STOP THE HATRED




	The deep baritone, is unmistakable. "Main Vijay Hoon," it says. "Main Anthony hoon. Main Iqbal hoon. Main Amitabh Bachchan hoon. Main ek Hindustani hoon. Ek Hindustani pe zulm saare Hindustaniyon pe zulm hai." The clip is from Ramesh Sippy's daughter-in-law Rohena Gera's Stop the Hatred public service campaign. Around 240 prints distributed by Shringar films will hit cinemas nationwide this Friday. "The campaign is in the process of being approved by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation. If all goes well, it will hit major channels this weekend," says Rohena. The four 30 second spots feature national icons. So Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Zakir Husain, Aamir Khan, Ashutosh Gowariker, M F Husain, Aparna Sen, Mammooty, Abhishek Bachchan, Fardeen Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Shabana Azmi, Tabu, Raveena Tandon, Akshaye Khanna and Anupam Kher all profess that they are Indians to the core, and a crime against any Indian is a crime against India. The idea came to Rohena in May. "I was watching all this hate propaganda on TV," she says. "The days during and after the Gujarat carnage were a time to be ashamed. I didn't want to be ashamed of being an Indian. I had to do something, however small. At a time when people were buying into a very scary rhetoric, it was important to say something positive. And to be heard, I thought it was best to have icons giving that message." Once she'd made up her mind, the icons she chose were surprisingly accessible. "There is a tendency to take a cynical view of Indians and their leaning towards apathy. But in this case, the response was tremendous," says Rohena. "I would love to contribute to bringing peace in my country. Being public figures, it's time we stood up for something we believe in," says actor Abhishek. "Perhaps the Sippy name helped," admits Rohena, "but I think that they would only do something they believed in. That said, I definitely had easier access to some of them because I'm Rohan's wife. For instance, with Abhishek, who was the first I spoke to, I just had to knock on his van door at Rohan's shoot. I also think that because my father-in-law is respected in the industry, they trusted me more easily. But since I haven't changed my surname, I think some of the people, particularly Mammooty, Sachin and Harbhajan had no idea of the relationship. The truth is, it doesn't matter." Rohena approached Bajaj Auto for sponsorship, which covered production costs. She scripted and directed the messages herself, and got cameramen to shoot the footage for free, as did the rest of the crew.



	Amitabh Bachchan : Mein Vijay Hoon… Mein Anthony Hoon… Mein Iqbal hoon… Mein Amitabh Bachchan hoon… Mein Hindustani Hoon Zakir Hussain : Saaz ka koi dharm nahin… sangeet ka koi dharm nahin… to ansuon ka kya dharm hai These are just two of the voices you will hear, and faces you will see, on your television or in the cinema hall soon, two among 16 voices of leading Indian icons who are making a common declaration: "I'm an Indian". Aamir Khan, Ashutosh Gowariker, Raveena Tandon, Sachin Tendulkar, Shabana Azmi, Tabu, Fardeen Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, M F Husain, Mamooty and Harbhajan Singh are some of the others. The purpose of these short public service messages, written and produced by Rohena Gera, is really to say 'Stop the hatred'. "I was very upset by the recent Gujarat riots and I couldn't believe there was nothing one could do. There was rhetoric and hate propaganda going around and more and more people were buying into it," says Gera. "I wanted to do something about it and the best way seemed to be by giving people an alternate rhetoric - that there is really no difference between people." Gera felt that the best way to have the message of unity and secularism heard was through stars "because then at least people listen". So she got to together a mini galaxy of them. "I first approached Abhishek who was shooting for my husband Rohan Sippy's (Ramesh Sippy's son) film. In all, 16 stars have participated in the films. And no, it was not difficult to persuade them. They did have questions but they were very supportive and they are happy to be doing something too," says Gera of the films which should be on air on most satellite channels as well as on Doordarshan this weekend. The 30-second and 50-second (for theatres) length films were partially funded by a Bajaj Auto Group trust. "The trust funding covered our production costs and many of the technicians did their jobs for free," says Gera whose writing credits include her husband's under-production film Kuch Na Kaho, a fiction novel and television serial scripts. "It is the first time I have done anything besides writing, and it was amazing to produce these films mostly because I felt to strongly about the cause and had so much support." Gera hopes that the film will help people feel better about themselves and about being Indians and that "young people understand that we can and do live as one".



