International Research Journal of Management Sociology & Humanities

ISSN 2277 – 9809 (online) ISSN 2348 - 9359 (Print)

An Internationally Indexed Peer Reviewed & Refereed Journal

Shri Param Hans Education & Research Foundation Trust

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IRJMSH Vol 8 Issue 6 [Year 2017] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print)

Crossing over the border: cinematic imaginations

Kaveri Bedi Introduction The history of the mostly acrimonious relation between and stems from the traumatic event of partition that played itself out in ‘all its gory’ and violence around the area surrounding the Radcliff line that was drawn hastily by the British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliff in August 1947. With barely five weeks between start and finish, Radcliff had to chair not one but two boundary commissions: one for Bengal in the east, another for the Punjab in the westv(Jisha Menon). In August 1947, the labour pains prior to the birth of the fraternal twins-Indian and Pakistan were intense, prolonged and tumultuous leading to a situation in which roughly one million people died, ten to twelve million were displaced, thousands of women were raped and property suffered a staggering loss. In the weeks leading up to August 14-15th, communal violence began to break out across India. , , and Sikhs were forced from their homes and ancestral lands as the new border was drawn between India and Pakistan. Upon Partition, the situation worsened with trains full of refugees that were going either way across the border, being attacked and finally arriving at their destinations full of corpses. While the official narratives from both sides of the border focused on erasing the traumatic memories attached to their birth- owing primarily to the exigencies of the post-partition nation building process; from within the literary field however, there were several attempts at re- imaging and re-negotiating the memories of the partition. Literary artists from both sides of the border have felt compelled to relive their hurt through a recall of their own experiences of the partition including writers like Saadat Hasan Manto, Intezar Hussain and Amrita . One such piece that encapsulates the experience of the partition related trauma is Amrita Pritam’s Punjabi dirge Aaj aakhaan Waaris Shah nu: Speak up from your grave From your book of love unfurl A new and different page 105 One daughter of Punjab did scream You covered your walls with your laments Millions of daughters weep today And call out to Waris Shah Arise you chronicler of our inner pain And look now at your Punjab The forests are littered with corpses And blood flows down the Chenab.’ The poem appeals to Waris Shah, the legendary Punjabi poet who wrote the most popular version of the Punjabi love tragedy, Heer Ranjha entitled Heer in 1776. Through this poem, Amrita Pritam uses the imagery of a daughter- Heer, metaphoric for all the daughters of Punjab

