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Celebrities and their responsibilities

April 6th, 2008Related|Filed Under

For last couple of days I guess we have been having some hard hitting posts about celebrity responsibilities and their actions. First it was about how celebrities generally prefer some “easy” social issue side stepping the controversial ones, and then Satyam’s post about how bachchan’s have been targetted by every Tom Dick and harry of politics and still there is an erie silence over this issue.

You can find Satyam’s post over here:

Now Bal Thackeray Goes after Amitabh Bachchan

I am sorry that I am making a different post about it, or even “hacking” some of the points proposed by previous authors, but my sole intent is to enlarge this discussion and may be introduce few more arguing points on the whole issue.

First, yes I strongly feel that Bachchns have been targetted for far too long now. Every corner paanwala is finding him as an easy dartboard to sharpen up his/her skills and get some lime light in the process. But on second thoughts is it for the first time time that this is happening???

We are a nation where we worship our celebrities, consider NG itself where we get bruised to death by words only just to make people, who don’t even have a clue about our existence, look a bit better than how they actually are. And what we get in return from them? Shahrukh Kha, even being a fan of his irks me with his defence on smoking, Salman, can there be any bigger example of idol mis behavior?, Aamir wil turn up his atention on issues only at the time of the release of his movies but then absentes himself at the time of gujat riots when they really needed a voice, Hrithik, what actually he stands for??? and then why leave bachchans? who were shown as victims in the Satyam’s post, where were they when sikhs were butchered on the streets f delhi and all over India, wasn’t he close to Congress at that point of time, then Punjab violence, or even lately his strong associations with one of the most notorious political party of the nation.

And then why only movie celebrities, what Sachin Tendulkar did at the time of Bombay riots, Marathi Manoos controversy, doesn’t his national team comprises of players from whole of India? What about Dravid?, Saurav ganguly, when Nandigram happenned where was this Kolkata’s raider? where was the spirit of “Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo” then? Where was Irfan Pathan’s aggression and temprament when his Gujrat was burning in the fire of rage, communalism, injustics.

It actually shows how impotent our celebrities are when compared to their western counterparts, how Sean Penn, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Jon Stewart comes out of their comfort zones to take on some of the some of the biggest and most powerful people of the world. Then cricketers like Steve Waugh who are actively involved in Indian orphanages, what about soccer players like Ronaldo, who took whole of brazillian and Real madrid team to the most war torn nation of the world, amid several threats of life of all these biggest players of the world in haiti, to play Ronaldo XI Vs Zizou XI. When most players of Real madrid and barcelona can be seen donning Unicef sirts at least twice a season from their hectic schedule to raise awareness and money.

But then again are we alright to question the ethics of celebrities when may be we are also doing the same??? I opened a topic on Tibet a couple of weeks ago, and unanimous response was that we shouldn’t come in between the issue as we have plenty to gain and even loose against China, but then aren’t we the same who blast George W Bush at every given opportunity? Is it because he is an easy target? or the fact that there is huge number of muslim population in our nation who are very much concerned about the plight of Iraqis but gives a Rat’s Rear to that of Tibetans???

Aren’t we all, in a bid to become better in English, better IT professionals, have forgotten how to become better human beings???? and yes that includes me as well.

For some strange reason for us blogging over an issue, letting our frustrations out in some random threads and in the form of words, absolves us from the responsibility of doing anything about these issues. Or may be we have too many examples of Manjunath kinds which blocks our feet from moving forward, stick our tounges from sticking out, refrain our hands for reaching out to those who needs them. May be its the law and order situation of our nation which doesn’t allow us to think beyond our own shell. Or may be, just may be, somewhere deep down inside we all know that “I am as much responsible” for whatever is going wrong in this world. Too bad we don’t have any superman who can turn the world upside down so that things become normal. But then why blame celebrities, or other icons, when I, myself, am not doing anything.

Just my two cents, with bucket load of frustrations and poor spellings.

There Are 11 Responses So Far. »

Comment by Aarohi on 6 April 2008:

Good post, Kunal.

I thought you were are being a touch harsh on the celebrity brigade, but then I read the 2nd last line of your post.

Celebrities taking a stand is a double-edged sword. There will also be people who would have problems with any stand they take. Take Aamir’s example: he aired his views, he is getting screwed all over the blogosphere. If he didn’t say something, I am sure there must have been someone unhappy. IMO, celebrities should stick to what they do best. If they decide to air their political views then they should get ready for some mudslinging.

Also, I don’t think celebrities are more liable to do things for their karmabhoomi or janmabhoomi than an average person.
Comment by rockstar on 6 April 2008:

well good to have western obsession but one have to look at political culture of india to which is vastly different from west , unlike in the west chances are if u air ur views here or take a stand ur films might be banned , ur house might be attacked bla bla
, well we claim to be democracy and have freedom of speech but practically these rights are still are at their developing stage unlike west
Comment by rockstar on 6 April 2008:

well can we provide adequate protection to them take the example of other artist like m.f hussian and tasleema well they have to leave the country can u imagine this happening in west
Comment by Kunal27 on 6 April 2008:

Well Rockstar, next time read the whole thing before posting your response.
Comment by rks on 6 April 2008:

” Sean Penn, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Jon Stewart”
I don’t think any one of them are taking any risk with their political statements or work. The real risk were taken by ‘Dixie Chicks’ by their statement against Bush during Iraq war. They were banned from all the radio stations and what not. They had sweet revenge when the won multiple grammys but they are still overlooked by country music association.

