Hindu Threats For Muslim Bollywood Film

MUMBAI – Fearing attacks by Hindu extremists, cinemas in the Indian city of Mumbai on Friday, February 12, shied away from screening top Muslim actor Shah Rukh Khan’s new film.

“Shiv Sainiks tore the screen at Maratha Mandir (cinema) even before the release of the film,” Manoj Desai, who owns a number single-screen theatres, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Why should I take chances?”

Another cinema owner in central Mumbai also decided not to screen the “My Name is Khan” movie over the Hindu threats.
Ultra-nationalist Shiv Sena Party has vowed to disrupt the film’s release after Khan regretted the absence of Pakistani cricketers in the Indian Premier League.
Amid fears of Hindu attacks, hundreds of police personnel were deployed to protect cinemas.
“Hundreds of men have been deployed in plain clothes and in uniform to see that everything goes well,” said Mumbai police commissioner D. Sivanandhan.
Police this week arrested more than 2,000 Shiv Sena members, mainly as a preventative measure, after sporadic violence outside cinemas.
Shiv Sena, which runs the Mumbai municipality, sees itself as a guardian of traditional Hindu values and pushes a strong anti-Muslim, anti-Pakistan rhetoric.
It has long claimed to champion the rights of people from western Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, over “outsiders”, often backing up its stance with violence.
The right-wing party draws political sustenance from hardline Hinduism and an ultra-nationalism that includes strident opposition to Pakistan.

Anti-Muslim

Many cinema owners are panicked to screen the film over the Hindu threats.
“At the moment we are not sure if we will be able to screen the movie,” said Yatin Rawal, owner of single screen Apsara theatre in Ahmedabad.
“We will only show the film if adequate safety and security is guaranteed by the police.”
Multiplex chains Fun Cinemas and TVR also decide to limit the movie screening, while Cinemax India and INOX have decided to postpone the showing.
Anti-Khan protests by Shiv Sena activists were not confined to only Mumbai, but spread to New Delhi and Ahmedabad, with posters of the film and its Muslim star defaced and burned outside cinemas.
However, many Mumbai residents ventured to defy threats by the Hindu extremists.
“I came to see the movie because it’s been so controversial, and because I am a huge fan of Shah Rukh Khan,” said Subhash Kandrep, who stood outside Inox multiplex with friends.
“I don’t see why a movie should not be shown just because some people are protesting over what Khan said.”
The film features Khan, Bollywood’s most successful star, an autistic man subject to racial bias in the United States after the 9/11 attacks.
It was ironic, he said, that a film made for peace “has led to so much angst in my own house. My city. My country. Am I political or politically incorrect?”
Analysts believe that the Hindu threats against the Muslim actor are meant to win Hindu votes.
“Why is Shah Rukh Khan attacked in this fashion?” said Dipankar Gupta, a scholar and commentator who has studied Shiv Sena.

“Because he is a Muslim.”

Indian Muslims, estimated at nearly 140 million, have for decades complained of social and economic neglect and oppression.
They account for less than seven percent of public service employees, only five percent of railways workers, around four percent of banking employees and there are only 29,000 Muslims in India’s 1.3 million-strong military.

Source: IslamOnline.net & News Agencies