	Private Channels To Air Public Service Ads Featuring Amitabh, Aamir, Sachin Our eFE Bureau New Delhi: Call it social message, public service endorsement or simply a campaign, the small screen is all set to come alive with it within a few days. While Doordarshan is already beaming these ads, private channels would start airing them too sometime this week. Supported by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the first set of public service ads has been devised around the theme of communal harmony, called ‘Stop The Hatred: I’m an Indian’. This theme will run for six months (July to December), and then another would be worked out. The four 30-second spots, that have been made so far in the ‘Stop The Hatred’ series, feature superstars Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, among others. Produced by Ramesh Sippy’s daughter-in-law Rohena Gera, ‘Stop the Hatred’ campaign is also being shown in cinemas nationwide. Sponsorship by Bajaj Auto covered the production costs of these ad films. While Ms Gera scripted and directed the messages herself, rest of the crew including the cameramen gave their services for free. In one of these ads, Amitabh Bachchan strikes a rapport with the viewers as he goes, “Main Vijay hoon, main Anthony hoon, main Iqbal hoon, main Amitabh Bachchan hoon, main ek Hindustani hoon...” (I’m Vijay, I’m Iqbal, I’m Amitabh Bachchan, I’m an Indian). And then Zakir Hussain asks: “Saaz ka koi dharm nahin, sangeet ka koi dharm nahin, to ansuon ka kya dharm hai?” (Music has no religion, so do tears have religion?). These public service ads are being seen as a significant development in the industry, as these may set a trend for the times to come. With liquor and tobacco advertising on TV being banned in all forms, there could be a possibility of public service ads getting sponsored by liquor/tobacco companies. But the government has not yet given a go-ahead to broadcasters on such a proposal yet.



	Newsnotes: Anti-Communal Campaign Excerpts : Pune-born and bred Rohena Gera, 29, has launched a tv and theatre campaign on communal harmony called Stop the hatred to "counter the hate propaganda and say something positive" after Gujarat. Currently showing in theatres, the 50-second "public service message" will soon be aired on TV channels as four 30 second spots. Stop... stars Sachin Tendulkar, the Big B, Aamir Khan, Ashutosh Gowariker, Apaprna Sen, Fardeen Khan, Zakir Husain, and Raveena Tandon, among others. Gera got Bajaj Auto to fund the film though "nobody gets credit because there's no branding, sponsorship or banner attached to the series." Gera is writing a book and also working on a Bollywood script. Finding a producer shouldn't be difficult.



	So everyone you know (unless you know and love Praveen Togadia and his merry men) was horrified by the Gujarat riots. The question is, what did you do about it? Were you assaulted by the same question that all of us asked ourselves; what can we do? Rohena Gera went out and got some very big wigs indeed to step in front of the camera to make the point, loud and clear, that the sort of hatred that inspired Godhra and the riots that followed has no reward. And that sectarian hatred itself is hateful. She decided to work with ‘icons…stars, athletes, musicians, because we (Indians) love them unconditionally.’ If you can believe in Amitabh Bachchan as Vijay and as Sikandar, and Aamir Khan as anything under the sun (including a dhoti-clad pretend athlete of the past), if you can cheer for, as she puts it, ‘Yuvraj and Kaif’, then how can you turn around and kill your neighbour in the street, purely because of his religion? The short spots with these personalities speaking out against religious hatred will be airing on all major television channels, and across the nation in cinemas. Busy people made time for her, as she emphasises. Sachin Tendulkar just asked her what he had to say, she remembers. Nobody mentioned money, not even the industry pros who shot the films and recorded sound. Spontaneous offers of help flooded in, people volunteering to step in front of the camera and lend their weight to the message. As Rohena puts it, 'Everybody wanted to help, they just didn’t know how.'



	Anti Hatred Hit In an age when star offsprings are hitting the big screen almost every Friday, Ramesh Sippy's daughter-in-law, Rohena Gera has grabbed attention in a different way. Her Stop the hatred campaign, a series of 30 second public service messages against communalism featuring luminaries like Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Aamir Khan, Zakir Husain and M.F. Husain is creating waves. "In all likelihood, whatever community you belong to, you love Amitabh and Aamir or cheer for Yuvraj and Kaif or have sung along with Javed Akhtar's lyrics in Lata Mangeshkar's vioce... So, why the hypocrisy?" she feels. The attractive lady is already midway through her first book, a fiction set in Mumbai and a film script that may be translated on the big screen soon. Is father-in-law interested?



