Kareena Kapoor with her stepkids in We Are Family. Photo Credit: Dhingana

Over the last few years, Indian students seeking an education in Australia have reported an increase in racially motivated attacks. This past winter, the Indian government even issued a travel advisory to Indians – warning them that Melbourne was an unsafe and hostile place to visit. The news quickly spread to Bollywood, where actor Aamir Khan wrote in his blog, “Most disturbing to hear about racist attacks on Indians living in Australia. Quite a shame.”

Now come reports that director Karan Johar — who’s in the middle of finishing up work on We Are Family, the film starring Kareena Kapoor, Kajol and Arjun Rampal as a modern, blended family — plans to cut a nine minute scene from the film that dealt with the controversy in Australia.

The movie had a scene where the recent racist attacks on Indian people in Australia were referred to. But both the director and the producer feared the scenes might create controversy. So they deleted them from the final version of the movie. Sources have reported that a scene was depicted in the movie showing the Indian children being abused in a school in that country. But Karan strongly felt that it should be chopped and it was done. The film was shot in Australia so Karan wanted to delete these specific scenes so that the viewers don’t think he was cashing in on the controversy. The source also added that Karan has always tried to remain away from any controversy and did not want to invite any trouble this time either. [Link.]

No doubt Johar hopes to avoid charges of racial insensitivity similar to those that occurred after his last film, My Name is Khan (MNIK) was released. In MNIK, many critics commented on Johar’s stereotyping of African Americans.  Said one critic about the main character:

[His] voyage leads to an oddly placed and deeply disturbing plot twist in which Khan ends up in a fictional all-black town in rural Georgia. Part of what makes this transition so jarring is that while the film is actually set in the first decade of the 21st century, the town, with its twenty residents and circle of ramshackle shotgun housing, seems more like the deep south in the beginning of the 20th. The stereotypes continue as we meet “Funny Haired Joel” (a reference to his poorly groomed afro) and “Mama Jenny,” modern versions of Buckwheat and Aunt Jemima. [Link.]

So what do you think, was Johar right in cutting the scene from the film?