Bye Ho: Is Salman Khan paying for Muzaffarnagar, Modi?

“We were only there because someone invited us. We did our job and came back that’s it!” a defiant Salman Khan told India Today after he came under fire for dancing at the Saifai festival in Uttar Pradesh, careful, however, to underline his deference for that certain ‘someone’: “And come on Akhilesh is the Chief Minister of a state, elected by thousands of people. I have to go and show some respect.” [caption id=“attachment_1360903” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Salman Khan[/caption] The real reason why Akhilesh commands such ‘respect’ became clear over the weekend in a CNN-IBN interview. When asked about his controversial publicity-op with Narendra Modi, a more forthcoming Khan confessed, “All the CMs, heads of state, I want to go meet them. Mujhe yeh film tax-free karani hain. Yeh authority Chief Minister ke haath mein hothi hain.” Whether dancing at Saifai or kite-flying in Gujarat, Mr Khan is just taking care of business. At first blush, such a blithely mercenary attitude seems refreshing (as surely, Salman ‘No BS’ Khan intends it to be). Hey, an actor’s job is to make money for his movies. If it requires currying political favour, then so be it. Except such political amorality is not just about taking care of dal-roti. As an excellent essay by Lhendup G Bhutia in Open magazine makes clear, Bollywood stars like Khan have far more nefarious reasons to keep politicians happy:

Stars actively seek out politicians for patronage. According to Abha Singh, a well-known advocate and human rights activist who has been trying to hasten the court proceedings against Salman Khan in his 2002 hit-and-run case, “Someone like Salman, because of his cases, requires protection. He will claim he is politically naïve, yet he will be seen campaigning and promoting politicians of all kinds. So if a leader like Mulayam wants him on stage, why will he refuse?”… According to Abha Singh, while other hit-and-run cases in Mumbai—like those of Alistair Pereira in 2006 and Nooriya Haveliwala in 2010—have already seen convictions of the guilty, Khan’s case has dragged on for nearly 12 years because of his cosiness with politicians.

In other words, movie stars – much like the rest of the Indian elite – cultivate the politicians so they can share in the spoils of power. And the primary of which is being above the law. Keep the netas happy and you can get away with murder, skip out on parole, duck the taxman. Being human is strictly reserved for the big screen where our stars make big bucks play angry good guys taking on corrupt netas – or, as Bhutia points out, for carefully-timed bursts of moral conscience designed to promote those very movies:

Thus you will see a farcical debate—as one did last year on Headlines Today—about whether porn encourages men to become rapists, with the cast of Shootout at Wadala providing their views on the subject seated cosily in front of the film’s posters. You will see an Imran Khan, on the anvil of his film Delhi Belly, filing a PIL challenging Maharashtra’s ban on anyone under the age of 25 drinking liquor. And you will see Salman Khan defying grammar and spellings in a tweet like this: ‘Request the to the awam of pakistan, member’s of the press, govt of pakistan, president zardari, a humble request’, ‘It would be the most amazing gesture, to send surabjeet back to his family after 30 years. Hope u support me like its your own cause’ and ‘B a part of 1 family’s happiness’. What’s the big occasion? Well, there’s his first Indo-Pak spy thriller, Ek Tha Tiger, up for release.

Some suggest that there are limits to such shameless expediency, pointing to the middling box office performance of Khan’s latest blockbuster Jai Ho.

‘Jai Ho’ hasn’t had the typical Salman Khan opening, when theatres run full and box office rings in new records. And it’s the same in Hyderabad, where Salman has a huge fan base. Many attribute this lukewarm response to the call for “boycott” of ‘Jai Ho’ by Muslim leaders around the country, including city’s MP and AIMIM supremo Asaduddin Owaisi. That’s because they weren’t amused at all by Salman’s bonhomie with Gujarat CM and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi during a kite-flying festival recently. And literally, Salman’s love for Modi and Muzaffarnagar has resulted in Bye Ho!

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Or maybe it was just an exceptionally bad movie – too awful to stomach except for the most loyal Sallu fans. But if the movie’s performance will make Khan and other Bollywood stars reconsider their next Saifai-style atrocity, then all we can say is Jai Ho!