As Aamir Khan-starrer Laal Singh Chaddha and Akshay Kumar’s Raksha Bandhan face boycott calls over Hinduphobic tendencies exhibited by artists associated with the said movies, filmmaker Rahul Dholakia, best known for glorifying gangster Abdul Latif in his film Raees, took the opportunity to hold forth on the supposed downsides of such boycott campaigns.

In a tweet aimed at criticising the boycott campaigns faced by Laal Singh Chaddha and Raksha Bandhan, Dholakia tweeted, “Trolling a film because a cast or crew members ideology differs from yours is unfair to the other hundreds who have worked hard to make the film. They have also pinned their hopes on the success of the film to help realises their dreams. Spare a thought.”

According to Dholakia, since hundreds of people work on a movie, it is unfair to them if the film faces trolling over the difference in ideology of the cast or crew members of the unit. He also added that the realisation of the dreams of those people is inextricably linked with the success of the movies.

Why Rahul Dholakia’s pontification over boycott calls is misguided

This is a classic case of psychological gaslighting, emotionally manipulating victims into believing that their objection hurts others financially while defending the provocateurs accused of making offensive remarks. Dholakia, in essence, is guilt-tripping those who voice boycott calls after being hurt by the objectionable remarks made by the actors and artists against their cherished beliefs and holds them responsible if the movie fails at the box office.

Dholakia’s argument is flawed on several levels. Firstly, having a differing political ideology is no point of contention. Constantly insulting Hinduism and making unwarranted comments on India is. Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha is facing boycotts because the actor had said he was considering moving out of the country over “rising intolerance”. Similarly, Akshay Kumar’s Raksha Bandhan was embroiled in a controversy recently after Hinduphobic tweets of its writer Kanika Dhillon had gone viral. Several old tweets by Dhillon where she made Gau Mutra jibes and demonised Jai Shri Ram had surfaced on the internet, which had spurred boycott calls against the movie.

Even so, when filmmakers make a movie, the cast invariably takes one or the other stand that they depict through the picturisation of the film. So, when the cast and crew members can take a stand, why can’t the audience take a stand of not watching the movie because their views do not jibe with the ideology of the cast?

Secondly, howsoever callous it may sound, the audience is under no obligation to provide a livelihood to the cast and crew that work on a movie. If that were the case, no film would have failed at the box office. People flock to the theatres for entertainment and not to support the film industry. The entertainment quotient of the movie ultimately decides whether the movie will become a success or end up being a disaster. So Dholakia’s claim that the dreams of hundreds of crew members are linked to the success of the movie is nothing but hogwash.

Thirdly, just like the Constitution of India grants freedom of expression to actors and crew members to ‘bastardise historical facts‘ to make them compatible with their present-day political ideology, the same constitution grants freedom of choice to the audience to decide what films they want to view and which to reject. The audience is well-within its rights to make boycott calls against a movie whose cast and crew members do not refrain from mocking their faith and country.

Perhaps, the most fundamental flaw in Dholakia’s argument is that the box-office performance of a movie determines the fate of hundreds of crew members associated with the film. Movie pundits will tell you that it is always the producers, directors, and on occasions, actors who have a share in profits, who bear the brunt of the failure when the movie tanks at the box office.

The hundreds of crew members whom Dholakia is referring to in his tweets are already paid up for their work even before the movie hits the theatres. Therefore, the argument that the realisation of their dreams depends on the movie’s success is profoundly misleading and patently wrong.

While Rahul Dholakia moralises on boycott calls made against movies by Hinduphobic artists, he had made a veiled attack on ‘The Kashmir Files’

More importantly, it is a bit rich coming from Dholakia to express concerns for the crew members of a movie since he did not feel the same way when he made a veiled attack against ‘The Kashmir Files’, a film that chronicled the violence faced by Kashmiri Hindus at the hands of their Islamic perpetrators.

In March this year, Dholakia tweeted, “Hate sells. Love used to. Sleaze sells. Melodrama used to. Propaganda sells. Fantasy sells. Truth never did. Follow the crowd. Flow with the majority… the price of flowing against is high, doesn’t sell. #Random.”

The tweet was posted on March 13, two days after the release of ‘The Kashmir Files’, leaving little doubt as to whom it was meant for. As such, it was not the first time detractors had launched an attack against Vivek Agnihotri’s latest movie. Ever since he announced that he would be making a movie on the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits, assorted ‘liberals’ and Islamists have indulged in exercises that aimed to discredit the movie.

However, Rahul Dholakia had then not bothered to ask ‘liberals’ to stop attacking the movie as that film may also have had hundreds of crew members whose realisation of dreams relied on the economic success of the film.

In a democratic country like India that enshrines freedom of expression and choice, just like people are entitled to exercise their freedom of speech to speak on anything, except, of course, certain proscribed things that can attract “Sar Tan Se Juda” chants and beheading calls, the audience is also entitled to decide which movie they want to watch and which to boycott.