• Aamir Khan, made a public pledge of love for India at the beginning.
• There was a virtual campaign being run against him and his most recent film.
• #BoycottLaalSinghChaddha was trending on Twitter.

One of Bollywood’s biggest actors, Aamir Khan, made a public pledge of love for India at the beginning of August to combat a virtual campaign being run against him and his most recent film.

“I just want to let everyone know that I genuinely do love my nation. Therefore, please don’t boycott my movies, Khan pleaded with a group of journalists on August 1, ten days before the premiere of Laal Singh Chaddha, Khan’s and Advait Chandan’s Indian version of Forrest Gump.

After weeks of #BoycottLaalSinghChaddha trending on Twitter, the declaration was made.

Thousands of anonymous handles, many of whom were linked with the ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindu-first, majoritarian ideology, propagated the boycott posts, videos, and messages, many of which were clearly anti-Islamic.

Khan, a Muslim, was said by some to be anti-Hindu. They mentioned his role as an extraterrestrial who lands in India and is perplexed by how the pious are taken advantage of in the name of religion in his 2014 film PK.

Others dug out old Khan videos, including one from November 2015 in which he spoke of a growing sense of “insecurity, anxiety, and melancholy” brought on by increased mob violence, Muslim lynchings, religious intolerance, and the BJP government’s and the police’s inaction in the face of these issues.

Khan, 57, is one of Bollywood’s most bankable actors, and the prevailing assumption in the industry is that no issue can deter India’s movie-obsessed public from seeing a movie if they want to see it.

The father trains his two young girls to wrestle in his 2016 film Dangal (Wrestling Competition), which is still the highest-grossing Indian movie both domestically and internationally. The seventh-highest-grossing Indian movie is PK, according to the ranking.

Laal Singh Chaddha, a movie with a $22–25 million budget, has been in development since 2018, and its release was anticipated to cheer up Bollywood, which has been experiencing financial difficulties since the COVID pandemic.

However, the box office consensus was that the movie is Khan’s biggest failure.

Soon after the movie’s debut, theatres all around the nation reportedly cancelled about 1,300 showing due to low attendance and substituted Karthikeya 2, a brief Telugu movie with Hindi dubbing.

“It was anticipated that it would gross $25 million during its three to four week theatrical run in India, with the majority of that money coming in the first week. But its entire recovery won’t exceed $16–17 million, according to distributor and film exhibitor Sanjay Mehta, who spoke to Al Jazeera.

Ishant Sharma, 35, is the national head of Shiv Sena Hind, a vigilante organization of upper-caste Hindu men that he claims is committed to defending Hinduism and is not connected to any political party. Sharma is a resident of the northern Indian state of Punjab.

He and a few other saffron-clad men with long red scars on their foreheads, a sign of Hindu piety, marched to a multiplex where Laal Singh Chaddha was showing on August 11, the day of the movie’s debut. They yelled epithets, filed a complaint, and made the show end.

Other groups staged comparable demonstrations in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state.

“Our demonstration is not directed towards Laal Singh Chaddha. The reason for the protest is because Aamir Khan insulted our Dharam [faith] in PK, Sharma said Al Jazeera, adding that he was pleased with how hard Khan’s most recent movie had to work.

It comes as a shock to the sector.

Hindus don’t watch the movie. The movie is a dud, he declared.

At least three of India’s most popular news channels dedicated their prime-time programs to critical coverage of Aamir Khan and his film after the movie’s release.

Khan was mentioned in the context of “Why Bollywood harms Hindu sensibilities,” according to Times Now, which holds 30% of the market share for English news networks in India.

Although there is widespread despair in Bollywood at this “never seen before backlash,” director, producer, and writer Hansal Mehta claimed that he did not believe the boycott movement against Laal Singh Chaddha was organized or funded.

“We are unaware of the source. How did the movie industry grow to the point that the ruling party focuses all of its efforts and resources on bringing down a relatively small industry? Saying that the ruling party is to blame for this is reductionist, he said Al Jazeera.

One of India’s most renowned film makers, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, 79, claimed that the boycott was a factor in the weak box office results.

“Nothing appears to be authorized… Officially, it can’t be confirmed because there doesn’t appear to be a source, but it’s extremely sectarian and has “sanction” [from some BJP members],” he told Al Jazeera.

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