Shiv Sena angry with SRK - Post All Articles HERE - Page 30

SRK film expected to earn up to 70% of collections abroad.

The jury's still out on whether the Shiv Sena demand that the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer, My name is Khan, be banned by exhibitors will lead to some losses for producers and distributors of the much awaited movie.

True, Maharashtra and its capital, Mumbai, account for over 25 per cent of a Bollywood movie's box office collections. However, My name is Khan is expected to be a large grosser in the overseas market too, just like other Shah Rukh movies. As a result, the movie might not face as big a loss as many expect it to.

Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, which produced the movie for Rs 40-45 crore, had sold the worldwide distribution rights of the film to Fox Star Studios for over Rs 100 crore, making it one of the most expensive films in Bollywood. However, the exact structure of the deal is not known.

The Shiv Sena has already sent letters to exhibitors to ban the film, saying that the party "vehemently objects to Shah Rukh Khan's movie being screened unless he publicly apologises to the country for inviting Pakistani cricketers to play in the Indian Premier League".

Says trade analyst Komal Nahata: "The Mumbai-Maharashtra area constitutes 25 per cent of revenues and is obviously the biggest market. You cannot make money in a film that is not shown here." Industry experts say the film's producers may lose between Rs 5 crore and Rs 6 crore, even if it is released in half the cinema houses in the area.

"The Shiv Sena has clout only in Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Nashik. It cannot stop the film from being screened all across Maharashtra," said an industry analyst. He further added that Karan Johar's previous films, like Kabhi alvida na kehana, recovered over 50 per cent of their money from overseas audiences.

"With My name is Khan, which has a more larger international appeal, as it is about a couple in the US, we expect 60-70 per cent of the box office collections to come from abroad. So, that is why Shah Rukh might not be worried," the analyst adds.

Exhibitors, as well as sub-distributors of the movie, just hope there is some kind of an agreement before the film is released on February 12. Fame India Managing Director Shravan Shroff said: "As a sub-distributor of the film and an exhibitor, all I want is to screen the movie in a peaceful atmosphere. I'm sure the concerned political party and Fox Star Studios will reach some consensus in this case."

Fame India acquired the theatrical distributor rights of My name is Khan from Fox Star Studios for the Maharashtra territory. However, the deal does not include Mumbai city.

Fun Cinemas COO Vishal Kapur says: "It's unfortunate that such things happen. They affect business, along with public sentiments. It's definitely not welcomed. But, one hopes the matter is resolved before the movie's release."

However, as a preventive measure, theater chains have pulled down posters of My name is Khan.

In his statements to the media, Shah Rukh had said earlier: "As an Indian, I'm not ashamed, guilty or unhappy about what I said. Neither am I sorry. Whatever I said, which has created an issue, I said it because I am an Indian. I think that every Indian would say the same — that we have a good country and that everyone is welcome as a guest."

Meanwhile, SRK is asking his fans to book tickets of the movie through online ticketing portal KyaZoonga.Com, the official online ticketing company appointed by Fox Star Studios and Johar's Dharma Productions.

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/overseas-markets-may-rescue-my-name-is-khan/384586/

Conciliatory but consistent

- What should I apologise for, asks Shah Rukh

AMIT ROY

London, Feb. 3: Shah Rukh Khan, who was in London on a day Shiv Sena activists tore down posters of My Name is Khan in Mumbai, said he was willing to apologise but only if his critics could tell him what he should be apologising for.

Flanked by director Karan Johar and co-star Kajol, Shah Rukh managed to stick to his guns in the most conciliatory way possible.

Shah Rukh was asked at a packed news conference about threats from Shiv Sena leaders who have warned they would not allow the film to be screened unless he apologised for his remarks regretting the exclusion of Pakistani players from the IPL.

"What I said was not connected to a person or a group of people," he said. "What I said was true of any person from (brought up in the culture of) India, Pakistan, Bangladesh — that's how I have been brought up. My country is nice, I am very proud of it. I am very proud to have been born there. I wish people to come to my country and participate in the goodness of my country. If that is wrong, then my children are studying wrong things (at school)," Shah Rukh said.

He clarified that what he had said "is not a statement against anyone. I have said what I believe to be true. It is not nice for a Hindi film hero who is thought of as an icon to say this but the stakes are very high."

Shah Rukh did apologise but to his colleagues on the movie. "I am very, sorry, I would like to apologise to Kajol and my business partners – because of what I say or what I believe in, their film is going to be affected. I have no idea how to change that."