International Research Journal of Management Sociology & Humanity ( IRJMSH ) Page 89 www.irjmsh.com IRJMSH Vol 8 Issue 6 [Year 2017] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print) crying out for justice, as she appeals to Shah to arise from his grave, record Punjab’s tragedy and take up the pen again. Chandra Prakash Dwivedi’s Pinjar: Beyond borders (2003) opens with these words wherein, the melancholia and lamentation of the metaphoric Heer (as played by Urmila Matondkar in the film) is being punctuated through sound, music and visuals. This film imagines the partition through the agency of the female protagonist focusing particularly at the experience of psychological and physical violence that is experienced by her. The film analyzes the female protagonist who, after having painfully experienced the border, gathers the strength to finally cross it, no longer being sole victims of the partition, but also active subjects of their newly defined communities Claudia Preckel (2008: 85). The aim of this paper is to pay attention to the narratives of visual border crossings between India and Pakistan as imagined through films and the meanings attached to the same. The focus would be on engaging with the filming of the event of crossing the physical border between India and Pakistan by understanding how the same has been portrayed and articulated. In so doing, the paper pays attention to the visualization and articulation of iconography, landscapes, spaces, culture and ideology on both sides of the border so as to find the cinematic articulation of similarities and differences. That is, by looking closely at both the narratives of difference and similarity vis-à-vis Pakistan, the paper would attempt to gauge the varying notions of Indian national identity alongside finding the intertext between the same and the changing socio-political dynamics between India and Pakistan and those within the Indian nation with respect to Hindus and Muslims. A call “Borders are Everywhere” by Etienne Balibar (2002) has became widely accepted in the academia going by which, one could argue to find (in)visible borders at spaces like cinema halls, international conferences/events, international airports etc. At the same time it could be asserted here that one could also find borders fading or getting blurred at the very same places and spaces. Taking from this argument, the paper would be delving into how borders are both pronounced and punctuated through the cinematic visualizations of cross-border movements as well as diminished, blurred and transcended. For this purpose, the paper would be divided into two main sections: the first section would be exploring the films that engage with a transcendental imagination of the border wherein, the filmic narratives articulate and portray elements like similitude/ resemblance between the two nations with regards to the people, culture, religion, traditions and on narratives that focus on breaking of stereotypes. Here, the paper would be primarily looking at films like – Heena (Randhir Kapoor 1991), Main Hoon Na (Farah Khan 2004), Veer Zaara (Yash Chopra 2004), Filmistaan (Nitin Kakkar 2014), Kya Dilli Kya Lahore (Vijay Raaz, 2014) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan ( 2015). It will be argued that similitude becomes the key to identity formation wherein, by tracing resemblance primarily between the cultures and ideologies on either sides of the border, the films attempt to accentuate an Indian nationalism that is naturally accommodative, pacifist, sacrificing and secular. The second section would be looking at films that construct differences that further accentuate the binary between the Indian ‘us’ and the Pakistani ‘other’. In so doing, the section would be engaging with films like Gadar-Ek Prem Katha (Anil Sharma, 2001), Hero: Love story of a Spy

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(Anil Sharma, 2003), Agent Vinod (Sriram Raghavan, 2012) and D-Day (Nikhil Advani, 2013). This section would also be looking at films like Border (J.P. Dutta 1997) and Lakshya (Farhan Akhtar 2004) with respect to how the space of the border is imagined and performed through these films and thus narratively constructed as a territory in need of tight border controls and protection that needs to be militarized and securitized. In this sense, the aim of this section is to find how such imaginations of the border have assisted in constructing a national consciousness that rests upon eulogizing notions of militarized and securitized borders and borderlands.

Imagination of the border Lieutenant Karan Shergill (Hritik Roshan) stands at the edge of the border landscape between Indian and Pakistan in the Kargil region in the film Lakshya (Farhan Akhtar 2004). Accompanied by his Indian Muslim army captain, Jalal Akbar, Karan is driven to the LoC to be shown what he is to defend as part of his duties as an officer of the Indian armed forces. The camera films a long shot over the top right angle of the Indian chowki (army bunker) and looks across into the distance at the Pakistani chowki. A mid shot remains on the protagonist- Karan as he stands captivated by sight of the physical geography in front of him, demarcated as Pakistan by a Pakistani bunker. The sequence of this scene is composed of silent and natural diegetic physical sounds like that of the wind whistling through the mountains and the insertion of non- diegetic music as the overall sequence implicitly invokes the image of a nation in need of necessary and tight border controls and protection (Bharat 2008). A visibly mesmerized Karan (denoting the middle class Hindu male) pauses and exclaims: ‘I have always known, but somehow..I’ve never felt this Indian before (Pauses as he looks on) I’m an Indian’. This scene is telling of the moments in recent popular Hindi cinema, through which the border is conveyed on-screen through audio and visual gestures, and how it comes to signify certain kinds of understandings that are created by filmmakers for possible kinds of interpretation by audiences. Such an imagination and articulation of the border as sites that need state control wherein, the performitivity of control by the Indian soldiers punctuates the Indian versus Pakistani binary, has been a glaring feature in most of the ‘war films’ that were made starting with Border (J.P. Dutta 1997) including LoC- Kargil (J.P. Dutta 2003), Ab Tumhare Hawale Hain Watan Saathiyon (Anil Sharma 2004), Tango Charlie (Mani Shankar 2015) to name a few. These films were made during a time with belligerent representations of Pakistan as the enemy state circulating with a vengeance within the public sphere. Such antagonistic representations were buttressed by several political factors including the rise of the anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan Hindutva ideology within the public sphere following the large scale performitivity of the Ram janmabhoomi campaign; the antagonistic rhetoric disseminated through the media following the fiftieth anniversary since the independence/partition in 1997 coupled with further polarized, belligerent and hyper- masculinized discourse following events like- the 1998 nuclear weapon tests by both the countries, the Kargil war in 1999, the parliament attack in 2001, operation Parakaram 2001-02.

