I don’t know about the rest of you but I sure have symptoms of an OD (Over Dose). There’s been an OD of 40-plus Aamir Khan and his crow’s feet all over the big screen (three releases ? Mangal Pandey, Rang De Basanti, Fanaa ? in less than nine months) and in the media. I mean, should we really care what this pint-sized college dropout has to say about Gujarat, Narmada or Modi?

Aamir Khan may be a polished actor who sometimes (not always) has a nose for a keen screenplay like Lagaan. But why are we according this actor the status of genius? At the end of his rehabilitate-the-Narmada-displaced debate, Aamir may well find himself in the role of the ill-informed pawn in a political game. But in the meantime, we have to suffer the OD and some laughably injured tones from a touchy film industry.

Notorious for its intolerance of any dissenting voice, the film industry which doesn’t think twice before using the stick on anything inconvenient, suddenly finds itself staring at the wrong end of the stick.

It’s really a paradox that the actor who has lately thought himself to be so invincible that he winces, sulks and bans the media at the slightest sign of criticism now expects Modi and gang to be sporting, democratic, freedom-loving, etc. Suddenly, Aamir and his colleagues recognise the existence of freedom of expression in this country. So where was this freedom when the trade media criticised Mangal Pandey and Aamir used whatever muscle he had to muzzle all dissenting reviews?

Hey, guys, this is the same Aamir who kicked off year 2006 with a kick on the rear to the media. What a joke that he now uses the same media to cry foul at the Gujarat government. Of course, Aamir Khan could say he only despises the press but hasn’t officially banned the media. Ahem, the Gujarat government too has no official ban on his film Fanaa, right?

It’s an even bigger joke that someone like Anupam Kher stands up for Aamir’s right to freedom of expression in a democracy when, 14 years ago in 1982, the same Kher slapped a journalist (with full support from Yash Chopra’s unit by the way) and got the entire film industry together to ban the press!

Today the film industry gathers together to condemn the ban on the Aamir Khan starrer and has exhorted the Gujarati neta not to hit their rozi-roti.

But how come the same band of producers never thought twice before they got together to ban everything in sight?

* Was it okay when Amitabh Bachchan-Dilip Kumar led the anti-media brigade just after the Emergency?

* Was it right for Anupam Kher-Sanjay Dutt-Amjad Khan to spearhead a clearly enunciated drive to throw journalists out on the streets and render them all jobless in 1982?

* How right was it for producers to ban Film Information, the trade paper, for comments that went against their interests?

* Was Salman Khan justified in asking for a ban on India TV for its sting operations?

* Was the industry, in a marvellous case of double speak, right in banding together to ban Shakti Kapoor for comments made against Rani Mukherjee-Yash Chopra during the sting operation?

* In every ban the attempt was not just to go off the media but to strong-arm colleagues to do the same. When a doddering senior like Dev Anand tried to speak up for the press during the Kher-Dutt-Khan filibuster, the ‘filmland mafia’ actually threatened to ban Anand’s theatre and cut off Dev’s rozi-roti until he backtracked and joined their gag-the-press campaign. Justified?

That none of these bans could really be effective speaks not for any belief in the freedom of expression but for the sheer lack of unity in the film industry. Just as there is the same glaring lack of brotherhood in the media.

But yes, however selective Aamir Khan’s stand on freedom of expression may be, banning (even unofficially) the release of Fanaa in Gujarat is undemocratic. It is as condemnable as a heavyweight, sorry, overweight Smriti Irani inexplicably and suddenly demanding the resignation of a democratically re-elected Modi!

As a rule I dislike bans. Against the media, against an actor, or against a film. The only purpose served by a ban will be to whip up curiosity for the film. And though Fanaa may make the Yashraj coffers overflow again, it’s a film which reiterates that Aditya Chopra and Aamir are scraping the bottom as far as screenplays and ideas go.

We’ve said it before, and we will say it again, that the casting coup remains the sole selling point of an effetely meandering Fanaa. But let the audience decide that.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International