International Journal of Communication and Media Studies (IJCMS) ISSN (P): 2250–0014; ISSN (E): Applied Vol. 10, Issue 3, Aug 2020, 31-44 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

MUSLIM AS THE ‘OTHER’ IN BOLLYWOOD FILMS (2004-2008) Dr. SABINA KIDWAI Associate Professor, AJK Mass Communication Research centre. Jamia Millia Islamia, , ABSTRACT

The paper seeks to explore Bollywood films which deal with the image of the terrorist and the liberal Muslim in period 2004-2008, a period in which a large number of terror attacks were witnessed in some cities of India. Drawing from the real events Bollywood films came to provide a greater acceptability of the negative images of Muslims. This decade also witnessed many a changes in the profiling, ranging from the Pakistan created jihadis, to a sensitive understanding of the victim, to the dysfunctional globalised terrorist. Pitted against all these is the poor common man, the liberal Muslim. The image of the educated, suave, techno savvy and non-stereotype looking terrorist became very popular in many of the productions. His ability to deal with the modern world and its technology made him a cold blooded mercenary character who carries the hidden agenda of Jihad. He is a part of our world but continues to fool us. The character which eventually fights him is the common Muslim man who suffers the trauma and anxiety not only created by terrorism but also at the hands of the terrorist. This negative profiling went a long way in creating a popular perception of the Young

Muslim man as a threat to society and the Nation Article Original

KEYWORDS: Muslim, terrorism, liberal, 9/11, terror attacks, & Identity

Received: Jun 25, 2020; Accepted: Jul 15, 2020; Published: Sep 28, 2020; Paper Id.: IJCMSAUG20203

INTRODUCTION

At the turn of the century profiling the terrorist has been an important agenda in many of the mainstream popular feature films. Closely linked to this image is that of the Nation and the portrayal of Muslims. In the post- independence films as Sumita S. Charavarty writes “Given that the Partition of India in 1947 had rendered the Indian Muslims as ‘the undecidable’ he whose loyalty to the motherland could not be counted upon and needed to be ritually reaffirmed, the popular films mythic function served to fulfil this task. In film after film the iconic Muslim figure sentimentally voiced and upheld the values of a community or the nation in microcosm.”1 Garam Hawa (1973) was a film which reaffirmed the concept of a united India and even today remains a landmark in its sensitive portrayal of the dilemmas of a Muslim man being swept by the waves of migration in 1947. In the films which came subsequently, questioning the nationality of a Muslim was avoided but an assertion of his Indianness was important. The Muslims socials of the 60’s created these worlds which were romantic stories and involved tehzeeb (Refinement), Nazakat (delicacy), and sacrifice. This was a world of poetry, love and if the heroes were Muslims so were the villains. The women were always behind burkhas (veil), and the veil was sensuous and seductive rather than only a sign of oppression.

Towards the 80’s and 90’s these portrayals started to change and largely because the world around us also changed. Post 1971 war, the nature of India Pakistan relationship became more conflictual, majority and minority conflicts became pronounced, Sikh Nationalism was strident, and the Right wing Hindu nationalism had surfaced. The 90’s were the most critical period, with resurgence of Kashmiri nationalism, the demolition of the Babri Masjid2, and the Kargil war3, the enemy suddenly became very defined and identifiable. It was also a period when

www.tjprc.org [email protected] 32 Dr. Sabina Kidwai terrorism had entered our everyday life. The Bombay blast of 19934 triggered the need to identify an enemy, an enemy to the Nation and to society.

In the portrayals of the 90’s Kashmir was a story which needed to be told and many a times in relation with the Indian nation. One of the earliest was Mani Ratnam’s Roja (1992). This was a film based in Kashmir and the tragedy of a honeymooning couple who get caught in the insurgency. Pankaj Kapoor playing the terrorist is a complex character who is very religious, but at least shows signs of a more humane nature. Ultimately however, nationalism takes over the film, and the issue of Kashmiri nationalism is limited to “jihad” and fanatical Islam. Subsequent films loose even the slight complexity shown in Roja, as was evident in the film Mission Kashmir (2000). In this film we see the emergence of fundamentalists, fanatical and religious in their cause. But in the films of the 90’s the terrorist was somebody who was clearly identifiable, who was outside the realms of society and if he was a part of it then he was a foreign national. The stereotype of the fanatical man, was easy to identify and also easy to place at the fringe of society.

It is however the decade at the beginning of this century which provided the material for a greater acceptability of the negative images of Muslims. With the turn of the century Terrorism, Muslims, jihad became synonymous as one. This decade has also witnessed many a changes in the profiling, ranging from the Pakistan created jihadis, to a sensitive understanding of the victim turned perpetuator, to the dysfunctional globalised terrorist. Pitted against all these is the poor common man, the liberal Muslim. The image of the educated, suave, techno savvy and non-stereotype looking terrorist has become very popular in many of the productions. His ability to deal with the modern world and its technology makes him a cold blooded mercenary character who carries the hidden agenda of Jihad. He is a part of our world but continues to fool us. As Sumita S.Chakravarty writes “Coupled with the almost routine reports media reports of terrorist acts in different parts of the world, the spectacularisation of terrorist violence, in an ironic twist, is now a constitutive part of the global imaginary”.5 The Nation, its protection, its identification have always been an important part of cinema and since the enemy is perceived in relation with the nation, the threat lies through this terrorist, he may be an external enemy or an enemy born from within. “There is hardly an anomaly more anomalous than the stranger. He stands between friend and enemy, order and chaos, the inside and the outside. He stands for the treacherousness of friends, for the cunning of enemies, for fallibility order, penetrability of the inside…The threat he carries is more awesome than that which one can fear from the enemy…And all this because the stranger is neither friend nor enemy: and because he may be both.”6 Who is the stranger, the undecidable element in the Indian cinematic imagery? The desire to locate the stranger is intense specially in this age of terrorism and the growth of separatist movements.

