Vol. XI, No. 125, May 2012
Travel || Report || Commentary || Essay || Book Review || Theater Review || Film Review || Archive
Shah Rukh Khan and I Have
Names that Arouse Suspicion;
Why Blame America for It?
By M. P. Prabhakaran
Shah Rukh Khan is a Bollywood megastar. There is no disputing of that. And he is a superhero to millions of movie-goers in India and many other countries. But to the immigration officials who detained and interrogated him at a New York airport, on April 13, 2012, he was just another passenger who arrived from abroad. They had to follow established procedures just as they would in the case of any other passenger.
Facts: Shah Rukh Khan
arrived at the White Plains, New York, airport on April 13, 2012. He was on
his way to Yale, where he was to receive the prestigious university’s Chubb
Fellowship and address a group of people who had gathered there to see him and
celebrate the event with him. The celebration was planned by Isha Ambani,
daughter of India's billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani. Isha is a student
at Yale and also the president of the university's South Asian Society. It may
be added that Mr. Khan was flown to the U.S. on a private plane owned by
Mukesh Ambani. Among those who accompanied him all the way from Mumbai was
Mukesh's wife, Nita Ambani.
The Chubb Fellowship is a rare honor Yale awards to individuals distinguished in various fields like politics, business, science and the arts. The only other Indian who received it, before Shah Rukh Khan, was the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. N. Annadurai. Annadurai, apart from being one of the most popular chief ministers Tamil Nadu ever produced, was also a powerful writer and orator in Tamil.
Mr. Khan’s selection for the fellowship and of his impending visit to Yale was widely publicized both in India and the U.S. This is how Suman Guha Mozumder, Associate Managing Editor of India Abroad, reported it in his weekly newspaper: “Come April 12, Shah Rukh Khan will join the likes of former Presidents George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter; writers Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes and Toni Morrison; filmmaker Sofia Coppola; architect Frank Gehry and choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov.” India Abroad, published from New York, is the leading Indian-American newspaper.
Mozumder’s report also says: “A measure of SRK’s popularity among the Yale community is that all tickets for the event sold out within 48 hours of the announcement of the event.” The question is: What does all this have to do with the immigration procedures everyone arriving in the U.S. has to go through? True, the procedures became too strict and a little too invasive in the wake of the terrorist attacks the U.S. suffered on September 11, 2001. Can anyone blame U.S. authorities for making it so, given that it was laxity in immigration procedures that enabled 19 terrorists responsible for 9/11 to enter the country in the first place and execute their plot later?
So the media frenzy, especially in India, over what happened to Shah Rukh Khan on his arrival at a New York airport is uncalled for. In detaining and interrogating him, the immigration officials were only doing their job. It is to their credit that, once they realized their blunder, they apologized and let him go.
More surprising is the fact that even high-placed Indian officials who should know better joined the frenzy. I am particularly amused by External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna’s reaction to the incident. “It has become a habit these days to first detain and then apologize. This can't continue,” he said, according to a report in The Hindustan Times of New Delhi. He also reportedly asked Nirupama Rao, India’s ambassador to the U.S. to take up the matter with the U.S. authorities. He did it even after the authorities, including the U.S. embassy in New Delhi, tendered their apology – which they did not have to do. In the absence of prior information from Indian authorities or Shah Rukh Khan himself, they had no way of knowing who he was and what the purpose of his visit was.
Indian Ambassador’s Reaction
Ambassador Rao’s reaction to the incident was much more mature and thoughtful. As reported in the April 27 issue of India Abroad, by Aziz Haniffa, editor of the paper, she did acknowledge that “Khan is an iconic figure not just in India, but across the word.” But, unlike her boss back in India, she was gracious enough to give the U.S. authorities the benefit of the doubt. “I believe what happened is that his name figures in what you call ‘the system,’” Haniffa quotes her as saying. While she wished that the incident had not happened, “because I don’t believe Mr. Shah Rukh Khan deserved to be detained at all,” she said she understood why it did: “I think post-9/11, you’ve had heightened levels of checks and we know you are super-careful.”
Shah Rukh Khan, though upset over the incident, decided to laugh it away and even turn it into a positive experience. As reported in India Abroad, again, he told the Yale University audience: “Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to America. The immigration guys kick the star out of stardom.” Laughing at himself is characteristic of Shah Rukh Khan.
One may recall the famous movie “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist,” in which he played the lead role. It came out of similar experiences those bearing the name Khan had at U.S. airports. Shah Rukh Khan himself experienced it at New Jersey's international airport, in 2009. Let’s hope that another movie comes out of this incident, too.
Ambassador Rao has the right answer to why it keeps happening to him: Mr. Khan’s name “conjures up different images.” Thousands of people with suspicion-arousing names have had experiences similar to his at various airports in the world. I am one of them.
When the late Sri Lankan terrorist Velupillai Prabhakaran was in the news, I was working as an adjunct professor of political science at the City University of New York. At the beginning of every semester, soon after I introduce myself to the new batch of students, I would hear from some of them the embarrassing question whether I was related to Velupillai Prabhakaran. I knew that a mere “no” from me wouldn't satisfy their intellectual curiosity. So I would give them a brief history of how the Sri Lankan terrorist and I, a native son of the southern Indian state of Kerala, got the same name. Prabhakaran is a common name in Kerala and the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu, I would tell them. “Velupillai Prabhakaran’s ancestors emigrated from Tamil Nadu – formerly Madras – to Sri Lanka, when both India and Sri Lanka – formerly Ceylon – were British colonies,” I would conclude my historical tidbit, to the delight of my students.
A few years later, I started traveling extensively around the world. The United States and many other countries, including India, had declared Velupillai Prabhakaran as one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. That was when my experience at various international airports became not just embarrassing, but humiliating. After checking my documents against what Ambassador Rao referred to as “the system,” the immigration officials would throw a suspicious look at me. Once they were convinced that I was not the terrorist they had in their system, they would ask, the same way my students in New York did: “Are you related to Velupillai Prabhakaran?”
I always disarmed them with a laugh and this response: "I want you to know that I am not at all offended. If my name arouses suspicion, you are not to blame.” Some of them thanked me for my “understanding.” A few of them, who had the kind of intellectual curiosity my students had, also wanted to know more about the commonality between me and the Sri Lankan terrorist. I would repeat my “brief lesson in history,” as one immigration official put it while thanking me. And my initial embarrassment and humiliation would turn into elation.
The procedures, which those who arrive at U.S. airports are subjected to, may have flaws. But let’s not forget: If there have been no major terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11, the credit for it goes to those procedures. I hope Shah Rukh Khan, like me, wouldn't mind putting up with a little inconvenience and embarrassment. And let Indian officials and the adoring fans of the Bollywood megastar not be overly critical of U.S. authorities.