READING THE “MUSLIM SPACE” IN BOMBAY (MUMBAI) THROUGH CINEMA
Aravind Unni
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MRE15.indb 183 04/12/14 11:44 am Bombay, now a provincial Mumbai, has been explored in many realms of has become a paradigm of many artistic representations of the city. The contestations, disconnections and writings of Salman Rushdie and the excommunications; with globalization cinematic city of Shri 420 were the and isolation going hand in hand. It is tools of exploration for Rashmi Varma in this complex context that I study, the in reading the transformation of the emergence of the (in)-visible ‘Muslim cosmopolitan Bombay to the provincial Space’ in Bombay; a global and a Mumbai.1 Whereas, popular Bombay simultaneously provincial city. The cinema was posited as a reservoir ‘Muslim space’, I argue is a result or a by Ranjini Mazumdar in “Bombay response to the fundamentalization of cinema: an archive to the city”, to politics that culminated or commenced read the cinematic landscape of the with the Bombay riots of 1992- 93. city in junction with various changing To help delineate the invisible ‘Muslim cinema types and genres. While for Space’ in Mumbai, I have employed Gyan Prakash in “Mumbai Fables”, the Bollywood cinema as my lens on the comparison of idyllic cartoons of Mario assumption that it is just not the physical Miranda to that of the riotous and reality that makes the city, but it is also uncanny urban dystopic paintings by the stories, everyday discourses, art, Sudhir Patwardhan narrate a story of symbols and the imagery that form emerging communalism and decay in an inherent part of the physical built the landscape of the city. The example form. I'm also working on the major of an urban cartoon character called assumption that cinema is a mirror Doga man, a vigilante style comic hero reflection of the society that we live of Mumbai has been studied by Gyan in. Bollywood cinema, I posit, is a tool Prakash as a direct response to the that has not been used extensively to drastically transforming characteristics understand the deeper nuances of of the city. It is these transformations that urbanism and especially in the case of constitute the narrative and stage for the (in)-visible, marginalized spaces like Doga man in Mumbai. And now after the ‘Muslim space’ in Bombay, which its phenomenal success, the cartoon is sometimes might not be perceived in going to be made into a film starring the real world. Shah Rukh Khan, the leading superstar of Hindi cinema.2 This process of cross Cinema as a tool to read the cityscape influencing and transmitting of images has resulted in the merging of art and In the past 60 years Mumbai has cinema; cinema and society; and the undergone immense social and real and the reel. cultural changes and this evolution
1. Rashmi Varma, Provincializing the Global City From Bombay to Mumbai 2. Subhash K. Jha, In conversation with Anurag Kashyap, www.bollywood hungama.com
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MRE15.indb 184 04/12/14 11:44 am It is now difficult to distinguish between postmodern theory of urbanism and cinema and life in Mumbai; they no cinema. The discourse and comparison longer imitate each other but appear of the history of urbanism combined to have merged. Political philosophies, with cinema reveals new histories of social values, group behavior, speech modernity and post-modernity that and dress in society are reflected in might be employed to read the present the cinema and are also copied from day real cities more comprehensively. cinema, like a true mirror, and it reflects Hence arguing that cities cannot be back in society. It is thus possible to viewed separately from the imagined view cinema as a legitimate metaphor cities of cinema and ignore the for Mumbai and society in general; dissolution of the real and the reel. which helps to understand society better.3 The cinematic city of Bombay The methodology to me was already ‘known’ before my first trip to the real Bombay and all my I compare and contrast films spanning explorations in the city were established six decades from the 1950s to the on the cinematic city I had experienced present with real physical spaces, which many times in the cinema hall.4 But it enables me to map the transformation of was only after my innumerable visits both the depiction of Muslims in cinema to the actual city I realized that the and also get leads about the built usual cinematic city had enclosed fabric of Muslim dominated parts of and hidden many details that I never Bombay. The sequential transformation knew of Bombay and only one of the and sidelining of Muslims in the reel many being the ‘Muslim Space’. This life suggests the sequential process study then is not just about visible built of marginalization and creation of pattern of the city of Bombay, but also the ‘Muslim Space’ in Bombay. The about the absences and the hidden (un) research aims to explore and find representations of Bombay that I seek to the many constituents or ‘elements’ explore with and within cinema. that make the ‘Muslim space’, and unpack the elements on various There are many precedents that have cinematic themes, while comparing inspired me to utilize cinema as a lens and differentiating it with the ‘Other’ to read the city. Nezar Al Sayyad’s city of Bombay (Mumbai). There must “Cinematic Urbanism”, pursues an (and are) be other elements that depict answer to this question and narrates the transformation and formation of a journey connecting the past one ‘Muslim Space’ in Bombay, but I argue, hundred years of western modern and since some of them are not fully matured
3. Akbar S. Ahmed, Bombay Films: The cinema as a metaphor for Indian society and politics, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2, May, 1992 4. Inspired from Nezar AlSayyad’s Cinematic Urbanism