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Such events invariably constructed a discursive atmosphere wherein, the Indo-Pak border and borderlands began being viewed as spaces that needed to be securitized and militarized. As Navtej Purewal (2003: 547) observes, “the border not only signifies where the nation-state of India and Pakistan begin and end, but it also territorializes and nationalizes local populations and identities and is employed as a site for the construction of a dominant national consciousness”. Likewise, an argument made by Sanjay Chaturvedi (2001: 149) is noteworthy here that one of the key defining elements of nation-building has been the reflexive production of otherness between the two nations, where geopolitical visions are constructed through ‘imaginative geographies’ in which “inclusions and exclusions, as mutually reinforcing forms of place- making, have become central- rather, indispensible to the ‘nation-building’ enterprise of the post- colonial, post-partition states of India and Pakistan”. As such, the political existence of the border is not sufficient in itself, since the performance of this border is an even more essential component of the processes of othering at work in the subcontinent. That is, the border and the understanding of the same is narrated and accentuated through the act of performing the same which could be said to be done either through larger than life actions or through what J.L. Austin (1962) terms, performative ‘speech acts’. Menon (2013: 46-47), while exploring the retreat ceremony at the Wagah border as a border ritual that aesthetically represents the two nations at war while at the same time, performatively inscribing, sustaining and perpetuating a narrative of antagonistic hostility between the two nations, observes that performance per se offers a crucial political technique in the affective constitution of publics. That is, be it the rhetorical strategies of ‘high politics’ or the spectatorial performances that make visible the authority of the state, performative practices insidiously inculcate the compulsory narratives of the state within the audience. Further, noting ‘performative speech acts’ to be a key element of the concept of performitivity, Menon (ibid: 24) notes that the passionate speech acts of the high politics of partition illustrate the ways in which words perform actions; moving beyond a consideration of language as a neutral, inert channel of communication, an analysis of which, Menon (ibid) notes, foregrounds the world-making and world-shattering power of speech acts. Here it could be noted that anti-colonial nationalist politics was an exemplary instance of political performance wherein, the strategic deployment of language, theatrics, and the interplay of speech and silence in the political debates between the Muslims League and the Congress constituted the grounds on which the questions surrounding the partition were articulated. This paper thus considers the role of ‘performance of borders’ as a key technique in the constitution of publics particularly by way of affectively binding the audiences. This performitivity would be analyzed with respect to the cinematic imagination of the border while keeping in tandem with the changing political narratives between both India and Pakistan so as to find the resonance of the same cinematically. The focus would be on both border articulations that construct antagonism as well as those that construct borders, borderlands and cross-border narratives that bind the ‘other’ wherein, the act of border crossing invokes a possibility and aesthetic pleasure that transcends conservative constructions of Indians and in problematic binary terms.

