In the cover story for Outlook Turning Points, a 2013 special edition jointly brought out by Outlook magazine and The New York Times, Shah Rukh Khan wrote, “We create little image boxes of our own. One such box has begun to draw its lid tighter and tighter… It is the box that contains an image of my religion in millions of minds. I encounter the tightening of definition every time moderation is required to be publicly expressed by the Muslim community in my country.” Shah Rukh’s outcry against stereotyping was evocatively articulated in the 2010 film My Name Is Khan, which had him declare as he crisscrossed the United States of America, “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.”

This film and the Outlook essay show Shah Rukh is acutely conscious that he must bear the crescent, so to speak, as he is arguably the most popular Indian Muslim. Yet he is neither conflicted by his religious identity nor does he downplay it. He, in fact, makes a demand on the Indian state as a citizen equal to all those who belong to faiths other than Islam, love India and oppose violence that is justified in the name of religion.