Riding on terror?
RANA SIDDIQUI
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Is the stereotypical portrayal of Muslims and terrorists in Hindi films set for a change?
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POOJA BHATT SAYS “Dhokha” attempts to find out why youth in J&K are taking to guns or suicide bombing.
“Yahaan”
When was the last time one saw militants, read terrorists, realistically portrayed in a commercial Hindi film? In the world of Bollywood, which duly influences the common man’s view of reality, these creatures are gun toting, weird-look
ing men with a namaz mark on their forehead. They sport long, unruly hair and gumboots. They have a ‘tasbih’ ( rosary) in one hand and a gun in the other. They incite young Muslims boys to take innocent people’s lives in the name of Jihad. They lecture them on how they would go to paradise if they create terror.
Remember Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “Mission Kashmir”? His portrayal of Jackie Shroff as Hilal Kohistani, a brutal militant leader dedicated to a jihad seeking the independence of Kashmir, was copied by many filmmakers later. Though it sensitively brought to light the confused youth in J&K. But the irony is, the moment one says a film deals with the problem of terrorism, it is taken for granted the word terrorist means ‘Muslim’.
“Fanaa”
If commercial films influence the common perception, the opposite also happens. Though The nations is bandied about freely, though no one talks about Hindu terrorism or Christian terrorism, and the films follow suit. In the name of patriotism, our films are littered with anti-Muslim dialogues, and the portrayal of Indian Muslims is restricted to a man wearing a namaz topi, chewing paan and doing no good to his nation.
Exceptions
Films portraying Islam in a true light are few and far between. And mind you, these are the ones which also portrayed the human side of the terrorists and the making of one. These films were not only commercially successful but also critically acclaimed. Take for instance Shoojit Sircar’s “Yahaan” that portrayed the emotional side of a Muslim army officer posted in riot-afflicted Kashmir. He falls in love with a native girl played by (Minissha Lamba) and with her help makes her brother (played by Yashpal), who has taken to the gun, submit to the government. Similarly in “Fanaa”, director Kunal Kohli tried to portray the patriotic side of a Muslim family in Kashmir as also what happens to a ‘jihadi’ when he falls in love.
Says Kohli, “My hero decides to lose to love rather than the gun. That he wants to fight for a free Kashmir is his ideological problem and no army can fight an ideology. One should learn to accept and respect that they have a belief different from us. I totally agreed to this idea and showed that a Muslim in India is as patriotic as a person from any other religion existing here. There is no reason why one should show Muslims only as gun-toting, misguided fools.”
“Sarfarosh”.
John Matthew Matthan’s “Sarfarosh”, a hit and also a critically acclaimed film shows a Pakistani singer Ghulfam (played by Naseeruddin Shah) coming to India with the aim of vengeance. If Aamir Khan plays a patriotic ACP, Mukesh Rishi plays a Muslim police officer who has to prove himself doubly to establish that he is a patriot.
Says Matthan, “If the singer is Ravan, ACP is Ram and police officer is Hanuman who had to tear his chest to show that Ram (read the country) was so dear to him. The portrayal of terrorists in Indian film has a rhetoric that is totally unfounded in logic. If they say Allah-o-Akbar, it doesn’t make them terrorists.”
AS WE SEE IT Stills from “Mission Kashmir”
Adds Khalid Mohammad, the maker of “Fiza” that showed a young boy (played by Hritik Rohsan) pushed to take to guns, “Somewhere I was ‘Fiza’ (played by Karisma Kapoor) in the film, who goes in search of her lost brother. My film was based on a true incident in Mumbai in which a few Kashmiri families told me how the young boys in their families never came back from Kashmir. They feared that they might have turned terrorists. As a filmmaker I feel sorry how public opinion is being moulded by giving a wrong portrayal of Muslims, especially youth in J&K, as terrorists. I feel after 9/11, they are portrayed no less than terrorists anyway.”
A promise not met
Now perhaps Pooja Bhatt, with “Dhokha” releasing shortly, will join the list of filmmakers recognised as providing a sensitive portrayal of the issue. This time though, the focus is on the suicide bombers and the making of one. While Tulip Joshi plays a suicide bomber, Muzamil Ibrahim plays her husband who tries to find out the truth behind his wife’s “real self”.
A scene from Pooja Bhatt’s soon-to-be released “Dhokha”.
Says Pooja, “My film has a tagline ‘Some betrayals can never be forgotten’. It refers to a promise of equality that was made to the minorities, especially Muslims, during the Partition. That promise has still not been fulfilled. My film explores the making of a suicide bomber in that context. I am showing the ‘other side of the victim’. I rooted Tulip’s part in Devigarh fort in Udaipur. My research for the film revealed that there are 8000 people reported missing in Jammu and Kashmir and the J&K Government is taking no note of it. It only humbly attempts to say that if youth there are taking to guns or suicide bombing, one should find out why. But it also says ‘never give up hope’. Nowhere does it justify the making of a suicide bomber or their actions. So my portrayal of the victim brings truth to the fore. It is after all filmmakers’ responsibility to help people know the truth and not circulate wrong notions about the minorities in India.”
Let’s hope “Dhokha” meets the promise.
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