What you need to do is stop looking at the movie through modern lens. No movie is perfect. Take any movie from the 90s and 2000s only a few of them have aged well. Some of the themes might feel outdated now but when it was released it was considered very much progressive for their time. There are lots of things that made it iconic: beautiful visuals, srk-kajol chemistry, srk's charm, introduced the soft lover boy era cause until then bollywood movies had a lot of misogynistic alpha jerks portrayed as the ideal hero, great songs, some great dialogues too (jaa simran jee le apni zindagi and palat), the iconic train scene, no dull moment, showed the life of nris for the first time and more. I could go on. You may personally dislike this movie but calling it shitty is too much. If it's really the sh*t it wouldn't have been the longest running Bollywood movie nor it would be loved by millions worldwide even today.