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Transcending borders and similitude Heena, Main Hoon Na, Veer-Zaara and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (to name a few), engage with border crossing narratives in a way that implicitly portray the borders as unnatural constructs wherein, the artificiality of the same is punctuated through the narratively and visually articulated semblance and resemblance between the people on both sides of the border. By focusing on the discourse of semblance, the aim of this section is to not just understand the cinematic portrayal of a nationalism that is pacifist and accommodative in its scope but, to understand how nationality is imagined as transcendental. Further, in finding resemblance between the two states, the focus will be on how this process constructs a Pakistani identity that needs similitude with India so as to be accepted. This apart, this discourse of resemblance between the narratively apparent ‘fraternal twins’ who were separated at birth, can also be read as implicitly implying Pakistan to be organically a part of India, thus denying it any agency of its own. With respect to the filmic articulation of similitude and resemblance, it should be noted that the same is very different from the mimesis that is visible during the Retreat ceremony that takes place between Indian and Pakistan at the Wagah border every evening. Wagah is where the Grand Trunk Road intersects with the so-called Radcliffe Line, dividing the Punjabi town between the two countries. The Retreat ceremony at the Wagah border, which displays the magnificent power of the state while at the same time, dramatizing the antagonism between Indian and Pakistan, is a carefully choreographed drill between the jawans of the Border Security Force on the Indian side and the Pakistani Rangers on the other side with the apparent intent of having a synchronized ceremony to lower the flags of both nations before sunset. But, ‘as the sentries from either side dance their aggressive no-touch tango, the real object of the ceremony becomes clear: to act as a vent, right here on the geopolitical fault line, for the deep hostility and mutual resentment between India and Pakistan’ (Frank Jacobs 2013). An aspect that might not have been intentional but yet exposes itself loudly through this drill is the resemblance between the ‘fraternal twins’ be it in terms of the agility, competitiveness, one- upmanship and hyper-masculinity displayed by the jawans, the spirit of the spectators, the pitch and symphony of the slogans being shouted with equal zest on either sides of the Radcliff line, to name a few. Such mimesis is also notable through for instance the weapon tests that both India and Pakistan conducted in very close succession of one another in nuclear May 1998 as well as their steady progress in the development of ballistic missiles. While such a semblance as has been noted above, contributes to the process that accentuates the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ binary; in following section would nonetheless focus upon how similitude binds and in the process, contributes to a notion of nationality that celebrates the ‘other’ instead of demonizing them. In this celebration of the ‘other’ however, it should be noted that the same is done by emphasizing on the similarity that the ‘other’ shares with the ‘us’ and thus in the process contributes towards asserting particular notions of the self-identity. That is, the paper argues that while the films (Main Hoon Na, Veer Zaara and Bajrangi Bhaijaan), unlike the ones that have been discussed in the preceding papers, focus on the resemblances and similarity between the

