Pathaan Controversy | Is Bollywood Hinduphobic? | Shah Rukh Khan | Dhruv Rathee
Hello, friends! Shah Rukh Khan’s new film Pathaan is about to be released on 25th January. And the way this film was targeted. Perhaps no other film in our nation was targeted so bad. Several months ago, when even the teaser of this film wasn’t released, some people were trying to protest against this film. And when the song Besharam Rang filmed on Deepika Padukone came out, the targeting reached an extreme level. “We have burned Shah Rukh Khan’s poster, and I’m seeing if I can get my hands on him, Jihadi Shah Rukh Khan.” The ruckus is caused under
the #BoycottBollywood narrative. Wherein some people claim that Bollywood films are Hinduphobic. The entire Bollywood industry is against all Hindus, that it attacks Hinduism, and Muslims are always portrayed in a positive light in Bollywood films. Pathaan isn’t the first film to be facing such allegations. Previously, several other films have been accused similarly. Boycott trends had been started. Laal Singh Chaddha, Shamshera, Raksha Bandhan, Brahmastra, Tandav, Aashram, Article 15, Ludo, A Suitable Boy, Laxmi, Even before these, the Sacred Games, Leila, Toofan, PK, Oh My God, and Kedarnath. This list of so-called Hinduphobic list keeps getting longer with each
day. Apart from films, some songs are also termed Anti-Hindu nowadays, such as the song Radha from Student of the Year. Some Twitter accounts have also
Gita, Your Honour. Why? Are you not a Hindu? I am a Hindu, Your Honour. But before being a Hindu, I am an Indian.” The question arises, is Bollywood truly anti-Hindu? Come, let’s try to find out. “Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone’s film Pathaan has been facing a boycott trend. “Shah Rukh Khan is shameless, not the colour.” “Deepika Padukone is Muslim.” “When will the politicians speak up on unemployment ruining the youth?” “Every religion0 has chosen a colour, but colours do not have a religion.” Before we investigate the whole Bollywood industry, come let’s take a look at
Pathaan. Why was the film Pathaan declared Hinduphobic? Friends, this controversy took off when the song Besharam Rang was released. In this song, Deepika Padukone wore different coloured costumes. One of them was saffron/orange coloured. The people who were offended, said that the words Besharam Rang claimed that the colour saffron is shameless. That we’re saying orange should be ashamed. So the question is, in Bollywood film Pathaan’s song Besharam Rang, what does the lyricist mean by the term shameless colour? Friends, there’s another song in which the colour orange was used. We need to decode that as well. “Baby
is dancing drunk on beer.” In 1995’s film DDLJ, Kajol said, “let me get a bit tipsy. Let me see the world.” The literary world was engulfed in the debate on how can one get tipsy. After a long journey to enlightenment, lyricist Manoj Tiwari came out with the solution, one can get tipsy by drinking beer. Cha cha cha. It’s weird that whenever someone has a connection with the BJP, no one feels offended. All the boycott hashtags disappear. Is it that the people running this boycott narrative are affiliated with a political party? What do you think? Whenever
people like Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan are involved in something suddenly the floodgates are thrown open, and they get hurt to such an extent and want to let others know how offended they are. “They wanted to show a shameless colour, they’ll have to face criticism now.” “Why didn’t they show green colour?” “The colour isn’t shameful. Shah Rukh Khan is!” “You can use the colour, but how can you term it shameless?” *Such hypocrisy.* Shah Rukh Khan, a Muslim, married to a Hindu woman Gouri. An actor who visits Mecca as well as to the Vaishnodevi shrine.
He celebrates Eid and Diwali both. In his films, he has played numerous Hindu characters. Whether that’s Rahul or Raj. “I am Raj Aryan.” “I’m Rahul, you would’ve heard about me.” But he has also played numerous Muslim characters as well. Whether that’s in My Name is Khan, or in Chak De, India. In his home, they practise Hindu worship and Muslim worship both. And to the world, he represents India. “Remember the Gayatri Mantra. The main worship will be done by him. -Allah. -Okay. -Thank you, Allah. -Thank you, Allah.” In 2015, Shah Rukh Khan made a statement, that
religious intolerance is a terrible thing. If it increases, India will be pushed into the Dark Ages. “In our country, we keep on talking about religion. we’re gonna go back to the dark ages.” That’s sensible. After all, which country would benefit from religious intolerance? But based on this one statement, Shah Rukh Khan was labelled anti-national, by BJP politician Kailash Vijayvargiya. VHP member Prachi called SRK a Pakistani agent. “Shah Rukh Khan is definitely a Pakistani agent.” And UP’s CM Adityanath, compared SRK with the terrorist Hafiz Saeed. “I see no difference in Shah Rukh Khan’s speeches and Hafiz
Saeed’s.” It’s not surprising that a liberal, secular, Muslim actor like SRK, became very problematic for the religious extremists of both religions. People who want to divide the country based on religion, This was very problematic for their agenda that the top actor of the country was promoting unity and brotherhood between both religions. “My wife’s a Hindu and I’m a Muslim. And my children are Indian.” Friends, this is the real reason. The excuse about colour is simply a front. If for argument’s sake, you believe that orange is a very important colour in the Hindu religion, you can
ask, which colour could they have used if not orange. If you use the colour blue, blue is also an important colour in the religion. The colour of Lord Shiva. He is known as the Neelkanth. Yellow? That’s the colour of Lord Krishna’s clothes, Pitambar. If you use Green colour, they’ll claim that it is the colour of Muslims. So which colour remains? Shall we go back to making black-and-white films? And then they’ll start having problems with the colour black as well. Because black is the colour of Lord Krishna. In fact, the word Krishn means black. Anyway, in
