If actor Anupam Kher indeed applied for a visa and that has been denied, this is not an aberration. Neither is it only the case of Pakistan embassy. Both India and Pakistan are known to deny visas, inspired mostly by whims and sometimes by petty politics. It may or may not have anything to do with Kher’s politics or his sudden awakened identity of a Kashmiri Pandit. If a Kashmiri in the Valley were to respond to his hurt pride at rejection of the visa, they would probably tell him he is fortunate enough to have a passport, which many of them are denied without a reason or legal sanctity by the governments that call Kashmir an integral part of India
ANURADHA BHASIN JAMWAL
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f Pakistan High Commission’s rebuttal on the Anupam Kher visa story was not found very credible, actress Nandita Das, also invited to the Karachi Literary Festival has nailed his lie, averring that he had only given his consent for the festival, not given his application for visa to Pakistan embassy. Any kind of visa rejection, she explains, would require a rejection slip, since it involves official paper work.
Certainly visa applications and rejections are not a matter of simple nods and some verbal denial. The controversy has not served any purpose but become a fountain-head of several jokes which are doing rounds. Social media has gone overboard with comments and tweets. “Dear Pak authorities plz issue visa to Anupam kher he is desperate to come to you guys & Please keep him?? We can’t tolerate two PM’s.” ” If Pakistan government would’ve seen how Anupam Kher betrayed India as Inspector Giridhar in Hum, they would’ve instantly granted him a visa.” “Anupam Kher got the Padma without applying for it, he thought procedure for a Pakistani visa is similarly done!!!” The best of them is a picture of Bajrangi Bhaijan sequel with Salman Khan carrying Anupam Kher on his back across Pakistan.
Whether there is an element of truth in Anupam Kher’s claims, he was almost close to highlighting an important issue but there is nobody else but him to be blamed for its trivialization. Hypothetically, if Pakistan did indeed deny him a visa, singling him out of the list of 18 Indians, the denial is part of a larger picture. To have taken the high moral ground as an Indian and invoked Pakistan bashing or the victimhood of Kashmiri Pandit he betrayed his lack of informed opinion and reduced an issue of immense importance to a mere contested joke.
If a Kashmiri in the Valley were to respond to his hurt pride at rejection of the visa, they would probably tell him he is fortunate enough to have a passport, which many of them are denied without a reason or legal sanctity by the governments that call Kashmir an integral part of India.
If Anupam Kher indeed applied for a visa and that has been denied, this is not an aberration. Neither is it only the case of Pakistan embassy. Both India and Pakistan are known to deny visas, inspired mostly by whims and sometimes by petty politics. It may or may not have anything to do with Anupam Kher’s politics or his sudden awakened identity of a Kashmiri Pandit.
There are Kashmiri Pandits, of different political views and apolitical views, as well as many fiery right wing champions who have travelled to Pakistan before despite their politics and there are many Indians championing the cause of peace between the two countries who have been denied visas. The response is reciprocal on the Indian side, not characterized by the magnanimity as Anupam Kher would like someone to believe, as he cautiously dismissed hounding of Pakistan cricketers and threats to Pakistani artists as aberrations by Hindu right wing mobs, and not a word on government’s silence on such incidents. One doesn’t quite find similar parallels in Pakistan, just as it may be difficult to find parallels like citizenship right to Adnan Sami, the sole known case of its kind.
Delegations of cultural groups, artists, writers, journalists, researchers, scholars or peaceniks are often cancelled because of lack of clearance and denial of visas, often at the last hour and sometimes individuals are singled out from the list. Conferences and events on both sides have had to be cancelled in the past and the tradition of whimsical visa stamping remains oblivious of humanitarian concerns. There are cases of divided families unable to attend the mourning of very close immediate relatives.
I know of Pakistani women married on this side who could not attend the funeral of their parents because they were denied travel papers and I also know of a Pakistani family who could not travel to India to save their sibling’s life in need of kidney transplant.
The existence of these cases does not legitimize the denial of visa to Anupam Kher, if indeed this was the case. By all means, he should have got it. Even right thinking persons in Pakistan know that the only damage he would have done in Karachi would have been to his own image with his opposition to freedom of speech and his denial of lynching intolerant mobs in India with his own lip lynching tool of abuse against Indian literati returning state awards against increasing signs of intolerance.
He would have done what he does these days, when not acting in B-grade Bollywood films. His presence at Karachi literary festival with his predictable three point agenda of ‘Jai Bharat’, ‘Shining India minus the victimization of Kashmiri Pandits’ and exhibit his ‘tolerant’ opposition to all those seeking absolute freedom of speech would only have been embarrassment for rest of the Indian contingent and for the country’s progressive people. He would have been a brunt of jokes in Pakistan, not here as he is now in India, reduced to a jester by his own choice of words, if not lies.
The visa denial story (even if, hypothetically true) could have been inspired by an informed opinion of the whimsical ways in which India and Pakistan stamp visas and keep sitting over the files, sometimes with an agenda and often also without any motive. With his proximity to the government of the day and his stature, he could have pushed for visa relaxation regimes and of humanizing the visa desks in the two embassies in Islamabad and New Delhi. He should have, as was the spirit of Karachi literary festival, spoken about demolishing walls of hatred by allowing people to visit and interact freely. Instead he has reinforced iron walls of racism and chauvinism by twisting the issue, if not distorting facts.