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MRE15.indb 185 04/12/14 11:44 am in the cinematic form, I will hence visual mapping of the built space will employ only a few selected ones that allow for the deciphering of the (visual) have consolidated as an element of the elements employed to depict the city ‘Muslim Space’ in Bombay (Mumbai). and its (de)evolution. Thus, this section of the chapter helps in recognizing For the period till 1996, I refer to the ‘vocabulary’ of the cinematic city the present day city of Mumbai with of Bombay and which in turn can be the name it was known by since the employed to read the landscape of a colonial times, i.e. Bombay. From 1996 cinematic ‘Muslim Space’. Parallelly onwards I refer to it as Mumbai. The this section also addresses the change in name, as Rashmi Varma cinematic depiction of Muslims and suggests, points to and is a symbol the transformation in the portrayal of the provincialization of a modern with respect to the socio-political city. ‘Muslim Space’ is a term that I circumstances and the genre of films. am assigning to a space that I argue This comparison will help to establish is a space of marginalization and the relationship between the cinema, underdevelopment that is inhabited cinema types and their representation predominantly by Muslims. Even though, of Muslims in India. This chapter it is very simplistic to call it a ‘Muslim hence helps to narrow down the type Space’ because of its inhabitants, but of films to select and to facilitate a since the reasons, the constituents and comprehensive reading of the ‘Muslim the being-ness of this marginalized Space’ in Bombay (Mumbai). In section space is very different from the other three, a chronological selection of spaces of isolation and seclusion, selected films that portray Muslims in this temporary term is necessary to Bombay neighborhoods will allow a demarcate that difference. reading into the ‘Muslim Space’ and its constituents. My attempt here has The structure of the paper been to show how the various elements like ‘(dis)connections’, the ‘Other’ city, The paper is divided into three sections. the ‘railways’, the ‘red-light’ district, In section one; the research traces the ‘proximity to mills’ etc, are selected to existence of the ‘Muslim Space’ in map the transformation and evolution the history of Bombay (Mumbai). This of ‘Muslim Space’ have varied from section provides the basic historical film to film, chronologically. Hence, background for the research with which pointing to the rising being-ness of the to corroborate and substantiate the ‘Muslim Space’ in Bombay after the argument of the ‘Muslim Space’. The Hindutva doctrine emerged as a viable second section explores the cinematic contender in the socio-politico-scenario Bombay through a selection of the of the 1980s. This chapter also defines biggest hits of Bollywood cinema. This the ‘Muslim Space’ in contemporary
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MRE15.indb 186 04/12/14 11:44 am Mumbai comprised of as marginalized sometimes class groupings, or in some and decaying Muslim neighborhoods cases subsets of many variables. The using inferences from the analysis of unabated migration and the increasing elements used to map the transformation overcrowding in the native quarters of its built form. also resulted in the insecure British State segmenting and cuting open the native The history of the “Muslim Space” city through its various institutions and policies like the Bombay Improvement Bombay grew out of the seven, sparsely Trust (BIT), plague control policies and populated, disconnected islands the Police Act of 19028. The physical to the “Urbs prima in Indis”5,The restructuring of the city resulted in the transformation of the island of Bombay appropriation of the Western shores for to the city of imperial Bombay was the wealthy, the North for the middle rapid. Trade and business6 formed class, while punching through the the foundations of the strategically congested central parts to build arterial located town and invigorated the city roads connecting the upper and middle in the early 1800s7.At first this port class areas to the business districts in city traded cotton and opium with the Fort, and also to have control over China and then, as an industrial city, the possible insurrections in the native textile mills were established here in quarters.9 This resulted in the more the 1860s. The late nineteenth century marginalization and hostility of the industrialization resulted in a major many native communities, including wave of migration of mill workers from the Muslims, who were sandwiched the rural areas to the city. The structural between the rich western and eastern ‘modern’ change, accompanied industrial ‘developments’. as it was, by rural deprivation and insecure capitalism reinforced the caste and class systems prevalent in pre-British India, which was visibly inscribed in urban space. The city and especially the native quarter developed as a collage, stitched according to religion, regional, caste affiliations or
5. Term borrowed from Teresa Albuquerque’s Urbs Prima in India: an Epoch in the History of Bombay 6. Arjun Appadurai, Spectral Housing and Urban Cleansing : Notes on Millennial Mumbai, p 631 7. Gillian Tindall, City of Gold: the Biography of Bombay, p 17-25 8. Prashant Kidambi, The Making of an Indian Metropolis : Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890- 1920, p 38-40 9. Gyan Prakash, Mumbai Fables, p 81
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MRE15.indb 187 04/12/14 11:44 am Map (a) The native city and the Fort in the city of Bombay. (b) The restructuring of the city and the cutting open of the native city by the BIT in early 1900s.
