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I had planned to skip this entirely. It simply wasn't worth a post. But the headlines in India took days to change, and then, the Americans picked it up. All of them: CNN, NYT, ABC, WSJ, WashPost, even Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. A Bollywood superstar's "secondary inspection" for nearly two hours (U.S. officials insist it was closer to an hour) at the Newark airport became a platform of extended debate in India about America's racial profiling post 9/11, India's VIP culture of entitlement, America's security system and the lack of it in India.
If nothing else, this was a case of terrible timing. Shahrukh Khan or SRK for short, was on his way to Chicago to participate in India's Independence Day celebrations. For the past several months, he has been spending a good part of the year in the U.S. shooting for his forthcoming film My Name is Khan, ironically about the travails of a Muslim man and racial profiling. Fox Star Studios, by the way, has bagged the worldwide distributing rights for the film, a first for Bollywood.
To make matters worse, this comes close on the heels of a former Indian president being frisked at an Indian airport ahead of boarding Continental Airlines for New York. Indian authorities alleged it was against Indian laws to frisk a former president. The airline finally apologized, saying U.S. air travel laws and the Indian ones had different mandates. But the case rubbed Indians the wrong way, even as the much-loved, unassuming ex-president went through the drill without a fuss.
Now, another beloved public figure has been put through extra security procedures. But this one did not keep quiet.
Ever since Khan's questioning, many other Indian actors with Muslim names (and some without) claim they have been subjected to extra security checks at American airports. One was allegedly stopped because officials thought he was too light-skinned to be of Indian origin.
Until newly-appointed U.S. ambassador to India delivers on his promise to ferret out the real story, we only have the actor's version and media reports to go by. Briefly, it went something like this: SRK landed at the immigration counter. He was then taken to a room full of people for further questioning because, Khan says, he was told his name had "popped up" in a computer-generated list. He was asked to produce contacts in America who could vouch for him, which SRK found "embarrassing" and disrespectful. Khan claimed there were other immigration officers who recognized him and promised to vouch for him, but the officer questioning him was not satisfied. Meanwhile, Khan says, people around him, including other passengers at the airport had recognized him and had started taking pictures. Khan says he was finally allowed to make a call, which he did to an Indian government official and friend. He was let off after Indian and U.S. officials intervened.
A much calmer Khan later said what bothered him was that his papers were in order and that the officer had not gone through the usual procedure of fingerprinting and retina scanning, which he says would have established his identity immediately. He, however, insisted that they were polite to him all through.
The Customs and Border Patrol, without giving details said his questioning had nothing to do with his Muslim identity and it had got prolonged because his baggage had not arrived. A more recent report suggests that it was because of U.S. and London-based promoters of Bollywood entertainment -- many of SRK's shows included -- who were under the scanner for shady finances and links with the underworld, that Khan was questioned.
For whatever reasons -- maybe a long flight, missing luggage, interrogation --- Khan snapped. That set off a juggernaut. As a rested SRK later said in India: ‘‘This is not going to end and we will have to live with that.’’
Khan's friend in the Indian administration who helped get his release, according to the actor, was related to the media and the news leaked. He didn't help himself when he told an eagerly waiting Chicago crowd that he was humiliated and didn't feel like stepping on American soil again, and that he had been questioned because he was a Khan.
But unlike in the case of former president APJ Abdul Kalam's frisking, SRK did
