'Any film made is a political statement given'

Few weeks ago, I had attended a lecture on films studies where many Bollywood movies were discussed in political perspective. At the end of the lecture I was fairly convinced that no film is made in isolation, without any political influence. In fact, stories are told at the backdrop of major socio-political developments. I was on a high about my knowledge of Indian cinema, especially after attending that insightful lecture. To flaunt this newly acquired knowledge, I had put my gmail custom message as “Any film made is a political statement given.’ Only to be rebuked by a movie bug friend of mine with whom I share common fondness for films, food and SRK. She bombed me with name of movies in which you can, at surface level, hardly find any element of politics. She was furious as for her it was a sweeping statement which undermined the entertainment values of cinema.

I was forced to agree and changed my custom message.

In the pursuit of knowing more about Indian cinema, I came across “The Muslim Others of Indian Cinema: Questions of Nation and Narration’, the book by Nadim Asrar, a working journalist and Ford scholar. The title itself made me curious not because I am a Muslim and wanted to know how Muslims and films are related. Neither I was excited to read a book written by a close friend. Rather out of vengeance, I was in search of few books on politics and cinema. As I was bogged down by my friend I wanted to avenge her on the same topic. And, vengeance is like a fire, the more it devours the hungrier it gets.

In the book in question, the author discusses few popular Hindi movies in a political perspective. The author discusses films at the backdrop of two major incidents: demolition of the Babari Masjid by Hindu extremists and the attack on the World Trade Center by Muslim 'terrorists'. While the book doesn’t dwell on the specific details and interpretations of the two incidents, this study draws from the way these two incidents have influenced the representation of Muslims in contemporary Indian cinema.

The study takes serious note of films not only as a means of amusement, rather puts emphasis on textual analysis of the scripts, characters, semantics and symbolism. He sees politics in how a negative character like Gunda, Bhai, pimps, drug peddlers are often given a Muslim name, sometimes skull cap and quite occasionally beard too. Even certain notorious streets in films have to be Salampur, Khanbadi etc. These names create stereotype image of Muslims.

It’s interesting to note that the author charges Bollywood of depicting Muslims in a negative way, despite of the fact that the entire cinema industry is ruled by Khans and they are so powerful that the entire government machinery is put to use so that release of a Khan’s movie can’t be disrupted…..

Well, the book makes an interesting reading and it reinstated my faith in my own saying ‘Any movie made is a political statement given.’ But still I may not be able to make my apolitical friend believe in my statement as the book does have cinematic relevance, though very limited, to the politics of religious identity assertion only.