From Studio to Lok Sabha

Afternoon Voice

How our education system will run on the day when Aamir Khan will become our Education Minister?

What will be the condition of state’s security when Amitabh Bachchan will be President of India?

 And what will happen to our country’s women if Soha Ali Khan will lead them?

What will happen when Priety Zinta will lead India as an External Affair Minister?

All these scary dreams make me feel restless by imagining the country’s future when governmental decisions will be made by our great superstars. After acting in numerous movies, they finally get on to play the biggest get up role amongst all, Indian politics. Actors are now increasingly setting off political debates and are successful in swaying political attention. They can lie, manipulate and pretend to be something they are not. Because of this, it is not surprising that “not many of them are good politicians”.

 Be it, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha, Vinod Khanna or Govinda, they are always closely connected to politics. Actors entering into politics are very common not only in India but all over the world. Amongst them, Ronald Reagon proves to be the most powerful actor turned politicians in the world who became the 40^th President of United States. After him, Arnold Schwarzenegger was successful in becoming the Governor of California. In India, origination of actors turning towards politics started from southern states. They also prove to be quite successful as compared to actors from northern states. These South Indian actors have made a difference by setting up their own political parties.

But the question arise is why does the political parties take actors as their candidates? Definitely, actors are selected because they have a mass appeal. They have qualities to deal with media and most importantly ‘fans’. People vote for these actors mainly due to their fan following without judging which political party they represent. People also fail to analyse whether these actors are efficient to represent them or not? But who are the people been targeted by these politician’s actors? They are that section of the society who is less educated and even illiterates. There are majority of people in India who don’t know the name of minister of a political party but they can easily identify actors in millions. Since, these people lack the understanding of a political party, they vote for the person whom they see most on the television.

There are many questions regarding an actor turning into a politician which rise into my mind. One of them is what instigates an actor to think that despite acting they can come on top in the world of politics? An interest to enter politics starts from school and college days which slowly increased the eagerness towards political knowledge until one’s age of maturity. Finally, after completing relevant political or equal grade study, a politician is born. It needs effort and true will to serve nation. Can we accept an actor as our politician based on their box office success? After capturing millions of hearts through their movies, they are doing the same again, capturing millions of hearts, but this time through political speeches. Actually, the fact is when an actor who has passed his youth and had reached at the stage where their film career began to decline, they enter politics. At this stage, they have nothing to do except commenting on issues with less understanding of their critical aspects. If the purpose is to really serve nation and do well for the people, why didn’t these actors turns towards politics when they are young and successful? Do they really deserve to be a politician?

But love them or not, actors have supernatural trick to climb the political ladder. However, all the actors turned politicians cannot be said to be inefficient in their political career. A truly impressive personality of Late Shri Sunil Dutt, who had seriously involved in political affairs. He had done commendable jobs all his lifetime. His belief that nothing can be greater than serving humanity results in a love shower of numerous people on him who accepted him as a true “politician cum actor” unlike others who are been considered as “actor turned politician”.

But today, actors have star appeal, bank accounts, private business and they know how they can turn on the public’s emotion. All these qualities make a room for them in a political field which reveals the true weakness in current political system. I was very much impressed to see the trailer of upcoming flick on politics named Rajneeti. What it seems regarding the movie at this stage is, we may like actor Nana Patekar commenting “There is no wrong and right in politics, sometimes to make peace, we have to fight a war”. We may like Naseeruddin Shah commenting “It is the voice of people that counts, if it takes a revolution, so be it”. I am pretty sure they will perform their character very neatly in the movie, but how can we expect the same from them in reality? Despite acting and alluring the crowd, there are many other skills which an excellent politician needs. Being a politician is a big responsibility and needs lots of devotion towards work. Important question is, how can we risk our 120 billion lives blindly on an actor who needs several re-takes to deliver one scene?

O people of my country!, in reel life it is, but in real life there are no re-takes.