Manufacturing Muslim Image Through Bollywood Cinema

Muslim South Asia Conference 28 Oct, 2013 Shiraz Sheikh Green on Silver: Manufacturing Muslim Image through Bollywood Cinema ABSTRACT: During the last decade, a series of Bollywood movies were produced which caricatured the Muslim image in a certain way. The biased portrayal grew in time when numbers of Muslim youths were framed and fabricated with false terror charges. The accumulated angst against the partisan communal profiling of Muslims outburst was protest against the movie Vishwaroopam. This has regenerated media debate about the artistic freedom and the freedom of expression. In this context, the paper focuses to analyse the portrayal of Muslims in Bollywood Cinema since 9/11. It seeks to examine the pattern of portrayal that negatively reinforces the bias against the community and also how with positive portrayal a balance is sought. For this purpose two clusters of movies are selected. One set of films produces loaded narrative that reinforces notion that ‘evil community’ is required to be contained whereas the second set producing a counter narrative. On theoretical plane the paper seeks to theorsie the prevailing phenomenon by applying two general theories. The first theory is of profitability – that is to exploit a burning issue which is easily sellable. Second, an assumption that there is politics entrenched with ideology that helped manufacture Muslim image as an enemy within to contain the bellicose threat of spread of Islam. Finally the paper tries to analyse the debates generating within the educated Muslim youths. Key Words: Bollywood Cinema, Muslim Image, Hindutava, Hindu Nationalism, Muslim Youth, Freedom of Expression, Social Media. Introduction In February of 2013 movie Vishwaroopam was in news due to protest against it by Tamilnadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam and Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath. It resulted from the accumulated angst of Muslim groups. Protestors’ chief grievance against the movie was its portrayal of Muslim-self as terrorist. This period saw hundreds of Muslim boys implicated on terror charges – many falsely – who were acquitted after long years of trial.1 Series of legal and street protest against the film generated television debates on 1 M. Reyaz, “Muslim youths: India’s most wanted!,” TwoCircles.net, accessed on 7 September 2013, URL: http://twocircles.net/2013may23/muslim_youths_india%E2%80%99s_most_wanted.html. Also see A report by Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association, Framed, Damned, Acquitted Dossiers of a ‘Very’ Special Cell. Can be accessed on http://document.teacherssolidarity.org/JTSA_Report.pdf artistic freedom and freedom of expression and its limits. The media debate established that the protesting community is ‘illiberal’ and against the freedom of expression rarely emphasizing on the context which consequent to the articulation of this objection. The dissent ensued in the background of occurrences which bears implications for the community central to the subject of Vishwaroopam. The background is the socio-political environment developed post 9/11 vis-à-vis Muslims globally in general and India in specific.2 During the same period Hollywood too shifted in its storytelling by focusing to fight the fanatic ‘evil’ in the Muslim world leaving the Godless communists.3 Simultaneously Bollywood produced many movies whose central subjects were Muslims. In this context, the paper focuses to analyse the portrayal of Muslims in Bollywood Cinema since 9/11. It seeks to examine the pattern of portrayal that negatively reinforces the bias against the community and also how with positive portrayal a balance is sought. For this purpose two clusters of movies are selected. The first consist series of movies which nurtures communal biases through repeated depiction of ill-conceived stereotypes. It produces loaded narrative that reinforces notion that ‘evil community’ is required to be contained. The second cluster of movies tries to minimise the impact emanating from the first series of movies by producing a counter narrative. Its caricaturisation of Muslim is as a pious, rational, moral and normal person as “others.” Context Unlike Hollywood which constructed its enemy outside its territory in the communist world the Bollywood cinema found it within the country. The caricaturisation of this ‘enemy’ has a historical context. Subaltern historian Shahid Amin who studied the 2 See reports of Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project (IRDP), URL: http://www.islamophobiacon.com/reports.html. Also See Islamophobia Watch: Documenting anti Muslim bigotry, URL: http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/. 