‘At this moment, I would say no’: Javed Akhtar on Pak artistes working in India
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New Delhi: Veteran lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar said that Pakistani artistes should not be allowed to work in India for now, saying: ‘At this moment, I would say no’, India Today reported.
Following massacre at Pahalgam that claimed 26 lives, a Bollywood film starring Pakistani actor Fawad Khan is barred from releasing in India, triggering debate.
Javed Akhtar, who penned the screenplay for iconic movie ‘Sholay’ along with Salim Khan, however, told news agency PTI that legends from India have not been invited to perform in Pakistan, calling it a ‘one-way traffic’.
He said that India gave grand welcome to Pakistan artistes including Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ghulam Ali, and Noor Jahan, adding that poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, who was living in Pakistan, was treated like a state head when he came to India during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime.
Javed Akhtar, however, pointed out that the kind of respect given by the government has never been ‘reciprocated’.
He asked why there was not a single performance of Lata Mangeshkar in Pakistan, nevertheless she was the most popular artiste in India and Pakistan in the 60s and 70s, despite poets of Pakistan having written songs for her.
‘The blockage was a system, which I don't understand. This is one-way traffic. The second is equally valid, if we block Pakistani artistes, who are we pleasing in Pakistan? The Army and the fundamentalists, this is what they want? They want distance, it suits them. Both these questions are equally valid. At this moment, I would say no,’ he was quoted as saying.