Two images.
One:
I am watching Black Friday (2007, dr Anurag Kashyap)
in a Muslim-dominated area of the city in which the film is set,
Mumbai. There is a tense silence as Rakesh Maria (Kay Kay Menon) tells
Badshah Khan (Aditya Srivastava) what he thinks of him and those who were
inveigled into the plot to set off bombs across the city. It is such a
cold silence that I go to see the film again in a more mixed setting. The
same scene evokes another response. There are cheers and jeers until
someone from the audience shouts, "Yahaan bhi to hai (There are
some morons here too)."
Two:
In a discussion group I led at a girl’s college in Mumbai,
a young Muslim girl stood up to accuse Fanaa (2006, dr Kunal Kohli)
of representing Muslims unfairly.
"They show [the character played by] Rishi Kapoor
drinking," she said.
I was somewhat taken aback by that.
Did she mean, I asked, that no Muslim drinks?
"No, but why should they show like that?" she asked.
It was a good question and a bad question. Good because
representation is increasingly important in a country where symbols have
more power and potency than in many other lands. Bad because it
inaugurates a process in which every maker of art will be called on to be
responsible for every character she or he creates and will have to
consider whether each character has the potential to hurt someone’s
feelings.
This is perhaps not the place to discuss whether Bollywood
is or is not art. But one has to admit that some creativity is involved in
its creation and therefore perhaps it should have all the protection other
art forms are offered at least in theory.
The question is: does the character played by Rishi Kapoor
stand for the Muslim man? No one seemed to think so in the reviews. But
then why did Kajol saluting the flag in the beginning seem to stand for
the Muslim girl? It was mentioned often in the reviews, sometimes
slightingly and sometimes with deference.
If Rishi Kapoor’s character is only a single heartsick
character reacting to his circumstances, nothing can be wrong with that.
But besides the intention of the filmmaker, there is also the way in which
it is consumed. And today consumption patterns are no longer as
predictable as they once were.
***
Our relationship with Bollywood has always been a complex
one. It is only quite recently that we have begun taking it seriously or
looking at the material with any attention. This is partly because of the
remnants of our leftist-brahmanical contempt for anything by way of bread
and circuses. All India Radio, as we all know, wouldn’t play Hindi film
music and drove all the real comrades, the bhai bandhu of the mills
of Mumbai into the arms of Radio Ceylon.
But now that there is a non-Indian academic turning up
every week to study the films of Manmohan Desai, we have started wondering
whether we should have been doing the spadework already. This is not to
offer any disrespect to the non-Indian academic. Dr Rachel Dwyer of the
School of Oriental and African Studies, for instance, knows Sanskrit and
reads and writes Urdu and Gujarati as well. I don’t know any Indian
academic who has done as much work in order to get to know Hindi cinema.
Everyone’s a Hindi film buff now that popular culture has
become a ticket to a series of conferences in different parts of the
world. This has resulted in much half-baked information and very little
understanding of how Bollywood actually operates.
I believe Bollywood’s relationship to the minorities
depends on commercial arithmetic of the most basic kind. Bollywood is an
industry, even if it is a chaotic, ill-regulated and ignored industry. It
produces a certain kind of product and it wishes to maximise profit on
that product. Hindi cinema had no simple equation with the religious
communities of India. On the surface, this should have been simple since
it should not have mattered. The religious identity of a villain could
scarcely matter; there would be bad eggs in every basket.
As I wrote in Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb
(Penguin India, 2006),
"But the early filmmakers knew that they were not simply
making films. As the only valid pop culture, they believed that they were
creating texts to help build society. Since they were men, these texts
were largely patriarchal, probably not out of enlightened self-interest
but probably because they genuinely believed that benevolent male
despotism was good for society as a whole. The theme of the ‘educated
wife’, for instance, was oft repeated and each time disaster would follow
her inclusion into the family. Later, this theme would change to become
the ‘westernised wife’, anathema in her own right. However, in the
fifties, the patriarchs were concerned about the nation that was being
crafted. They often sought the blessings of political figures although a
good word from Jawaharlal Nehru was not likely to increase ticket sales
significantly.
