A group of American students created a website to slap Aamir Khan, and it’s NOT funny!

So, we Indians have just proved how tolerant a race we are. A leading actor of Bollywood who has gifted us not just films, but art, entertainment and pride, committed the ‘mistake’ of expressing his worry and fear over the growing number of incidents related to communal violence and shared with us how his wife at times panicked about their child’s future in this country and spoke of leaving India.

The very tolerant, very peaceful Indians were immediately in action and started trolling Aamir Khan. While some kept it till only sharing funny memes, there were people who went on calling him a traitor, some uninstalled the app of a popular e-commerce site because Khan was the brand ambassador, some compared India with the Middle-East countries and established that India is absolutely  a garden where peace is blooming. Shiv Sena, the ruling party in Maharashtra announced a reward of 1 lakh for anyone who would slap Aamir Khan (that’s the per slap amount you get); and latest addition to the list, yesterday few students of Miami Ad School launched a website where one could virtually slap Aamir Khan.

Ok, give us a break! The constitution of India ensures a freedom to speech and expression for every Indian citizen. This means you can put across your opinion freely, as long as you don’t hurt sentiments of any particular community and the country’s integrity. A large part of the media efficiently chose to extract only a few words from his speech and excluded the rest; which turned completely misleading. Also, any sensible human being would find it utter nonsense to compare India with a country from Middle East. Unlike them, anarchy doesn’t rule India. India is world’s largest democracy which is constitutionally a secular country, and we are expected to be tolerant to religions, customs and opinions that differ from ours. Cribbing about a statement that your brain doesn’t agree to and reacting at your aggressive best further proves your intolerance.

Tell us one thing; how many times have you uttered in disgust “Iss desh ka kuch nahi hoga”? How many times have you spitted on the roads? How many times did you litter the streets? How many times did you break the traffic rules? How many times did you grin at a girl who wore shorts? Where did you hide the nationalist inside you, throughout? If you’re one of those who called Aamir an anti-national, a website to slap Aamir virtually probably elated you. The registered number of slaps was 7.7 million. Ever wondered how badly you shamed and failed your own country in front of the entire world? That too, in the radical process of proving yourself as the bravest nationalist? Weren’t you the one who cringed that Aamir was insulting India globally? People from a first world country virtually slapping an icon from India is a proud moment for you, we assume?

Number of incidents pertaining to communal violence has noticeably increased and that is backed by statistics. Keeping that aside, what sort of a country do we live in, where aggression needs less than a moment to fuel up? What could be more shameful than judging an artist with his religion and not the art he masters in? Why are we so prone to considering everything a ‘battle’ and never a ‘discussion’? Always a  riot of one-sided opinions and never an exchange of ideas? Along with technology evolving and the world turning into a global village, where is our openness disappearing? With access to more and more information both globally and locally, how much are we feeding our knowledge and how much to our ego? Exposure to global art is just futile, when we are losing the last beat of sensitivity.

Imagine the third world countries responding to an incident in first world, the same way? It would probably turn a matter of international discussion by now and we would be remembered once more that we are far behind them in every aspect. Why not just try to keep issues within ourselves and not shame India globally? Why not be a bit more attentive towards what someone else has to say? Why not check your vulnerability? Lastly, why not acknowledge the amount of pride, glory and fame an actor has brought your country?

Because, calling yourself a nationalist requires less words and more actions.

Ranjini Maitra

Journalist. Writer. Reader. Enthu cutlet. Mood-swing machine. Day dreamer. Sandwiched between ‘live life fully’ and ‘lose some weight’. Mantra of life: Love and love more.