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‘fraternal twins’ primarily in terms of their culture and ideologies; they invariably indulge in an act of glorifying a self-righteous Indian identity wherein the Indian comes across as the sacrificing and ‘bigger person’. In this sense, this section would be attempting to look at both the notion of national identity that transcends borders as well as exploring how, in articulating a transcendental notion of national identity, certain aspects of the Indian identity are eulogised. Randhir Kapoor’s Heena (1991) was one of the first attempts by a filmmaker of the Bombay to explore the relationship with the Pakistani in a way that explicitly blurred the lines between the Indian and the Pakistani. The film is the story of Indian Chander, played by Rishi Kapoor who falls in love with a Pakistani woman Henna, played by a Pakistani actor Zeba Bakhtiyar. In Heena, as in Veer Zaara, the male protagonist is a Hindu, rich timber merchant of the Baramulla district in Indian Kashmir who meets with a car accident in which he is swept across the line of control to the Pakistan side of Kashmir. He loses his memory and the film reinvents him as Chand. In this reinvention is implied a transformation from Hindu to Muslim, from Indian to Pakistani hinting at the fuzzy space between the two apparently distinct identities. A similar blurring of identities, resonant of an analogy for borders, is also visible in Veer Zaara wherein, a Pakistani Zaara, played by the Bollywood actor- Priety Zinta, is seen to fit in organically and naturally in Veer’s- (played by Shahrukh Khan) Indian Punjabi culture and traditions. In the film, when Zaara meets Veer’s parents- who play rustic Punjabi farmers, there is no visibility of any bitterness or hatred from the latter towards the Pakistani Muslim girl. This is also visible in Heena wherein, the family of the Pakistani Kashmiri girl goes out of their way to help the Indian instead of being suspicious of his intentions. As has been asserted by Nirmal Kumar (2008: 133), this articulation of acceptance of the identity of the person hailing from the state across the border shows maturity on the part of the filmmaker. The subplots of both the films stress upon regional nationalism- one about Kashmir and another about Punjab, about Kashmiriyat and Punjabiyat. Such cultural concepts help transcend political borders and blur bitter historical memories wherein, it could be asserted that they help in creating a wider community with trans-political loyalties and help evolve cultural linearity. Henna is about the love between two Kashmiris and Veer Zaara about the love between two Punjabis, thereby contributing to making the Line of Control enigmatic and romantic at the same time. Both the films as well as Farah Khan’s Main Hoon Na (2004) have been made during a period when the widespread political discourse within the nation was one of antagonism and bitterness towards the Pakistani ‘other’. At the time of the release of Heena for instance, the environment within the valley of Kashmir was tense. In 1989 an armed resistance against the Indian rule had begun in with some groups demanding independence for the state of Jammu and Kashmir and others demanding union with Pakistan. This may have contributed to shaping an ontologically insecure discourse within the public sphere in mainland India particularly by calling upon the trauma of the partition in 1947 (an aspect that was strikingly visible in Mani Ratnam’s Roja- 1992, wherein the mainland Hindu Indian is seen passionately throwing himself on the national flag of India that is being desecrated by Kashmiri militants).

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Further it should be noted that it is during this period that the xenophobic and the Pakistan/Muslim averse- Hindutva ideology had begun to rise on the national political scene with mobilization campaigns for Kar Sevaks to construct the proposed Ram Janma Bhoomi Temple at Ayodhya further aggravating this communal atmosphere in the country. The film should thus be seen by noting the hostile political context of the period in which it was released. Making a film ‘soft’ on the enemy country Pakistan was a great risk in 1991 when relations between the countries were at their worst (Kumar ibid: 130). By talking of love and dialogue through the film, Randhir Kapoor laid the ground rules for making a film with Pakistan as the subject. A resonance of these ‘rules’ has been visible in a few other films (being discussed in this paper) that were also made by the Hindi film industry on cross border imaginations. For instance, in the climax in Heena when both the main characters are making their way towards the border, the Indian protagonist Chander is seen affectively telling the sacrificing Pakistani Heena that, while technically a line is drawn between the two states, within the hearts of the people on either sides of the border, there exist no such lines. In Veer Zaara, Rajinder Dudrah (2008: 49) points that even at the level of the script, the spoken dialogue by the key characters, and in at least two songs in the film, the border is referenced as either crossed or to be negotiated in terms of a barrier to the lovers meeting. Furthermore, with respect to the affective treatment of exclaiming the transcendental nature of borders, Veer Zaara adopts the style of melodramatic dialogues that employ star power, music, camera angles and emotion to convey the similarity between the two nations. A notable scene in this regard is one in which Veer narrates a poem to the judge in a Pakistani courtroom, wo kehte hain yeh tera desh nahin, phir kyon mere jaisa lagta hai… on how almost everything in Pakistan had reminded Veer of his own ‘motherland’. The very content of this speech by Veer, that punctuates commonality and resemblance between the two nations, coupled by the affective elements that have been added through the voice modulation and facial expressions of the character as well as through orchestrated background music, lend an effect of performitivity to the scene that further contributes to tellingly send home the pacifist message of the film that centers on accentuating the resemblances between the two nations, represented through the trope of lovers lamenting in separation. This performitivity can be differentiated from that which has been visible in for instance J.P. Dutta’s Border (1997) wherein Kuldeep Singh- Played by the hyper-aggressively masculine Sunny Deol, is shown performing belligerence towards the Pakistani ‘other’ at the border through a hyperbolic orchestration of language, gestures, cinematic mise-en-scene and music, depicting what could be argued as an ‘anxious performance’ to assert a particular notion of self- identity and ideology. Such anxious performative aggressions at the border that have been visible in films like Border (1997), LoC Kargil (2003), Tango Charlie (2005) to name a few, have been in consonance with the prevailing aggressive narratives of that time. Contrarily, the overtly pacifist performative acts in Veer Zaara and Main Hoon Na both made in the year 2004, points towards the deliberate interventions made by directors Yash Chopra and Farah Khan (respectively) towards introducing the public sphere with an (necessary) alternative discourse, an

