Why The Hell Is Kajol Clarifying Her 'Beef' Post?

It’s time to address the giant elephant, or in this case, cow, in the room. Indians, even those accorded or born with enough privilege that you might think would protect them have had to become so vigilant about their thoughts and opinions regarding matters of mass ‘importance’, that their resulting actions have become very telling of a dangerous political climate. Vigilant is the word we use because it has become nothing more than a scary observation of “he said - she said” and before you know it, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again. Most recently, Kajol of immaculate Bollywood fame took to twitter with a video of her chef friend describing to the Twitterverse the meal he had oh-so-carefully prepared that evening. This would have been the same as any other insta #foodporn picture/video, except for the fact that there was beef on the table, and the ‘b’ word was actually dropped in the same video.

As the chef described the dish, Kajol went on to joke “Ok, we’re going to cut his hands off after this,” and boy, was there beef to be had. She went on to take the video down, and felt the need to make the following statement on twitter, which may actually have drawn more attention to this incident.

While many deem this comment ‘respectable’ and applaud her for deciding to make this grand clarification, we think it is absolutely ridiculous that anyone needs to clarify what meat they are eating, and the legal status of said meat on plate. It is terrifying to think that a person granted with a significant amount of fame is so afraid to make a joke about the status of beef in India - tell me you didn’t choke with laughter when you heard of our government’s plan to spend 150 odd crores on granting cows tracking IDs.

What’s worse is that her fear is not unjustified. In the past, many actors have been held at gunpoint for saying something they truly feel. For instance, The Wire reported that Aamir Khan went on to lose a whole contract with Snapdeal because he made a comment on the rising intolerance in India. A whole life’s work and effort can be brought to the ground simply on the whim of a political agenda’s volatile ego. In our country, it is simply not possible without a celebrity to make a comment about a political agenda without their work being banned, or being told to “Go back to Pakistan.” What was that about freedom of expression, or did we hear wrong?

The true irony remains that Kajol actually gets the humour that rests hidden behind the current beef situation in India, but has been made to curtail and even retract her thoughts to avoid any potential scandal that could affect her, and in the interest of honest speculation, her husband’s career. The fact that people in places of immense privilege (even power, because people look up to them) start aligning themselves with the powers that be out of evident fear, suggests that as a nation, we are well on the yellow brick road to fascism.