	I sit staring at a black television screen, stunned to silence. It's so quiet in the room yet my ears are echoing with the sounds I've just heard. My body is slouched and I can't do anything but take a deep breath and compose myself. I have just watched the most haunting and touching visuals I have ever seen and am recovering from what I have just been exposed to. A black and white film with Indian cinema's greatest living legend proclaiming he is Vijay, Anthony, Iqbal and also goes by the name of Amitabh Bachchan. "I am an Indian," he states looking straight into the camera as visuals begin fading in and out with a haunting background score. Visuals of burning bodies from the Gujerat riots and of persecuted people who have suffered as casualties of violence flow in and out of focus, text appears against the black background and Amitabh's inimitable voice penetrates the screen: "A crime against one Indian is a crime against all of India". In the next second images flash by of stars such as Raveena Tandon, Sachin Tendulkar, Abhishek Bachchan, Harbhajan Singh, Zakir Hussain, Fardeen Khan, Akshaye Khanna and others stating they are Indians. The short film ends repeating Amitabh's statement and then cuts back to him in black and white addressing the viewer. "Stop these crimes. How can we do this to each other?" Fade to black, a logo emerges from the darkness like smoke from thin air: Stop the Hatred. This is just one of the few ads I have just witnessed that has left me stunned. The others feature Zakir Hussain stating how when music and lyrics have no religion, then how can tears have a religion, and Aamir Khan and Ashutosh saying: "So many crimes are carried out in the name of belief. Will any God of any religion ever forgive such atrocities? Make humanity your belief system." Sachin Tendukar features in another and another has a medley of many. This campaign is called Stop the Hatred and is aimed at putting a halt to the inbred hate that is destroying secular India and is seeping through to many cultures and societies worldwide. A direct reaction to the Gujerat riots where many were massacred, the ads use images so familiar from the time, yet cannot explicitly refer to the incident without upsetting the Government. I'm handed a cup of tea and 29 year old Rohena Gera looks at me asking if I'm ok. Young, beautiful, wide-eyed and with a striking look of innocence about her, Rohena is the person who is responsible for the campaign. She's not a hired filmmaker working to a brief or someone being paid to shoot the ads, she's merely someone who could not stand to watch what was happening and did something about it. She is what we would term a real hero, and she is about to touch the world just as she has me, with a campaign that is so powerful it will bring tears to your eyes. "The goal of this campaign is to counter the hate propaganda that is being disseminated so efficiently throughout the country. The point is not be controversial or to fight any political party or personality but to simply reach out to the people and try to stop this epidemic of hatred. Today, Indians - men and women, old and especially young - need to hear that we are one people, and that most of us can and do live as one," she says as we sit discussing what she's just showed me. This is an ordinary young woman's journey since her decision not to just sit tight and accept what was going on in a place that was fast becoming void of humanity. This is how Rohena Gera brought to life a campaign that will change the world. "One tiny idea.." "I was unable to deal with what was going on the way some others were. It was too horrific and too real for me to accept and just sit there. I thought I just have to do something and thought what if we could get people to say something that projects the image of the other side. Something that actively works against the propaganda that is being spread, so it started from there: one tiny idea." "The Long Drive that Changed Everything.." "It was May 9th and a bunch of us were taking a long drive to the Taj in town and these questions were just in my head and I kept saying 'what if I do this?' and then we'd talk about something else and then I'd go back to it again, so it was constantly on my mind. The whole way I was thinking about it and saying what if we get these influential people and do this." "The Road Ahead" "I spoke to people and initially I did get feedback saying it'll never happen because these people are extremely vulnerable because they are recognised people. The Government is not very kind to people who take a stand against it, so I was told I had to be careful what to expect of people and what I could I ask them to do and the extent to which I could ask them to stick their neck out." "Decision Time" "I thought about it and just decided I had to do it and do it on my own so it remained free of vested interests. I had no experience of production and had no credentials and wasn't part of any NGO or governmental body so had a lot working against me, I had to literally go up to these people and say this is what's happening and …just beg!" "One Voice" "And that worked fine, people listened and related because I was just a concerned person who felt something needed to be done. It was something no one could ignore because you were reading about it in the papers everyday and everyone was shocked but no one felt they could do anything about it. I found that one by one people listened and were totally supportive. I spoke to Abhishek first and he was very responsive saying 'yeah you've got to do this, it needs to be done' which helped me a lot and gave me encouragement, and it stemmed from there." "All I Want is Five Minutes.." "All I was asking them was for literally five minutes and even that too wherever they would be. It was the kind of thing that was literally asking them to do something that would not take too much of time, is helping a cause they feel very strongly about and also was not just paying lip service because many of them are secular, it doesn't matter what religion you are. Some of them were relieved to be able to do something for an issue they felt strongly about and believed in." "Hope" "The most memorable of the people I approached was Aamir and Ashutosh probably because they sat and gave me a lot of time and