Source: (a) 1902 Encyclopedia.com/Bombay (b) Edited by author, original source: History of land reclamations in Bombay
After a relatively peaceful through that offered the workers a livelihood. uneasy calm for the city of Bombay in For some Muslims in Byculla and the early decades of independence, Nagpada localities adjoining the mill the early 1980s saw the decline of districts, other avenues opened up the textile mills concentrated in central after the migration links to the countries Bombay where thousands earned their of the Persian Gulf were revived. livelihood.10 After the retrenchment Thus, a huge working population of workers from the mills, it was faced a constant struggle for a secure the informal and insecure working livelihood, while they persevered the conditions, usually for lower wages, economic downturn. And increase in
10. Sujata Patel and Jim Masselos, ed., Bombay and Mumbai : The City in Transition, p 17
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MRE15.indb 188 04/12/14 11:44 am competition by unabated rural-urban of civic amenities, dilapidated housing migration, only fueled the differences.11 and worsening physical environment The rise of the Shiv Sena (a right wing along with the fear of riots and danger Hindu party) filled up the vacuum left to their life has forced Muslims to live by the waning Congress Party on the in selected areas like Dongri, Pydhonie, national front and the losing of the hold Nagpada, Byculla, Mazgoan etc. The of the Communist Party in the mill lands lack of socio-economic and spatial of central Bombay. The Shiv Sena, until mobility over the years has turned such then pretty much directionless, gained areas (with largely Muslim population) mileage from the Hindutva wave into marginalized neighborhoods with that was sweeping the country in the very little State presence, resulting in 1980s.12 The use of distorted historical the rise of criminal activities14. narratives about a Marathi historical hero, Shivaji, in combination with a I argue the neighborhoods that now reworked discourse of regionalism, comprise of the Muslim dominated (redeployed as xenophobic populism in sections of the city have always been Bombay) worked magic for the Sena. witness to a spate of violence in the The party became the sole representative history of Bombay. The forms of violence of the Marathis in Bombay.13 have ranged from riots between intra- religious sects; between inter-religious The country’s most western and sects; between the inhabitants and the cosmopolitan city was under anarchy for State and also in the guise of various a couple of months in December 1992 developmental mechanisms adopted by and January 1993. Bombay never the State. These spates of violent acts was the same after the riots. Planned have always rearranged the populations and orchestrated attacks on its Muslim innumerable times in different inhabitants by the Sena in connivance permutations and combinations. The with the State left the city dismembered neighborhood hostilities over the years on religious lines. Later in 1995, riding has played out in various forms and the wave on a polarized electorate, means. These contestations, which have the Sena became part of the elected been both violent and nonviolent, are the State, renaming the cosmopolitan nature of this city, and suggest that the Bombay into a provincial Mumbai. The neighborhood identities are transitory cityscape of Mumbai is now fractured in quality and transform with time. But on the lines of class, caste, region and it was only after the last riots of 1992- for the Muslims; their religion. The lack 93 that there was a considerable and
11. Thomas Blom Hansen, Wages of Violence : Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay, p 78 12. Jim Masselos, The City in Action: Bombay Struggles for Power, p 364 13. Thomas Blom Hansen, Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay, p 47, 71 14. M.K. Raghavendra, 50 Indian Film Classics; Tejaswini Ganti, Bollywood : A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema
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MRE15.indb 189 04/12/14 11:44 am perceptible mass migration of Muslims form and discourse of Bombay. As the within the city to certain pockets with analysis suggests, the ‘Muslim Space’ a substantial minority population for has reinforced itself in the past few security, thereby scripting the existence decades of fundamentalist politics of of a marginalized ‘Muslim Space’ in Hindutva or if it existed before, it might Bombay; where Muslims in the city live have had different characteristics. The together in fear of communal violence. ‘Muslim Space’ then, I argue, exists The violent history of the space and the and might be only a temporal set of faulty policies that the State institutions characteristics and identities, which inherited from the British appear to might with time and intervention by the have left an impact thereby maintaining State, erase or strengthen this particular a common mistrust that marginalizes shape that it exists in now. the people of a specific area. Hence forming neighborhoods that were Reading the city through cinema easily painted as Muslim dominated, outside of which no Muslim gets to The research aims to explore the rent space. The flash point came in the landscape of Bombay