Cinema and the Muslim

The influence of popular Hindi cinema—mainstream, commercial, popular films with their base in the teeming metropolis, Bombay (now Mumbai)—has emerged as an unmatched cultural force over the past decades since its establishment as an essential element of popular culture in South Asia. The choreography of drama and melodrama, music, song, good and evil, and action—the essential markers of a commercial Hindi film—has, over the years amalgamated another socio-political element in its larger narrative—the imagination and representation of the Muslim, and as a consequence Islam, in popular culture. The article, thus, aims to understand the dynamics of the portrayal of the Muslim in general, and the Indian Muslim in particular in commercial Hindi cinema, particularly contemporary commercial Hindi cinema, in an age when the lines between the real and the imaginary have blurred irrevocably. The Ramjanmabhoomi agitation and the rampant bloodletting that followed the demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya generated interest in the imagery of the Muslim in propaganda literature easily available all through the northern plains. This image of the Muslim, as the invader, the mlechcha, the outsider, the “abductor” of chaste Hindu women then became the mainstay of popular portrayal in Hindi films. An entire generation of Kashmiris involved in the movement for azaadi in the state, which later came to be supported by foreign mercenaries as well as the Western imagination of the “Moslem” as terrorist specifically after 9/11 attacks on the United States of America have fuelled a similar image of the Muslim as traitor and, most importantly as a terrorist. A careful examination of the popular Hindi films released between 1991-2012 provides enough ammunition to make clear a trend that possesses the ability to both disturb and unnerve scholars and observers of cinema. The analysis of the selected films is based on three distinct categories—films that portrayed the Muslim as a communal aggressor, those that represented the Muslim as a terrorist, and the “secular” portrayal of the Muslim in what can be termed as the New Wave in popular Hindi cinema. Several scholars, such as Robert Rosenstone and Dana Strand claim that written history as well as cinematic representation of history is history that is represented and not the past itself. Such representation is mediated by factors beyond just the content and the context. Janet Ward posits the “intentionalist” nature of the cinematic interpretation of the Holocaust. The agency of the powers behind the cinematic representation, therefore, emerges as essential elements in the equation. Edward Said’s discourse on “Orientalism” is evoked to deconstruct the representation of Eastern cultures in modern day American cinema . Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s propaganda model remains a useful tool in the hands of researchers seeking answers to the distortions delineated in the mass media of which cinema is a part. The Marxist theorization on mass media assumes that all forms of mass media remain within and are controlled by the wider economic, social, and political superstructure of capitalist discourse. A large majority of film theorists emphasize on the “image” being the centrepiece of cinema. Andre Bazin defines cinema as pictorial imagery produced by photographic means and displayed to produce the impression of movement. The “imaginary signifier” remains at the core of Christian Metz’s works on cinema and presupposes the existence of imagery that fascinates the spectators through absent presence, triggering powerful psychic responses. Opposed to this essentialist conception of cinema, Gregory Currie holds forth on the “natural” theory of cinema. Film semioticians, on the other hand describe cinema as a discursive form, which depends on constructed codes, which lead to meaning production. No discussion on representation in Indian cinema can be complete without a discussion of the historical and economic processes that contributed to the emergence of the Indian film industry as one of the most potent cultural forces in history. Representational modes in Indian cinema, particularly popular Hindi cinema evolved over time to form four epochal categories—the Muslim in empire cinema, the Muslim in Partition cinema, the Muslim in Islamicate cinema, and the Muslim in non-Islamicate cinema. Then came Mani Ratnam’s Roja (1992), arguably the first film to blatantly portray the Muslim as a terrorist. In order to arrive at a conclusive analysis of the “communal” aspect of Muslim characters in the films released between 1991 and 2012, let us glance at four Bollywood films that present a comprehensive picture. While on the one hand both Dev (2004) and Shaurya (2008) establish the context of the events and politics that intersect to produce a communal cauldron, Pinjar (2003) and 1947-Earth (1998) further clarify the