He went on: "I am very happy taking my film to the world, I am very happy interacting with audiences."

There was an emotional moment when he admitted: "I am very sad (about this controversy – and it is not jet lag. I am very sad because this is a very special film. I don't know why it (my comments) should be taken personally. It is not meant to be that way."

In his own way, Shah Rukh managed to wrong foot the Shiv Sena. "I don't know why there is so much confusion about what I have said. I have no idea why there should be. If you have differences of ideas, three people having different points of view, (you discuss it). I have not pointed to a party or a group or a person – I mention no names. (It was) something I said about me and about what I believe in. I think 99.99 per cent of Indians are with me. I don't know the issues, what it is about, I don't know what it is I am supposed to regret ...(am I supposed to say) that I don't want anyone to come to my country, what (that is) all I have been taught by my father, who was a freedom fighter for this country, is wrong, my kids are studying wrong?"

He appealed to Indians all over the world: "I have no idea what people would like me to say. If this (the above) is what they want me to say, I will say it. What do I have to apologise for? If somebody explains that to me and I have done wrong (I will apologise). I have done that in the past... I have apologised to a segment of a Muslim group (because they felt) a song of mine was wrong. Whenever my film has come out, it has never come out with the intention of hurting anybody's sentiments and I hope it will never happen. If I am in the wrong I would like to apologise."

He stressed again: "Somebody will have to explain to me what is wrong – so many people's lives, futures are riding on this. I just request everybody, 'Just leave the film alone and deal with what I said'."

Did he find it ironic that his loyalty was being questioned in Mumbai at the very moment academics at the University of Vienna were planning a whole seminar on the importance of Shah Rukh Khan as a symbol of all that was best about Bollywood and India, he was asked.

"It is very humbling," he responded. "Much more love is given than I deserve, similarly much more importance is given to the negatives that I get. I never get it straight – I get either too much or too less and that is the beauty of being a superstar. Sometimes I am very, very happy and sometimes I am very, very sad. I have never been normal. If you ask, 'How does it feel to be a superstar?', it is very, very unbalanced."


http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100204/jsp/frontpage/story_12065139.jsp

this is so sad 😭

Fauji vs Sena1

Indian Express ( National newspaper) Editorial

Posted: Thursday , Feb 04, 2010 at 0037 hrs

Why would anyone want to rock the boat? The relationship that the Mumbai film industry has traditionally had with the various Senas and other goonda-politicos that blot the city's landscape has been cosy, even chummy. Generally, the film types try to stay under the radar. And, everywhere, there's the slightly sickly smell of what's known but unspoken — that, if the celebs don't play along, a couple of tough guys will turn up and close down their next movie. It seems to work, right? Why change?

Which is why Shah Rukh Khan's refusal to back down is inspiring. The Shiv Sena had taken umbrage to his saying that the IPL — in which Khan has an interest in the Kolkata franchisee — "should have" ensured participation by Pakistani players. This incensed the Sena, which is accustomed to having things all its own way: in a familiar pattern, posters for Khan's new movie were torn down, and owners of movie theatres intimidated. (Equally familiarly, the police did not clamp down on the violence.) On previous occasions, this would have led to a spineless climbdown, a public apology, perhaps even a pilgrimage to Matoshree to beg forgiveness. Karan Johar, for example, bent over backwards to placate Raj Thackeray when he objected to Wake Up Sid being set in "Bombay": apologising in person and promising changes in the script, as well as in all future scripts. On this occasion, however, the spines seem to have stiffened, not bent. Aamir Khan backed Shah Rukh over the weekend, saying that the point of the IPL was to select players based on ability, not ancestry. And Shah Rukh himself came out with all guns blazing in New York, saying that the Sena's attempt at intimidation was "unhealthy, undemocratic and insensitive". My Name is Khan's first-weekend numbers may hang in the balance, but it's clear that Shah Rukh has his eyes on another battle.

We can only hope that this is the start of a filmi insurgency. After all, that's the power of celebrity: a podium from which you can sometimes change the national, or regional, conversation. How many icons can the thugs take on? The Senas' derive an inflated sense of power by their rumoured capacity to disrupt a target's legitimate business. But each time a Shah Rukh Khan, or a Mukesh Ambani, or a Sachin Tendulkar stares them down and goes about business as usual, the thugs are rendered that much less fearsome.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/fauji-vs-sena/575191/

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiEl3KaD2aM[/YOUTUBE] Song dealing with the Dictatorship in Chile under Gen. Pinochet who made people 'disappear' - extremism

Content Removed

http://www.hindustantimes.com/We-re-all-Shah-Rukh/H1-Article1-504942.aspx

Being Indian

4 February 2010, 12:00am IST

More voices have joined the opposition to the exclusivist politics of Shiv Sena and its breakaway group, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Following statements from Mumbai civil society luminaries and the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, senior politicians across political parties have criticised Sena's myopic view of Mumbai as the exclusive preserve of Marathi speakers. Their interventions are most welcome.

