More than 85% INDIANS back BJP over Aamir Khan : Times of India

[PakEye]

In India Muslim feels always the importance of THE TWO NATION THEORY.

 

[Mamsalaphala]

Cults and conscience

Illustration: Satwik Gade

Vamsee Juluri



Aamir Khan’s recent transformation from celebrity to activist-crusader needs to be seen in the context of the tension between commodification & social change in the media age.


Aamir Khan is more than a celebrity. He is, to a certain group of people in India and abroad, something like a conscience. He stands for many good qualities; tolerance, liberalism, concern for social justice, and the idea that one should not shy away from fighting whatever is wrong in the world. With Satyamev Jayate, he emerged as the media age’s equivalent of a national conscience figure, part-Oprah, part-NGO, and part-Gandhi for our times. It is hard to differ with him, or what he stands for. At one level, that is.



The cultural and spiritual landscape of postcolonial India has offered up very different idioms for the expression of something like a popular conscience. From the iconic Gandhi and many revered Gandhians whose life, memory, or even depictions served to remind one of ideas of right and wrong, to the many spiritual and religious figures who play the role of therapist, teacher, entertainer and moral guide to ordinary Indians, the role of a conscience-figure has always faced the challenges of commodification and co-optation. Gandhi, for example, was frequently the ironic-conscience in Indian movies, a silent weeper for injustice and corruption done under his watch, at least until the Munnabhai franchise.

Emptiness

The transformation of Aamir Khan in the last few years from Bollywood celebrity to activist-crusader needs to be seen therefore in the context of the tension that exists between commodification and social change in the media age. One might critique him for not doing enough, or not being enough, from the point of view of what might be considered a progressive politics, but there is also a growing sense of emptiness surrounding him when it comes to what might be called a politics of the conscience.

For those who believe that India has become vastly intolerant in the last year, Khan’s admission that his family considered moving out of India for fear of being harmed by intolerance might seem a valid point, a “no-brainer,” as one might say. For others, though, who find the claims about this rising intolerance largely unfounded, such a statement appears very different; not the outcry of a concerned citizen pained about his country, but as a cynical expression of disdain for a whole country. Supporters of Khan will see his critics as proof of what they have been saying about intolerance, and critics will see, once again, not so much proof of intolerance, but only a privileged and exalted sense of self-righteousness.

The key question one might need to examine here is simply whether there really was an act of intolerance against Khan that warranted such a strong statement of fear and condemnation. As far as we know, Khan has continued to work freely, make movies, even movies of a controversial nature like PK, sell products, and enjoy a life of celebrity and fame. He has not been browbeaten by governments, political parties, nor by citizens. He has been criticised somewhat for his selective story-telling in PK, but that is not unexpected for anyone who is a public figure, a creative person.



Those who have assumed a public role and become conscience-figures cannot shy away from the need to be responsible in their pronouncements.

Yet, Aamir Khan too has joined a group of people who believe, apparently, with all their hearts, that India has become more intolerant since May 2014. The incidents cited for this claim have been three murders, none of which has been determined to be connected to the national government or the ruling party. Yet, somehow, the fact that the Prime Minister did not condemn it quickly enough, or “strongly” enough, has warranted one of the loudest acts of protest by a part of the intellectual and artistic elite who seem to see something that many others simply don’t.

The tragedy of this sort of protest at a predetermined conclusion (Modi got elected, Modi is from the RSS, RSS founders admired Nazis, ergo, India is now fascist) is that it has broken India’s sense of itself in two.

Even with many regional parties, caste-based parties, and all the politics of its diversity, India seldom showed polarisation on the fundamental definitions of reality on such a scale ever before perhaps. Whether this polarisation is real, or the symptom of an age when the pervasiveness of the media, and the power of the media environment to turn into an echo chamber and feed a contrived public panic, as much of the U.S. media did before the Iraq war, is a question that needs honest debate, and often sadly missing in the war of clichés and slogans that TV debates dominated by party spokesmen rather than independent observers get reduced to.

