Chinese superstar
If Doklam is a constant irritant in Sino-Indian discourse then Aamir Khan is the panacea
Never has an Indian caught the fancy of the Chinese people in such an overarching and penetrative manner as Aamir Khan has done with his films, making him not only an arrowhead of soft diplomacy between the two nations but also an ambassador of cooperation beyond the compulsions of geo politics. The Chinese film market, which is now estimated to be the second biggest in the world, and has so far been Hollywood-dominated, has readily accepted Aamir’s films ever since his coming of age story 3 Idiots was lapped up by distributors. It's a difficult market to break into considering it just accepts four Indian films a year compared to 38 of Hollywood and has a vibrant domestic film industry. But this week, Secret Superstar, ran rampant at the Chinese foreign box office, making Rs 450 crore in 10 days and toppling Hollywood biggies like Star Wars: Last Jedi and The Maze Runner. The Chinese equivalent of IMDB, Douban, has consistently rated Aamir’s films as best foreign projects. The Chinese variant of Twitter, Weibao, is flooded with appreciation and hysteria for both Dangal and Secret Superstar, compelling Aamir to open his own Weibao account. The masses have given him endearing monikers — of being “India’s conscience,” “Nan Shen or male god” and even “Uncle Aamir”. The adulation for Aamir, who is besieged each time he's in China, has been taken note of by official mainstream media with People’s Daily calling him the “soul of India”, a Xinhua editorial expressing the hope that this aesthetic connect between China and India should be built on for closer economic and political understanding and some experts even likening Khan's impact to Rabindranath Tagore’s cultural hold on the Middle Kingdom. Though that last comparison seems extreme, it does point to the convergence of themes in Asian societies that have social and cultural resonance. If we take Aamir’s films from Lagaan, with which he nudged his way into the Chinese market, we find that they have all been about unremarkable, ordinary protagonists becoming remarkable heroes, battling imperialists, monstrous societal systems (3 Idiots), superstitions (PK) and patriarchy (Dangal and Secret Superstar). Particularly, the stories of ordinary young women from disadvantaged interiors who claimed their rightful place in the sun with Aamir’s onscreen mentorship, have touched Chinese hearts. In civilizational terms India and China have had interfaces and societally there are more similarities between the two than differences. The physically diminutive Aamir attempting a tall order to change the world addresses the innermost desire of the individual whose voice tends to get drowned in a monolithic state, policed environs and an insular society. This onscreen “commitment” as a changemaker has led many Chinese to look at regular Indians with porosity. And young Chinese are now making India a must-see in their travel plans. Tourist arrivals are up just as investment and technology collaborations are. Getting under the Chinese skin is tough. It may be fruitful to keep politics a subset of a larger communion.