presence of the “positive” Muslim in Partition narratives, both among those that did not migrate and those that did, building an imagery that tends to remain within the constraints of a discursive yet dominant discourse that imagines these positive Muslims as set pieces in the larger project of nation building. Black Friday, unapologetically divergent from the other films under consideration, postulates the “other” point of view, first creating a framework for the perpetration of a terrorist activity, then deconstructing the police procedural that led to the capture of the accused and their subsequent interrogations that reveal their motivations. Films, such as Fiza (2000), Sarfarosh (1999), Kurbaan, New York, and Black and White (2008) are significant contributions in constructing the image of a Muslim as a terrorist. Here, it is imperative to mention the sub-set of the overarching period delineated for the purpose of analysis used to analyse “terrorist” films. While Fiza and Sarfarosh represent the post-Babri period (1991-2000); Kurbaan, New York, and Black and White belong to the post-9/11 period. The representations are found to vary considerably. The representation of the Muslim as the communal aggressor leads to a further and continued observation of selected films, which initially appear to traverse familiar territory in terms of the popular imagination of the Muslim “terrorist”. The results obtained from the analysis of films mentioned above are unique and provide the bedrock for the development of the argument that supports the “positive stereotyping” thesis. Arguably however the manner in which the Muslim terrorist is imagined in the post-9/11 scenario is markedly different from the representation of the Muslim terrorist in films such as Fiza and Sarfarosh. The analysis throws yet another fascinating outcome. There seems to emerge an unmistakable trend towards a “secular” portrayal of the Muslim in the films under scrutiny. Films like Gangs of Wasseypur Part 1 & 2 (2012), Kahaani (2012), Rang De Basanti (2006), and Chak De India (2007) portray Indian Muslims as central, mainstream characters, capable of taking the narrative further. Films such as Jodha Akbar (2008) and Veer Zaara (2004), particularly with regard to their portrayal of the just Muslim emperor as against the popular majoritarian discourse of the medieval Muslim rulers being iconoclasts and zealots and the modern Pakistani youth being prepared to leave the ghosts of the Partition behind, are powerful imageries, which cannot be ignored. Muslim characters in New Wave popular Hindi cinema are divested of all markers of their faith, causing an invocation of Max Weber’s theory of secularization, followed by Francis Robinson’s works on secularization of public life in South Asia . The Muslims, it must be therefore said, are being considered against conceptual frameworks like “inclusion” and “assimilation”. An overwhelming predominance of “positive” Muslim characters in films produced between 19991-2012 signifies a struggle for discursive space between the “positive” and the “negative” Muslim where the positive Muslim, barring a few instances, emerges as the victor. This is in consonance with the dominant discourse, which posits the Muslim as a set-piece in the nation-building project. Any and all challenges to this overarching discourse are embodied in the person of the “negative” Muslim characters in popular Hindi films. It is noticed that “terrorist” films too must adhere to the dominant discourse where terrorism and terrorists are represented as a challenge to the Hindutva discourse of the essential function of the Muslim in the larger nation-building project. Here again, the problematic of representation resurfaces, positing on the one hand the positive Muslim defined as per the tenets of the Nehruvian nation-building project against that of the largely exclusionary right-wing majoritarian discourse. Also significantly important is the impact of the rise of global Islamic terrorism, the 9/11 attacks, and the “war on terror” unleashed by the United States and its allies on several regions of the world. Popular Hindi cinema is seen to respond to trends in international politics by identifying the Muslim terrorist as a non-state actor and locating him in foreign lands. The tendency for “positive stereotyping” runs through the development of the secularized identity in the New Wave of popular Hindi cinema. Even as secularization has occurred, the adherence to the dominant discourse, particularly the tenets concerning the proclivity of the Muslims to aggressive behaviour and violence, appears to have solidified. Religion, therefore, has been driven away from the cinematic sphere, but the secular Muslim seems to exist within the framework of the hegemonic Hindutva discourse on the “ideal” Muslim. The progression, therefore, suggests that the majority is defining the image of the Muslim through popular Hindi cinema.