3 Communists were portrayed as enemy in James Bond and Rambo series movies. The Hurt Locker and Argo were two Hollywood movies made in last five years are plotted in the Muslim world which won Oscar awards. popular Hindi text of late 19th and 20th centuries showed that remembrance of Muslim past in the popular works of Pratap Narayn Mishra, Bharatendu Harishchandra and Balkrishan Bhatt, was created as antagonistic to Hindu interest.4 Construction of Muslim ‘Other’ continued after partition as exhibited by Dibyesh Anand in his recent book Hindu Nationalism in India and the Politics of Fear. Analysing literary works produced by RSS-VHP-Hindu Writers Forum and also generating ethnographic data, Anand illustrated that Hindu Nationalism is created against the Muslims ‘Other’. Anand argued that proponents of Hindutava nationalism mobilise and generate negative stereotypes of Islam and Muslims.5 Through his ethnographic research he established that Hindutva forces have “porno-sexualized” the Muslim body.6 In Hinutava meta-narrative Muslims were linked to Pakistan, rejected as fanatic and traitor, called as “Babar ki aulad,” their concentration is called “mini Pakistan”, and they work for Pakistan.7 His discussion exhibits how the task of popular myth-making through oral and written narratives continued. The centrality of Muslim ‘otherisation’ in the lexicon of Hindutava nationalism was not limited to popular narrative produced by its literati but also infiltrated the official ideological apparatus. Prakash Louis in his empirical work showed that RSS tried to construct official- myth by giving communal contour to text books. BJP led government distorted History books to “imbibe a communal consciousness in the minds of young children.”8 The history text books of this time portrayed “Hindus as nation and stigmatized Muslims and 4 Shahid Amin, “Representing the Musalman: Then and Now, Now and Then” in Shail Mayaram et al (eds.), Subaltern Studies XII: Muslims, Dalits, and the Fabrication of History (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005), pp. 1-35. Also see Romila Tahpar, The Past and Prejudice (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1975). 5 Dibyesh Annand, Hindu Nationalism in India and the Politics of Fear (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p.1. 6 Ibid, pp. 49-81. 7 Ibid, p. 40. 8 Prakash Louis, The Emerging Hindutava Force: The Ascent of Hindu Nationalism (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 2000), p. 214. Christian as anti national.”9 What imperative this construction of nationalism vis-à-vis Muslim “other” has caused? At the background of this context six movies are analyzed to see to what extent this officio-popular myth-making has impacted the subject of film- making in Bollywood cinema. The Construction Film-makers are also get influenced by their contemporary settings. Therefore the initial few decades the Muslim subject of Bollywood cinema was largely represented by the feudal elites and aristocracy. Then later decades saw movies more on Muslim middle class or “Muslim social” whose subject was of common men’s concerns. In the last two decades the political scenario in the shadow of Hindutva nationalism underwent radical experiences. The cinema as a medium of creative and social change got impacted and also reflected the contemporary realty. One can argue that it only captured and translated what was already in the air into visual narrative. Or it can be also argued that it strengthen the existing stereotypes through partisan projection of Muslim identity rendering artistic justification. Qayamat: City Under Threat (2003) Qayamat: City Under Threat was made in the background Muslim terrorists threatening the city of Mumbai. Three friends Ali and Abbas Ramini and Rachit are thieves. Rachit falls in love and wishes to leave this profession. But Ali and Abbas coerced him to commit his last crime. The heartless materialist Ali and Abbas show disrespect to his relations. They, under the snag of a Pakistani General, take 213 prisoners hostage and plant three missiles with deadly virus to blackmail the Indian government. Rachit’s humanism (read Hindu patriotism) stops him to be part of such inhumane act. To avenge this, Ali and Abbas dupe him that leads to his arrest. 9 Ibid, p. 215. Also see Arti Dhar, “Academics, eminent citizens dismayed over biases in text books,” The Hindu, New Delhi, 7 September 2013. Rachit then helps a Muslim CBI officer Akram Sheikh to capture them. Rachit leads the police team to reach the jail through secrete tunnel from which he once escaped. Ali and Abbas also have a common girlfriend Laila who is as cruel and immoral as they are. Rachit with the help of Akram fights the entire gang and kills Abbas, Ali and Laila and saves the city. So at the end audience is filled with patriotism and narrative that they were Muslim terrorists who are ready to sell themselves to Pakistanis for money. Hindus are, no matter how bad they are, at the end ready to sacrifice for the motherland. Dhokha (2007) Made in the backdrop of atrocities in Kashmir Dhokha is story that can have multiple readings. Inspector Zaid Khan’s wife Sarah turned out to be a fidayeen. The police suspecting his complicity in suicide-bombing arrests and then later suspends him. Zaid’s friend calls him traitor and accuses the Muslim community. Zaid’s sympathizers are also called pseudo-secular who are the real traitors. Zaid’s house was attacked by mob and people call him terrorist and traitor. After his suspension he goes for his own investigation and gets to know that her father was killed, brother was tortured and she was raped by police.

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