International Research Journal of Management Sociology & Humanity ( IRJMSH ) Page 95 www.irjmsh.com IRJMSH Vol 8 Issue 6 [Year 2017] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print) attempt that was first made by Randhir Kapoor in Heena (1991). Further, the narratives of both Veer Zaara and Main Hoon Na also point towards the gradual thawing of relations between the two countries. The gradual thawing of relations between India and Pakistan commenced through what was described as a ‘step-by-step’ initiative towards Pakistan in April 2003. This was visible from the ‘hand of friendship’ that was offered by the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Srinagar, 18 April 2003 (Shujaat Bukhari, 2003). In a two-day visit to Kashmir, Mr. Vajpayee had called for friendship with Pakistan along with a promise by the Centre to hold talks with the people of Jammu and Kashmir while assuring complete support to the State government. It was a powerful symbolic gesture especially considering that Mr. Vajpayee was the first Prime Minister at that time to have addressed a public meeting in Srinagar in fifteen years (ibid). "We are again extending a hand of friendship but hands should be extended from both the sides. Both sides should decide to live together. We have everything which makes us to have good relations," Mr. Vajpayee said. This was the time to change the map and "we are busy in towards that and we need to work together" (ibid). This gesture of extending a ‘hand of friendship’ was also visible in Farah Khan’s Main Hoon Na that was made in 2004. Main Hoon Na similarly extols the virtues of overcoming the border through diplomacy and personal actions. The film is the story of an Indian Army Major Ram Prasad Sharma (Shahrukh Khan) who is involved in events to ensure the ‘Project Milaap’ (unity)- the releasing of innocent captives on either side of the border of India and Pakistan. Opposed to this project is ex-Indian Army officer, who parades under the pseudonym of Raghavan (Suniel Shetty) and, together with his group of ex-army militants, terrorizes those involved in the Project so as to prevent its occurrence. By further indulging with the narrative of Raghavan- who is depicted as the villain for the project, having executed innocent Pakistanis at the border who had unknowingly crossed it, the films also portrays the border and the consequences of border crossing as a danger zone where territorial control and the possible abuses of its laws and powers lead to abhorrent executions. Further, the thawing of the relations between the two nations was also visible in the form of restoration of rail, bus and air links that had been cut in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Parliament house in in December 2001. This apart, there was an agreement from both the sides to cease fire not only on the 740 kilometer Line of Control (LoC) dividing their forces in Jammu and Kashmir but also on the remote Siachen Glacier, where gunfire not been silenced since Indian forces took possession of the area in April 1984 (Sajad Padder 2012). Padder (2012) further notes that these actions laid the groundwork in the spring of 2004 for comprehensive and simultaneous negotiations with an eight-point agenda covering all major issues between India and Pakistan, including Kashmir. The successful conclusion on April 13, 2004 of the Indian cricket team’s first test tour of Pakistan in fourteen years- also became a prominent public sign that a serious thaw between the two warring nations was underway. The Composite Dialoguei between India and Pakistan from 2004 to 2008 addressed all outstanding issues. It had completed four rounds and the fifth round was in progress when it was

