In a thinly veiled rebuke to actor Aamir Khan for his remarks on the “growing intolerance” in the country, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar on Tuesday said that the actor’s sensibilities seemed superfluous when compared to the sacrifice made by Col. Santosh Mahadik, the commanding officer of the counter-insurgency 41 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) who was killed fighting militants in Kupwara, Kashmir last week.
Mr. Pawar was in Satara to visit and console Col. Mahadik’s family.
“Forget Aamir Khan...his remarks are not important in the light of the tremendous sacrifice made by Col. Mahadik for his country,” Mr. Pawar was quoted as saying while speaking to reporters there.
Mr. Khan’s remarks on surging intolerance under the present Bharatiya Janata Party government stirred the cauldron of controversy when, speaking on the occasion of the Ramnath Goenka awards in Delhi on Monday.
The actor had spoken of a deep-seated sense of “insecurity” and “fear” that had seeped deep within society, affecting even his family to the extent that his wife Kiran Rao had suggested permanently moving out of the country.
A certain section of the regional media has contrasted, somewhat reductively, the ‘escapism’ allegedly implied by remarks made by glamorous stars like Khan with the simple, unswerving devotion and sacrifice to the country made by those like Col. Mahadik.
A local Marathi television channel caustically commented that on one hand Mr. Khan’s wife, Kiran Rao, thought of escaping the country while on the other, Col. Mahadik’s bereaved wife, Swati, had announced her firm determination that her children would serve in the Indian Army.
