Where Have All The Jobs Gone
Old jobs are being slashed and new ones have slowed down to a trickle. With corporate India shedding staff faster than ever before, the worst sufferers are freshers and middle-level managers.

Preparing For Musharraf
Administrators, securitymen and hospitality merchants gear up to ensure that it's not just the Taj that will impress the visiting
Pakistani President.

Adviser Raj
Bureaucrats don't retire. Their terms are extended or they are reappointed to counsel political mentors.

Out Of Luck Now
It will take more than voter-friendly symbolism to ensure victory in UP.

Hard Cover Up
The Government is perturbed by a cop's unreleased book on Rajkumar's kidnapping.

Connecting Bharat
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CINEMA: CONTROVERSY

Government Refuses To Budge

While the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra refused to ban Gadar, its BJP counterpart in Gujarat endorsed the film's "patriotic credentials". "There is nothing in it which would hurt an Indian Muslim. If there's anything it's against Pakistan," says Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya.

But what doesn't augur well for peace in Ahmedabad is the Bajrang Dal forming groups of youth ready to rush to any theatre where Muslims are creating trouble. The controversy is also being fanned by some Urdu newspapers in Mumbai and Bhopal. If the RSS paper Panchajanya once carried an article calling Hrithik Roshan the Hindu answer to the Khan trio of Salman, Aamir and Shah Rukh, these papers are miffed with recent films like Fiza and Zubeidaa that show Muslim girls falling in love with Hindu men.

In Lucknow, Gadar seemed to be in for a rerun of last year's controversy where hostile crowds gathered during its filming in the old city. Shia Muslims protested against the shoot inside the historic Bara Imambara, the tomb of Nawab Asifuddaula. The Gadar crew then shifted to Roomi Gate, another historical site. One of the film's key sequences was filmed here. Tara Singh agrees to convert to Islam for the safety of his wife and child. He is brought before a mosque and hundreds of Pakistanis and is egged on by Ashraf Ali to say "Pakistan zindabad (long live)" and "Hindustan murdabad (death to)".

"Islam does not allow murdabad of anyone," insists Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, Lucknow-based vice-president of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB). He also expressed anger at his name featuring in the film's credits with BJP MPs like Vinod Khanna and Kalraj Mishra. Sadiq denies assisting Gadar's makers in any way.

The Maulana, who has a strong following among the Shias of the city, has not seen the film and has been only told of it by his supporters. "None of the protesters has seen the film,'' says producer Nitin Keni who calls the protests sporadic and insists they aren't backed by popular sentiment.

Popular sentiment is what seems to have made the film a big hit. In theatres across Mumbai, scenes of Deol single-handedly vanquishing rioters and Pakistani policemen elicit frenzied applause. In north India and especially in Punjab, the film has broken box-office records. Set in the kitschy, patriotic mould of Anil Sharma's earlier films like Hukumat, Gadar is unabashedly jingoistic.

Rajya Sabha member Shabana Azmi says the film is provocative, but that she will defend its right to be screened. "The movie reinforces the canard that every Muslim is a Pakistani. It mixes issues of identity and nationalism, which should be handled sensitively. But it has been cleared by the censor board and has every right to be screened." While Azmi holds out M.S. Sathyu's Garam Hawa as a shining example of sensitively handling the issue of Partition, Gadar's director Anil Sharma says his film has done the same in a limited way, "I'm not a documentary filmmaker. I make mainstream cinema, but Gadar is about love transcending religion and borders."

Police contingents now guard theatres screening Gadar in Mumbai, Bhopal and Lucknow. If it wasn't for the huge cinema posters outside Bhiwandi's Ratan theatre, you would think the snaking queues outside it were those of Mumbaikars boarding an aircraft. Theatre goers not only pass through two metal detectors but are even frisked by policemen before being allowed in. On the evening of Tuesday, June 26, a firecracker inside the hall trigger panic. The gadar over Gadar is not quite the entertainment movie buffs had bargained for.

--With Uday Mahurkar, Neeraj Mishra and Subhash Mishra

MetroScape

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Misplaced Guile