[Gandhiji simply thought cinema was a waste of time; it
might surprise the Mahatma to know how firmly his legacy is being
appropriated both by art house and mainstream cinema.]
"They were aware as few others could be of the scars left
by partition. Some had lost their families, their hometowns. Others had
watched friends depart. Still others had arrived as refugees from the
newly formed state of West Pakistan. They felt the need, as a community,
to emphasise the importance of coexistence and of mutual tolerance, if not
respect, of India’s diverse religious communities. Yet there were still
some liberties that could be taken as long as these were taken with the
communities who had no hand in deciding the fate of the product that
Bollywood was making.
"If political secularism arises out of arithmetic, the
secularism of cinema arises out of commerce. When Kaagaz Ke Phool
flopped, Guru Dutt went out and made a Muslim social, Chaudhvin Ka
Chand, although he did not do it under his own name. When he was asked
why, he said that he needed a hit. Segmenting the market works. Think of
Coolie and Pakeezah and Nikaah, all hits.
(As in everything that one says of Hindi commercial
cinema, one might, on the other hand, point to Deedaar-e-Yaar, one
of the biggest flops of 1982, but then it had Jeetendra playing a nawab.)
"However, there are certain limits to this secularism. For
instance, Hindus and Muslims don’t marry on screen unless it is an overt
act of political significance (Bombay). Too many people might be
offended and secularism had to be measured against what the audience would
accept. Since Hindi cinema, like most popular culture, is majoritarian, it
also managed to maintain a subtle power balance within the caste system.
When the hero was a romantic and a scholar, he could be a Brahmin, even if
it was the Muslim, Dilip Kumar, playing him. When the hero turned into a
warrior, his identity turned Kshatriya. Secular gestures had to be
similarly calibrated since a sizeable proportion of the Hindi-speaking
audience was Muslim. The Muslim characters were, therefore, rarely shown
in an unfavourable light. They were honest friends, loyal soldiers, good
policemen, bluff Pathans, friendly uncles. But unless it was a Muslim
social (which was another kind of commercial gamble), there were no Muslim
heroes."
Recently, we have had some discussion about whether Kabir
Khan in Chak De India is a Muslim. It seems an odd moment in our
history. Anti-Muslim hysteria is at an all-time high. In a personal
conversation with the novelist, MG Vassanji, I was told that Gujarat
continues to be a fascist state in which the Muslims are tense and even
the moderate Hindus unwilling to speak for fear of being "overheard". This
should have been no surprise to me for Communalism Combat arrives
every month with more news from the war against ‘othering’. At the same
time, we have four Khans (Aamir, Saif, Shah Rukh and Salman) who rule
Bollywood. None of them has ever played a Muslim character except in a
Muslim context.
With Hindus representing the mainstream and Muslims in the
audience, there were two communities who could be mocked without any
economic repercussions.
Again, if I may be allowed to quote from my book on Helen,
these were, "the Christians and the Parsi. For one, they were perceived as
‘westernised’, which was tantamount to sleeping with the enemy. For
another, they could be offended without upsetting the box office since
they rarely patronised Hindi cinema anyway.
"So Parsis figured as stereotypical eccentrics with
walk-on roles. Christians got more screen time but were used in strange
ways. In the odd hierarchies that custom and power have established, a
heroine could be Christian. Liz (Waheeda Rehman) in Baazi, Miss
Edna (Madhubala) in Howrah Bridge, Bobby (Dimple) in Bobby,
Jenny (Parveen Babi) in Amar Akbar Anthony and Annie (Manisha
Koirala) in Khamoshi – The Musical all marry their men without
trouble. In Bobby, the hero’s parents only object to her social
standing and her lack of wealth. There is no mention of a different
religion. There were some startling positive images of older Christian
characters (Lalita Pawar and Nadira, both as Mrs D’Sa in Anari and
Saagar; Premnath as Mr Braganza in Bobby; David as John
Chacha in Boot Polish) but by and large the community was seen
as degenerate. In Mome Ki Gudiya (1972) a Christian family has a
mother played by the obese Tun Tun, the father played by a midget, and in
order to win their daughter and to fit in with them, the hero’s sidekick
claims that he has started drinking, smoking, going to mujras and
even eating non-vegetarian food.