In other thread, Baichung Bhutia is not taking any risk if he is not willing to run with Torch. He has no stakes in Beijing olympics or not a celbrity on scale of Amitabh, aamir or Tendulkar.

In other word risk by political posturing or work is not same. One individuals risk is not same as others.
Comment by SK on 6 April 2008:

A movie star is better off if he/she sticks to his/her profession,but once they take a political stand and get their hands dirty,they do at their own peril/advantage and should be ready to face some dirt being thrown at them.

I would prefer a apolitical celebrity to an opportune one.
Comment by SK on 6 April 2008:

In other word risk by political posturing or work is not same. One individuals risk is not same as others.

well said RKS
Comment by Fari on 6 April 2008:

>>>” Sean Penn, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Jon Stewart”
I don’t think any one of them are taking any risk with their political statements or work. The real risk were taken by ‘Dixie Chicks’ by their statement against Bush during Iraq war. They were banned from all the radio stations and what not. They had sweet revenge when the won multiple grammys but they are still overlooked by country music association.<<<

I don’t think its so much of a risk for these hollywood actors or singers to speak against President Bush or the war.
We’re talking of a Republican in liberal Hollywood.
A real risk for a Hollywood actor is to come out in support of the President and support the war. Now that is a real risk.
A risk is being a republican in hollywood!
Comment by SK on 6 April 2008:

Just because someone has aired his opinion on an issue doesnt make him more concerned. One may do something for whole lot of reasons,may be they are doing so to gain adavantage,get undue publicity or may they are really concerned. Nobody but the individual in the question knows his/her intentions.

Neutrality doesnot necessarily mean indifference. It can mean anything.
Comment by rks on 6 April 2008:

I don’t fully agree but it is little balanced.
Sensible, yes; Trendy, no
Vir Sanghvi , Hindustan Times

So, Bhaichung Bhutia won’t carry the Olympic torch to protest China’s ‘repression’ of Tibet. Aamir Khan will carry the torch but he’ll think deeply about the repressed Tibetans as he runs. And the government of India will restrict the route for the Delhi leg of the torch’s progress so that a marathon journey is turned into a 100-metre dash.

It puzzles me when I see Indian sports officials taking the line that we will participate in the Beijing Olympics because sport has nothing to do with politics.It’s the sort of issue that it is easy to get excited about. We can applaud Bhutia’s gesture. We can scoff at Aamir’s ambivalence. We can fume about the government of India’s eagerness to please Beijing. And we can send postcards to Richard Gere about our support for the Tibetan cause.

But once you get past the knee-jerk responses and the quick sneers, the facts are considerably more complicated. First of all, even if our instinctive reaction is to back a boycott of the Beijing Olympics, we should recognise that the Dalai Lama himself opposes such a move.

Secondly, we need also to consider how we would feel if the shoe was on the other foot. Of course, there is considerable Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule. And yes, there’s little doubt that Beijing has been brutal in putting down protests. But then, there’s a fair amount of Kashmiri resistance to New Delhi’s rule. And Indian security forces have frequently used excessive force in dealing with protestors. How would we feel if, say, British athletes refuse to carry the Commonwealth torch because the Games are being held in New Delhi? They would quote Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports about repression in Kashmir, just as we are now quoting similar reports about Tibet. It’s easy to get self-righteous about other countries’ problems; less easy when the problems are our own.

About the only thing we can be clear about is this: those who say that politics and sport should be kept separate are talking nonsense.

It puzzles me when I see Indian sports officials taking the line that we will participate in the Beijing Olympics because sport has nothing to do with politics.

I would have no problem if they told the truth: we are friends with the Chinese, see no reason to offend them, and have always maintained that Tibet is an integral part of China — so any domestic disturbances are an internal affair for Beijing to handle in its own way.

But the lies about sport being non-political strain credulity. India was one of the prime movers of the boycott that kept South Africa (in the apartheid era) from participating in the Olympics. It was largely because of us that the South Africans became pariahs in the cricket world. We ran a similar campaign to exclude Rhodesia (the country that later became Zimbabwe). And till the mid-1980s, we had no sporting links with Israel.

All of these stands were expressly political. We had nothing against the sportsmen. We believed that if you excluded regimes that followed policies that were morally abhorrent, then the pressure of international boycotts would force their leaders to amend these policies. To a large extent, it worked. In South Africa, it was global isolation that led to the collapse of apartheid.