Among the latest critics of Sena's hate agenda is Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi. At a public interaction in Patna, Gandhi asserted that every part of India belongs to every Indian. His intervention prompted even Maharashtra Congress leaders, so far conspicuous by their silence on Sena's hate politics, to talk about the unity of the country and that everyone, irrespective of their regional or linguistic origins, should get equal opportunities. These leaders, especially since they run the government in Mumbai, must now act on their words. However, Gandhi's political rhetoric regarding the role of NSG commandos from UP and Bihar has created a controversy. A headcount of the regional origins of those who fought to save Mumbai is pointless. The only relevant point is that the nation was united in repulsing the terrorist strike. Gandhi's logic limits the idea of being Indian to a framework defined primarily by a citizen's response to national security. National security is, of course, important. But we need to go further and define citizenship in terms of rights enshrined in the Constitution.

Interestingly, BJP president Nitin Gadkari invoked the constitutional provisions that guaranteed the right of every Indian citizen to live and work in any part of the country when he supported Bhagwat's criticism of the Sena. On Tuesday, senior BJP leader Vinay Katiyar reiterated Gadkari's view and argued that the BJP must rethink its alliance with the Sena. According to Katiyar, the Sena's political position threatens national unity. Language, he argued, can't be the basis for discrimination or for attacking people and businesses. Wise counsel, of course. We hope that Katiyar's and other sangh parivar leaders' notion of national integration includes opposing all forms of discrimination, not just on the basis of linguistic and regional identities but religious as well.

That's possible if the Constitution is taken as the touchstone to define the rights of an Indian citizen. The Constitution protects not just the right of Indians to live and earn a livelihood anywhere in the country but also the right to freedom of speech and expression. Political parties like the Congress and the BJP must remind the Senas that the threats issued to Shah Rukh Khan for speaking favourably about Pakistani cricketers are unconstitutional and, hence, unacceptable.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Being-Indian/articleshow/5531979.cms

Opinion

Constructing Shah Rukh Khan

Badri Raina

In a contest between non-sectarian Indians and sectarian ones, the latter are beginning to lose supremacy. An excellent time to jettison complacence and to drive home the all-important task of exorcising the ghosts that haunt "resurgent" India

Shah Rukh Khan is a Delhi boy turned a bouncy Bollywood actor. He is married to a Hindu girl, and like most actors, lives in Mumbai. Alas, I do not much like his movies.

He is also staunchly proud of being an Indian (often too loudly so), and unselfconsciously avails of everything that a shining India has on offer—game shows, talk shows, sundry public events, and the IPL T20 cricket tamasha. His groupies span delirious young Indian women from every community and caste. Solid contribution to national unity there.

IPL is a privately owned and conducted tournament. Its inaugural event is a public auction in which different franchisees (of which Shah Rukh owns one) bid for and buy cricketers from India and sundry other nations, complete with the gravel and shouts of "sold".

As in all private enterprises with an eye on the main chance, players are evaluated for their commodity value regardless of what nationality they belong to.

Currently, as per international rankings, the world's top-rated T20 national team is the Pakistani team.

At the recent auction for the coming IPL tournament, some eleven or so swashbuckling players from Pakistan were up for the bid.

Not one of them was bought.

A silent and considered pall of denial seemed clearly to have been at work across competing franchisees. Cricket and money-making seemed to have yielded to politics, however the franchises' spokespersons pleaded a disinterest in everything except cricket and money.

Laudably, many voices came to be raised at this blanket boycott of players from the world's top T20 team. Among them that of India's most hawkish home minister who refused to be taken in by the disingenuous disavowals peddled by the franchises. He was gentleman enough, as he always is, to point out that any nation whose players were thus rejected enblock had some cause to feel slighted.

The home minister is a Hindu (indeed a Brahmin) and most hard on Pakistan for fomenting terrorism. He not only quashed the rumour that the government had anything to do with the sinister decision of the IPL bosses to refuse the Pakistani players, but expressed an enlightened disapproval of what they had done.