International Research Journal of Management Sociology & Humanity ( IRJMSH ) Page 96 www.irjmsh.com IRJMSH Vol 8 Issue 6 [Year 2017] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print) paused in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attack in November 2008. Amongst its achievements can be cited a number of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) related to peace and security including confidence-building measures (CBMs); Jammu and Kashmir; Siachen Glacier; enhanced people to people contacts through bus and train services; terrorism and drug trafficking; revival of the Bilateral Joint Commission after 16 years; setting up of the Judicial Committee to look into the humanitarian issue of civilian prisoners/fishermen held in each other’s jails to name a few. The dialogue may have assisted in constructing a less aggressive imagination of the Pakistani identity in the public discourse. This was also visible in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (Shaad Ali 2007), a film which is not directly shot in the border or borderlands, but nonetheless, captures the act wherein the notion of strongly held imaginaries of borders is dissipated between the protagonists partly through communicative acts that help them find the multiple places of similarity between them. This exchange of notes on the similarities between the nationally and religiously different characters is also resonant of several similar sequences in Veer Zaara. While these films celebrate the Pakistani identity particularly by celebrating the resemblance between the two nations and their peoples- in terms of culture, ideologies and similarities in religions; what is noteworthy here is that while Pakistan and its image is presented in a refreshingly new and positive avatar, these positive attributes that are subscribed to the Pakistani identity are simultaneously also eulogizing the visibly righteous Indian identity with whom Pakistan seeks its virtuosity from. In Bajrangi Bhaijaan, peace on the frontier still rests on the good nature and magnanimity of the broad shouldered Indian hero. A religiously eclectic Zaara in Veer Zaara for instance, visibly gets this quality from her Sikh nanny (bebe) who she is raised by, someone who had willingly stayed back with Zaara’s family after partition. However, this similitude could also be interpreted as a zone where the characters cease to be bracketed as either Indian or Pakistani instead, donning an identity that transcends these two water tight compartments. In this regard, while exploring the relationship that Zaara shares with her Sikh nanny in the film, Rajinder Dudrah (2008: 50) notes that in Zaara’s commitment to the cross-border journey to India to deliver Bebe’s ashes, an audio and visual style of openness is established that refuses to be pigeonholed as simply and exclusively as India/n and Pakistan/i; rather, it is one that reaches across both borders and creates a diegetic world of fluid exchanges through its sights and sounds. This, he notes (ibid), becomes the primary pleasure of Indo-Pak border crossing in the diegetic world of Veer Zaara. This compartmentalization was seen being transcended in Kabir Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan particularly in the closure of the film when the Indian Pawan, played by Bollywood’s , symbolically becomes ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’- a blend of Pakistani and Hindustani- at the border dividing the Pakistani side of Kashmir from the Indian side. As Bajrangi leaves to cross over the border to the other side so to reach his ‘home’ with the help of thousands of Pakistani Kashmiris and Indian/Indian Kashmirirs assembled at either side of the border-fence, the emotional Bajrangi Bhaijaan bends his head to the crowd gesturing a gratitude filled aadaab, while the Pakistani kid- Shahida (addressed mostly in the film as ‘munni’), runs towards her Bhaijaan as she calls out ( her first words in the