"But perhaps the classic encapsulation of Hindi cinema’s
attitude to the morality of the young Christian community can be seen in a
single song from Swarg Narak (1978). Briefly, the story deals with
two marriages. The feminist, Shobha (Moushumi Chatterjee!) marries college
lecturer, Vicky (Jeetendra), while the traditional Indian doormat, Geeta (Shabana
Azmi!) marries playboy and businessman, Vinod (Vinod Mehra). The latter
marriage fails from the very beginning since Vinod who, as an act of
rebellion against a marriage into which he was forced, spends his wedding
night dancing with an unnamed mistress (Komilla Virk).
"One night, when Vinod tries to go out, his mother (Kamini
Kaushal) stops him. He almost slaps her, then pushes her out of the way.
She runs after him and falls down the stairs. Vinod and his unnamed
mistress go out dancing. Helen is the floor show, singing the ‘English
song’ mentioned in the titles. The unimaginative lyrics include lines like
‘Love you, come hold me’ interspersed with some Aah-ing. However, this is
enough to attract Vinod, who callously pushes Virk out of the way and
makes his way to where Helen, dressed in High Arabian Fantasy, bathed in
red light, is singing, ‘I am lonely, come hold me/ Life is so dreary,
come, come, come.’
"Director Dasari Narayan Rao intercuts this sequence with
scenes of Vinod’s mother dying, of the doctors giving up, of the dutiful
daughter-in-law reciting the Bhagavad Gita. At the nightclub, Helen
and Vinod are now in a clinch. The scene is bathed in red light as she
pours alcohol into his mouth. A church appears in silhouette against the
walls of the nightclub and church bells begin to ring. It is true that few
filmmakers have gone so far in their association between degeneracy and
Christianity but it was a statement they felt free to make."
So it was with villains. You could name the moll Lily or
Rosy, you could name the henchman Robert, but where would your villain
come from? It is no accident that many powerful villains have had no
Indian caste identity at all. We do know where Gabbar Singh came from – we
even know that his father’s name was Hari Singh – but we have no idea
where Dr Dang (Karma, 1986, dr Subhash Ghai) came from or Shakaal (Shaan,
1980, dr Ramesh Sippy) or Loin (Kalicharan, 1976, dr Subhash Ghai)
or Mogambo (Mr India, 1987, dr Shekhar Kapur) for that
matter. They were villains who were free-floating signifiers. Dr Dang
could be Chinese if you wanted him to be Chinese. He could be South-east
Asian or even from a tribal belt in India. It did not matter because he
could not be located and so could not become an insult to any community.
Henchmen were also given ur-names: Jagga, Raaka, Kaalia, Saamba.
Things changed radically when Pakistan became a name that
was allowed. It should be remembered that for very long we did not name
names of other countries since our censor code actually had a clause
stipulating that nothing in a film should harm the nation’s friendly
relations with other states. We were so careful about names of other
countries that From Russia with Love (1963, dr Terence Young) was
only released in India when its distributors agreed to change the name to
From 007 with Love and the title song was dropped. When Pakistan
became a name that we could say, Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001, dr
Anil Sharma) happened. It was a loud hysterical film and since the
mood was loud and hysterical, it worked magically, becoming one of the top
earners of all time. A spate of ‘Pakistan’ films followed, some of which
were hits and some of which failed.
In some ways, Godhra proved to be a watershed for the
Hindi film industry as it did for the country. (Now, if only Parzania
(2007, dr Rahul Dholakia) had been a good piece of cinema
instead of a film with good intentions.) The new verities were suddenly
looking shaky. The Urdu title of the film name, missing in action for many
moons, began to come back. Cynics might claim that this is the possibility
of Pakistan as a legitimate market as opposed to being the place where
Hindi cinema sells on pirated DVDs. Cynics might be right. It is still a
product, still an industry.