Is pk anti-Hindu, anti-religion, or anti-religious stupidity?

Somehow controversy related to the movie "pk" refuses to die, and discussions are still going on in various social media forums and news channels. One interesting point that I found many people repeatedly mentioned is that they don't have any problems with pk talking about the bad practices of religion but they have a problem with the movie targeting Hinduism unfairly. They cite various scenes from the movie to prove their point, but at the same time, they conveniently fail to mention scenes where it also comments about other religions like Christianity and Islam. But they do have a point that the central theme of the movie is to comment on hypocrisy associated with religious practices in India, mainly about scams these babas and gurus are running in the name of spirituality and god. So, in this post, I am looking at the allegation of pk being an anti-Hindu movie in a very sympathetic way and see if there is any truth in it. May be there is but let's analyze it first before jumping to any conclusion.

The movie is targeted towards the Indian audience. This is not a Hollywood movie that is targeted at a world audience but it is a commercial Hindi movie whose audience is mostly people belonging to India (where the majority follows Hinduism). So I think one should understand the reason why it talks about religion by taking Hinduism as a prime example, simply because it connects to more customers and helps to generate more revenue. After all, movies are commercial products, designed and produced to make money. If one is going to invest so much money to make any product for any market then it makes perfect sense to make a product that appeals to most customers of that region. Another main reason is, that cinema as a medium itself has its own limitations. Apart from being a commercial product a movie also has a time constraint, it can be two or three hours long. People are not going to sit in a theater for five or six long hours to watch a movie no matter how entertaining or educating it is. I don't think any movie maker can comment or criticize equally about wrong practices from each and every major religion in one movie. So, the matter of fact is that they have to pick and choose and Raju Hirani chose his pick. If someone is not happy with this movie and wants to make a similar movie using Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or some other religion as a central theme then they are most welcome to do it. It is every artist's choice what they want to use in their artistic creation. One can criticize their work, debate about it, discuss or even protest about it. But questioning why they chose to talk about A and not about C or D is a bit too much, let the artist decide that. Everyone is not an expert in every field, I know more about Hinduism because I was born in a Hindu family and lived my most of life in Hindu-dominated surroundings. So, if I decide to comment about religion I may use Hinduism as an example because of my familiarity with it, someone may use Islam or Christianity because they know more about it. It is a personal choice. I think it is very simple to understand. You make your own choice and let others make their own.

Another point that I see that various people make many times is that foreigners feel that India is the only country they know where the majority is mocked by the minority. In any other country if you are the majority you will never be able to make a movie like pk. I don't understand where they got the impression that in India minority mocks the majority. If we look at the makers of pk itself, its producer, director, and scriptwriter all seem to belong to the Hindu religion. So, the first part of this argument that in India minorities mock the majority is not correct. Based on my personal experience I can say that in the USA, I see a lot of criticism directed towards Christianity which is the majority religion. People make many documentaries that attack these religious beliefs and make fun of Christianity but there is no attempt to ban them or attack the makers. So, it is false to say that India is the only place where minorities or the majority are mocked, it happens everywhere.

Each of these allegations and attacks on pk seems to be out of some anger and emotional outburst but without any rationale or logic. People have the right to feel angry and protest but they don't have the right to force their own beliefs on others. Freedom of expression is the fundamental right of everyone. If people have the right to protest then people also have the right to express themselves freely. I don't find pk anti-Hindu or anti-religion, rather it hesitated from attacking on concept of God. It supports the existence of God, it only attacks on hypocrisy propagated by these so-called agents of God. If these people who are attacking this movie think that these agents and their theatrics are real Hinduism, then they are right in saying that pk is anti-Hindu because the movie specifically attacks these things. But, if they feel that Hinduism is something beyond these babas, gurus, and their theatrics then they don't have to worry about this movie as it doesn't say anything about other aspects of religion. It only attacks hypocrisy and stupidity. It is not anti-Hindu or anti-religion but it is anti-stupidity.    

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]