Pakistan and India
routinely deny visas to people of either countries - both prominent and
otherwise - and often it doesn’t make news. Indians who visit the Pakistan
embassy in Delhi know how hard it’s to get hold of a visa and how hard it’s to
deal with the immigration and police officials once you reach Pakistan.
Pakistanis, including
those raised in the West, too have similar stories with some even vowing never
to return again - it’s about reciprocity and that’s exactly how countries
behave, whether they are friendly or not. India and Pakistan are not friends.
So we regularly deny
visas to hordes of cross-border pilgrims and a lot of popular Pakistani
artistes on both security and procedural grounds, and Pakistan too does the
same from time-to-time. There’s no question of who started it first because it
has been going on for ever. And that’s how foreign affairs work.
Some times, these
security and procedural concerns are real, and some times political. Remember,
when America introduced finger printing of overseas visitors, Brazil retaliated
instantly by asking American tourists on Brazilian ports to queue up for a
reciprocal procedure - they didn’t even have an electronic finger-printing
machine and had to do with a finger-pad and paper.
So, what’s the big
deal Anupam Kher?
You are one of the
many Indians who happened to be on Pakistan’s radar now for reciprocal action.
And just because you think you have some endowment owing to your proximity to
the BJP, you feel outraged. Of course, they are making a point by singling you
out. And that’s exactly how it works.
This is not the first
time; and this will not be the last time either. And, it’s also not because you
are with the BJP. In the past, Bollywood’s favourite poet Javed Akhtar was
singled out from a group that was to visit Pakistan to raise money for
2005-earthquake victims during the Congress-led UPA rule.
He had no sympathy
for saffron politics and was a strong advocate for religious tolerance - traits
that Pakistan could have exploited in their favour. On another occasion, actor
Feroz Khan was thrown out of the country because of his allegedly drunken
anti-Pakistan tirades on Pakistan-TV.
India too had denied
visas to a lot of prominent Pakistanis - mostly good looking actors and
talented entertainers who had a following in India - Imran Abbas, who acted
with Bipasha Basu; Humaima Malick, Emran Hashmi’s pair in one of his movies;
Mahira Khan, Shah Rukh Khan’s reported pair in Raees; and may others including
singers Arif Lohar, Javed Bashir, Imran Aziz Mian and Sahir Ali Bagga.
And most recently,
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan was deported from Hyderabad airport, immediately on
arrival, on technical grounds - apparently Pakistanis can enter India only
through the ports in the four metros. Even more bizarre bar on entry was on
Ghazal king Ghulam Ali, on whom the government had no problem, but its alliance
partners had. So a harrowed and amused Ali could sing only in West Bengal and
Kerala, but not anywhere else. And did this not led to him vowing never to
perform in India in the future?
Pakistanis too do the
same thing. They deny visas to ordinary citizens and more prominent ones at
will, and they do harass and restrict movement once Indians land on their soil.
For instance, if you have a visa only for Islamabad, you will be chaperoned to
a detention area for your connecting flight if you transit through Lahore.
So, why is Anupam
Kher complaining?
Because he wants to
make a bigger national hero out of himself - a man hounded by Pakistan because
he is against Muslim terror in Kashmir, because he is a displaced Kashmiri
Pandit and because he is a strong nationalist. And during the present times of
hyper-jingoism, a lot of people will stand by him and bash others with
alternative-opinions, including those who bat for track-two diplomacy and
cricketing ties, and those who criticise human excesses in Kashmir.
One cannot blame
Kher's perpetual peeve of forceful displacement that many Kashmiri Pandits all
over the world feel, but using it for political aggrandisement is not cool.
When Javed Akhtar was singled out, he didn't care; neither did Feroz Khan.
Every time a BJP-led
government comes to power, it’s windfall time for people such as Anupam Kher
because there aren’t too many A-listers in Bollywood who show open allegiance
to partisan political ideologies. Most of the art-house film-makers are
habitually Left and secular and hence openly oppose the BJP and its
interventions in art, while the others keep a safe distance. It’s only people
such as Kher, Gajendra Chauhan, Pahlaj Nihalani and Hema Malini who stick their
neck out.
Obviously they do get
rewarded. In the recent uproar over intolerance, while almost all the elites of
the entertainment industry and the art-house crowd covertly and overtly
criticised the Modi government, his party and proxies for their alleged
intolerance, it was Kher who managed to parade a group in support, although
comprising comparatively insignificant names. Coincidentally, he got a Padma
Bhushan. Last time, more than ten years ago, his reward came in the form of a
Padma Sri. The Padma Bhushan probably took longer because of the UPA-
interregnum.
There’s no denying
the fact that the actor is a household name for his prodigious volume of work
in Bollywood, and some unforgettable performances; but it’s his pro-BJP
politics that gets him the bigger stage and even bigger political profile. The
Pakistan visa denial is just another opportunity to play up this political card
and Hindu-nationalism.
Let him do that
because he benefits from it, but the rest of the country should take it easy. There’s
nothing new. India has detailed and even deported people of other nationalities
for silly reasons. Denial of visas, selective scrutiny and bad behaviour at
immigration counters because of the colour of your skin, language and passport,
and restriction on your movements are the reality of the world. And
India-Pakistan friendship is just a myth that we will continue to play for
another 1000 years.
