The Terrorist and the Liberal in Indian Popular Cinema
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
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, New Delhi, India 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 Original Article KEYWORDS: Muslim, terrorism, liberal, 9/11, terror attacks, Mumbai & 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 Hindi 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 Dus (‘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 (Sanjay Dutt), Aditi Kumar (Shilpa Shetty), Aditya Singh (Zayed Khan), Shashank Dheer (Abhishek Bachchan). 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.