through cinema 1980s where the Muslim dominated from the 1950s to the present and neighborhoods just south of the Mill to identify elements or themes that districts, where thousands of workers are employed by the cinema to paint were dispossessed of their livelihood an (realistic or otherwise) image of were swayed by right wing Hindu party. the city. The selected movies are the The Sena which invoked the plebian biggest hits or trend-setters of Hindi and violent spectacle of the 19th cinema that have Bombay (Mumbai) as century festivals, found their ‘others’ the backdrop for the narrative.15 Thus, in the relatively prosperous Muslim this section of the chapter will help community in south central Bombay and in recognizing the vocabulary of the vented their frustration and strategically cinematic city of Bombay (Mumbai). used the mill workers' grievances for communal polarization which later in In the ‘city of hope’ of 1950s as 1995 reaped electoral benefits. represented in Shri 420, built form is typically associated with “modernity” By charting the historical transformation (defined as Western) and used to define of Bombay’s socio-political atmosphere the city. The symbolic presence of trains, and the ensuing changes in the flyovers and wide roads signifies the new landscape, the attempt was to map the ‘modernity’ of Bombay in the 1950s.16 existence or the non-existence of the The ‘rich city’ as an element had still ‘Muslim Space’ in the historical built not crystallized and was still accessible
15. Philip Lutgendor, Philip'sfil-ums Notes on Indian Popular Cinema, http://www.uiowa. edu/~incinema 16. Ranjani Mazumdar, Bombay Cinema : An Archive of the City, p 2
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MRE15.indb 190 04/12/14 11:44 am to the poor. While in the city of Deewar the docks emerge as new players and in 1970s, these elements of modernity spaces respectively in the 1970s that transform dramatically. The cityscape define the industrial Bombay. changes from a landscape of optimism to the landscape of confrontation; In films likeVaastav , the presence or better put, the landscape itself is of chawls conveys the decay and related to the cause of confrontation.17 congestion in the neighborhoods of The divide between the rich and poor the mill district in the 1980s, where the is also more visible. Unlike Shri 420, disgruntled citizenry resorts to informal where the poor were far more optimistic means to survive. In Parinda of late 80s, about the city, the poor in Deewar are the decayed neighborhoods degenerate struggling to survive. Homelessness to a “city of death”.18 The rundown changes to the more hostile life on the factories and abandoned docks all turn “footpath”. The tropes of ‘modernity’ of into spaces of staged violence and have the 1950s like that of the trains and rail been sucked up by the underworld for lines transform into sites of action and illegal activities; signaling the rise of confrontation. The workers, unions and the underworld and the demise of an
Image i. The generic city in Shree 420 Image ii. Dewaar
17. Ibid, p 151, 163 18. Deepa Deosthalee, The Truth Lies in the Picture, Indian Express 1998
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MRE15.indb 191 04/12/14 11:44 am ‘industrial city’ in Bombay. Amidst the instead, a claustrophobic, dark informality and illegality, the city of Mumbai in crisis.19 This was taken to a Bombay and its skyline had crystallized new scale altogether when in Company in the imagination of the cinema, but the city loses its decayed existence with the advent of gangster movies entirely and dissolves in character, with like Satya in 1990s, the image of the its connections to the global underworld glamorous and touristy Mumbai had circuit.20 been broken and the cinematic Bombay ceased to exist, and there emerges
Image iii. Satya; love in Mumbai Image iv. Company; the non-existence of Mumbai stained with blood
Image v. A Wednesday Image vi. Mumbai Meri Jaan
19. Ranjani Mazumdar, Bombay cinema : an archive of the city, p 174 20. Lalitha Gopalan, Cinema of interruptions : action genres in contemporary Indian cinema, Introduction
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MRE15.indb 192 04/12/14 11:44 am Continuing from the post 2000s, the ‘smuggler’ of 1980s, then to that Mumbai ceases to exist as a whole of Muslim the ‘jihadists’ of the 1990s city, the broken fragments and with far and to now a collective acceptance of greater divides between the rich and common Muslims in India as ‘victims’ the poor, the Hindu and the Muslim of bias and neglect.22 This comparison hostility, the high rises and the slums will help to establish the relationship and various other disjointed elements between the cinema, cinema types and tear the city fabric into many pieces. representation of Muslims in India, so Consequently, the films likeMumbai as to employ cinema as a tool to study Meri Jaan, and A Wednesday show the marginalization of Muslims and in Mumbai as a city almost on the verge turn, study its physical manifestation in of a breakdown. A post-modern city the built form of the city. Thus, I argue where the built elements of the erstwhile that just the Hindi mainstream cinema Bombay, namely the rails and the is not sufficient, to be employed to read footpaths of Shri 420, the docks