The Emergence of the Global Terrorist

The 9/11 attack on the twin towers in New York USA changed all perceptions of terrorism. The men who carried out the attack were trained qualified pilots. This also changed the global perspective that the ideology of the Al Qaida had only appeal among the uneducated or the deprived. The sense that “Islamic terrorism” as it came to be defined has a larger following among the youth was a new reality. In this kind of problematic scenario images have also found their own place. The period after 9/11 was a very anti-Muslim phase in all forms of media, feature films addressed it in their own way. The terrorist was a character to be debated, analysed, and everybody wanted to study this ‘new character’. The terrorist and his opponent the liberal Muslim were two major characterization being played out, especially in the popular Indian (Hindi) feature films between 2005-2006. The year 2005 marks the emergence of the dysfunctional hi tech, criminalized terrorist. He is global in his agenda, and his space is just not India. International events greatly feed into this image with the

Impact Factor (JCC): 3.6252 NAAS Rating: 2.52 Muslim as the ‘Other’ in Bollywood Films (2004-2008) 33 profiling of largely people from the diaspora in Europe and USA being involved in such radical activities. Many of the so called terrorists are educated technically qualified engineers, doctors and even professors. The action thriller (‘Ten’, 2005), Fanaa (‘To die before one dies’, 2006) and Mukhbir (‘Informer’, 2008) profiled a far more chilling image of the terrorist, an image which became the bench mark for profiling terrorism in the subsequent years.

The film Dus opens with the line “In the world today millions are being spent to fight terrorism, at this point itself some group must be making a plan to cause destruction. One such plan is being hatched in Algeria for a 10th May attack”. The identification of Algeria is important as for many countries Algeria is considered to be the base of terrorism. It is also the country were terrorism itself is said to have given Islam a bad name, due to the untold brutality inflicted by terrorist groups on innocent civilians. The film introduces the Anti Terror Cell – Siddhant Dheer (), Aditi Kumar (), Aditya Singh (), Shashank Dheer (). Siddhant Dheer is the head of operations, a nationalistic upright officer. The whole film is an exercise in machismo. They are all slick, confident and like playing with danger. They profile a terrorist who has the support of three countries, he is faceless, his name is Jamwal, a man who has not been seen by anybody, he works behind the scenes and his target is something big for the 10th of May. The ATC mission is to find this man and stop the plan. But they neither know the man nor they know the nature of the terrorist activity planned. The only lead they have is to get access to a man called Himmat Mehdi (Pankaj Kapoor), the right hand man of Jamwal. They hatch a plan to kidnap Himmat Mehdi when he is released from the Canadian jail and interrogate him to find out about Jamwal and the plan. Himmat himself is projected as rustic simple man, involved in illegal activities because of his fear of Jamwal. It is he who gives a face to Jamwal – “a bearded, black turbaned man with a fanatical gleam in his eyes. He is a man who gives the kiss of death to his opponents.” A description which is also visually played out. Himmat almost sells an accepted image to the police officers, an image which seems to be real to them, a fanatical Muslim. All people of the terrorist gang are Muslims, they pray before committing the most heinous crimes. But no cause or ideology is stated. Even the arrested terrorist Altaf is portrayed to be fanatical to his mission but no real movement is identified. The stereotype of the religious fundamentalist (cleric) is frequently repeated by Himmat to the officers convincing them of the authenticity of Himmat as well his innocence. Unknowingly, the officers fall into the trap helping to exterminate two of Jamwal’s greatest opponents and releasing Himmat Mehdi only to discover that Himmat himself is Jamwal.

The officers are taken in by the image of a fanatical cleric with tanks and guns and fail to recognize the actual terrorist in their own house. They encounter a character who fits the image and here Dan, a Canadian Indian police officer is established as a Muslim. A liberal fights the fanatical man in black robes. The officers feel that they have killed Jamwal, and they release Himmat. Pankaj Kapoor as the terrorist Jamwal looks like any other man next door but he ultimately emerges as a double faced shrewd criminal. He is a terrorist with a mission but nobody knows his mission. Money seems to be the only criteria for his actions. This also raises the question how does the media define the terrorist, is he a criminal, a mafia don, a freedom fighter, a man demanding his rights, or an anti-government Naxalite. The ability of the character to dupe intelligence agencies, to infiltrate their ranks, copy their personnel, also profiles the terrorist as an intelligent, educated, techno savvy man, who is more of an intelligent criminal than an emotional committed leader of any movement. The film insidiously profiles the facelessness of today’s terrorist or gives him a face which can place the terrorist among the common man at one level, but on the other allows us to condemn him as a heartless criminal. Displaced, dysfunctional individuals who seem to be driven by a personal angst, rather than a mission or cause. As expected, the ATC is able to foul the plan to bomb a stadium in Canada were the Indian Prime Minister is being felicitated. However it is in its profiling of a www.tjprc.org [email protected] 34 Dr. Sabina Kidwai terrorist that Dus actually introduces the image of the faceless criminalized terrorist whose mission is unclear. The image of the liberal Muslim in Dan is totally overshadowed by the image of Jamwal.

