French actor Omar Sy called the authorities’ response to France’s student protests “lamentable” on France Inter on 14 October. The next day, officials said Mumbai police had ordered Bollywood actor Imran Khan to leave India by 28 October after he joined a protest there, and his lawyers are preparing a challenge in the Bombay High Court. Police in Mumbai have also named Khan in a First Information Report, Variety reported.
Fame Gives Protests a Louder Voice
Students have been protesting in France since mid-September over education funding, and 13 October brought another national day of action. The Interior Ministry counted 161,500 marchers, while youth unions claimed 480,000. More than 6,800 people have been held in custody, 86 per cent of them minors, and the police watchdog IGPN has opened 36 investigations into police conduct. The UN human rights office said it was following the incidents with concern.
Sy said that adults were reprimanding teenagers without hearing what they have to say, and he added that the students want decent chairs and toilets. Because he was promoting the new season of Lupin, the remark reached far beyond a radio audience, and the French press turned it into a headline. In Mumbai, Khan’s presence at a protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar drew the same kind of attention, with Variety calling him a Bollywood superstar.
Legal Status Decides the Cost
Sy is a French citizen criticising his own government, and the cost so far is argument. Some online commenters attacked him for living in the United States, but no legal action has been reported. That is the ordinary protection of citizenship, which fame did not create and could not remove.
Khan is a US citizen who lives in India as an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholder. He was detained on 10 October at the Mumbai protest, and BJP former MP Kirit Somaiya complained that this broke the terms of his OCI status. The immigration office then ordered him to leave by 28 October under powers in the Immigration and Foreigners Act to remove foreign nationals. India has used such powers before, revoking the OCI card of actor Chetan Kumar, also a US citizen, over “anti-India activities”.
Fame Protects and Exposes
The same kind of act, speaking up for a protest, brought Sy a radio interview and Khan a removal notice. Khan’s lawyers argue that no provision of Indian law or the OCI rules bars a cardholder from joining a peaceful protest, Variety reported. Police say nobody sought permission for the protest and that Azad Maidan is the only permitted venue in the city. The Bombay High Court will have to decide which argument holds.
Fame protects by making the case hard to ignore, since a removal notice for an unknown protester might never reach the news. It also exposes, because Somaiya’s complaint targeted a visible face and Sy’s critics questioned his right to speak from Los Angeles.
A celebrity can carry a protester’s message further than any placard, but cannot rewrite the status that decides who pays.
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