this case, this is a completely farcical issue. But if we consider the Bollywood industry in general, what about the allegations where Bollywood films are said to be Hinduphobic? Some problematic instances can be pointed out. A soulful devotional song from 1960 Radhika dances in Madhuban on the tune of Giridhar’s flute. Interestingly, this song was composed by 3 Muslims. Singer Mohammad Rafi, Lyricist Shakeel Badayuni, And music composer Naushad. The actor in this song was also Muslim, Dilip Kumar. This is India’s beauty. But about 60 years later, another song was released with the same title, in the form
of an item song. Objectification of women like this poses a separate issue. But the question here is why was this devotional song chosen? And why did they have to use the name Radhika? Instead of Radhika, they could have used any other name. Such as Premika, Kanika, Navika, Jessica. Without altering the song. And this happened, after this was subjected to a controversy. They changed Radhika in Madhuban to Premika in Panghat. Similarly, in a recent film, India’s Most Wanted, that was said to be inspired from real incidents, most probably by the real-life arrest of the terrorist Yaseen
Bhatkal. But the trailer of this film showed the terrorist quoting verses from the Quran and Gita. Does this make any sense? To show this? Because realistically, this wouldn’t have happened. For this film, the CBFC ordered that the parts with the religious verses be removed from the film. And it was later removed. Additionally, many films and TV shows are made on fake religious men. Such as Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Asaram, Rampal, Mirchi Baba, Jalebi Baba, and many such fraud “saints” who con people in the name of religion. If a film or web series is made exposing
them, I don’t think that’s wrong. They are a bane to any religion. And are insults to the religion. So films like PK and Oh My God, or web series like Aashram, I believe that they are very useful to society. By the way, I’d like to recommend an audiobook on KUKU FM on these fraudsters, that shows how these fake saints are related to politics. In case you don’t know, KUKU FM is a brilliant platform for audio learning, on which you can listen to many knowledgeable audiobooks. On many topics. Geopolitics, culture, fiction, history, if you use my
coupon code DHRUV50, you will get 50% off on their first month’s plan. It will cost you ₹49 instead of ₹99. The link is in the description below. You can go try it out. But at the same time, the one that I consider problematic, is the Sacred Games. A popular web series on Netflix, in which it showed that the police and RAW were trying to catch an underworld don. In it, there’s a preacher who likes to repeat the hymn “I am Brahma.” That’s the central thought of Vedant. That all souls are the manifestation of God. But
the way this phrase was misused in this series, it was not necessary. They could have easily used any other phrase. And nothing would have changed in the story. You will definitely find such individual examples in the films and TV series, that can be considered to be problematic. But the propaganda that’s being spread here, by the troll army, will make you think as if the film producers, actors, and the OTT platforms, are involved in a weekly secret meeting where they discuss how they could target Hinduism. That they make strategies and plans to include elements in their
films to hurt Hindu sentiments. This doesn’t happen. That’s simply rubbish. To impose such an imagination into your mind, you are repeatedly shown false, out of context narratives. For example, Love Jihad. They repeatedly claim that Bollywood promotes Love Jihad. As an example, they claim that in SRK’s film, My Name is Khan, a Hindu girl gets married to a Muslim boy. In Kedarnath, Sushant Singh Rajput’s film, Hindu girl, Muslim guy. Hritik Roshan’s Jodha Akbar, Akshay Kumar’s Atrangi Re, And Laxmi. They put these examples in front of you to make you think that they make a good point.
But does anyone show you examples from the other side? The same number of, if not more, reverse examples can be seen. SRK’s Veer Zaara, the boy was Hindu, and the girl was Muslim. Saif Ali Khan’s Agent Vinod. Hindu boy Muslim girl. Ishqzaade, Saawariya, same story with Ek Tha Tiger, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Ranbir Kapoor Hindu, Anushka Sharma Muslim. Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Raanjhana, The Hero: Love Story of A Spy. You can find numerous such examples. Similarly, you will also find examples where there’s a Hindu boy and a Christian girl. Race 3, Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani,
Sagar, Bobby, And then there are examples where the boy is a Sikh and the girl a Muslim. Such as Gadar, an all-time blockbuster. The same thing was shown in Mausam as well. Shahid Kapoor’s film. The people running the Boycott Bollywood trend hide these examples from you. Because they want to convince you that something’s wrong with Bollywood. They have reached to the extent that they are looking up supposedly anti-Hindu elements in classic blockbuster films. In blockbusters like Sholay, Deewar, and Vaastav, where no one had any issues at the time of the release of the film. But
now they claim that the films that were released 30 years ago, as a Hindu, you should be offended while watching the film. The situation has worsened so much that in a recent film named Hindutva, they had a problem with the film because its name was Hindutva. “This film Hindutva is propaganda for secularism and brotherhood, if the scenes aren’t changed in it, no Hindu will go to watch this film. Propaganda for secularism and brotherhood. When did brotherhood and unity become propaganda? If we stop showing unity in the country, should we show Hindus and Muslims fighting each
other? Do they want to show civil wars in the films? People killing each other. They want that? But friends, getting back to our topic, As I told you, there are individual instances that can be considered problematic.
