Actor Shah Rukh Khan has refused to apologise to the Shiv Sena following the party’s bigoted campaign against him for his comments about Pakistani cricketers not being included in IPL teams. ‘‘I have done nothing wrong in saying what I said about Pakistani players and I said that as an Indian,’’ he said.
Big names in the film industry condemned whatever was happening to Khan but said Bollywood had never united to fight against pressure from politicians. ‘‘If you look at our history you will find each person fends for himself in Bollywood. The politics of silence rules Bollywood. Here it is not power but fear which corrupts absolutely,’’ filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt said, echoing many others in the industry.
There were comforting words from chief minister Ashok Chavan, who said ‘‘stern action’’ would be taken against those who sought to disrupt the screening of Khan’s upcoming release (My Name Is Khan), but industry insiders said they were not so confident.
Khan, as of Tuesday, seemed unwilling to back off. ‘‘The question of apologising does not arise at all. I have had to apologize just before the release of Billu as well and people try to gain political mileage out of us,’’ he said.
But what rankles in the industry is the near-total silence that has greeted the Sena threats. Only Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan have mentioned that sports should be kept out of politics but no one else has come forward in Khan’s support.
‘‘Shah Rukh Khan is fighting his own battle, Salman Khan’s ‘Veer’ has been pulled out of cinema halls in Udaipur but nobody is condemning it, ‘Fanaa’ was thrown out of Gujarat,’’ Bhatt said.
Trade analyst Amod Mehra agreed: ‘‘The industry is suffering because it lacks leadership. We have presidents and chairmen for all film associations but not one who can fight for the film industry and nobody is strong enough to fight politicians.’’
As Bollywood talked (or remained silent), the office of Shringar Films — distributors of the film in the Bombay circuit at Naaz Building on Grant Road — was attacked on Monday evening. Balakrishna Shroff of Shringar films has written to Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, saying the firm will not release the film in Mumbai unless it is cleared by him.
Khan, however, is confident that the state administration will provide security to cinema halls when the film is released.
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