Director Karan Johar, in a recent interview, said that banning Pakistani actors in Bollywood is not a solution to the terror problem, which is a ‘complex geographical’ one.
In the wake of heightened tension between India and Pakistan after four terrorists killed 18 Indian Army personnel at an Army camp in Uri region, Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had given a 48-hour ultimatum for Pakistani artistes working in Mumbai to leave the city. The right-wing organisation has been targeting Karan Johar for casting Pakistani actor Fawad Khan in his latest film, Ae Dil Hei Mushkil. This is Fawad’s second film with Johar’s production house, Dharma Productions, after Kapoor And Sons.
“I understand the anger and the anguish that surround us and I empathize, my heart bleeds for the lost lives. There is nothing that can justify this terrible feeling of terror. Then you are faced in a situation such as this (asking for ban on Pakistani artistes). If this was truly a solution, then one would take it,” Karan Johar told journalist Barkha Dutt.
MNS has threatened to stop the release of Ae Dil Hei Mushkil and Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees for featuring Pakistani actors Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan respectively.
On Sunday, Amey Khopkar, chief of the MNS’s cinema workers’ unit Chitrapat Karamchari Sena confirmed that all Pakistani artists had left Mumbai, and that the party would hunt down the ones who are ‘hiding in the city’. He also thanked Zee Network for shutting down its channel ‘Zee Zindagi’ where they showed Pakistani shows.
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Meanwhile, many Bollywood artistes have spoken out against the Sena’s threats. Johar, in the interview, said that as creative people from the film industry, they should be kept free from politics. “Sometimes, you just want to fold your hands and say, ‘We are a creative industry. Please leave us alone. We make movies, we spread love. There are millions in the world, in our country who are happy with the work we do, allow us that…’ I think we should just not be those soft targets anymore. We don’t matter in the scheme of things but we can make things happier and better,” he said.
Actor Riteish Deshmukh said that it was unfortunate that artistes were treated as soft-targets. “Actors have always been the first ones to be targeted, no matter whatever the agenda is. Artists are like soft targets, which is very unfortunate. The concentration is somewhere else and this is not the solution to it. If this was the solution then fair enough, but this is not the solution,” he said.