The film Fanaa (2006) “destroyed in love” is the story of a young blind Kashmiri girl Zooni (Kajol) who comes to Delhi on a college trip and meets a smooth talking young tourist guide Rehan (Aamir Khan). Rehan is portrayed as a slick over smart character, full of sher shayiri (poetry) a young Muslim man. The romance flourishes and they decide to get married, but she has to first undergo an eye surgery which will restore her sight. As Zooni undergoes an operation the city is gripped in the midst of bomb blasts, done by IKF (Independent Kashmir Front). The IKF demand - that India and Pakistan should leave Kashmir and give it independence. As Zooni undergoes the operation, Rehan is declared dead in the bomb blast near Rashtrapati Bhawan. Then as Zooni’s world is destroyed, Rehan emerges as the cold calculating terrorist. The transition is one of the most ideologically problematic parts of the film. Rehan is seen leaving at the airport, the master planner of a terrorist group. As the woman intelligence officer Tyagi, profiles him “a master planner who is techno savvy, he works as a shadow, nobody knows or has seen him. He has changed the pattern of terrorism in both India and Pakistan. He can be the man sitting next to you in the local train, he can be the teller in the bank, we are not looking for a shalwar kameez clad, kohli eyed terrorist anymore. We have to find him because he can take terrorism beyond our comprehension.” We see Rehan change from the happy street smart tourist guide to this black coated, grim assassin, who is fighting for a cause. This scene establishes very clearly the current image of the young educated terrorist. He is smart good looking, corporate looking, the rough jeans are replaced by a black coat and pants, the unruly hair by a jelled sleek look. The extent of his fanatical madness is evident when he uses the trust of a friendly officer to get access for the bombs but kills him also. He is controlled by his ‘Nanaji’ (maternal grandfather) and reports that the mission was only partially successful. He declares to himself that his only weakness was that he fell in love with Zooni, but he saves Zooni by telling his handlers that Zooni is dead. Zooni here thinks that Rehan is dead in the blast.

He is a chameleon in his personality and can adorn any role which suits his mission. The irony is that the cause is never articulated properly in the film. He fights a lone battle, and functions more like a trained mercenary rather than a person motivated by a cause or an ideology. Fanaa marks the emergence of this criminalized insensitive terrorist as the killer. Rehan is clean shaven, well educated, a global traveller, could be our neighbour next door. The Islamic religious ideology is underplayed but Kashmiriat is emphasized. This character also marks the beginning of a phase when you can create these individuals whose life mission is to be a terrorist, therefore no issues of human rights can be raised in support of them. The police officer Tyagi reports that now the IKF has stolen parts of nuclear missiles from both India and Pakistan and are making a bomb which can blow up a big city like Delhi. Rehan masquerading as an army officer has acquired the trigger and he must be stopped.

The character of Zooni is one of the most interesting development in the film. She, in spite of being disabled, is not a delicate fragile Muslim woman. She is fiercely independent and has a clear secular perspective on life. She is also portrayed as deeply nationalistic. Zooni performs in front of Rashtrapati Bhawan. Before she sings she gives a nationalistic speech about the beauty of India. A Kashmiri girl believing in India is the main highlight. The opening of the film shows Zooni attending a national flag hosting ceremony and as she salutes to the flag her nationalistic credentials are established. Rehan and Zooni meet once again when he finds himself hurt and bleeding at her doorstep trying to escape the Indian forces. He initially dupes her (as she had never seen his face) saying that he is an army officer hurt in the snow storm. But as she realizes his true mission, it is Zooni who informs the Army and kills Rehan when he tries to escape. She also gives

Impact Factor (JCC): 3.6252 NAAS Rating: 2.52 Muslim as the ‘Other’ in Bollywood Films (2004-2008) 35 him a lecture on his misplaced belief about his mission. Zooni emerges as the voice of rationality who sees and fights against Rehan’s madness. She kills Rehan because he kills others, she kills him to save the nation. She loves him, but does not support the IKF ideology, she believes in India, the nation, the national anthem. For the film the counter to terrorism is nationalism.

The fear of the invasion of the foreign terrorist is reflected in Mukhbir. Mukhbir is a man who works with the intelligence department, a man who breaks into enemy lines and reports back to his superiors, he is a spy who has only one contact point, whose face is only known to one man in the police department. The film opens with a large meeting in Afghanistan of Muslims, the leader who is later identified as code name Saya (shadow) gives the call for war against the dominant system, and he is not scared of anything but Mukhbirs who get within us and expose us. This is intercut to a scene of the Mukhbir praying to a tribal goddess, performing a Bali which clearly establishing him as a Hindu. The clash of the two religions is established in the very first scene of the film.

Kailash (Sameer Dattani), the Mukhbir is a young 19 year old boy who is arrested on petty charges and in order to avoid a sentence agrees to become an informer for the police officer Rathore (Om Puri). As the story goes he is sent to join a local Don Mamu as Vinayal Marathe a young man who has been arrested for petty crimes. It is here that he meets Pasha a man with terrorist links abroad. Kailash is forced to kill his handler Rathore to conceal himself from Pasha. Disillusioned and desperate to escape Kailash goes to Bombay and starts working on the harbour. It is here that he is contacted by SP intelligence Rahman, an upright correct Muslim officer. A point which is constantly emphasized through the film. Kailash decides to avenge Rathore’s death. A new journey starts, Kailash has to become a Muslim, he has to convert from the heart so that he is accepted into the Ismail gang. Kailash becomes Shahzad Khan. The conversion scene is like a ritual, as Kailash has to truly adopt Islam. Shot against light it is spiritual as well as ominous of the forthcoming violence. He is given an identity of a man who was born in Aligarh, studied in Aligarh Government School till the 7th, then went to a Madrasa (religious school) for 5 years. He was sent to Jallalabad, but the doctors did not find him physically fit for arms training, so he worked in the kitchen and has now returned. Thus he has all the elements of a stereotypical terrorist or criminal – Aligarh, Madrasa, Arms training etc. These are the elements which the filmmaker also thinks make up a criminal or a terrorist.

