symbol of a secular India. Her voice, her singing and her persona cut across every walk of  life. Every time she sings Ae mere watan ke logon, the nation’s eyes wells up with tears. At that moment, it doesn’t matter who is more Hindu and less Muslim.

Shah Rukh once told me, “Maybe I love Lataji a little less than you. But I love her in my own way.”

You can’t straitjacket an Indian’s love for India by grading that love. You can’t say your love for Lata Mangeshkar is stronger than mine just because your eyes well up more than mine during Ae mere watan ke logon.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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