TheDaak review

COMMENTARY

By Alok Ranjan and K.S. Sanjana

“I don’t just feel like the Indian of the Year, I feel, I’ve been the Indian of all the years gone by and I will be the Indian for all the years to come. I am actually, ladies and gentlemen, the Indian for all ages.”

Shah Rukh Khan

This was a resounding statement Shah Rukh Khan made while receiving his CNN News 18 Indian of the Year award earlier this month. The fifty-eight-year-old actor graciously took to the podium to thank his family, friends and fans for the support that they had extended to him. However, unlike the “regular ways” of delivering acceptance speeches, Shahrukh’s endearing monologue went beyond the formalities of these brief acknowledgements to articulate a ten-minute well-crafted message that he had in mind (for a long while?). Shahrukh’s charisma and wit has contributed to his captivating persona as one of the most beloved actors across generations. His candid way of speaking has, however, attracted scorn from infamous quarters of the online trolls. The success of his films and the consequent accolades he has received is open for analysis which is what this piece attempts to do. The Indian of the Year Award Speech is more than an acceptance speech and lends an insight into the actor’s artistic endeavours this year and points to the subtle statements that he seems to be making for the audience.

At the outset of the speech, in his signature humorous style, he acknowledged an awareness of chatter amongst his critics writing his career’s “death knell”. He joked that he was expecting to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award as the only next possibility. Contrary to the prophecies, the year 2023 was a career-high for Sharukh after many years of lulls with his films not doing well either at the box office or with the audiences. The year marked a massive success for the actor with Pathaan, Jawan and Dunki breathing life into Hindi Cinema with Jawan singularly collecting over a thousand crores. However, the past years had not been as joyous a ride not only because of continual commercial failures but also purposive targeting of his standing as a cultural icon in the country. 

Imbued in controversies
Sharukh’s fall from grace began when he gave an interview on his birthday in 2015 on the dangers of ‘religious or any kind of intolerance’ in society. He mentioned how humiliating it was to prove one’s patriotism. Ironically, his statements from the interview were misused to target him instead and question his patriotism for maligning the country’s reputation. A few years later, the release of Raees (2017) came under controversy as it featured Pakistani actress Mahira Khan in the leading role. Jump to the year of the global COVID-19 Pandemic in 2021 when Khan found himself again in a myriad of scandals, this time surrounding his son, Aryan Khan. The latter was arrested on the charges of possession and consumption of illegal drugs which was used  to mar the reputation of the actor.  

For a while, it seemed as if Khan had been intimidated into maintaining a strategic silence, refraining from making any political statements on the general affairs of the country. In his Indian of the Year acceptance speech, Khan made a subtle reference to this period that needed him to be quiet and ‘work hard with dignity’. As Karan Johar foretold, Shahrukh waited for all this while to “explode at the time of Pathaan”. The explosion came in succession as Jawan furthered the themes of nation, nationalism and belonging to introduced newer themes of freedom of speech and expression, institutional corruption, systemic exploitation, governmental accountability and public welfare.  

Return of a ‘public’ entertainer 
In Jawan, Sharukh portrayed an anguished citizen who held the system accountable albeit in an extra-institutional manner. The movie was a political commentary on pressing concerns that bother contemporary India- farmer debts, dilapidating health care system and unresponsive political machinery. In Pathan, he rescues the seemingly Muslim protagonist from doubts that otherwise would be cast on his patriotism by reconciling the two. In Jawan, on the other hand, he is taking the onus upon himself to provoke the citizenry to ask questions, displayed in his passionate monologue addressed to the latter. In times when there is a concerted discouragement of asking questions from the establishments, Jawan intervenes in the discourse of what it means to love a nation. From this film’s perspective, patriotism is enhanced when there is active participation from the citizens in affairs of their governance by making the ‘system’ accountable and prizing one’s vote as an endorsement of performance. It may be read as a more constructive suggestion towards how an Indian should be. An Indian involved in politics, not with claims of cultural or numerical supremacy but for the advancement of the common good.

In claiming himself as the ‘Indian of all ages’ he is not just seeking recognition of his claim to Indianness but rather asserts the conditions of being an Indian- not based on any religion but belongingness by the virtue of sharing a field of publicness. The claim to belonging to the nation is not emptied of social justice and questions of welfare but redefines the terms of claiming one’s belonging in mutual and harmonious co-existence of identities. Sharukh remains an ‘eternal optimist’ in this regard. The fact that despite all-time career and personal lows his fans and loved ones reaffirmed his faith in the India he grew up in. The success of his films, followed by the award, chosen by a popular vote, seems not merely a triumph of a celebrated ageing star but a renewal of faith in the relevance of the popular artistic medium of cinema to participate in the politico-cultural conversations of the country through subtle manoeuvres despite an apparent shadow of censure and silencing. This year re-established Shah Rukh Khan, and hopefully other celebrities too, as a rightful citizen besides being a faltering entertainer.

Alok Ranjan and K.S. Sanjana are pursuing their PHD from the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.