Mukhbir realizes once he enters Ismail’s house that a big plan is a foot. He is subject to a lie detector test and all his actions are monitored by the man codenamed “Saya” from the shadows. Kailash realizes that this man actually controls Ismail and all the Iraqis in the camp. Saya is the silent force, threatening, speaks Arab, educated but brutal in his mission. Today’s silent techno savvy militant, deadly cruel and unforgiving. He looks like an intellectual but is lethal in his operation. Pasha arrives and before Kailash’s cover can be blown Rehman intervenes killing Pasha but also dying himself. Thus a good secular Muslim is sacrificed at the altar of evil. Kailash realizes that the plan is to blow up parts of Mumbai. He manages to send information to the police and so Kailash is saved and Mumbai city survives.

All the Arabs Kailash sees are brutal, and extremely violent. When he is caught, he as Shahzad Khan gives Saya a lecture on how what he is doing is against Islam. Since he had adopted Islam from the heart the lie detector test was not able to catch his real identity. This is odd as we seen him move from Bali to now pious Islam. The stereotype of Muslims in terrorist gangs, the connection of the underworld, the lack of a defined cause, the Iraq connection are all used in the film. Terrorism as profiled in this film is again that of dysfunctional purposeless individuals, who come together for violence, for a vengeance which cannot really be defined. These films destroy the images of revolutionaries, people movements, www.tjprc.org [email protected] 36 Dr. Sabina Kidwai guerillas, and terrorism is that of the fanatics, whose only mission is to kill, change the world order but do not need to define what they want or don’t like.

The Terrorist and the Liberal

The period 2007-2008 was the most vociferous in providing us a multitude of images of terrorism. Understanding the man behind the terrorist has become an important theme in many of the feature films. Moreover pitted against this image is the image of the liberal Muslim, the common man who is honest, secular, and most of all humane. He believes in his religion, follows the tenets of Islam, but uses his values to support humanity and not to destroy. Many Hindi feature films in the period between 2007 and 2008 tried to profile these dual images trying to counter negative imagery with positivity. But this image is tied up in tangles as films debate on the issues of “real Islam”, “Political Islam”, “Jihad”. A need was felt to provide a real believable face to the man we define as a terrorist. In many cases these images fed into the stereotype but in some it provided at least a more sensitive portrayal of man who has made suicide his mission. “Cinema subsumes the plural in the singular, the iconic as the symbolic, it is continually belying its promise of representation, to be equally imagined by all the different groups which inhabit a social space”.7 Films are about individual, their struggles their feelings their battles. The illusion remains of a group, Muslim brotherhood, jihad, in the back drop but it is the angst of the individual which is important. This plays a dual role, the personal gets addressed but it also reduces many larger issues to the individual. It also makes the whole agenda of terrorism much more powerful believable and sinister. In order to identify the terrorist, the liberal Muslim has acquired a new lease of life. He is the man many educated people would identify with but it is also the character which in its screen image seems to be the most battle scared. He is somebody everybody wants, but his survival is often difficult and wearisome.

The turning point in this understanding of terrorism was Black Friday (2004). The film is shot as an investigation into the 1993 Bombay blasts and deals with the entire conspiracy which was hatched to blow up Bombay. The film shot in an investigative documentary style uses the available video footage, and recreated scenes to unravel the deep mysteries which surrounded the blasts. It is also the story of injustice, the growth of the Mumbai underworld, the tragedy of communalism and the manipulations of foreign powers. The film deals with terrorism in its raw form, it deals with the people who become instruments in the hands of their handlers, whose tragedy and loss is manipulated to instigate bigger crimes. The story largely moves through the investigation of the Deputy Commissioner of police Rakesh Maria (Kay Kay Menon) and his team which gradually unravel the layers of the conspiracy. It brings out how the Bombay riots post the Babri Masjid demolition created vast scale violence against the minority. Many like Tiger Memon (Pawan Malhotra) lost their business and many lost their families. It gave reason for Tiger Memon to reach a group of young people who were ready to support his theory of revenge. It explains the role of the foreign powers, ISI in Pakistan in providing the funding and training to the group of 19 young warriors. The film is also the tragedy of these young men who are abandoned by their handlers after the blasts and thus become the subject of police brutality. Each story is tragic and each reflects a desperation for survival. The police is under pressure for investigation, the terrorist are on the run, the chief conspirators remain safe in their havens in Dubai. The director tries to create a picture of the deep seated anxieties which allowed the conspiracy to be hatched. It also reflects the very roots of corruption in the system which allows such events to take place. The Commissioner of Police, a complex character dedicated to his job and mission, troubled by the violence but also a party to using it to further his investigation. He questions faith, he questions the brutality but also remains silent in the face of it. He feels that the only language which could bring about information is humiliation, he rarely does it himself but

Impact Factor (JCC): 3.6252 NAAS Rating: 2.52 Muslim as the ‘Other’ in Bollywood Films (2004-2008) 37 allows his team full freedom. Tiger Memon is the archetypical mafia don, who is the bhai, the benefactor for his team, a man in which many have a blind faith, he suddenly imagines himself as the messiah and plays that role. Badshah Khan (Aditya Srivastav) the lost young man who finds a purpose through Tiger Menon, a desire for revenge against the riots, a desire to regain his lost dignity. He runs from city to city to escape the police, constantly feeling that his Tiger bhai will save him. His gives in to the police when he loses all hope and its through him that we see how these young men become a victims of their circumstances. They continue to be pawns in a bigger game. Black Friday is a dark Film, it’s a film which does not seek to profile one clear image of terrorism, it talks about the multi layers of crime, it also portrays the complex politics of the Bombay underworld. It’s a film which reflects on how terrorism is borne from within and how we ourselves sow the seeds of it. The film deals with how the system itself generates its own terrorist, but it also somewhere exempts the brutality of the police. The doubts reflected by the commissioner of police are never put into action. He watches all the brutality silently and it seems that within the film there is a justification for it. The discerning attitude evident in looking at the stories of the conspirators of the Bombay blast is not reflected in the analysis of the police role. Black Friday is significant in its profiling of terrorist as it looks at them as real flesh and blood characters, people wronged by society, people who have faced violence and have lost their world.

