Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Rahat Fateh Ali Episode - Different Interpretations


Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, a famous Pakistani singer who has been doing magnificently well in India because of his musical skills and talented voice has landed up in trouble recently in India. The story is simple but there are various versions of its interpretation. Some people are considering it to be a conspiracy against the Pakistani singer and some say that he did break the law and should have been more careful while India simply says they have tough customs procedures, which handles everyone in the same way. Anyway, here is a look at the story.

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and two others, Maroof from his troupe and his manager in India Chitresh Shrivastava were arrested on Monday and were probed for nearly 30 hours by the Indian Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). The case is still open although Rahat and the others were released later on. Also their passports have been taken so that they can't leave India.

Rahat  Fateh Ali Khan was stopped from boarding the Emirates flight to Karachi because he was carrying $ 124,000, which the airport screener revealed. Rahat got into trouble because he did not declare this information to the immigration office. And thus, landed into trouble. This money was given to him at the airport only by his manager for his 12 performances in India.

In his defence, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan said that he is a school drop out and is not aware of international and Indian laws, which required him to declare his currency and travellers' cheques. As per the law any amount over $10,000 has to be declared open by all travellers but Rahat was ignorant of this procedure as per his words.

It is a bit strange for somebody who does travel so much. Rahat Fateh Ali travels to India regularly and $124,000 is quite a huge amount. It is said that he has carried money illegally at least twice earlier, which is why he came under the scanner of the customs department. Because the customs doesn't really stop anyone unless they have prior information. They had information through telephone calls. Customs officers say that this could be drug money, money belonging to terrorist group and hawala (smuggling) and if proven Rahat could be in trouble and can be arrested.

But Pakistani artists say that it ridiculous to charge Rahat with such things because it is his hard earned money after all because he did perform in 12 concerts. But yes, everybody agrees that he should have been careful because 

The point to note is that Indian laws are quite strict in comparison to Pakistan. India treats all celebrities from Amitabh Bachchan to Shahrukh Khan equally. Recently, the IT officials raided Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif's homes also. Adnan Sami and Sanjay Dutt were also scanned for tax evasion and fraud. Looking back, they were quite tough on Salman Khan when he killed a rare deer and also for his drunk driving case. Thus, anybody who would be aware of such things would have been careful being in India, especially when you are a Pakistani.

India is quite tough on the Events company in Mumbai also because Shrivastava was involved in giving the money at the last moment to Rahat. It is strange that an events manager made such a big mistake of paying such a huge amount at the last minute. This is a suspicious thing by an Indian to do. Most artists don't handle the money matters and it's their managers who deal with the money themselves. In this case, the manager himself seemed to be a bit lost or did he do all this on purpose?

Some Pakistani artists say that Rahat was a victim of professional jealousy by a particular lobby in India because this year Rahat did very well and was nominated for his songs in all major film awards from Filmfare to Zee and Apsara. Not only that he has won awards too. It is quite possible that with this unpleasant episode that would hamper Rahat's reputation some people would be very happy in India. Pakistani supporters and artists say that such people should compete on the basis on talent and skills instead. We can't say for sure if there is really a conspiracy though professional jealousy is quite common.

Anyhow, in the end it reflects badly on Pakistan when an artist is arrested and questioned. It is quite obvious that the law was broken because of ignorance.