Bollywood stars crushed under India's power play

Superstar Allu Arjun was arrested last week and spent the night in jail after a woman died in a stampede at the premiere of his blockbuster Pushpa. You would normally reckon that crowd control is the responsibility of the government in charge and not an actor.

Let me jog your memory: in January 2017, superstar Shah Rukh Khan travelled from Mumbai to Delhi as part of the promotion of his movie Raees. At Vadodara station, a huge crowd of 15,000 gathered to see the star, and a stampede ensued. One person died.

A case was immediately registered against Khan. It was only in September 2022 that the Supreme Court quashed the case against Khan, asking what his fault was in the stampede.

In India, actors are easy game for vindictive governments and politicians who want them on board for campaigning and to bask in the glow of the spotlight. If they don’t show up and play ball, the easiest option is to send in investigative agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax, Central Bureau of Investigation, and Customs.

Headline hunters can make violent threats against actors—such as the threat to kill them and cut off their noses—as was done to actor Deepika Padukone by the Karni Sena. The mob veto prevails as the authorities don’t act against them, fearing the disturbance of a vote bank.

A witch hunt

Actor Sanjay Dutt had to publicly escort his father, actor and politician Sunil Dutt, to pay obeisance to Balasaheb Thackeray when he was granted bail in a terror case. A desperate Dutt senior was abandoned by his party, the Congress, and had to beg Thackeray, for help.

So when Indian X was ablaze with attacks on the Kapoor family for the syrupy comments they made in a video post after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to invite him for the centenary celebrations of the original showman Raj Kapoor, I only took exception to Ranbir Kapoor’s Hindi—not the sycophancy.

No actor in India has a choice except to be servile to authority. Ranbir Kapoor earns billions as a Hindi film actor; surely he can do better than saying “personal sawals” (it’s singular, not plural) and other such gaffes by the entire family.

Similar cracks were made about Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan attending the recent swearing-in ceremony of Devendra Fadnavis’s government. Do these superstars actually have a choice? Are our memories so short that we’ve forgotten what Shah Rukh Khan’s son went through when a fake drug case was foisted on his son Aryan Khan by the Narcotics Control Bureau?

At the peak of the Covid pandemic, Aryan Khan spent a month in jail despite being completely innocent because a vindictive official decided to extort his father. An entire media trial was unleashed against actors; their private WhatsApp chats became fodder for nightly prime-time “news” as women anchors, eyes gleaming, read them out on television.

Actors Deepika Padukone, Rakul Preet Singh, and Sara Ali Khan were summoned by the same official. Eventually, no case was filed; it was simply a witch-hunt unleashed for alleged extortion.

Growing a backbone

Remember Rhea Chakraborty? Jailed because her partner, Sushant Singh Rajput, committed suicide, her character and reputation became sensational media sport, with “news channels” actually calling her a “witch who practised black magic”.

So do you really expect Bollywood and other industries to have a backbone? To not kowtow to those in authority? India still has a feudal mentality where the government, despite serving in a democracy, is still the mai baap, able to administer punishment at will without any due process.

And all political parties and governments are complicit. Allu Arjun was arrested by the Telangana government, which is run by Congress politician Revanth Reddy. The NCB is controlled by the central government.

The real question is: how could any magistrate say that Arjun should be given a 14-day remand when the High Court granted him bail the same day? Or in the case of Shah Rukh Khan, why did it take years and the Supreme Court to quash the case? Why were Aryan Khan and Rhea Chakraborty denied bail?

A magistrate is supposed to apply thought to the police authorities’ application, not just blindly rubber-stamp their ask. Clearly, in India, we have a huge problem because everything has to go before the highest judiciary for redressal. This process takes years and is the actual punishment.

Yet nobody cares. Fixing fundamental flaws in the system is not sexy and does not make headline-grabbing news. If a rogue official can send Shah Rukh Khan’s son to jail for allegedly trying to extort the star, ask yourself what can happen to an ordinary aam aadmi in India once the “system” decides to target you.

The days when legendary genius singer Kishore Kumar said no to the Congress party and saw his songs banned on All India Radio (AIR) during the Emergency seem innocuous. If Kumar had said no to a government—any government—these days, he would likely be in jail.

Literally no actor can now refuse political parties anything. From campaigning to tweeting in support of leaders, they have to comply.

So please don’t mock the command performance of our superstars. They have literally no choice. We should all ask ourselves, and as voters, the governments—all governments—how we got here.