Among those others who decried the IPL plot was Shah Rukh Khan. Like all other decent commentators, he expressed the view that the Pakistani players should have been bought, given that they are indeed some of the best in the business.

Which is when all hell broke loose in Mumbai.

The Shiv Sena supremo, Bal Thackeray was quick to comment in the party organ, Saamna, that Shah Rukh was, after all, no ordinary Indian; he was a Muslim.

Unlike any other comment favourable to the discarded Pakistani players, his comment clearly must be seen to harbour a pro-Pakistani bias.

Once the supremo had given his signal, what was to prevent the lumpen armies to go to work. Shah Rukh's posters and effigies have been duly consigned to the flames of patriotism, and his house besieged and vandalized. Instructions have gone out that his forthcoming movie must be boycotted. And he has been advised to make Karachi his home.

All that when one would have thought that the prime target of the "patriots" ought to have been the home minister whose job, after all, is to secure the nation from Pakistani perfidy rather than express sentiments favourable to their cricketers!

But then he is a distinguished Hindu. Whereas, "by favouring the inclusion of Pakistani cricketers, Shah Rukh has proved that he is a Muslim first and foremost and that he will continue to support Pakistan at the cost of our own national interest" (this from the inimitable Praveen Togadia of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, whose voice was among the loudest at the time of the Gujarat anti-Muslim massacre of 2002.)

As luck would have it, another one of India's finest actors, Aamir Khan—one whose work I do much like—also concurred with Shah Rukh and the home minister to fault the IPL plot. But, as his luck has it, he also is a Muslim. Thus, the Shiv Sena's Dopahar Ka Saamna was quick to rope him in: "according to Aamir, if any cricketer is good, he would like to have him in his team, it makes no difference to him which country he belongs to."
Incidentally, this same Aamir Khan has just received a national award on India's Republic Day when distinguished Indians are thus honoured by the state. No end, the Sena would say, to the Congress Party's "appeasement" policy.

Lest you think the pot is now boiling at white heat, think again.

Until the IPL fiasco broke, the Shiv Sena in Mumbai had been more intimately occupied with another pet hate—that against "immigrants" from north India, especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar whose denizens are pejoratively called "Bhaiyas" in Mumbai.

Having recently received puissant challenge from Raj Thackeray's tirade against "Bhaiyas" who are seen to gobble up job and other opportunities that "rightfully" belong to the "indigenous" Marathis, the Shiv Sena has had work to do in bettering the intensity and "authenticity" of that tirade.

In now steps the redoubtable Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (the RSS). Worried that the Shiv Sena campaign against north Indians could not but divide the cosy Hindu nation, the RSS chief has made bold to point out that the Shiv Sena project must be opposed, and north Indians protected from its onslaught.

The RSS makes it known that Mumbai belongs to all Indians after all, not just to Marathis, a position enunciated also by such Mumbai and Indian icons as Sachin Tendulkar and Mukesh Ambani.

Yet, despite being sound Hindus, the Shiv Sena has thought nothing of lambasting both Tendulkar and Ambani, clearly suggesting that when it came to a choice between its communal and regional loyalties, the Shiv Sena will privilege the latter.

Happily for them, however, the Shah Rukh/Aamir Khan interventions have provided the Shiv Sena the opportunity to quickly remind everybody that its regional/ethnic passions have in no measure lessened its communal ones, as it declares war on both fronts.

All of which leaves the RSS in some quandary.

Where the regional/ethnic pogrom unleashed by the Sena threatens to divide Indian Hindus and thus invites to be corrected by the premier Hindu outfit (RSS), under ordinary circumstance the Sena's tirade against the Muslim actors should have nicely gelled into this enterprise.

The problem is that Shah Rukh and Aamir are also Hindi-speaking north Indians, something that must make it awkward for the RSS for now to set them apart for opprobrium while other north Indians are sought to be protected from the Sena.

Thus it would seem that so long as Shah Rukh and Aamir can be constructed essentially as being north Indians, they may receive the RSS's protection, since other north Indians would also want that to be so. And, only when the current regional/ethnic contestation subsides, and the two can be unproblematically constructed as Muslims rather than north Indians may the Sena's campaign against them be endorsed.

Quite a pickle that.

Moral of the story: once you have refused to acknowledge that India's identity is a conglomerate one wherein unities must be discovered along axes other than those pertaining to social/communal identities, you may forever be making a hash not just of those identities but principally of your own pretensions to being "nationalists" par-excellence.

