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 not receive overwhelming support back home from all quarters, with several people, including newspaper columnists, arguing India is burdened with its own "VIP culture" and it was high time we shed it. Besides angry and hurt fans, he found public support in another set of Indian VIPs -- our politicians -- who shouted India should respond similarly to delegates from the U.S. One government minister suggested a "tit-for-tat" policy, while another well-known director, while criticizing the minister's comment on his blog, said we should "ensure that this does not happen to an Indian public figure like him again, and move on". His readers didn't think so, though.

The government's response set off another debate about India's lax security despite so many terror attacks, with people suggesting we should have already dropped our official VIP list and international protocols and screened everyone irrespective of their country of origin or stature. A Bollywood star -- who enjoys a demigod status in India -- is no exception. A lot of people simply did not see the Kalam and Khan as comparable figures.
 
King Khan: I must confess I was rather surprised at SRK's initial outburst. In a career spanning nearly two decades, his public persona has been impeccable: a good-looking middle-class boy with a fabulous school record and an economics degree (we love those degrees), SRK made it in films with no sugar daddy to see him through. He pursued and married his high-school sweetheart (who is Hindu) before his first film and has remained scandal-and-affairs-free even as he graduated to being the nation's heartthrob. He is seen as a secular family man. He is a polite, witty, funny, articulate public speaker with a relatively cool temperament, always ready to apologize to anyone for any perceived infraction.

He pleasantly surprised his fans in America with an appearance at the recent Golden Globe Awards and landed a spot on Newsweek's 50 most powerful people in the world. He is hugely popular in South Asia, the Muslim world, even in parts of Europe and America. But he has always projected himself as a man with his feet firmly planted on the ground. Only recently, he had dismissed as a one-off incident, a fellow Muslim colleague's allegations of religious discrimination in Mumbai: "I have never been treated differently because of my religion. I am 44 years old now and never in my life have I felt discriminated." As Priya Ramani points out in her blog at Mint:

SRK rarely wears his Muslim identity on his sleeve. He has repeatedly said he stands for young, educated India, more than for any single community. SRK is the poster boy of Consumer India, not Muslim India. That is why, even at Newark, SRK never used the word Muslim. I think he intentionally avoided it. All of Bollywood's three Khans are educated, liberal Muslims. They don't want to be in a situation where they are made the poster boys of right wing groups who believe the US hates all Muslims.

So what on earth happened at the airport that ticked him off? Was it a long, tiring flight? Or, did he finally feel the heat that so many international travelers have been putting up with for so many years? 
 
Security: One of the better outcomes of this pointless brouhaha, and the more serious one around the ex-president's experience, is the public discussion about India's own security system that has more holes than hoops. As Anand Soondas blogs at The The Times of India:

We should be like them and take the security of our country and its people with solemn, no-nonsense professionalism. Frisk Brad Pitt when he lands in India next. Give Tom Cruise the same dose. Don’t spare Bill Clinton either. Isn’t he an ex-prez just like Kalam? Who’s stopping you and what’s stopping you? Colonial hangover? Or is it plain lethargy and callousness. Looks like both.
We are just whimpering over here like hurt puppies because we feel, ``Oh, but we don’t do it to them’’. Oh no, we don’t. And it’s a scandal. We should.[...]
So instead of making SRK’s detention an issue, we should think of upgrading our own security set-up. [...]
A day after our own 26/11, there was hardly any security at CST in Mumbai. It can’t get worse than that. The bottom line: Stop fawning, shed the colonial hangover and make no compromise where the country’s safety is concerned.

The VIP culture: Another positive by-product of both the airport controversies -- people coming out strongly against what they see as India's VIP culture of entitlement. In an interview to CNN-IBN, SRK, by now his genial humble self, insisted he did not believe in the VIP culture himself and would not like to be treated differently. Maybe he's being honest, but that didn't deter people from raising the bigger question of why anybody should be exempt or above the security of  our nation. Mellisa A. Bell, an American expat in India, writes on her blog at Mint:

Let's just get this out of the way: Yes, an officer likely religiously profiled the guy. Yes, it sucks that we religiously profile and racially profile people in the US. There are small-minded people in positions of authority and that authority can be abused. But that's what this incident says about the US.
What does it say about India?
Yes, it sucks being detained at the airport. I know. I have been. [...] It's annoying. It's not fun. It's even kind of scary. But there are a lot worse things than being held up a couple hours at an airport. [...]
All this brouhaha won't really change the racial profiling in the U.S., especially when it sounds like SRK is throwing a temper tamper. [...]
And all these calls of injustice from politicians and stars reaffirms the idolatry of VIP status in India. SRK shouldn't have been detained! He's a great movie star! Just google him and see!
So, what? Only movie stars should be exempt from racial profiling?

SRK's detention may have angered some, and the response to it may have irritated others, but it has effectively reminded us of two prickly thorns on India's side --- security and entitlement. Khan's detention drama is dying out. Hopefully, the debates that he set off unconsciously, will not.

More bloggers on SRK:
 
Aman Lamba at Desicritics
The India Uncut Blog
Sepia Mutiny
Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind
Filmi Girl