The Mumbai film industry is often held up as a good exemplar of secularism and plurality. This is not a claim without merit. If you have the skills and are saleable, Bollywood will accept you without bothering about your caste, community, ethnicity, religion and also, as seen in the case of Katrina Kaif, our number one actress, nationality.

The same applies to those who work behind the camera — their professionalism is all that matters.
Yet, curiously, the industry has not tackled too many films that touch upon the subject of ethnicity or religion. As a matter of rule, a commercial-minded producer stays away from anything controversial and the default Hindi film tends not to go anywhere close to hot button issues. The character names (Mr Vijay or Mr Kumar) rarely reflect a particular community, not the least in order to appeal to a broad section of Indian society. The flavour is usually vaguely north Indian though that is now changing.
Over the years, there have been a few films that specifically touched upon inter-community relations. One of two approaches has typically been taken — either a comedy route where cultural differences are played up in a light-hearted way, resulting in a few loud laughs or a melodramatic one, in which fights and reconciliations both take place amidst much emotion. In a song from a Sixties film, Kishore Kumar sings about being a typical Bengali boy who shies away from romance while Padmini is a south Indian — a dancer, what else — who declares her love for him. A good example of the latter genre was Ek Duje Ke Liye, where a relationship between a south Indian boy and his north Indian neighbour ends in a tragedy.
Now comes Chennai Express, in which the boy is north Indian and the girl comes from a village in Tamil Nadu. This time it is not a tragedy (though the critics certainly seem to think so). It is a loud, over-the-top, garish, cliché-ridden ride in which every stereotype is deployed. Lungi-wearing, pot-bellied men? Check. Girl who mangles Hindi? Of course. Flashy north Indian male? Right there on cue. There is a twist or two — the boy (a man, really, since he is 40 years old) is not your average macho boor — but on the whole director Rohit Shetty gives subtlety a miss and opts for humour that is broad enough for a train to drive through. Most critics have agreed that Chennai Express is a travesty, an affront to good taste and a waste of Shah Rukh Khan’s talents. The audiences, as is their wont, has disagreed with this assessment and gone and spend their hard earned money on this extravaganza, making it a bonafide hit.
The quality or otherwise of the film is a matter of personal opinion, but what is undeniable is that as far as the audiences are concerned, they have taken wholeheartedly to the story of the inter-cultural love affair. More significant is the fact that there has been not a single protest against stereotyping of communities, no demand to remove objectionable scenes and no public-interest litigation (PIL) demanding that the film be banned. This is remarkable considering that hardly any film which has any reference to a community gets by unscathed nowadays. When Khan’s Billu Barber was released, barbers demanded that the word be dropped from the title. Nor was this unique — groups representing Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians have often enough come out against this or that film and more often than not filmmakers succumb to the pressure rather than stand up for the principle. Taking offence being a national pastime, no one wants to take the slightest chance with the result that often films are bland. Yet, this has not happened with Chennai Express. Instead, the film is a success even in the south. What has changed?
There could be many reasons, including the fact that Shah Rukh Khan is a huge star even in the south, but what this tells us is that Indians by and large are more invested in pluralism than we are ready to give credit for. Sure the clichés about communities can get tiresome, even offensive, and many may be genuinely aggrieved about that, but by and large, they see the humour and the broader context. The hearty (and martial) Sikh, the eccentric Parsi, the thickly-accented Tamilian, the boorish Punjabi, the kindly Muslim uncle and the violent Bihari from the badlands — these are familiar to us in films and we accept them. We know that the idea is to make people laugh at our foibles rather than be mean and mischievous. There will always be thinned-skin people, troublemakers and black-mailers who will object, but the vast majority doesn’t care. The Indian is secure in his identity and ready to laugh at himself, provided it is done without malice.
At a time when there are enough people promoting rifts between communities and trying to create a narrow definition of what constitutes a nation, films like Chennai Express — and many others — are a good antidote. They promote, without being preachy, the idea of pluralism; their nationalism is more about harmony than conflict, about brotherhood rather than cultural superiority. Inclusiveness is what India does best; those who try and polarise communities for their own petty ends always come to the grief. By going to see Chennai Express — whatever its cinematic qualities may be — in droves, Indians have endorsed its basic message, that cultural differences don’t matter much. Now if only the peddlers of hate understood that.

The writer can be contacted at sidharth01@gmail.com