I fell in love with Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) the minute I was born. I remember my mother telling me that she was watching “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge” (DDLJ) after I was born. That is when my one-sided love began for this larger-than-life figure who was ruling hearts in India.
Now, some 20 years later, his son, Aryan Khan, has hit the national headlines for all the wrong reasons. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) apprehended Aryan on drug charges. No drugs were found on him, but he was been denied bail twice.
The NCB alleges that incriminating WhatsApp chats were found on Aryan’s phone, and they wished to investigate the case further.
SRK visited his son in Arthur Jail on October 21, not as a superstar, but as a weary and grieving father. He met Aryan through a glass wall and spoke to him for around 20 minutes through an intercom in the jail’s meeting hall.
It was a heart-wrenching moment for fans across the world to see their beloved superstar in such a vulnerable position. After the visit, he greeted his fans like always—gently and humbly. However, as a journalist, I was appalled by how the media was hounding him like vultures.
The Politics Of Aryan’s Arrest
There has been an interesting development in the case by now. KP Gosavi, the detective with alleged connections to BJP who had tipped off Sameer Wankhede, the zonal director of NCB, has been summoned by the NCB for questioning.
Gosavi said he would record his statement at the NCB office in Mumbai before surrendering to the Pune Police. Gosavi stated he met Sam D’Souza on October 2, the day NCB officers led by Wankhede had apprehended Aryan and seven others from Mumbai’s international cruise terminal.
Prabhakar Sail, another independent witness who served as Gosavi’s bodyguard, has alleged he overheard Gosavi and Sam D’Souza talking about a ₹25 crore pay-off to let Aryan go. In addition, they spoke of giving ₹8 crore to Wankhede.
Sail alleged all of this via an affidavit, last week. After all this happened, Aryan finally got bail after it being rejected twice.
By now, it almost seems like a conspiracy to get SRK in trouble because he has been an advocate for Muslim rights, even after being hushed for his comments many times.
Fans All Over The World Support SRK
In a country like India, where religious intolerance is growing day by day, and the divide is sharpening between Hindus and Muslims, support for SRK has poured in from all sections of society. Many took to Twitter to write about their interactions with the living legend.
One user tweeted how SRK gifted his niece a signed screenplay after she worked on his film. It remains her most prized possession to date.
SRK continues to be the Bollywood hero who taught us how to love, fly and win. He made us fall in love with every character he played. The witty interviews he gave remain etched in our collective memories. Be it Raj or Rahul, Rizwan or Jehangir—he has played characters beyond religion and race.
His iconic pose in “Main Hoon Na” (with his arms stretched out wide) symbolizes a love he fosters in his heart for a secular India. His inclusive fanbase does not care if he is Hindu or Muslim. For us, he is reverential.
Why is it that in India, which went down the human freedom index 2020 rankings, plummeting 17 spots from its position in the last index, a figure like SRK can prosper?
When SRK Rejected Communal Sentiments
Perhaps, it is his unequivocal support for secularism, that binds all his fans together. In an op-ed in Outlook in 2013, SRK wrote:
“I gave my son and daughter names that could pass for any religion: Aryan and Suhana… I imagine this will prevent my offspring from receiving unwarranted eviction orders and random fatwas in the future. It will also keep my two children completely confused. Sometimes, they ask me what religion they belong to, and, like a good Hindi movie, I roll my eyes up to the sky and declare philosophically: you are Indian first, and your religion is humanity.”
This is similar to his dialogue in “Chak De India”: “Mujhe states ke naam na sunai dete hai na dikhai dete hai…sirf ek mulk ka naam sunai deta hai: I-N-D-I-A!” (I don’t hear the names of individual states. I can only hear one nation’s name: India.)
Or, it is SRK’s unapologetic nature or fervent support for secularism. On his 50th birthday, he talked about the growing religious intolerance in India. Hindu hardliners attacked him viciously for his comments, comparing it to treason.
But, SRK went on further and said, “We have made a huge thing about our meat-eating habits. How can the food habits of people be an issue?” He was talking about the lynching of a man over suspicions that he had consumed beef, as an example of the rising intolerance in India.
Parliamentarian Yogi Adityanath, and now Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister, had compared him to a Pakistani terrorist back then.
We Need To Read Between The Lines
There are suspicions that Aryan was arrested as a ploy by the ruling government to divert attention from important issues; and build the Aryan Khan drug case into something that could be used in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh state elections.
I believe they tried to do this previously, in the Bihar state elections, by igniting support for Sushant Singh Rajput and vilifying Rhea Chakraborty in a false drug case.
One thing is clear: grave injustice has been meted out to SRK. Why can Ashish Mishra, the son of junior home minister Ajay Mishra, a member of Indian Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s cabinet, roam freely even as his caravan of SUVs crushed a group of protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, on October 3? But, a Muslim is vilified.
Around 3,000 kg of heroin was seized by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) at the Mundra Adani Port. But, the owner of the port, Gautam Adani (allegedly, one of the largest donors of the ruling party) is safe from law enforcement authorities, while a Muslim found with no drugs is arrested.
It is a tragedy. However, SRK is a force India has chosen to reckon with. When the four pillars of democracy are fading, only our love for a hero will save us and him.
There is a question that looms over us: Can SRK’s personal story of compassion transcend the dictating powers and unite India?