and the actual conditions of Muslims in the godowns of Deewar, the chawls India and thereby the ‘Muslim Space’ in and the mills of Vaastav, the rundown Bombay. The major reason behind these factories and abandoned docks of incomplete or false representations, if Parinda, the claustrophobia of Satya, very simplistically put are its formulaic the global connections of Company, nature of mainstream Hindi cinema the absent State in A Wednesday, all based on market trends, the wide have collapsed beyond repair. array of audience, the majoritarian Hindu populace of the country and Parallelly, if we map the transformation the uncertain markets. These absences of the artistic representation of the were only addressed in a few selected largest minority in India, it has always genres forms which emerged as a been contested and a controversial radical response to the formulaic terrain. Bollywood cinema, often mainstream. The ‘New Wave’ cinema spectacular in form and formulaic in the 1970s or as the ‘Middle Path’ in content meant21 for commercial cinema in the 1990s evolved, and now success, has never been able to portray the low-cost ‘Multiplex’ Cinemas in the the Muslims in India realistically. The post 2000s are perfect examples. chronological comparison reveals how Muslims’ depiction in Bollywood cinema has changed and with its diminishing screen presence from Muslim the ‘comedian’ in imagined secular India of 1970s to that of Muslim
21. Syed Ali Mujtaba, Bollywood and the Indian Muslims, http://www.indianmuslims.info/articles/ syed_ali_mujtaba/articles/bollywood_and_the_indian_muslims.html 22. Ira Bhaskar and Richard Allen, Islamicate cultures of Bombay cinema, p 97
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MRE15.indb 193 04/12/14 11:44 am Mapping the “Muslim Space” in of Bombay and presents a picture of Bombay (Mumbai) despair and anguish for the Muslims who are ostracized in Bombay, and The selection of the films to read the those who in turn opt for violence to ‘Muslim Space’ is based on the analysis earn a livelihood. And not an untrue of the representation of Muslims in image of bravado and glamorous death Hindi cinema in the previous section. as prevalent in the action flicks of late As mentioned, the Hindi mainstream 1980s. Naseem charts the narrative of cinema has more than often depicted a young school going girl Naseem, in a contrived imagery of the Muslims in the months leading up to the demolition India. So to escape a skewed reading of Babri Masjid in 1992. It is a very of the Muslim Space, the filmography intimate story involving a young girl has been restricted to “New Wave and her grandfather in the terrible times cinema” of the 1970s, from which of communal frenzy. Naseem deals Dastak (1970), Salmi Langde Pe with nostalgia to contrast it with the Mat Ro (1989) and late New Wave realistic simmering communal violence cinema Naseem (1995) are selected.23 during the lead up to Bombay riots of Dastak’s story is set in Bombay of the 1992-93. 1970s, in a neighborhood close to the red-light area, where a newly-wed From the popular 1990s, a “Middle couple Hamid and Salma unwittingly Path” filmBombay (1995) is the pick. rent a flat. The previous occupant of Bombay narrates a story about a couple their home, to their misery, was a (in) from different religious faiths, who fall famous ganewaali (a courtesan). And in love and elope from the conservative thus begin their daily turmoil and fight village to the cosmopolitan Bombay. for survival in the hostile and harsh And yet ironically they find themselves city.24 Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro (Salim in a Bombay that is provincial, divided LMPR) navigates the real murky side along communal lines. The film
Still i: Title scene from Salim LMPR Still ii: The fast paced cosmopolitan city represented by Victoria Terminus in Bombay
23. Review of film Dastak, http://passionforcinema.com/dastak-1970/ 24. Lalitha Gopalan, Bombay, p 14
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MRE15.indb 194 04/12/14 11:44 am incorporates the conventional formulas between the Islamic extremists and the for commercial cinema, but combines partial society. These films are selected it with a gripping realistic storyline set because of their realistic narrative in a volatile socio-political scape. Thus, involving the Muslims in Bombay and, it is classified into a genre of Middle break away from the distorted and path cinema. 25 stereotypical representation of Muslims in mainstream cinema. Whereas Aamir is a proponent of the refreshing new “Multiplex cinema” is Defining the “Muslim Space” the choice in the 2000s.26 Aamir is a 2008 Hindi film that revolves around a The ‘Muslim Space’ as derived and young Muslim man, Dr. Aamir Ali, who delineated in the analysis of the has returned to Mumbai from the United selected movies, corresponds to the Kingdom and finds himself at the mercy transforming nature of neighborhoods of Islamic extremists who want to use him in the wake of socio-political and other as a pawn to carry out a bombing in the external forces. The Muslim dominated city. In case of Aamir, a common Indian neighborhood in Dastak was a Muslim is represented as the victim of heterogeneous mix of populations with stigmatization and bias, who suffers in Muslims having a prominent presence.