Happily, India has much changed since the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992, and it can be said that in a contest between non-sectarian Indians and sectarian ones, the latter are beginning to lose supremacy. An excellent time then to jettison complacence and to drive home the all-important task of exorcising the ghosts that haunt "resurgent" India.

And in that enterprise, there is no greater ally than India's impoverished millions (some seven out of ten) who couldn't care less about who belongs to what region or bears what name.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264105..

Bandra Muslims to defend SRK, Mannat from Sena

KETAN RANGA ketan. ranga@ mid- day. com

MUSLIMS from Bandra have come out in Shahrukh Khan's support after the actor drew flak from the Shiv Sena for his comment on the non- inclusion of Pakistani players in the IPL. The 700- member strong Bandra Muslim association, whose membership includes maulanas, political leaders and Muslim youth from Bandra, held a meeting last night and decided to express their support for the star and oppose the Sena's stand. They have also decided to guard the actor's residence, Mannat.

' Stern action required' Farooq Ghosi, president of the association, said, " Shahrukh and Aamir belong to the Bandra area and they are being targeted because they are Muslim actors. We have been noticing the statements made by the Sena leaders in the last few days and we won't allow this to continue. The government should take stern action and arrest Uddhav or we will come out on the streets. We will guard the homes of these actors and if Sena protestors come to their residence, our youth will protest. We will answer the Sena people using their own methods." When asked whether this would create further law and order problems, he said, " Shiv Sena has already created the controversy.

We are just trying to help the actors as saving the people of Bandra is our responsibility.

We are not the actors' followers but we won't allow the Sena to target them unfairly." The association will hold a press conference at the Press Club this afternoon.

Shah Rukh Khan, who is in New York for My Name is Khan's promotion, said he did not regret any of his comments — be it about the Pakistani cricketers or about Mumbai belonging to all Indians.

He said that he was proud to be an Indian and described the Sena's attitude as ' unhealthy' and ' undemocratic'. Morning Latest

Letters to the Editor - Hindu paper(South Indian based but national paper)

Mumbai for all

It is shameful that the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena are brazenly practising the politics of hate with the aim of broadening their support base in Maharashtra. Their rhetoric against non-Mumbaikars has breached all limits of sanity, and, as Siddharth Varadarajan (Feb. 3) put it in his article: "Can the idea of India pass the Thackeray test?," it is nothing short of 'goondaism.' As citizens of this country, we have had enough of divisive politics. Hope the Centre and the State act fast to stop this menace before it spreads.

Sunil P Shenoy,

Mangalore

The article was rightly indignant at the long rope given to the Shiv Sena in its campaign of parochialism by the powers that be in Maharashtra. The open threat issued to film star Shah Rukh Khan is downright condemnable. The way the Sena has unleashed violence and vandalism thus far against its political opponents and other personalities points to the total helplessness of the authorities. That it has got away with its acts too despite being out of power for over 10 years is a sad commentary on the functioning of the Congress-NCP coalition.

J. Anantha Padmanabhan

Srirangam Does old age take a man to hate speech as one finds in the case of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray? Of late, Mr. Thackeray attacks everyone as his daily Samna has turned into a medium for mudslinging. It is time to impose some check on such hate speech.

K.A. Solaman,

Alappuzha

The divisive Sena-MNS politics smacks of undemocratic motives and activities and often whips up people's sentiments on grounds of religion, region and language, and strangles the freedom of expression enshrined in the Constitution. Those practising the culture of hate politics pose a challenge to national integration. The taming of these regional and linguistic chauvinists who spearhead socio-political violence becomes imperative in the larger context of India's future.

V.M.Vadivelu,

Coimbatore

The Shiv Sainiks have the right to give expression to any philosophy they believe in, but it must be within the basic tenets of the Constitution. Shah Rukh Khan does not need to apologise to anybody and his movies are welcome in any part of India. The Shiv Sena neither represents the Hindus who believe in Lord Ram, nor the Indians who believe in democracy.

A. Raghunatha Reddy,

Kadapa

Siddharth Varadarajan has rightly pointed out the threat posed to national unity by the Shiv Sena. Now is the time for the Government of Maharashtra and the Union Home Ministry to act swiftly to put an end to such divisive forces. The authorities cannot simply watch forces with pernicious tendencies to gain political mileage. At a time when the nation is fighting terrorist attacks from within and across the border, such divisive forces cannot be allowed just because the parties they are affiliated to have been recognised by the Election Commission.

R. Viswanathan,

Poompuhar

http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/04/stories/2010020455070800.htm

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