In 2015, Bollywood actor Aamir Khan had spoken out against what he described as a rising tide of religious intolerance in India and said he understood why his wife wanted to leave the country. He spoke in relation to the lynching of a 50-year-old Muslim man in Delhi who was suspected of carrying beef.
Following this, he had a string of abuses hurled at him, one that was the loudest was ‘Anti-National’. However, it was a time when Aamir Khan did not deter and stood by everything he said. It was a time when a number of Indian writers, scientists, and filmmakers were returning their awards as a protest against the Government of India and they were not locked up. It was a time when the ‘freedom of expression’ was barely hanging by a thread but still there.
Cut to 2022, when the same comment came back to bite Aamir Khan in the form of #BoycottLaalSinghChadda, he bowed down.
During the Laal Singh Chaddha promotional event in New Delhi, Aamir reacted to the boycott trend and said, “If I have hurt anyone by any means, I regret it. I don’t want to hurt anyone. If someone doesn’t want to watch the film, I’d respect their sentiment.”
He now ‘regrets’ it and that one word is proof of how slowly and deeply intolerance has seeped into the fabric of India and it is here to stay.
Boycott Trends In 2022
In 2015, Shah Rukh Khan too had come out and spoke about how he thinks India is becoming intolerant, and his fate wasn’t different than Aamir’s. Now that statement has resurfaced just in time for the most crucial stage of his career.
In 2021, The Caravan Magazine, one of India’s leading publications, ran a front-page cover depicting Bollywood star Akshay Kumar as the ‘Hindutva’s poster boy’ and all hell broke loose on right-wing Indian Twitter who defended him with all their might. The same right-wing Indian Twitter recently started a boycott trend against his latest film Raksha Bandhan too. Reason? An old comment yet again.
But wait, there’s more! Hrithik Roshan’s Vikram Vedha is also being boycotted because he praised Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha. Ranbir Kapoor’s Brahmastra, on the other hand, is being boycotted because he had a special appearance in Aamir’s film ‘PK’. Amitabh Bachchan’s loved reality show Kaun Banega Crorepati 13 was also boycotted because of Aamir’s appearance in the first episode. #BoycottTiger3 is also Twitter’s latest trend, just because. Shocker!
It is to be noted that, the commonality between all of these boycott trends is any big or small and direct or indirect act of criticism against the Indian Government.
Instead of taking Aamir Khan’s statement as constructive criticism, it was blown out of proportion and what followed was a witch-hunt of everyone and everything related to him.
Growing Intolerance Against Freedom Of Speech
While many pieces of political evidence prove how India has turned into an intolerant, egoistic, and Orwellian state over time, we are not going to open that can of worms. For now, we are only going to focus on how India as a country has a twisted definition of Article 19 (Freedom of Speech and Expression) of the Indian Constitution and how it is forcing dissenting artists into silence.
Back in 2020, when the country was in turmoil because of the protests against the unconstitutional (as deemed by Indian Muslims) CAA-NRC, Deepika Padukone had paid a visit to JNU to extend support to students who were attacked with sticks and rods by a masked mob, while the police allegedly watched.
Following this, the right-wing swiftly set in motion to trend #BoycottChhappaak on Twitter.
Farhan Akhtar’s Toofaan was also boycotted because he had supported the CAA protests. Richa Chadha, Anurag Kashyap, Javed Jafri, and Swara Bhaskar were trolled, abused, and subjected to endless hate for the same reason.
It does not end here. During the farmers’ protest too, Diljit Dosanjh, Vishal Dadlani, Sonakshi Sinha, Taapsee Pannu, and Sonam Kapoor were targeted for speaking ‘against the government’.
While films like The Kashmir Files, Sooryavanshi, and Tanhaji were applauded for openly propagating agenda against Muslims, PK, OMG, Article 15, Kedarnath, Udta Punjab, and Mulk among many more recent films have been boycotted by people. Because these films had dared to show something different than the majority’s opinion.
Every day we wake up to a new film being boycotted because of the lead actor, director, or writer’s ‘sinister’ past where they had dared to speak against the Indian Government.
We have entered a new normal, where netizens and Twitterati have become self-proclaimed guardians of India and nationalism who start a trial at the drop of a hat, while the government and judiciary discreetly look away.
So, where does this witch-hunt stop? And more importantly, when powerful voices of India are being stifled, what chance does the common Indian stand?
| Edited by Rasti Amena | 
