MNIK : Is it a Movie Produced by Shah Rukh Khan and Marketed by Shiv Sena?

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See, how mumbaikars are rushing to box office to see this much ‘controversial movie’. The excitement, the protest, all make the movie a mega hit. So, here is the question; Who has the credit for this? The posters? The media? The Fox entertimenent? No.. The real marketing hero is Bal Takerey and his Shiv Sena.
How, if someone is thinking in this manner that ‘it is a plot and a new marketing strategy played by MNIK crews and the Shiv Seiniks?
So, ultimately, the fool is; ‘The people’!!
This is how India is in the eyes of foreign media persons:
Moviegoers in Mumbai filled cinema halls to see My Name is Khan, starring Bollywood leading man Shah Rukh Khan, ignoring protests and the threat of violence from a right-wing political party opposed to the film star.

At an Inox Leisure Ltd. multiplex in Mumbai’s Nariman Point business district police at a checkpoint frisked moviegoers before allowing them in. Mumbai multiplexes decided Friday afternoon, after an assurance of safety from local police, to open bookings for the film.

“I wasn’t scared,” said Rasika Jain, a 19-year-old college student, who came with her family to watch the film. “I would have been angrier if I was forced to miss his movie.”

Khan is involved in a dispute with Mumbai’s Shiv Sena, a political party, that’s targeted the Muslim actor since he publicly regretted the absence of players from Islamic Pakistan in the Indian Premier League, the world’s richest cricket competition, which starts March 12. Khan owns the Kolkata Knight Riders, an IPL team, which did not bid for any Pakistani players.

“This is not for political points,” said Subhash Desai, a Shiv Sena spokesman, by telephone from Mumbai. “Khan wants players from the same country that sent people to murder hundreds of Indians. He must apologize.”

A terrorist attack in November 2008 on Mumbai, India’s financial capital, left 166 people dead. India blamed terrorist “elements” from Pakistan for the attack. Pakistan acknowledged last February that its territory was used to plot the attack.

Shivaji’s Army

Supporters of the Shiv Sena, or Shivaji’s Army, damaged movie screens and stoned buses in Mumbai earlier this week. They scuffled with police at a few movie halls in the city today, said Deven Bharti, a Mumbai police spokesman.

“If there is any violence, the police are here to handle it,” he said, adding the government had arrested over 2,000 people to prevent disruptions.

Karuna Badwal, Khan’s executive assistant at his company Red Chillies Entertainment Pvt., hung up when called for comment.

The militant Shiv Sena’s campaigns against migrants from poorer northern states and in favor of majority Hindus are often violent. The party is named after a 17th-century local hero called Shivaji who formed a Hindu kingdom and fought off attacks by Muslim rulers.

The Sena was formed by a former cartoonist in 1966 and its partners ruled the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, for one term from 1995. It has lost the last two assembly elections to an alliance led by the Congress Party.

In the movie, co-produced by News Corp.’s Fox Star Studios and marketed internationally by Fox Searchlight Pictures, Khan plays an Indian Muslim with Asperger’s Syndrome living in the U.S. whose life changes after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Khan, whose house in Mumbai is being guarded by police while he is overseas, turned to Twitter Inc.’s social networking service to send messages to his fans, which were repeated all day on television news channels.

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