Pitching the terrorist against the liberal was clearly played out in two films of 2008, Aamir and A Wednesday. For the first time the common man confronted the terrorist. The film Aamir was advertised with the line “Kaun kehta hai aadmi apni kismet khud likhta hai ?” (Who says an ordinary man writes his own destiny). The synopsis of the film advertises “Do you choose your destiny – or does destiny choose you”? "To call Aamir a thriller would be reducing its power and ambition. The film is an eloquent statement on the state of the nation and the Indian Muslim." said film critic Anupama Chopra.8

The film revolves around the story of a young man Aamir (Rajeev Khandelwal) who returns to Mumbai from abroad after a few years. It is apparent that he returns as he finds the atmosphere hostile post 9/11. His encounter with the custom officials at the airport itself indicates the growing suspicion around the Muslim community and reflects a common prejudice which many Muslims face. The events that follow indicate the dilemma of a young secular Muslim man caught in a world of radical terrorism and a hostile society. His family is kidnapped and he is forced to execute a bomb attack. Last minute his conscious doesn’t allow him, he blows himself up with the bomb saving the bus he was supposed to destroy.

Amir represent a sweet educated secular but devout Muslim. A good Muslim must be devout with no space for the liberal cultural Muslim. Only a good devout Muslim can be the answer to terrorism. His inability to deal with the prejudiced immigration officer is emphasized by his simple reaction of disbelief. In fact any defence he puts is negated in the very next scene when he receives a call that his family has been kidnapped and that he has to follow the instructions given. From this point onwards any complex arguments about prejudice are negated by a prejudiced portrayal of a fundamentalist community which haunts its own liberal elements. The secular liberal Muslim becomes alienated in his own community and all his arguments of a peaceful Islam seem only to be addressed to an audience and have no impact on his fellow protagonists. His ultimate death is also the death of a liberal perspective. He fights a world which over powers him and he becomes a victim of his own community. In his death he is a victim, but becomes a hero in the eyes of his audiences. The conscious effort of the filmmaker to use a lesser known actor to play the role of Aamir adds to the reality of the story. Aamir in a sequence when the terrorist tells him that “you know see the squalor in which Muslims live even

www.tjprc.org [email protected] 38 Dr. Sabina Kidwai after 60 years of Independence, Aamir says” I have made my own destiny I have studied in government schools and colleges, I have gone abroad on a scholarship. I have made my own life with my effort”. The terrorist says “Who says that , you would not have said this if you had received religious education. Who is controlling your destiny now”. The film takes away the power of a secular man to choose his own identity, his own life.

The film paints the whole Muslim community with one brush. Except for our secular protagonist the whole community is represented by a series of images of butcher shops, dirty violent by lanes, secret hideouts, connection to underworld, along with the typical images of skull caps and beards. The tacit support of the community and allegiance to a shadowy boss defeats the very purpose of showing the plight of a secular Muslim. Squalor and violence are what breeds in these ghettos of Bhindi bazaar. The most defining sequence is when the protagonist in search of a location moves through a congested lane of butcher shops. The scene shows the worst side of the community and is symbolic of Aamir’s predicament of a lamb being sent to the slaughter house. The sinister scene reinforces the dangers prevalent in a Muslim locality. Hunted by his own community, Aamir is left lonely and friendless in the city. The link to Pakistan is also established through a telephonic conversation which the protagonist is forced to make. Once again, the link between the Muslim community in India and the Pakistani ISI is emphasized. It is community of gun dealers, drug dealers, pimps and butchers.

The use of Sufi music heightens the sense of tragedy of the young Amir, but its use in an extremely violent sequence somewhere soften the violence and lends a mystical quality to an almost desperate scene. The lyrics of the song are almost like a pray to God to protect, while Aamir’s whole world is being destroyed. The use of Sufi music has been another soundtrack which has got closely linked with terrorism and the Muslim liberal. It is ironic, that Aamir’s title song “Ek lau” is used extensively by the NDTV campaign “In memory” of the officers of 26/11 (Mumbai terror attack in 2008). We seem to mourn and celebrate the death of the liberal.

Jyoti Punwani in her review of Aamir said “Should we be grateful that our filmmakers have moved away from the biryani-sherwani-qurbani socials to the injustices meted out to Muslims? If the first depicted an enchanting but a completely unreal world, the latter world is only too real in its physical depiction. That why the recent trend of films on Muslim terrorism is so dangerous. They project the popular image of the young Muslim turning terrorist so technically well, that those who hardly know anyone living in these ghettos will be even more apprehensive of them.”9

Shohini Ghosh in her review of Aamir in Communalism Combat writes “Cinema is a phantasmic site on which desires, aspirations, fears and anxieties are envisioned. Apart from recreating external worlds cinema can access the dark recesses of our imagination and give shape to repressed phantoms that haunt our inner worlds. It is said that cinema is akin to dreams in that it encompasses our best hopes and worst fears. Films are "cultural dream works" says Ashis Nandy while Ingmar Bergman says that "when film is not a document, it is dream". Aamir is a fascinating document precisely because it is an articulation of a dream; a dream that meditates, albeit unselfconsciously, about communal prejudice. It struggles with what Mahmood Mamdani calls the idea of the ‘Good Muslim’ and the ‘Bad Muslim’. In so doing it invokes amnesia and historical forgetfulness.” I would modify Anupama Chopra’s quote to address the power of ‘unintended ambition’ and suggest that the film is "an eloquent statement on the state of the nation and the mind of the Indian non-Muslim."10

