I need to mention upfront that I am from armed forces and have seen some of my colleagues fall in the wars we fought aided and abetted by ISI and Pakistan.
I will come to my story now. As customary, I was recently speaking to my brother's grand child who had just seen the movie Pathan and was so excited to talk to me about it. He told the story in between his breaths which he couldn't catch and mentioned how the good ISI overcame the bad RAW finally at the end of the movie. The smart kid had also done his research around it and explained that ISI is Pakistan and that India got support from ISI to nab it's own bad agents.
What caught my attention is the affection he showed towards ISI and the disdain towards Indian agency throughout the entire conversation. He also mentioned that someday he would like to be like the ISI agent and maybe seek help from Pak to kill the bad guys. He also mentioned he spoke to his friends and they discussed at length about how India, it's agencies and it's politicians are all corrupt.
Small story, small boy, but I was aghast at the impact the movie had on the little child. I reflected for a long time. It was just a stupid movie with a stupid plot. Or was it propaganda, a sinister way of brainwashing crores of innocent and unsuspecting Indians of rubbishing their culture, ethos and country, one small stroke at a time? Much has been said about bollywood and it's tendencies and also it's love for Pakistan, I will not repeat them.
The only thing I will say is that the line between fact and fiction is becoming thinner each day and we have a responsibility towards our kids to make them understand the fact.
The English have sanitised their history for their kids. The Americans don't mention how they exterminated the red indians to their kids anymore. French president recently told an African nation he will not apologize for the horrors they unleashed on them during colonization. So on and so forth. While our kids here wish to be someone like ISI to kill the Indian bad guys - kudos!
Bringing up a generation in this war of misinformation is a task in itself. Keep away your children from propaganda and fiction that harms your country - when Treasure Island book was written and very well documented that it was a work of fiction - we still know there were many (adults as well) who actually believed the fiction to be true.
You may ask, can a mindless movie bring such devastating effect? I will leave it to your fine sense of judgment to take a call on that. It is indeed a great responsibility to mould young, impressionable minds and I am sure you will do justice to it.
*Sincerely, An impressionable mind...*
Shocking what censor board is doing???