Still iii. The Glitzy Mumbai in Aamir
25. Sharma, Aparna, India’s Experience with the Multiplex, Seminar 25 26. St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City
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MRE15.indb 195 04/12/14 11:44 am The religious identity and markers were a predominant Hindu presence also not considered important in defining suggested the proximity and possible the neighbourhood identity and it was fringe to the Muslim neighbourhoods. proximity to the rail lines that was the Aamir in the 2000s depicts a glamorous landmark. The thriving connections global Mumbai, which it contrasts with the ‘Other’ city ensured life in the with the homogenous, secluded and mainstream and a responsible State also criminalized Muslim underbelly of helped in negating the marginalization Mumbai. The disconnection of the associated with the red-light district. people and the neighbourhoods is But the Muslim neighbourhoods in very obvious from the decaying built Salim LPMR changed to homogenous form and abysmal living conditions. isolated community without any formal The illegalities and anti-social elements, connections with the ‘Other’ city. and now sentiments against the ‘Other’ Mumbai is apparent. The rail lines and The ‘Other’ city vs. ‘Muslim Space’ the trains have become an intrinsic part of the Aamir’s landscape. The towering The new connections that were developing were only of illegality supported by anti-social elements. The absence of the State being filled by the gang lords and smugglers, added to the criminalization and marginalization of the neighbourhood. Mosques had emerged in the form of identity markers and rail lines suggested isolation. The presence of the red-light district in the locality suggested the immobility Still iv. Hamid and Salma enjoying in the ‘other’ and seclusion of Muslims in Bombay. city in Dastak By 1992-93 riots, in Bombay and Naseem, presents a community mixed in character, but having enmity and mistrust towards each other. And in case of Bombay, the animosity was very visible in the volatile ‘borders’ of rioting communities. Moreover, the religious institutions were now prominent landmarks in the neighbourhood and also a source of violence. The audibility of the trains and the mills in case of Still v. The Uneasy Salim in a high-end restaurant in Bombay suggests its marginality, and Salim LPMR
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MRE15.indb 196 04/12/14 11:44 am minarets of the innumerable mosques in its streets suggest the emergence of religious identity of the neighbourhoods.
