Two years back Mohanlal appeared in a surrogate ad for Original Choice in which he uttered the catch line, “What’s the plan for the evening?.” This created such a backlash against the actor – The Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, an NGO, criticized the actor. Many wrote against him and concluded that he was a bad influence on kids and absolved parents of all responsibilities.
This is despite the fact that:
To celebrate the arrival of 2007, Malayalees drank a record Rs. 213 million rupees worth of liquor with Chalakkudy being the topper and Tirur in Malappuram occupying the second place. Kerala has the highest per capita alcohol consumption rate in the nation followed by Punjab.All this did not require Mohanlal. [Why blame Mohanlal?]
Recently we saw the following comment against the Mangalore pub incident.
Turning the iconic freedom struggle slogan “ jail bharo” on its head, Minister of State for Women and Child Development since Renuka Choudhary on Thursday suggested that the only way to tackle the moral police was to launch a “ pub bharo andolan”. [`Pub bharo' to beat moral police: Renuka Choudhary ]
So here is Central Govt. minister, asking people to fill up the pubs where people normally don’t gather to sing devotional songs. That too a minister from Congress party which hangs Mahatma Gandhi’s picture all around and on whose birthday we observe dry day in India. Looks like Ms. Choudhary has not read what Gandhi wrote:
On my return from South Africa to India I had a similar painful experience of
the evils of drink. Several Princes have been and are being ruined by
liquor. What applies to them applies more or less to many a rich youth.
The condition of labour as a result of taking alcohol is also pitiable.
That, as a result of such bitter experience, I have become a staunch
opponent of alcohol, will not surprise the readers. [Intoxicants. Alcohol ruins one physically, morally, intellectually and economically]
So immediately we looked around to see what the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation had to say about this: nothing. We looked around to see what some those who were outraged by Mohanlal’s comments had to say: nothing.
If you have an ideology, you should stand by it. Your position in culture wars cannot be based on convenience. If you think drinking is bad, you should condemn it irrespective of who incites it – Mohanlal or Renuka Chowdhary. If you are only offended by Mohanlal and not by Renuka Choudhary, then you might as well wear the pink chaddi yourself.
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