Now that India is all het up over the treatment meted out to Shahrukh Khan at a US airport, I must confess to feeling almost guilty for having traipsed into Washington DC and out of New York and, in between, travelled across the country through six airports including Los Angeles, just a month ago without a hitch.
Maybe the name Naqvi does not ring the same alarm bells as Khan does in American security systems. Maybe the fact that I was on a visa extended to state invitees and exchange students helped me escape the religious profiling. I wish all of this did not happen and the world was a more perfect place but fact is that after 9/11, no other terrorist strike has happened on US soil. And, let’s face it, the US is hated by Radical Islamists and even many ordinary Muslims who have borne the brunt of the super-power’s "War against Terror". So Muslims who get all het up at being given the once over at international airports should either be prepared for extra scrutiny or should choose not to travel to the US.
Certainly, Shahrukh did not deserve this and neither does Irfaan Khan, who regularly acts in international productions, was present at the last academy awards, and has now revealed he has been subject to extra security three times. Yet I think it is ridiculous for the nation to “feel outraged” by what happened to Shahrukh. It’s hardly an issue to get all indignant about and also ridiculous for an Indian minister like Ambika Soni to demand that India should do a 'tit-for-tat' to the Americans. We should certainly have intense security but because we need it and not because we want to get back at the Americans. Incidentally, all the outrage at our end is not going to make any change in the way US security works. It’s worked marvellously for them since 9/11.
Also, it turns out Shahrukh did the usual Indian VIP thing. He dialled a number, in this case of Congress MP Rajeev Shukla, who then pulled strings to get the superstar out as soon as possible. Let’s face it, Western societies do not make exceptions for VIPs the way we do. The same day Shahrukh spent two hours being harassed in Newark airport, Bob Dylan, a real American icon, was stopped by police and questioned for wandering around a low income neighbourhood. I some-how don’t think Dylan will see this as a personal insult. Maybe he sees it as an unpleasant experience but not an insult. I suspect that the man who wrote the remarkable lyrics of “Blowing in the Wind” would have a more philosophical take on the whole episode.
As for me, I had a very smooth passage across the US. Indeed now that the post 9/11 paranoia has gone, I will stick my neck out and say that big American cities like New York, Washington and Los Angeles are more multi-cultural and indeed have to be as they are overrun by people of all races and ethnicity, than any European city I have been to. I love London, but know that racism in Britain is deeply enmeshed with memories of empire, snobbish class attitudes and many Brits just see all south Asians as “Pakis”. Even in the rarefied environs of Oxford University I recall two encounters that have shown overt racism towards South Asians.
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I’m sure awful things happen in the US too but for all its imperfections that country did just elect a black man to be president. Imagine that happening in Britain, France or Germany?