International Research Journal of Management Sociology & Humanity ( IRJMSH ) Page 97 www.irjmsh.com IRJMSH Vol 8 Issue 6 [Year 2017] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print) film, as she is unable to speak from her childhood) jai shree ram with a broad smile on her face. The fluid identities of Bhaijaan and munni which have now visually and symbolically merged into each other, embrace one another affectionately at what seems to be a ‘no man’s land’ with oaffect being added through the gradually rising notes of music in the background followed by a freeze. This freeze between the (symbolic) embrace is striking as it is resonant of an imagination wherein human emotions are depicted as more powerful than man-made borders further, erasing pigeonholed imaginations of national identities. The second half of the film portrays an area unknown to the dominant Bollywood imagination-- Pakistani side of Kashmir, with the film accepting quite simply that the region owes its allegiance to Pakistan. This is a visually beautiful Kashmir captured through sweeping helicopter shots of the snow-capped mountain ranges, visibly drained of politics wherein, the entire village sits together to watch cricket matches on a common television sets. Such a cinematic imagination of Kashmir resonates with the change of tide that had occurred with respect to the Indo-Pak relations on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir through General Musharraf’s ‘four-step’ proposal that was discussed amongst the officials of both countries during the course of Composite Dialogue Process. On September 24, 2004, Pakistan’s General Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh met in New York and signed a joint statement indicating that they would start looking into various options on Kashmir and take the peace process forward. On December 5, 2006, Musharraf further polished his ideas and put forward the ‘four point formula’: i. Softening of LoC for trade and free movement of people. ii. Self governance/ autonomy. iii. De-militarization from whole of Jammu and Kashmir. iv. Joint supervision/ management. Padder (ibid) notes that the official and back channel talks on this four point formula on Kashmir had assisted in shifting the discourse on Kashmir in the popular media that had started to gradually adopt a more accommodative stance. For instance, while examining the reporting of the composite dialogue in Indian newspapers, Deepa Viswam (2013) notes that ‘a conflict resolution frame’ dominated the news coverage of the same particularly in two newspapers- The New Indian express and The Hindu. A notable change of language by the ministers was also visible in this period wherein, for instance, the former Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram acknowledged that the problem in Kashmir was political and considering Jammu and Kashmir’s unique history, Chidambaram iterated, ‘the issue necessitated a unique solution’ (Hindu 2010). Nevertheless, it should be noted that the much of the focus of India’s mainstream and popular media has been on either on mainstream politics or militancy related violence in the Valley. Essentially catering to the Indian nationalist perspective, these versions are carried out unquestioningly (Jamwal 2014). Further, as noted by Happymon Jacob (2016) recently, ever since the talks between Dr Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Prevez Musharaff halted in 2007, the situation in Kashmir has never been the same again. Noting the steady rise of anti-India feelings in the Valley after over 120 Kashmiris were killed at the hands of the J&K

International Research Journal of Management Sociology & Humanity ( IRJMSH ) Page 98 www.irjmsh.com IRJMSH Vol 8 Issue 6 [Year 2017] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print) and Central forces in 2010, and the hasty manner in which Afzal Guru was hanged in 2013, such feelings have only surged (ibid). In this sense, although treated in an apolitical manner, the humane depiction of the people on the Pakistani side of Kashmir and the emotional angle wherein the people were seen wanting to rise above borders, as articulated in Bajrangi Bhaijaan was nonetheless a poignant and welcome change.

Conclusion The aim of this paper has been to pay attention to the cinematic performitivity of borders and border crossings. That is, the paper notes how articulation of spaces, landscapes, culture, ideology (among other factors) have performitatively constructed imaginations of border crossings. In so doing, the paper focuses upon visualisations of border crossings which are both transcendental in nature- reflecting a pacifist ideology as well as those imaginations that focus upon a more belligerent construction of the ‘other’, consequently reinforcing a militarized and securitized imagination of borders. In so doing, this paper argues that cinematic cross border ‘performances’ have articulated two distinct versions of national identity. One the one hand, such imaginations have eulogized a narrative that constructs a fuzzy national identity, reflecting a hybrid identity that ceases to be both Indian and Pakistani and at the same time, is a combination of the two. Further, also notable in some of these films is an emphasis upon regional nationalism that symbolically transcends political borders thereby, blurring bitter historical memories wherein, it could be asserted that they helped in creating a wider community with trans-political loyalties. On the other hand, the imaginations have also promoted an understanding that anxiously and unquestioningly usurps the belligerent stance of securitized and militarized identity and borders.

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