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Pakistani Film To Release in India After 11 Years Amid Blowback

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4 years ago

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Fawad Khan, star of The Legend of Maula Jatt, in a scene from the film (Handout by Geo, the film’s producers)

The Legend of Maula Jatt, which broke Pakistan’s box office records this year, is set to release on December 30.

Islamabad, Pakistan – A blockbuster Pakistani movie, The Legend of Maula Jatt, is poised to become the first film from the country in more than a decade to be released in India on December 30, marking a tentative cultural breakthrough in the tense ties between the South Asian neighbours.

An adaptation of the 1979 cult classic Maula Jatt, 38-year-old director Bilal Lashari’s movie will be released in Indian Punjab and in select cinemas in Delhi, confirmed Rajender Singh Jyala, chief programming officer of INOX Leisure, an Indian multiplexes chain.

“It will be played in Punjab and a few theatres in Delhi in INOX where there are Punjabi-speaking people,” Jyala told the Press Trust of India on December 26. Al Jazeera reached out to Jyala for comment but had not heard back at the time of publication.

Last week, another Indian multiplex chain, PVR Cinemas, shared the announcement of the release of the movie on its website, before taking it down. It is unclear whether the film will still run at its cinemas, but the incident underscored the political risks Indian companies and individuals face when engaging with Pakistani counterparts.

The Legend of Maula Jatt, released worldwide in October, has gone on to become the highest-grossing Pakistani film of all time and has so far amassed more than $10m at the box office.

With a running time of just over 150 minutes, the movie revolves around family feuds, on themes of revenge and honour, and features a powerful cast of celebrated artists familiar to Indian fans — led by Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan, the film’s stars.

Mahira’s film Bol was the last Pakistani movie to be released in India in 2011, though both she and Fawad Khan have acted in several Indian films. Fawad starred in Khoobsurat, Kapoor & Sons and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Mahira featured in Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan’s Raees, which was released in 2017.

The Legend of Maula Jatt would mark a return to Indian cinema for both actors after more than five years.

But far-right Indian political parties have threatened to protest if the film is released in India. Ameya Khopkar, a leader of the Hindu nationalist Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), said earlier in December that his party will not allow the movie to be shown in India.

In a tweet on December 9, Khopkar wrote, “It is most infuriating that an Indian company is leading this plan. Following Raj Saheb’s orders we will not let this film release anywhere in India.” He was referring to MNS chief Raj Thackeray, whose party has frequently targeted films whose content — or actors — it disagrees with.

Khopkar, who is also a producer himself, said, “Fawad Khan’s fans, traitors may very well go to Pakistan and watch the film”.

Against that backdrop, entertainment writer and film festival programmer Aseem Chhabra said it won’t be easy to screen the movie in India. “I won’t be surprised if there are some political ramifications with the release of this movie,” he told Al Jazeera. “However, I believe it is a great opportunity to resume cultural exchanges between the two nations.”

Despite the popularity of Pakistani films, dramas and its burgeoning music scene in India, Pakistani artists have often struggled to reach their fans across the border, especially since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.

After the 2016 attack in Uri, in Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of at least 19 Indian army personnel, Pakistani performers were in effect — without any formal ban — barred from all platforms in India. Pakistani cricketers have already been shunned from playing in the wildly popular Indian Premier League since 2009, after the Mumbai attacks which took place in November 2008.

The Pakistani national cricket team last played a bilateral series against India a decade ago. The two cricket-mad nations have since competed against each other only in multi-team global events.

Still, Pakistani artists have continued to make their mark in India through the internet. One of this year’s biggest musical hits on both sides of the border is the song Pasoori, performed by Pakistani singers Ali Sethi and Shae Gill on the Coke Studio platform. It was among the most streamed songs on Spotify India.

Joyland, which is Pakistan’s nomination for the Oscars, was also shown at Dharamshala International Film Festival in northern India in November and according to Chhabra, the movie was so successful that the festival organisers had to add another screening of the film.

Speaking about the potential release of The Legend of Maula Jatt, Rafay Mahmood, a Karachi-based film critic and culture commentator, said it is important to remember that India had not formally placed a ban on the release of Pakistani movies or casting Pakistani performers.

“These bans are mostly imposed by the artist bodies, exhibitors and distributors in both countries. There is no formal government regulation to ban artists, or the art itself,” Mahmood told Al Jazeera.

He believes that the two countries engage in restricting art because it is a “symbolic representation” of a nation. “When a state’s establishment want to enforce its soft power, it targets arts, culture and entertainment first. They are symbolic representation of a nation, whether it is music, sports, film. These options of leisure are symbols of nationhood,” he said.

Chhabra, however, expressed optimism about the release of The Legend of Maula Jatt and said it was “thrilling” to see a wildly popular Pakistani movie open in theatres in India.

“I think these cultural connections are important,” Chhabra said. “It will bring the people of India and Pakistan closer.”

The Pakistani film’s expected release also comes at a time when Bollywood — India’s giant Hindi film industry — has struggled for hits and is going through what Mahmood described almost as a “famine”.

“They haven’t had a major commercial success in the last two, three years and it is entirely plausible that The Legend of Maula Jatt might be the film that brings audiences back to theatres,” he said, pointing to its “alpha-male characters, over the top dialogues and aggression” — movie characteristics that often work well in India.

The Karachi-based critic suggested there might be other factors that might help the film in India.

Punjab, a key potential audience for the film, is still grappling with the loss of a popular rapper, Sidhu Moose Wala, who was known for his rebellious, anti-establishment music. “It is possible that the audience there might just flock to watch a Pakistani movie just as an act of protest,” Mahmood said.

And with Indian right-wing parties currently targeting Mahira Khan’s former co-star, the Indian actor Shahrukh Khan over a new film of his, The Legend of Maula Jatt might just slip through without too much disruption, Mahmood said. “For BJP-fuelled right wingers, the success of a Muslim superstar in India is a bigger concern than a Pakistani film having a run in parts of Punjab.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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Israel’s War On Gaza: List of Key Events, Day 101

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3 years ago

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15th January 2024

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Israel's war on Gaza: List of key events, day 101 | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.

Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:

Latest updates and human impact

  • Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
  • Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
  • This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
  • Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
  • The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
  • The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.

Diplomacy

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
  • Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
  • Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.

West Bank raids and violence

  • Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
  • Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
  • The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
  • The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
  • Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
  • Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
  • “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.

 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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Hamas Says Will Kill Hostages if Israeli Attacks On Gaza Civilians Continue

Published

3 years ago

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10th October 2023

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Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023

Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.

The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.

The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.

Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.

As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.

A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in Israeli strikes, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in an Israeli attack, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.

UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.

Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.

“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.

Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.

“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.

Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.

The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

INTERACTIVE_DEATH_TOLL_INJURED_ISRAEL_PALESTINE_OCT10_2023_0415
They said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.

But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.

Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Western Leaders Accused of Hypocrisy Over Response To Palestine, Ukraine

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3 years ago

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10th October 2023

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US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023

Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.

After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.

He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”

Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”

Accusations of Western ‘double standards’

Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.

Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.

Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”

It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.

Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.

“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.

Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:

“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”

Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.

https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.

Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.

Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.

After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.

Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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