Amitabh during the news conference on Wednesday. (Fotocorp)

Mumbai, Sept. 10: Marlon Brando refused an Oscar for his role in Godfather in protest against the depiction of native Americans in Hollywood. Steven Spielberg walked out of the Beijing Olympics over China’s refusal to pressure Sudan to end the genocide in Darfur. George Clooney took on the Bush administration over the Iraq war.

But Amitabh Bachchan promptly apologised for a cheeky remark by wife Jaya over her choice of language on his return from Paris early this morning.

First in his blog and then at a news conference for his film The Last Lear, which Raj Thackeray’s party has threatened to stall, Bachchan said Jaya’s remark was “unintentional” and “without malice” towards Mumbai or Maharashtra. Still, he and his family would apologise for hurting public sentiments.

Jaya said at a film event this week that she was from Uttar Pradesh and should speak in Hindi and that Maharashtrians should please excuse her. Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has been running an aggressive pro-Marathi campaign that has often erupted in violence against north Indian migrants.

In his blog, Bachchan wrote that he spent a sleepless night worrying about the MNS violence that has followed the comment. This noon, MNS activists smashed a plasma screen at PVR Multiplex at Juhu where The Last Lear was to premiere tonight, prompting the producers to cancel the screening.

“We love and respect the place we were born. We love and respect the place where we work and are settled at. Mumbai and Maharashtra has given us glory and recognition. I am 66 years old and 40 of those years have been spent living in Mumbai. Is it ever possible that we will dishonor it? Never!!” Bachchan wrote.

Then Bachchan, engaged in a war of words with Thackeray since February, reeled off a list of things he has done for Maharashtra and Marathis.

His make-up man of 35 years, Deepak Sawant, is a Maharashtrian and he has acted free of cost in films produced by Sawant.

He donated Rs 11 lakh to promote Marathi film Shwaas when it was shortlisted for the Oscars.

He contributed Rs 11 lakh for the treatment of a critically ill Marathi writer and helped with the completion of a 400-bed hospital conceived by a well-known heart surgeon, also a Maharashtrian, who died suddenly.

Jaya only speaks Marathi with her “personal maids” of 40 years.

“Does all this reflect disrespect for Maharashtra, Maharashtrians and Mumbai?” Bachchan wrote.

But the actor, who said Raj was a “friend” and the Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray who has also hit out at Jaya’s comment was a “father figure”, couldn’t resist a jab at the administration. “I have heard that Maharashtra deputy chief minister R.R. Patil has ordered an inquiry into Jaya’s remarks... If found guilty, we are prepared to go to jail,” Bachchan told the news meet.

“Jaya’s remark does not in any manner sound anti-Marathi. There is no denigration,” he had stressed in the blog.

Yet Bachchan thought it fit to offer an apology twice over — he repeated it at the news conference — after Jaya had already expressed regret.

Contrast this with how Clooney took on then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “You can’t beat your enemy anymore through wars…I believe Rumsfeld thinks this is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore,” he was quoted as saying on Iraq.

Or with filmmaker Spielberg’s stand in February when he withdrew as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics. The controversy resulted in China sending a senior official to push Sudan to accept a UN peacekeeping force.

Clooney also knows how to carry off a joke. He criticised lobbyist Jack Abramoff at the 2006 Golden Globe awards saying, “Who would name their kid Jack with the word ‘off’ at the end of your last name? No wonder that guy is screwed up!” Later, Clooney refused to apologise for the remark. “No way. That was a joke.”

So, why do Indian stars apologise at the drop of a hat?

“They are soft targets. Hollywood stars are well-protected, and there is a certain freedom of independence and dignity in the West. Here it is complete goonda raj,” said ad filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar, who also felt Jaya’s remark was unnecessary.

Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, who went to court against Thackeray’s ultimatum to five lakh shopkeepers to switch to Marathi signboards, said: “This is not about civil liberties. Mrs Bachchan and Thackeray both were addressing their respective votebanks, and they are indulging in a who-blinks-first political game.”

The film industry, he said, has always shied away from standing up for civil liberty. “None of the film fraternity joined me when I went to court against the MNS diktat about Marathi nameplates on shops. When you don’t stand up for issues, you are eroding your own safety,” Bhatt said.