The terrorist projected in the film does not look the stereotype of a bearded cleric but is bald thug like character. Initially you feel that the film will be able to move away from the Jihadi stereotype. But then as the film unfolds his actions and the objects around him establish his ideology and belief. He eats an elaborate meal of biryani and chicken, a proper

Impact Factor (JCC): 3.6252 NAAS Rating: 2.52 Muslim as the ‘Other’ in Bollywood Films (2004-2008) 39 downtown Muslim meal, as the protagonist struggles for a glass of water. The beads and cap never leave his side. He spews venom about other communities. In fact he questions Aamir on having a Hindu girlfriend. He sends Aamir onto a journey which exposes Aamir to the squalor of Muslim localities. He is hi-tech and sends a video clip to Aamir to say that his family is in his control. In fact the use of mobile phones in this film is extensive and somewhere shows the extensive communication network which terrorists establish not only through telephones but also through a community of people, and in this case the Muslim community. The telephone ring is a sinister sound through the film. Aamir is always haunted by eyes and people wherever he goes. He is constantly under surveillance in all Muslim areas. The terrorist tries to convince Aamir but he remains firm in his beliefs, even after the terrorist tells him “he is not a true Muslim”. Aamir pays the price for his beliefs by his own death.

The other problematic aspect of the film is that it fails to answer many questions. Why is Aamir chosen for the task? Who and what is the terrorist organisation? Why would they choose a man so ideologically opposed to them? Why do they follow such a complicated method of delivering the explosive to Aamir? The film reflects a very simplistic understanding of the reasons for terrorism and the anxieties of a minority community.

A Wednesday is a far more disturbing film than Aamir as it muzzles the identity of the Muslim into the common man who takes the law into his own hands to fight terrorism. The opening montage focuses on the train system of Mumbai and gives the feeling of an impending attack. Structured as a flashback, the story is told by Police Commissioner Rathore (Anupam Kher), as he remembers his long service on the eve of his retirement. The story begins with Naseeruddin Shah (the common man) walking into police station to lodge an FIR but in actuality uses the excuse to leave a bag. The Police Commissioner Prakash Rathore is identified through a meeting with a well-known actor who is being threatened by a Bhai and number flashing is from Karachi. “Underworld Bhai and Pakistan” is all identified clearly in this scene. A subtle suggestion is also made to the domination of the Film industry by Khans and Hindus are a minority. Jai Singh a young idealistic police officer is shown leaving his wife and child on the train and his anxiety reflects the worry which all train travellers face when they travel by train. Naina is introduced as a reporter, as usual desperate for any and every news. Arif is a young officer with the ATS, he has links with a network of informers and is a man of action. His answer to all evil is to beat the life out the culprit, he is a rough and tough cop, secular and nationalistic but a serious human rights violator. As Nasseruddin Shah (the common man) calls the police commissioner that 5 bombs have been installed in different locations in Mumbai, panic takes over the life in the police station. ‘The common man’ is techno savvy, he uses phones with different SIM cards, a computer to monitor news and events. He is cool, calm and full of purpose. The location he uses to carry out his activities is on top of a building under construction. The sight places him against the backdrop Mumbai and many wide angle and pan shots establish his relationship with the city below. He is threatening the city, but he is part of it but also above it. Visually a complex relationship develops between this man’s location and the city around him.

He wants the release of four terrorists Ibrahim Khan, Akqlaq Ahmed, Moh. Zaheer, Khurshid Lala. The introduction given by the police officer says “Ibrahim Khan linked with Al Qaeda, he has opened up a number of madrasas and is giving little children training in jihad. Akqlaq Ahmed is the right hand man of Ibrahim Khan, former ISI and has been involved in many terrorist attacks. Many say that he got himself arrested to try and save Ibrahim Khan. Mohd. Zaheer former ISI former Al Qaeda, Lashkar commander, he has made all the websites, he has a website Indiakitabahi.com. He is in hospital for chest pains. Khurshid Lala is a weapon supplier and has also been the supplier for all the RDX in the various bomb blasts which have rocked the country.” The police officer goes on to show a hazy image of a man who is supposed to

www.tjprc.org [email protected] 40 Dr. Sabina Kidwai be the commander, “who will disappear in the crowd, nobody can identify him, he may be behind the call”.

On the threat of the common man that the bombs will blow up in Mumbai if these four are not released and taken to a identified location, the four terrorists are collected by Jai (Aamir Bashir) and Arif (Jimmy Shergill) and taken to the identified location. Arif is subjected to constant insinuation about his identity by the 4 terrorists but he remains silent and unprovoked. Arif feeling that the situation is not in their control decides to keep Ibrahim Khan, in case the common man plays foul. He only leaves three terrorists at the designated location and walks away with Ibrahim Khan. As they walk back the other three are blown up. The common man now tells the Commissioner “You assumed that I wanted to save these four terrorists, I wanted to kill them. These four have to be killed and you will do it for me. If there are cockroaches in your house what do you do, you kill them, these four were dirtying my house, and I want to clean my house. I am just a stupid common man trying to clean his house. I am the person who is today scared of getting on to a bus or train. I am a person whose wife feels that I am going to war when I go to office, she worries whether I will return or not. She calls every two hours to check my food, my tea, but actually just to check that I am alive. I sometimes get stuck in a blast, I am a person who is suspicious of everybody who carries pray beads, but I am also a person who is scared of growing a beard or wearing a cap. When I buy a shop I think about what I should name it, in a riot somebody may burn it down because of the name, whatever may be the reason it is only I who suffer for no fault of mine for no reason. I am any man in the crowd. I am just a stupid common man wanting to clean his house. The fourth man you have to kill.” The common man goes on to say that the man on the street will die whether I set of the bombs or not, it is people like these four which will always kill them. The Police Commissioners asks “Who are you” ? The common man says “my religion has nothing to do with this. When the blasts happen on the trains they said to us what will you do, they repeated it on Friday, then again on Tuesday, I am just replying on a Wednesday. I can see that when I have told you that I am a common man you have become confident and have lost your fear of me. But the bombs are in place, so the fourth man must go.” Arif and Jai stage an encounter and kill Ibrahim Khan. When Naina (Deepal Shaw) arrives with her crew, it is reported that one terrorist in trying to escape was killed and a police officer was hurt. On hearing this the common man packs up and informs the Police Commissioner that no other bombs have been set. The Police Commissioner runs to the location of the last call as identified by the hacker. The Commissioner meets the common man, asks him the time, introduces himself and asks his. But he does not tell the audience as he says “We tend to find religion in a name. Whoever this man was he was a good man.”