Proximity to the railways as a marker of the ‘Muslim Space’
I argue that the neighbourhoods in Dastak and its transformed type in Still viii. The defunct Phoenix mills in Salim LPMR Salim LPMR might be considered the ‘core’ of the ‘Muslim Space’ in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, but localities depicted in Bombay are the best examples of ‘borders’ of ‘Muslim Space’. While in the case of Naseem, the well-off Muslim family living away from the conventional elements of the ‘Muslim Space’ likes railways, mills, red-light area etc. forms the relatively Still ix. The high-rises have replaced the Mills in posh ‘margins’ of the ‘Muslim Space’. Aamir, and overlook Muslim neighbourhoods
Still vi. The train stations as landmarks in Dastak Still x. The rising presence of religious structures in Salim LPMR
Still vii. Raillines adjacent to the rundown apartment Still xi. The minarets become ‘the character’ of the in Aamir neighbouhoods in Aamir
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MRE15.indb 197 04/12/14 11:44 am Continuing to the last of the selected within the neighbourhood etc. The films, Aamir, which I argue becomes elements present in the cinematic the ‘core’ and the most heightened Bombay from Dastak transformed and version of the ‘Muslim Space.’ The metamorphosed into the Muslim space neighbourhood represented in this in Aamir’s Mumbai. This assumption of film has all the elements in their neighbourhoods with varying degrees most complete form of being-ness; of built form elements will help to form disconnections with the ‘Other’ city; a much more comprehensive, nuanced the trains as a striking visual presence; and more whole configuration of the the illegal, anti-national and global Muslim space in Bombay. connections; dissolution of the brothels
Red-light district as a part of ‘Muslim space’ in Bombay
Still xii. Salim strawling through the brothels in Still xiii. The erotic song sequence situated in the Salim LPMR red-light district in Bombay
Still xiv. A prostitue soliciting in the Indo-Gulf lodge in Aamir
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MRE15.indb 198 04/12/14 11:44 am Conclusion that I have termed here the ‘Muslim Space’, suggest a change in the real The films that I have analyzed point socio-politico-economic space as points to a drastic transformation of the to the existence of a real ‘Muslim neighbourhoods under study and Space’, albeit in a diluted form. consequently, the being-ness of ‘Muslim Space’ in Bombay (Mumbai). This cinematic representation of Muslim The transformations mapped include space becomes all the more well defined the change in the composition of the and contrasting when compared to the neighbourhood from a heterogeneous cinematic representation of elements mix of Hindus and Muslims to a largely of the cityscape elsewhere in Mumbai. homogenous grouping of Muslim The developing disconnections and residents alone; the rising prominence distancing of the Muslim community of religious institutions; the cultural (dis) can be attributed to their increasing connections with the ‘Other’, more global marginalization in Indian socio-political Mumbai; the existence of transnational life. But the manifestation of the ‘Other’ connections with the Persian Gulf; city in the conventional mainstream the evolution of illegal associations cinema (Shri 420, Parinda, Satya etc.) is and the ensuing criminalization/ always in the form of an oasis of leisure religious profiling of the residents of and fun. The cinematic landscape of this neighbourhood by the ineffective the ‘Other’ city is always replete with State; the physical marginalization of modern high-rises and promenades the Muslim neighbourhoods depicted alongside the sea where all the romantic via the ominous heightening presence sequences are shot with the backdrop of of the railway tracks; ubiquitous the Mumbai skyline. However, this same proximity to the defunct mills and ‘Other’ glitzy Bombay (Mumbai) in the the red-light districts. While a walk perspective of the inhabitants of the through the Nagpada and other ‘Muslim Space’ emerges to be hostile Muslim neighbourhoods in Mumbai and troubling; for them the ‘Other’ city today, as I often undertook during the is an object of both awe and angst. course of my research last summer, Again, the Mumbai local trains, which does reveal some of these elements of in conventional Hindi films become the the built form in plain view, but is more site of action and love, like in Deewar, perceptible in the films I have analyzed Satya etc, transform into the symbol of as the camera’s eye produces a much marginalization and isolation in the heightened awareness of these same context of Muslim protagonists. While elements, compressed as they are in there are transmutations in the import space and time. The persistent presence of the elements or themes used to depict of these elements in the representation the larger city of Mumbai in cinema, of Muslim neighbourhoods in cinema, there are other themes like that of the
