I have read the Quran and nowhere does it encourage the killing of people: SRK

It’s Independence Day eve, and we ask Shah Rukh Khan a blunt question: is there anything he has done for the country that makes him proud today?

He smiles, unfazed, and answers, “Go to any part of the world and you’ll see that India is associated with Bollywood. That's my biggest achievement. And the India I see on the world map is a sparkling and happy India, which is moving forward with never-seen-before energy. This is what the new, raring-to-go India is like, and I am proud to be the face of it.”

So a proud-to-be-Indian SRK is not waving the flag just because of the success of his new film, which has a strong patriotic theme running through it. He is already busy making his next for Karan Johar, the working title of which is My Name Is Khan. This film comes at a time when the Mumbai bomb blasts trials and questions about the Srikrishna Commission report’s implementation have brought issues involving inter-communal relations back to the forefront of public debate.

But Shah Rukh Khan is not someone who is insecure over such issues. Being on top of Bollywood's charts for close to a decade as the definitive superstar hardly leaves scope for questions of acceptance. “People have accepted me for what I am, nobody has ever questioned my religion,” he says.

And goes on to add, “I am an educated, liberal Muslim, and I am proud to be a Muslim. My wife is Hindu. My children learn both the religions,” said the superstar. His concern at the global stereotyping in the post 9/11 world, though, comes through when he points out that “people should realise that every Haneef is not a terrorist and that everyone with a Khan surname need not be frisked at the airport.”

But isn’t that on account of the spectre of terrorism and the edgy, even paranoid, reactions to it?

“Nobody supports terrorism,” he is emphatic. “And terrorism recognises no religion. I have read the Quran and nowhere does it encourage the killing of people. Such acts only take us backward. We should take a stand and we should talk against terrorism. Even if we don’t talk against it, we should be completely against it.”

Do incidents of communal disharmony disturb him, make him ask questions?

“That is always the work of a few people. It's all about acquiring power in the bigger picture. We need to see through all this. One has to understand and feel that the only thing that can stop India from being the greatest superpower in the world, is the misuse of religion.”

Does the superstar wish to play political messiah too?

“No, I am an actor, a people's person. I have no political aspirations. But we all can try for the formation of a fair social and political structure, from the heart. If we believe we can, we can do it. The power lies within us, the common man,” says the man who is the common man’s hero.

Source: TimesOfIndia