This is one of the most complex and slick portrayals we have seen of the Muslim liberal. The common man, whose name we are never told whose religion we never talk about is played by Naseeruddin Shah. The language, the mannerism all point to his identity and he does what many would support that every common man must do. He takes the law in his own hands, threatens the police and makes them kill four terrorists. The Muslim liberal takes his revenge on the oppressor. A dangerous profiling as it justifies the killing of four men in police custody in national interest. The common man looks like any man on the street with a briefcase and a jhola of sabzi. He is technically savvy and shows how easy it has been for him to break the security of the police. In no manner does he identify his religion but his language and mannerism and the persona of the actor all point towards him being a ‘Good Muslim’. He uses all the methods of threat to get the police to bring the four terrorists to a designated spot. His phone calls are a combination of hoax threats and real danger which convince the police that he means business.

As Ashley Tellis writes “At the end of the day, this 'common man' is not R.K Laxman's common man who spoke for a whole class of people, irrespective of religion, for decades in The Times of India. This 'common man' is the perfect

Impact Factor (JCC): 3.6252 NAAS Rating: 2.52 Muslim as the ‘Other’ in Bollywood Films (2004-2008) 41

'good Muslim' that the Indian nation-state and the Hindi film industry are so keen to produce; the Muslim they traumatize so many ordinary Indian Muslims into becoming, just as they produce the very category of the 'Muslim fundamentalist' they deplore, precisely by such representation. The Muslim the Indian nation-state and A Wednesday uphold is the Muslim who hates all Muslims, who denies all community except the neoliberal, Hindu nation-state, who hides his taveez, who sees all Muslims with suspicion, who kills people the Indian state calls terrorists without asking any questions (such is his mindless loyalty to the Indian nation-state) and who has no memory, of his own, or his community's, suffering at the hands of the Indian nation-state. In effect, he is no longer Muslim and has to no longer be Muslim to be Indian, which, while on the surface, seems like an unmarked category (in secular, empty time) is, in fact a Hindu category. That is why, the narrative voice of the film is that of Anupam Kher's character – the Hindu Commissioner of Police – efficient and swift, in rounding up all terrorists, but who is finally sympathetic to "common man," and his own unlawful methods of revenge against 'Muslim terrorists.’11

Pitted against this common man whose very profiling establishes him as a liberal secular Muslim, are the characters of the police officers. There is Arif Khan who is a strong ATS officer with links with the underworld of informers. He is nationalist upright but also extremely aggressive and violent in his methods. There is the police officer Jai Singh upright, soft with a great deal of idealism. He is a family man constantly worried about his wife and child and believes in the ethics of the department. One often feels that he would be or could have been the questioning voice in the film, but he remains a mute spectator and also comes to admire the common man. The most important character is that of the Commissioner of Police who makes all the decisions, it is his admiration of the common man which makes the film very dangerous, because the state finally legitimizes the action, and accepts the killing of the fourth terrorist in police custody in national interest.

The film is intelligently scripted and also raises the issue as to how the need for a story can make you manipulate media channels to report what you would want them to. Ironically the film supports the common man using all the methods of a terrorists, fear, extortion, blackmail and threats to get what he wants. But since the people dying are outside the law and society, the actions are justified.

CONCLUSIONS

Thus the period from 2004-2008 has seen the Bollywood film industry greatly debate the “Muslim terrorist”. The images vary from that of the Pakistani Jihadi, to the materialistic criminalized terrorist, to the victim. Pitted against these images is the fate of the Muslim liberal. In the films of this decade the enemy is within us, a part of our world. He is not a foreign national, but attacks from within, creating deep rooted anxieties of the unknown. A fear which is reflected by the protagonists of many films, Aamir in the film Aamir, Commissioner Rathore in A Wednesday. Drawing from real life stories, feature film play on emotions and issues relevant to our times to draw audiences. They reflect beliefs and can sometimes receive support depending on the predominant crisis of the times.

First the Army was to fight such characters, then it was the police and then it was the responsibility of the common man, the liberal secular Muslim who to prove his loyalty to society and India must take on these psychopaths. Films are about individual, their struggles, their feelings, their battles. The illusion remains of a group, Muslim brotherhood, jihad, in the back drop but it is the angst of the individual which is important. This plays a dual role, the personal gets addressed but it also reduces many larger issues to the individual. It also makes the whole agenda of

www.tjprc.org [email protected] 42 Dr. Sabina Kidwai terrorism much more powerful believable and sinister. Characters like Saya in Mukhbir, reaffirm the presence of dark shadows which indicate the presence of larger terrorist movements. In order to identify the terrorist, the liberal Muslim has acquired a new lease of life. He is the man many educated people would identify with but it is also the character which in its screen image seems to be the most battle scared. He rarely or ever actually wins against the negative forces. He is somebody everybody wants, but his survival is often difficult and wearisome. The character Aamir in Aamir, Dan in Dus, are liberal religious Muslims with the agenda to fight the bad Muslim terrorist. The “common man” in A Wednesday was one character who had all the characteristics of a liberal educated Muslim but uses the same means as the terrorist to terrorize the State. But his terrorization is justified as it targets the terrorist and “terrorists do not have any rights. Human rights violations are justified against such people”.

