By Farzana Versey, Countercurrents.org
Farzana Versey is a Mumbai-based columnist and author of A Journey Interrupted: Being Indian in Pakistan , Harper Collins, India. She can be reached at kaaghaz.kalam@gmail.com
August 2009, Phoenix : A man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle over his shoulder is among the many gun-toting protestors outside the convention centre where President Barack Obama gives a speech.
August 2009, Newark Airport : Indian actor Shahrukh Khan is detained at the airport and there are questions asked, mainly the wrong ones.
February 2002, Mumbai Airport : I am standing at the counter and the man at Immigration reads out my name aloud as though it is alien. He goes through all the pages of the passport without looking at me and then bangs down the document that declares me a citizen of the Republic of India on the table.
In the taxi on the way home the driver says in Hindi, his mouth stuffed with paan , “You know, they killed our people.” He does not know I am one of Them. He makes no mention of the Gujarat riots; he only talks about the burning train of Godhra. He keeps up the rant. I wish to say something, speak out, argue. My throat is locked, my hands with nail marks of unsaid words.
After the incident of Sharukh Khan, we have had a slew of reports and opinion pieces that have held forth on how icons must be treated and are treated. Some ‘balanced’ commentators have stated that it does not have to do with his being a Muslim and having a Muslim name. These could well be valid trains of thought. However, there is a more dire script lurking beneath. It has little to do with physical security and all to do with psychological security. One would have called it xenophobia, but here safety is sought on the basis of not necessarily what is foreign but what is ingrained.
If security measures are all that important, then why did the US administration ask the actor if he would accept an apology for his two-hour detention?
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