Nor were we alone in this stand. South Africa was prevented from participating in the 1964 Olympics after India and other non-aligned nations threatened a boycott. The South Africans were only allowed back in 1992, when apartheid was being dismantled. In 1976, nearly all African nations, not content with a ban on South Africa and Rhodesia, boycotted the Olympics because New Zealand was taking part. New Zealand’s crime was that it had allowed its rugby team to tour South Africa. Rugby is not an Olympic sport, but that wasn’t the point. The Africans said that any country which engaged with South Africa would be shunned.

This is not a position peculiar to the non-aligned movement. The 1958 Olympics were boycotted by some European countries because the USSR was taking part. The Europeans were protesting the invasion of Hungary. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter declared that the US would boycott the Moscow Olympics to protest the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and 80 other countries followed suit. In 1984, the Soviets retaliated by boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics.

The Chinese themselves are no slouches when it comes to boycotting the Olympics. In 1976, they threatened to boycott the Montreal Games if Taiwan was allowed to compete as the Republic of China. (The Canadians threw the Taiwanese out.) In 1980, the Chinese joined the boycott of the Moscow Olympics.

But I’m glad that the actions of Tibetan protestors and such principled objectors as Bhaichung Bhutia have focussed attention on the ethics of sports boycotts. As things stand, India has no consistent policy on this issue.

While the Olympics take place only once every four years, we face this problem more often in our sporting ties with Pakistan. Tours are frequently cancelled for political reasons: we backed out in 2000 because we were angry about the Kargil war. And there have been gaps of up to a decade between cricket tours, not because the cricketers are unwilling to go but because the politicians won’t let them.

Even when the Pakistani team is allowed to come, there are always political parties that protest its arrival and dig up pitches to disrupt matches. Though the cricket board offers the usual ‘nothing to do with politics’ line, the protestors easily see through it. For instance, when Uma Bharti was asked why she was opposed to the Pakistani cricket team playing in India in the 1990s, she pointed to our boycott of South Africa through the years.

Uma Bharti’s argument was that if we were willing to boycott a country because it imposed racial segregation on its citizens, then surely we had a moral obligation to boycott a country that sent terrorists to unleash violence on our own citizens. As the government of India’s position then (and now) was that Pakistan was actively involved in training terrorists, her argument was difficult to counter.

Nevertheless, many people did oppose Uma Bharti and her ilk. They said that sport helped foster good relations between nations. Because India and Pakistan played each other at cricket, our citizens felt warmly towards each other and the traditional hostility was dissipated. (It’s interesting that many of those calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics because of wounded Tibetans are happy to let us play sport with Pakistan, never mind the murdered Indians. Surely, they can’t have it both ways?)

In fact, there is no evidence that cricket has led to an improvement in Indo-Pak relations. The times of greatest peace have been when no cricket was played. And the resumption of ties has not prevented such conflicts as Kargil from erupting. Certainly, the atmosphere in the stadiums is often far from friendly, with many fans treating cricket as a continuation of war by other means. On the other hand, the last Pakistani tour of India did see a fair amount of goodwill. But, was this because of the cricket? Or was it because India has now moved beyond Pakistan and Indians are no longer as obsessed with the rivalry as we used to be?

My own view on the Beijing Olympics is that we should go. I have enormous respect for the Dalai Lama and tremendous sympathy for the Tibetan cause. Nor do I accept that a boycott would “needlessly politicise the Olympics”. The Olympics are a political statement. They were political in 1936 when Adolf Hitler used them to show off the Third Reich. And they will be political in 2008, when China uses them as a way of showing the world that it has arrived.

But I believe that any sports boycott should be linked either to India’s interests or to a campaign against some completely immoral policy. I can see the argument for boycotting a country that sends terrorists to India. And I can understand why an immoral system of government based on racial superiority (as apartheid was) must be brought down by a global boycott.

Neither of these conditions apply to China. As of now, India has much to gain by being friendly with the Chinese. Nor is the repression of the Tibetans any better or worse than the repression we see in some of the countries of, say, sub-Saharan Africa or South America. Treat Tibet as sufficient cause for a boycott and you’ll have to restrict the Olympics to a handful of nations.

So let’s be honest. We will prevent the Chinese from being embarrassed by protests during the Olympic torch’s passage through India, and we will turn up in Beijing.

Not because sport and politics must be kept separate. But because we have examined the case for a boycott. And it simply isn’t strong enough for India to withdraw from the Games.
Comment by rockstar on 7 April 2008:

Well Rockstar, next time read the whole thing before posting your response.
”

well i guess this response where in right direction i can see no reason in labelling indian celebs as IMPOTENT just by giving random examples its western obsession only , btw what was great they did
Sean Penn, George Clooney, (just by giving anti u.s comments during iraq , to join whole gang of protesters),
Julia Roberts(for being associated with unicef many indian celebs are brand ambassador for unicef and are contributing to the cause)
, Angelina Jolie( for adopting babies celebs like sushmita sen have done that ), Jon Stewart( for taking political satires well many do it anyways in india with their chat show shotgun and shekhar suman are prime example of that), for an example like salman there are many in western world who are notorious for drugs abuse, sex tape and other pretty nasty things ,to take ur stand politically and act in that direction is whole different thing and there is a big difference in political culture of west and that of india