The city of Mumbai is the epicentre of most of the films. The skyline of Mumbai is significant as the terrorist threat looms large over it. In film after film the Mumbai skyline fascinates the protagonist, it beckons migrants but disallows assimilation. A city which in the last decade has been the backdrop of many terrorist attacks, a city of dreams for many migrants, but a city which is threatened by these very migrants. The stranger is omnipresent in this city, a man who can hide behind the sea of people which travel in these cities, unsuspected and secure. He can be anybody, his only consistent identity is that “he is Muslim” and therefore only another Muslim can fight him effectively, understand and subvert his hidden agenda.

NOTES

1 Chakravarty Sumita S. Fragmenting the Nation, Images of terrorism in India Popular cinema, Editors Hjort Mette and Mackenzie Scott, Cinema and Nation, Routledge, 2000, p 228

2 Babri Masjid The Babri Masjid-Ramjanambhoomi controversy was based on the demand of Hindu fundamentalist forces that the Babri Masjid stood at the site of the birth place of Lord Ram and should therefore be restored to being a temple. The Babri Masjid was demolished by the Hindu right wing forces on 6th Dec 1992. Currently the Supreme Court in its ruling has allowed the construction of the temple on the site

3 Kargil war – India Pakistan war was triggered when militants and Pakistani forces crossed the Line of Control and occupied strategic positions which affected passage on Highway No 1 the only linking road between Leh and Srinagar.

4 Bombay Blast of 1993 A series of coordinated bomb blasts which devastated Mumbai triggered by the riots after the Babri Masjid demolition. Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memom were the prime accused in the incident

5 Chakravarty Sumita S. Fragmenting the Nation, Images of terrorism in India Popular cinema, Editors Hjort Mette and Mackenzie Scott, Cinema and Nation, Routledge, 2000, p 222

6 Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence in Chakravarty Sumita S. Fragmenting the Nation, Images of terrorism in India Popular cinema, Editors Hjort Mette and Mackenzie Scott, Cinema and Nation, Routledge, 2000, Pg 227

7 Editors Hjort Mette and Mackenzie Scott, Cinema and Nation, Routledge, 2000, Pg 214

8 http://movies.ndtv.com/movie-reviews/aamir-313, Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films, Friday, June 06, 2008, quoted also in http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2008/sep08/cover.html,Ghosh Shohini, September 2008 Year 15 No.134, accessed last on 19.4.2013

9 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/in-bad-faith/331071/ Punwani Jyoti, In bad faith, Fri Jul 04 2008, last accessed on 19.4.2013

10 Ghosh Shohini, Style & Prejudice, Communalism Combat, Year 15, No 134, Sept 2008, http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2008/sep08/cover.htm

Impact Factor (JCC): 3.6252 NAAS Rating: 2.52 Muslim as the ‘Other’ in Bollywood Films (2004-2008) 43

11 http://www.countercurrents.org/tellis201008.htm , Tellis Ashley, A Wednesday- Making Fools Of Us All, 20 October, 2008, accessed last on 19.4.2013

______REFERENCES

1. Bollywood Films

• Dus (2005), directed by

• Faana (2006), directed by Kunal Kohli

• Black Friday (2007) directed by

• Aamir (2008) directed by Raj Kumar Gupta

• Mukhbir (2008) directed by Mani Shankar

• A Wednesday (2008) directed by Neeraj Pandey

2. Bharat Meenakshi and Kumar Nirmal, Editors, Filming the Line of Control, Routledge, 2008

3. Bhaskar Ira and Allen Richard Islamicate Cultures Of Bombay Cinema,Tulika Books 2009

4. Biernatzki William, Terrorism and the mass Media, Communication Research Trends, centre for the study of Communication and Culture, Vol 21 (2002),1

5. Caldwell, J.T Televisuality: Style, Crisis and Authority in American Television, New Brunswick; Rutgers University Press, 1995

6. Chakravartyy Sumitra, National identity in Indian Popular cinema 1947-1987, University of Texas press 1993

7. Cinar Alev, Roy Srirupa and Yahya Maha, Editors, Visualizing Secularism and Religion, University of Michigan press 2012

8. Devji, Faisal Fatehali, “Public Culture”, Bulletin of the Society for Transnational Cultural Studies, Volume 3, No.1. Fall 1992

9. Dines Gail & Humez Jean M, Editors, Gender, Race and Class in Media, Sage Publications, 1995

10. Durham Meenakshi Gigi and Kellner Douglas, Editors, Media and Cultural Studies Key works, Blackwell Publishing, 2006

11. Engineer Asghar Ali, Indian Islam and the Politics of Reform Movements in post Independence India, Women Living under Muslim Laws-Dossier 20, December 1997

12. Farooqui Athar, Editor Muslims and Media Images, Oxford 2009

13. Freedman Lynn.P, The challenge of Fundamentalisms, Women Living under Muslim Laws-Dossier 19, October 1997

14. Laqueur Walter No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004

15. Laqueur, W. The new terrorism: Fanaticism and the arms of mass destruction. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999

16. Mamdani Mahmood, Good Muslim Bad Muslim, Islam, the USA, and the Global war against Terror, Permanent black, 2004, pg 18

www.tjprc.org [email protected] 44 Dr. Sabina Kidwai

Impact Factor (JCC): 3.6252 NAAS Rating: 2.52