The support from a section of Bollywood for Pakistan’s terror activities, especially against India has grown to shocking proportion. Now artists from Pakistan are openly supporting terror against India and are being hired to play lead role in Bollywood
Sandeep Singh
Dawn, a Pakistani English daily on September 21, 2016 reported “US lawmakers move bill to declare Pakistan ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’”. The report said: “The bill titled the Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act was introduced by Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism Ted Poe and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher at a time when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is in the US to address the United Nations General Assembly. “From harbouring Osama bin Laden to its cosy relationship with the Haqqani network, there is more than enough evidence to determine whose side Pakistan is on in the War on Terror. And it’s not America’s,” Poe said.” (http://www.dawn.com/news/1285165)
Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani Ambassador to the US has written in his book, Magnificent Delusions, about how Pakistani government, through its army and intelligence agencies (ISI in particular), aids and abets the murder of civilians by terrorist organisations.
So much so that in 2012, a Pakistani court brought down a guilty verdict against the Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, who helped the CIA locate bin Laden in May 2011 for “treason”
and convicted him of 33-year prison sentence.
In his book Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism, Daniel Byman points out how Pakistan”s funding, arming, training and diplomatic support of varied terrorist groups active in Kashmir have emboldened the terrorists all over the world. So close is the tie between the Pakistani state and these outfits that its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) “selects targets, including civilian ones and knows about major attacks in advance”, writes Byman.
All major terror incidents have invariably some Pakistani link or the other. The bombings that injured 29 people in New York early this month was done by one Ahmad Khan Rahami, a 28-year-old naturalised US citizen born in Afghanistan, who was trained in Pakistan in 2014. Similarly, the aborted bomb attempt at New York’s Times Square in May 2010 was by Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American, who had close links with the Jaish-e Muhammad (JeM) and LeT. (http://www.firstpost.com/india/ pakistan-is-a-terror-state-sanctions-wont-work-as-long-as-it-enjoys-support-from-china-3023528.html)
India for last many decades has been facing acts of terrorism by Pakistan in different forms. For last few years Pakistani army has been indulging in ISIS style savagery and has been beheading Indian soldiers. Sooner or later even this act will reach shores of other nations.
India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s address to the United Nations in 2016 was point blank about Pakistan belonging to a group of nations “that still speak the language of terrorism that nurture it, peddle it, and export it.” Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), known to go to any extent for money has avoided any bilateral cricket relation with Pakistan.
But unfortunately this is not the case with Indian movies.
…..My Name Is Khan …. Just days before the premier, its lead actor, Shah Rukh Khan, had lamented the exclusion of Pakistani cricketers from the Indian Premier League cricket auction…. Meanwhile, on the other side of the border in Karachi, My Name Is Khan opened February 13 to packed houses and was received with roaring claps and whistles. According to Pakistani cinema owners, it was the highest-earning film ever to screen in Pakistan. (http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/03/15/how-pakistan-fell-in-love-with-bollywood/)
In last 5 or 6 years, the support from a section of Bollywood for Pakistan’s terror activities, especially against India has grown to shocking proportion. Now artists from Pakistan who openly support terror activity against India are being hired to play lead role in Bollywood movies.
Previously, Pakistani artists condemned terror attacks in Peshawar and Paris. Their silence on terror hurting India thereby looks stark — and draws attention to their being Pakistani, rather than artists. (http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/ columns/pakistani-artists-actors-indian-films-bollywood-india-pakistan-3065659/)
And the world knows silence implies nothing but consent, acceptance, and support.
Bollywood’s connection with underworld is well documented (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dons-still-pull-the-strings-in-bollywood/article7942608.ece) but now a section of Bollywood is directly supporting terror activities originating from Pakistan against India, by hiring Pakistani artists.
Bollywood Movies now a day have become like Blood Diamonds.
Conflict diamonds or Blood diamonds are defined by the United Nations as “diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognised governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council.”
Blood diamonds are indistinguishable from ordinary rough diamonds, and buyers are advised only to use businesses who can guarantee that their diamonds
are conflict-free and explain where they are sourced from.Tiffany & Co., Signet and De Beers’ Forevermark brand have instituted strict sourcing policies for their diamonds. (http://time.com/blood-diamonds/)
In the similar fashion Indian movies starring Pakistani actors/technicians should be certified as “Blood Movies”. Such “Blood Movies of Bollywood” should be dealt with distributors, viewers, etc. in the similar way as “Blood Diamonds” are. Diamonds are supposed to represent love, so are movies. But just like Blood Diamond which represents civil war, rape, child abuse, the misery of miners, the Blood Movies of Bollywood make fun of the sacrifices of Indian Soldiers and their families in the name of democracy and freedom of expression. Such Blood Movies encourage terror activities. 2016 was one of the bloodiest years in Kashmir and if I am not mistaken, 2016 saw maximum films in Bollywood with Pakistanis associated with it, in some form or the other. In India, millions of citizens are still facing the consequences of the terror act of Pakistan spread over many years: friends and family members lost, lives shattered, and physical and emotional scars that will last generations. These Blood Movies of Bollywood have huge negative impact on the growth of Indian economy, because controlling terror/ terror attack has an economic cost too.
Buyers of Diamond are demanding, with ever greater urgency, that their diamonds be free from bloodshed and human rights abuses; hopefully viewers, distributors, financers, broadcasters etc. of movies of Bollywoodnot only in India but across the world will do the same and avoid“Blood Movies of Bollywood”.
(The writer is founder www.swastik.net.in)