No one can presume to instruct a fellow citizen on how much of a sense of belonging he ought to feel for the nation. But those citizens who have assumed a public role and who have become, either through desire or clever commercial craftsmanship, or both, conscience-figures for the nation, cannot shy away from the need to be responsible in their public pronouncements.

Even if critics of the Modi government insist that they are calling a party intolerant and not the nation, loose statements about wanting to flee India because it is becoming intolerant inevitably appear condescending and hurtful, and even hypocritical. There is a growing sense among people that essentially a small, privileged section of India’s intelligentsia, accustomed to living in some post-national or transnational space of selective identity politics, has turned increasingly inward and unresponsive to an India that may not have had the fine liberal arts education of the sort it did, but still believes, even if in simple language and terms, in a deeper kind of conscientiousness than what fashionable identity-based menus for protest might say.

Ordinary people

Many of the people upset by Aamir Khan’s statement are not innately minority-despising “intolerant” party-hacks but ordinary citizens who believe in an inclusive notion of India, and not some predetermined calculus about what identities are innately progressive and what identities are not. They see an India in which a very deep-rooted sense of acceptance, kindness, and patience helps it survive the chaos and struggle of the everyday. They live in an India where the basic goodness of its diverse people, and not the high distance of privilege, gives them their understanding of things like tolerance and intolerance. They might not have the sophisticated vocabulary for it, so they wave flags and say little more than simple patriotic slogans. But we cannot deny that they are from deep within a real India which knows itself very well. Meanwhile, though, the Neros and Batistas of our time, trapped in their palaces of high theory, cannot fathom this at all. Instead, they purport to destroy every drop of integrity and honesty in our discourse simply because their theories did not work out as planned.

(Vamsee Juluri is a professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco and the author of Rearming Hinduism.)

Aamir Khan's remarks: cult and conscience - The Hindu

Outstanding

Superb understanding and fantastic articulation. Sometimes even the Hindu redeems itself.

 

[Nilgiri]

Many of the people upset by Aamir Khan’s statement are not innately minority-despising “intolerant” party-hacks but ordinary citizens who believe in an inclusive notion of India, and not some predetermined calculus about what identities are innately progressive and what identities are not. They see an India in which a very deep-rooted sense of acceptance, kindness, and patience helps it survive the chaos and struggle of the everyday. They live in an India where the basic goodness of its diverse people, and not the high distance of privilege, gives them their understanding of things like tolerance and intolerance. They might not have the sophisticated vocabulary for it, so they wave flags and say little more than simple patriotic slogans. But we cannot deny that they are from deep within a real India which knows itself very well. Meanwhile, though, the Neros and Batistas of our time, trapped in their palaces of high theory, cannot fathom this at all. Instead, they purport to destroy every drop of integrity and honesty in our discourse simply because their theories did not work out as planned.

It brought tears to my eyes! This was very well put. Kudos to the author. The very concept that one of them, a mere chai wallah, has become the leader of their nation fills many with such joy and innate pride and add to that the fact he has a track record and firm basis of development and improvement.....its easy to see why he is much maligned by various quarters of the elite....because he is showing up the failure of the elite so far like no other before him.

Thank you again for posting this article.

 

[Jaam92]

TOI poll: More than 85% back BJP over Aamir Khan

NEW DELHI: Actor Aamir Khan's onscreen popularity might be indisputable, but his comment on intolerance doesn't seem to have impressed many.

An online poll on timesofindia.com shows little support for the actor who said his wife Kiran Rao had wondered if they should move out of the country, as she feared for the safety of their son in a climate of insecurity.

READ ALSO:
Aamir Khan on intolerance — I am alarmed, my wife suggested moving out of India

Aamir's comments evoked strong, negative reactions from the BJP as well as from some Bollywood actors.

BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain on Tuesday said no country in the world is better for Muslims than "incredible and 'atulya' (unmatched)" India and no neighbour better than a Hindu.

READ ALSO:For Muslims, no country better than India, no neighbour better than a Hindu, says BJP on Aamir Khan row

We asked our readers if they agreed with Hussain's remarks against the actor.

A whopping 86.5 per cent of respondents agreed with Hussain's reaction to Aamir Khan's comments.

