The issue of Intolerance has gained a new momentum with Aamir Khan’s disclosure about Kiran Rao’s thought of leaving India.
While every person has a right to speak and express, the person of stature like Aamir Khan, needs to understand that every thought that comes in mind need not to be voiced exactly.
In this situation, instead of just voicing the concern, Aamir Khan, who has worked in message driven movies like Gulam, Mangal Pandey, Sarfarosh, Taarin Jameen Pai, 3 idiots, PK and many more, should have pitched for strong communal harmony and standing united against any such attempt that disrupts our brotherhood.
Aamir Khan has a huge twitter base and a huge fan following not only in India, but also off shores. He could have used this situation to send a strong message of inclusiveness in India.
Reasons on why would Aamir do that? Simple, he is a Khan, a Muslim by religion, he worked in movie like PK, despite few anti liberal people protesting, entire India, no matter, Hindu, Jaim, Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, supported him. Is this a sign of Intolerance?
He is able to express himself freely, so are the others writers, though they are being trolled on social media by people(isn’t that always been a trend all the times on any social media platform? no matter what the issue is?), is this a sign of Intolerance?
The biggest thing that all the celebrities and writers need to understand is that government may or may not have the biggest mass reach, but they do have that. What ever they say makes a direct impact on the mind of people.
If they will just say that Intolerance is rising, this would make a direct and deeper impact on their fans and people of country. Even the person who has never faced any such issue, a physiological image of intolerance will be created in their mind, leading to developing the feeling of hatred towards any particular community.
I am a student, I have my friends from all the places of this country, in fact some are from other countries. I have my good friend from Kashmir and he is a Muslim. In fact my class has 5 Muslims, 3 Sikhs, 2 Jain, 1 Buddhist and 1 christian and rest Hindus. When I talk to them and they talk to me or we all talk to each other, I don’t see any sign of Intolerance among ourselves.
My college has in total 40,000 students and 12000 staff. All coming from different sections of society and regions and all are living amicably. No where I see any sort of Intolerance.
In my home district, I am neighbor of very decent Muslims. Never had they bothered us nor ever any one bothered them.
But when I see news, somehow I get scared of the raising Intolerance in our country as reported in News channels. I am not sure from where are they getting the news but one thing that I am sure of is that they are definitely master of selling that news no matter what it takes.
The theory of classical conditioning explains that if our mind is conditioned about any thing on a regular basis, we tend to bent towards it and accept it as a truth.
I am sure Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao and all other celebrities and writers who gave their view about rising Intolerance in India must have tried to distinguish if they are supporting truth or an illusion.
But I don’t disagree that there has been some real bad incidence of intolerance in recent past by some groups. But terming entire India as intolerant due to such anti liberal groups and paining all Indians with same color is not a good practice.
Giving air to this issue would only give more power to such groups. They will gain the moral of doing more such things as they will notice that a panic is spreading among the community.
Instead, we should downplay such groups and should send strong message of communal harmony to them. We should show them that our brotherhood has grown much stronger and cannot be broken due to such incidents.
All we have seen till now is people complaining about Intolerance, but no where can we see people talking about harmony. No one is preaching harmony. All are so busy in endorsing intolerance issue that every one has forgotten that we are a country of 1.2 billions and the issues that are coming are just 1 or 2.
Can this be considered Intolerance? If this can be, how is country still functioning? If somehow country is still functioning, how can it function without cooperation among its people? This means that cooperation is among the people. So if cooperation is there, where does the question of Intolerance came from?
I always admire Aamir Khan a lot and regard him as most intellectual person in Bollywood (along with R Madhwan). He could have easily used this opportunity to not only correct his wife but also unite the country. But unfortunately, a person of his caliber failed to avail this and Aamir Khan lost a wonderful opportunity to conclude the biggest debate in the country.
