The Sanjay Dutt arrest. How Bollywood reacts? Sanjay Dutt sentenced to six years in jail for alleged involvement in the 93 serial blasts case. Rightly or wrongly, this is not the place to dwell upon the just nature or otherwise of the sentence. Dutt and his lawyers are most certainly moving for an appeal in the Supreme Court.

This article makes no attempt at passing any judgment on the verdict of the judiciary of the country. The law has taken its course and that has to be accepted with respect. This is about how Bollywood reacts to the arrest and banishing to confinement of the man they lovingly call Sanju Baba. Sanjay Dutt’s popularity is not something that can be measured at face value or by his pulling power at the box office. He is by no measure the number one actor of Bollywood nor has he ever claimed to be one, even when he landed huge hits like Munna Bhai and its sequel. But his popularity within the industry is more than that an average viewer might know or imagine. No one who knows him has ever believed or even now believes that he had ever in any way knowingly got himself involved in any act that might put the lives of large number of people in danger. Most of you might not remember this, but a few months back when his sentence was about to be delivered a large number of big stars from the film industry had taken a day off from their schedules and taken to the road in a show of support to Sanjay. Finally, Sanjay himself had to thank the industry for the support and asked them to abstain from any further demonstrations. That time the act of the industry had become a subject of debate in the legal circles of India. Many senior lawyers believed that the act could have served in distorting the judgment of the judge in question especially because of the number of popular faces involved in the demonstration. Dutt was eventually cleared of any charges under the TADA act. But that certainly would not have been because of the support shown by the industry. Saying otherwise would be an insult to Sanjay and the Indian judiciary.

This time round, when he was under trial under the Arms act and judgment was round the corner the industry did show support, but not in a manner as evident as before. They seemed to believe that their dear friend would convince the court about his innocence. Days before the verdict there were special articles in some newspapers where many stars spoke highly of Sanjay and how good a human being he was. Among them were Arshad Warsi, Zayed Khan and Vidya Balan. What they said might have been from the bottom of their hearts, out of true concern for their friend and colleague. But then, six years in prison was what the court decided.

The effect this had on the industry is not evident at first sight. But the number of films in the making and being planned with Sanjay Dutt’s involvement is not few. Munna Bhai Chale America being the most important among them. The producers are worried, understandably as according to trade pundits, about 80-100 crores are riding on him. But more importantly the industry doesn’t want one among them to languish in prison. The premier show of Naya Daur, a classic that released few decades back and is now being re-released in color starring the legendary Dilip Kumar and Vaijayanthi Mala was to be held in Mumbai on Wednesday. The grand premier of this movie was called off. Whatever the law of the land thinks, the film industry is undivided in its opinion. ‘He is a good man. We want him back.’