Of a total 22,694 people who participated in our poll, 19,627 said they agreed with Hussain and only 2,747 said they didn't agree with him.

A total of 320 respondents voted, but refrained from taking sides.

The actor on Wednesday issued a statement saying he is proud to be an Indian and that while he does not plan to leave the country, he stands by his comments.

TOI poll: More than 85% back BJP over Aamir Khan - The Times of India

@Guynextdoor2 @HariPrasad @Kashmiri Pandit @GURU DUTT @nForce

If this is truth then Muslims and Sikhs should understand their value in India.
Look like whole country is extremist

 

[Stag112]

Again you have not picked up a statistics book and understand how normal distribution works even for a simple binomial system. There is a magic number of 30 (I won't go into the reasons why - because you have so far not bothered to counter anything with actual statistical reasoning) that as long as you are higher than (in your sample size), you have the start of statistical significance as long as it is totally random selection....no matter how big the population is.

If we had 30 samples instead of 22,000 for example for this response, the 95% confidence interval still has bounds of 72% and 98% (with center at 85%). The question again becomes the randomness of the sample (and thus its bias)....not its size.

This may be a helpful resource for you if you want to get grounded on some very basic things and concepts regarding population analysis through sampling, because you seem to know absolutely nothing on this matter:

Sampling Distributions



If akheilos = JANA, she is a very reasonable, respectful lady deep down. I have debated her long long time ago in another forum far far away....she probably doesn't remember who I was (I don't really remember either)...but I do remember her and her personality.

But thats another story for another time perhaps. But I certainly would not call her a rock

She is not entirely wrong of what she is trying to assert here, I am just pointing out she is coming at it from the wrong angle. Statistics is rarely a sheer sampling ratio game.

She is not Jana. She goes by handle Spring Onion here.

This one is just obstinate and thick. Hopelessly.

 

[SarthakGanguly]

'BJP Fans' type Facebook pages immediately detect and ask members to participate
Members immediately flock and poll

Oh. And seculars sit idle and watch the show?

 

[Nilgiri]

She is not Jana. She goes by handle Spring Onion here.

This one is just obstinate and thick. Hopelessly.

Yah already cleared up by sarthakji.

It was my bad...I mixed up handles

 

[noksss]

Bhakt can keep fanstasizing. In UP, West Bengal etc. they'll see what the real indian feels.

Like how your Chuthiyawal is going to feel in the next delhi election

 

[Guynextdoor2]

Oh. And seculars sit idle and watch the show?

Pretty much. The social media cell for 'seculars' is now nonexistent.

 

[Baby-5]

Lollz this should be renamed '85% Bhakt have nothing better than waste time on online polls'

What about the rest 13.4% Tolerants.

 

[Stag112]

What about the rest 13.4% Tolerants.

Lol! There is no uniform tolerance code and uniform "wasting time on internet" code

 

[Baby-5]

Lol! There is no uniform tolerance code and uniform "wasting time on internet" code

Hey, you too from that leftist Propaganda university AKA JNU??

In India Muslim feels always the importance of THE TWO NATION THEORY.

Even in Bangladesh too.

 

[PakEye]

Hey, you too from that leftist Propaganda university AKA JNU??
Even in Bangladesh too.

The NAMO regim is the lesson for the new generation of Indian muslim. now young mulsim can better understnding about the propagenda of so called seculerism.

 

[HariPrasad]

Pretty much. The social media cell for 'seculars' is now nonexistent.

It exist for pseudo secular only. You know 2 BJP leaders are murdered in Bharuch but no media coverage. One bajarang dal activist is Karnataka No media coverage, Hand of one RSS worker chopped off in Kerala but there is no media coverage. 1100 Pundits killed in Kashmir. Parliament never discussed. They see only dadri, Amir khan. they do not have the eye to see the pain of Hindus.

 

[Baby-5]

The NAMO regim is the lesson for the new generation of Indian muslim. now young mulsim can better understnding about the propagenda of so called seculerism.

Nope, they are already hurt because of the violence and pogrom which is openly allowed in India's west neighboring country, and what is happening to their Shia bretheren, hindus and Sikhs, Ahmedias has filled them with despise.