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MRE15.indb 199 04/12/14 11:44 am red-light districts that always (and only) demarcations of neighbourhoods, feature in the selected films centered while in the case of Naseem, the rich around the ‘Muslim Space’. The brothel, Muslim family with some mobility living as a site, is usually not entertained in in a Hindu dominated locality, may mainstream cinema, meeting with the be seen to depict the margins of the censors cut. All the selected films except ‘Muslim Space’. The elements present for Naseem contained a red-light in the cinematic Bombay from Dastak district in the same neighbourhood. transformed and metamorphosed Such contrasts in the depiction of the into the Muslim space in Aamir, with Muslim neighbourhoods from other Bombay being its volatile boundary neighbourhoods in Mumbai, underscore and Naseem being its porous edge. the distinctiveness of the existence The ‘Muslim Space’ in Bombay/ of a cinematic ‘Muslim Space’ and Mumbai, thus I argue, started off as a its constituents. Muslim dominated neighbourhood in the old part of Bombay, which through In section three I posit a layered spatial the past four decades has changed form of the ‘core’, ‘margins’ and ‘border’ in its character and constituents of ‘Muslim Space.’ The ‘Muslim Space’ due to socio-political circumstances then becomes a space not bound in prevalent in its times. The once mixed the imagined marked limits that form locality developed into a distinct a marginalized community, but at neighbourhood with homogenous times a porous and at others marked religious characteristics and elements boundaries with the city surrounding that made it a ‘Muslim Space’. it and beyond. The neighbourhood in Aamir forms the core, and those A clearer definition of the ‘Muslim Space’ in Nassem and Bombay, forms the can be derived from its comparison ‘margins’ and the ‘boundaries’ to the case of the hyper-ghetto in the respectively. The locality in Salim LPMR American context, which has similarities can be said to be the predecessor to the ‘Muslim Space’ on many fronts. of the ‘Muslim Space,’ in which the The ghetto is essentially defined as a becoming and forming of cinematic socio-spatial result (and device) of the ‘Muslim Space’ via the elements is marginalization of a subordinate group visible, differing markedly from Dastak, endowed with negative associations, by where there is clear absence of the the hegemonic group.27 As Wacquant elements of ‘Muslim Space’ in present notes, massive migrations from the cinematic form. The volatile and violent American South to the Northern-Eastern communities in the film Bombay in the and Mid-Western Metropolises forced 1990s suggest the presence of clear African-Americans to congregate in a
27. Rethinking Race and Imprisonment in Twenty-First-Century America, Boston Review http://bostonreview. net/BR27.2/wacquant.html
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MRE15.indb 200 04/12/14 11:44 am ‘Black 27 Loïc Wacquant, “from slavery A similar history can be narrated in to mass incarceration: Rethinking the the case of Muslims in Bombay, the ‘race question’ in the US” New Left communal hostilities only increased Review, Belt’ which quickly became after the de-industrialization and the overcrowded, underserved and blighted retrenchment of workers, which led by crime, disease, and dilapidation, to the earlier riots in the 1980s, in while the ‘job ceiling’ restricted and around Bombay. This economic them to the most hazardous, menial, downturn and hostilities led to gradual and underpaid occupations with no homogenization of the Muslim space, opportunity for social equality.28 Even as depicted in the becoming of the though ostracized from the mainstream, ‘Muslim Space’ in Salim LPMR. The the African-Americans played a key role resulting disconnections with the rest of in the manufacturing economy of the the city system lead to new connections city, thus making them and their ‘space’ of illegality and migrations to the Persian an indispensible and autonomous entity Gulf, thus giving the marginalized space for the cities. But in the 1970s, the a relative autonomy. The rich Muslims, structural shift to a suburban service differing from the hyperghetto moved economy meant that large segments of towards the outskirts of the marginalized the workforce contained in the ‘Black space, as the space crunch and high Belts’ of the Northern metropolises were value real estate of Mumbai holds simply no longer needed. The resulting them to their roots, thus, producing a hyper-ghettoization as noted by Loïc ring of posh Muslim neighbourhoods Wacquant points out how the flight of on the outskirts of Muslim space, with the relatively rich from the ghetto makes the interiors occupied by the most it more homogenized in terms of class, undesired elements. This case is clearly thus leaving the poorest of the poor in the manifested cinematically in the case of ghettos and breaking the ghetto socially Naseem, where the family resides in the and economically. In the present, margins of the ‘Muslim Space’. But with Wacquant points out “it has devolved the riots of 1992-93 and later with the into one-dimensional machinery for drastic urban expansion of Mumbai, brutal relegation, a human warehouse there has now been a flight of well-off for the segments of urban society Muslims out of the ‘Muslim Space’, thus deemed disreputable, derelict, and transforming the ‘margins’ into volatile dangerous,”29 with easily quantifiable ‘boundaries’ like in that of Bombay. impacts by way of indicators like rising The other aspect that separates the unemployment, deteriorating housing, ‘Muslim Space’ from a hyper-ghetto is and falling literacy levels. the presence of an alternative economic structure, the emigrational links to the Persian gulf and the presence of a
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MRE15.indb 201 04/12/14 11:44 am rich Muslim community still holding a might with time and intervention by the substantial amount of the wholesale State, erase or strengthen the particular market trade in Mumbai. shape that it exists in now. My attempt through the use of cinema was to read The ‘Muslim Space’, thus is a unique the marginalization and seclusion in spatial-temporal phenomenon and cinematic Mumbai is just a step towards manifestation as a result of religious understanding and recognizing the real conflict that has emerged in the post- ‘Muslim Space’, thereby opening new Hindutva era in the socio-political life avenues of further research of how the of India. The Muslim Space, I have reel might be also reinforcing the real in argued is a result of only a temporal set Mumbai and vice versa. of characteristics and identities, which
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