heard me out and their approach to it was amazing. The sincerity they showed was very encouraging, because they were in Bhuj too and so they had been to Gujurat so perhaps they felt more strongly. Their genuineness and sincerity just struck me and gave me hope." "First Response" "Most of the reactions were like yours which was a lot of silence, which I now know is a good thing because it shows the message is getting across somewhere." "The Online Campaign: www.stopthehatred.com " "I got a lot of feedback through the website which was great. The site was set up to make the ads accessible to the Indians abroad and an international audience, so it's good to get a lot of comments from abroad. People from Muscat, Dubai, New York and all over India were all writing expressing support or asking questions which was interesting. It was as if people had found some sort of hope to hang on to." "Shooting Mr Bachchan" "After Mr. Amitabh Bachchan had agreed to shoot with me, I was doing mental cartwheels, because I know what he means to people. If he said something, people would listen, but, I had to shoot with him soon because he was scheduled to leave town for over a month in less than a week. His secretary, Rosy asked me to shoot him on the sets, so I arrived at the Kaante sets with my crew. I had butterflies in my stomach - to be shooting for the first time in my life and that too with the Mr Bachchan! He had arrived and was in his make up room. So my production manager Husain went about trying to wangle a quiet place to shoot. Suddenly, I saw Mr. Bachchan emerge from his room, and speak to Sanjay Gupta, the director of Kaante. Then, while I watched, Mr. Bachchan left. He had just got a message that his father was unwell, and he had to go home. The Kaante shoot was packed up, and so were we. This was Day One of the Stop the hatred shoot. Mr. Bachchan's secretary was quite prompt to reschedule, and so I returned to the same location a few days later to shoot with him. He was on the sets so I went to meet him just to let him know that we would set up and wait for him and he looked at me and said: "What are we going to do about this?" - He had a beard for the film…and we couldn't shoot with him with a beard! Once again, we would have to reschedule. Finally, the third time, I was asked to come to the JW Marriott hotel. I was at madh island, at about nine at night, waiting to shoot with Raveena Tandon, when Rosy called and told me we could shoot the next day at noon. Mr. Bachchan was going to be shooting stills for a Parker Pens ad. It sounded good…until I realised that the Marriott charges large fees to allow people to shoot. I started making frantic calls: was there someone who could get the Marriott to write off the location charges…? The next day, I landed up at the Marriott lobby at 9.30 in the morning, begging the PR director Lianne Branganza to let me shoot. She was very nice but she said she couldn't help it. Every single space was taken. Finally, after pacing in the lobby for two hours, she managed to get us a room which was opposite the room that would be used by Mr. Bachchan for his make up. We got to the room and started setting up but then, we plugged in some lights and it tripped. Obviously a hotel room is not equipped to bear the load of those lights! Anyway, after a little more panicking we managed to pull power from another room, and got set up. Mr. Bachchan arrived. He called me to his make up room and I went there, afraid that there was going to be some other problem. But he just said…"I'm wearing a suit for the Parker shoot but I would like to wear a Pathan suit for yours. What do you think?" I babbled something between "excellent, yay, and whatever you want," and went back to wait for him in the next room. I finally got the shot and things just got better from there on. "What people can do" "I hope people will talk about it, that's the best thing they can do. I feel people should realise that it's not okay to say "I have nothing against Muslims but I wouldn't keep a Muslim servant in my house" and things like that. I've got t-shirts made which I hope look cool enough for people to wear and will become a trend that will subconsciously spread the message. They were made and given to Hallmark to be sold for proceeds to go to Action Aid, so we have two designs a unique black one for girls and this white one for boys with two different collar styles." "The Impact on people" "See there's some people you can impact or raise questions with and those are the people who are willing to listen and are fence sitters. I mean there's those who are so far gone in this way of thinking that they won't turn back or be open to anything new, but the youth will and they don't have to inherit the prejudices that exist in certain sections of society, and that's who I'm targeting. I don't know if it will have a huge impact but I believe as a society that voice needs to exist and even if one person listens and takes note then it's all that's needed." "Stop The Hatred" "The point is to reach out to people and say that we can and do live as one. You do… because in all likelihood, whatever community you belong to, you love Amitabh and Aamir, or cheered for Yuvraj and Kaif, or have sung along with Javed Akhtar's lyrics in Lata Mangeshkar's voice… So, why the hypocrisy?" Check out the ads for yourself and support the campaign (which is showing in cinemas and television channels across India), by logging on at www.stopthehatred.com. The ads are showing in 239 cinemas nationwide and on all television channels that are members of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation. By Fuad Omar.



	'Being Indian' THE EVENTS in Gujarat made most Indians hang their heads in shame, but some decided to tackle the agony in a creative manner. One of these is Rohena Gera, who has roped in many Indian icons to make a series of 30 and 50-second films for theatres and TV. Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Zakir Hussain, Raveena Tandon, Sachin Tendulkar, Tabu and Fardeen Khan are among those making a common declaration: "I'm an Indian". Ms. Gera took up this as her personal effort to combat the hate-filled rhetoric that led to the events in Gujarat. In all, 16 stars have participated in the project. In times like this, Bollywood's heart shows.