Actor Aamir Khan on Tuesday woke up to a barrage of invective and intimidation for disclosing a day earlier that his wife had wondered whether the family should leave India because of growing intolerance.

He was accused of shaming the country, told that he was welcome to leave India and an online campaign was launched to boycott his movies and products endorsed by him.

A campaign has been launched to uninstall the mobile app of Snapdeal, the online store whose advertisements
feature Aamir.

Several critics of Aamir declared that they were removing the app from their phones while others clicked on the lowest one-star rating (the highest is five). Snapdeal’s spokesperson declined comment.

Slammed online, the Godrej Group tweeted that “Aamir Khan’s contract with Godrej ended in March 2014. The said
current views are his personal & in no way connected to us.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had told a news conference in London earlier this month that he wanted to “keep the record straight”. The Prime Minister suggested he had been welcomed in Britain in 2003 despite the backlash over the Gujarat riots — a version that was shredded soon after by a veteran diplomat.

What if the yardstick of “keeping the record straight” is applied to the controversy swirling around Aamir?

Criticism

Aamir Khan has threatened to leave India. How can he denounce the country?

Samples

Dear @aamir_khan, did you ask Kiran which country would she like to move out to?
Anupam Kher, actor

If I believe this is my motherland, then I will never talk about leaving it… but I would if I had believed otherwise. Paresh Rawal, actor and BJP MP

Compared to any country, India is the most tolerant and if some people are unhappy here also, they should tell which country they will go to.
Ram Gopal Varma, film-maker

For the record

Aamir did not say he would leave the country. Neither did his wife Kiran say so. They did not even say that they had any plans to leave the country.

What Aamir said at The Indian Express event was: “When I sit at home and talk to Kiran, she says, ‘Should we move out of India?’ That’s a disastrous and big statement for Kiran to make. She fears for her child. She fears about what the atmosphere around us will be. She feels scared to open the newspapers every day.”

From this statement alone, it cannot be inferred that Aamir or Kiran had put a jet in taxiing mode to fly out of the country. If a citizen wonders whether he or she should move out of the country because of some of the events unfolding here, how can it be construed as an exit policy?

Shouldn’t it be treated as an expression of anguish that should be addressed with the gravity it deserves?
A journalist who was at the event when Aamir was speaking said on Tuesday: “I got the impression that it wasn’t a threat or a real intent to leave India but a cry of anguish. Anguish that a child from any miniority group in India today may never have the chance to grow up as a normal citizen, that he or she will always be on test, ‘tolerated’ by the great majority at best.

“I thought that’s what Kiran meant. Aamir understood that and felt it was disastrous but also possibly true. That’s why Aamir perhaps said more than once he was ‘despondent’ — a word that expresses sadness more than anger or bitterness. Of course, this is what I felt and I have no way of discussing or confirming it with Aamir.”

With the lynch mob out in full force now, diatribe will masquerade as debate.

Elements like the Shiv Sena have already revived the “Go-to-Pakistan” drumbeat.

Actor Naseeruddin Shah struck a note of caution on Tuesday evening, saying: “I think a person like Aamir saying a thing like this is going to create a fear psychosis, and that’s the last thing Muslims in India need to have at the moment.”

Criticism

Aamir and Shah Rukh have called India intolerant. How can they tarnish the entire country?

Sample

“Dear @aamir_khan, When did ‘Incredible India’ become ‘Intolerant India’ for you?
Anupam Kher, referring to Aamir’s role as the brand ambassador for the tourism campaign.

For the record

Neither Aamir Khan nor Shah Rukh Khan has said “India is intolerant”.

Aamir had said there was “an increased sense of despondency in India over the last six to eight months” and added that “I can’t deny... I have been alarmed by a number of incidents.”

Shah Rukh had said: “There is intolerance, there is extreme intolerance… there is growing intolerance.”

Saying instances of intolerance are rising in the country is not the same as saying the whole country is intolerant. In fact, Shah Rukh asserted that India is secular and on the cusp of change and the focus should be on how to make it modern and progressive. Doesn’t sound like high treason or heresy, does it?

Criticism

How dare Aamir speak like this before honourable ministers, not one but five?

Sample

Aamir Khan is a brand ambassador for tourism in our country, for Incredible India. That’s what is incredible, that he can be a brand ambassador for our government and he can be on a platform in front of the information and broadcasting minister (Arun Jaitley) and speak his mind. It shows free speech thrives.
Smriti Irani, human resource development minister

For the record

Nice to know that airing negative thoughts in front of ministers is not yet an un-Indian activity.

Here’s some food for thought from Joseph Stalin’s Gulag era:

Three men are sitting in a cell in Dzerzhinsky Square, the KGB base.
The first asks the second why he has been imprisoned. The reply: “Because I criticised Karl Radek.”
The first man: “But I am here because I spoke in favour of Radek!”
The third man, who has been sitting quietly in the back, says: “I’m Karl Radek.”
It’s a joke, Madam Minister.

Avuncular advice

Aamir should stay and fight, not scoot

Sample

Mr. & Mrs. Aamir Khan, when things are going wrong and the system needs correction, repair it, mend it. Don’t run away from it. That is Heroism!
Rishi Kapoor, actor

For the record

But, uncle, that is exactly what Aamir has done, just as you have been admirably taking on trolls regularly.
Of course, Aamir had other choices.

Option 1

Aamir could have replied the way Amitabh Bachchan did when he was asked on May 30 about the beef ban in Maharashtra that came into force in March.

Interviewer: People are being told they can’t eat beef, they can’t consume beef, they can’t bring beef into Maharashtra.

Bachchan: Is there a law? Is there a law that has been passed?

Interviewer: Yes, there is a law which has been passed on that subject.

Bachchan: Really?

(A little later)

Bachchan: I’m a vegetarian. So I won’t be able to….

Interviewer: Sir, don’t avoid it.

Bachchan: Sorry?

Interviewer: Don’t avoid it.

Bachchan: No, no, seriously. I really don’t know what the issue is.

Option 2

Ranbir Kapoor, actor and Rishi Kapoor’s son, to India Today channel: “Intolerance has always been around. Unfair to say things have suddenly turned intolerant…. I do not get the feeling that intolerance has gone up. Intolerance question is being blown out of proportion.”
Which option ko lock kiya jaye, Kapoorji?

Criticism

Aamir has shamed the country

Sample

Let’s cut the BS — why can’t these people openly say that they weren’t happy since d day Modi became PM… instead of shaming the whole country.
Raveena Tandon, actress

For the record

Aamir has not said anything against the Prime Minister, who was in Singapore on Monday and Tuesday.

For the record, Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday spoke about the “mantra of unity and integrity” and how many people are giving up the gas subsidy back home, among other weighty matters.

Had the Prime Minister made an unequivocal statement the very day a citizen was lynched on suspicion of eating beef at the capital’s doorstep, people like Aamir would have been proud to point out that instances of intolerance had taken place but the leadership had set an edifying example through words and deeds.

The Prime Minister, who has made some general statements, is yet to fill that void.

Nature abhors a vacuum. In this case, humour has filled the hole. A joke doing the rounds on Tuesday, starring the peripatetic Prime Minister: Bol kaunse country jana hai teri biwi ko? Main on the way drop kar doonga.