The cuts in pirated versions of Mahesh Bhatt’s film being shown on cable channels legitimate a certain discourse that the Sangh Parivar has helped evolve

Mahesh Bhatt’s Zakhm is perhaps one of the most secular and honest films of our times. I went to
see the film with friends from Bangladesh and we were all very moved by it. One of my friends, Sara Hossein (a feminist and human rights lawyer who has fought several court battles on issues of censorship), went back to Dhaka and arranged a video screening for family and friends. During the viewing, Sara was baffled to discover that several key scenes had been deleted. For instance, the scene in which the mother (Pooja Bhatt) tells her son that he should not reveal her (Muslim) identity to anybody but ensure that she is buried after her death. This is a key scene in the film, as the climactic battle would be fought over the body of the dead mother and her last rites.

Worse, the scene in which she attends the memorial service of her dead ‘husband’ and is thrown out because she is Muslim had also been hacked. A couple of days later, I happened to see the film played on the local video, home cable network. The film had been hacked and mutilated in a way that had radically altered its secular political stance. The missing scenes are as follows:

Ø The policeman telling Ajay (Ajay Devgan) that a Hindu woman (his mother who is later revealed to be a Muslim) has been set afire by a Muslim mob. The perpetrator (one of the assailants who is nabbed by the Hindu fanatics) confessing to having poured petrol on Ajay’s mother.

Ø The telephonic conversation between Subodh (the right wing Hindu leader) and the communal policeman, where the former explains the ‘political benefits’ of Ajay’s mother’s death. He says that the vendetta should be not against any one individual (the perpetrator held in custody) but the entire community of Muslims. (This is a longish conversation in the film consisting of several key lines. This scene has been selectively edited in such a manner that it is impossible to know what the two communities are).

Ø Ajay’s point–of–view shot at the hospital when he watches his mother’s assailant offering his namaaz. The flashback sequence when the mother is thrown out of the house of her dead husband and her identity as a Muslim is revealed for the first time. This is a long sequence that is absolutely critical to the narrative. The sequence is deleted in its entirety.

Ø When the mother tells Ajay not to tell anyone that she is a Muslim but that after her death she should be buried. And that if she were not to be buried, she would not attain Jannat where she hopes to be reunited with Ajay’s father.

In short, every explicit reference to Ajay’s mother being a Muslim is deleted from this version. Why should explicit references to her Muslim identity be a problem? I have no clear answers, nor do I know who ordered these cuts. It also seems ironical that the home viewing version should delete scenes that were simultaneously being shown at the cinema hall. But the question remains — what happens when explicit references to her Muslim identify are erased?

In Zakhm, the revelation of the mother’s identity as a Muslim is an integral part of the plot and not a surprise element to be revealed in the climax. Thereby, this character straddles several religious terrains and a unique syncretic identity. She is a believing Muslim, who prays at Hindu shrines, imbibes Hindu cultural codes in her clothes and appearances and visits the church to pray for special favours. Ironically, she is killed in front of a church by a Muslim mob who mistakenly imagine she is a Hindu.

The syncretic imaginary of the film also manifests in the kitty and tacky sequence of ‘Jannat’ in the end. The ‘Jannat’ scene never fails to evoke mirth and disbelief among the audiences. Yet this fantasmatic sequence is a reconfirmation of the protagonist’s location. Even in death, she transcends a narrow religious imaginary. Her ‘Jannat’ fuses both Hindu and Muslim cultural codes, visualised unfortunately, through televisual kitsch. Here she is reunited with her Hindu ‘husband’ who finally marries her, thereby fulfilling one of Ajay’s deepest desires.

This sequence may have special resonances for those familiar with Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Obhagir Shorgo (The Unfortunate’s Heaven) where the impoverished son, while cremating his mother, has a magnificent vision of her being carried away to heaven. The unfulfilled wishes of both sons find expression, not in reality, but through imagination and near epipahanic visions. However, when the same ‘Jannat’ sequence is preceded by heavy mutilation of all specific religious references to Islam and Muslims, it seems to embody a desire on the part of Muslims (who are ‘Hindus’ for all practical purposes) to eventually become Hindu. Such a reading of `consensual conversion’ would be welcome only by the Sangh Parivar.

I do not mean to suggest that the cuts are a conspiracy of the Sangh Parivar or that they are directly responsible for it. Yet, the identity of the censors notwithstanding, the cuts legitimate a certain discourse that the Sangh Parivar has helped evolve. By erasing all specific references to Muslims, an ambiguity is created as to who the adversaries are. During the Bombay riots, national newspapers were reluctant to name the perpetrators choosing instead to call them ‘vandals’ ‘anti–social elements’, ‘lumpens’, etc. This blurring of specificity finally exonerates the perpetrators because it invisibilises power, inequality. Consequently, a film like Mani Ratnam’s Bombay is able to suggest that both Hindus and Muslims were equally to blame. We all know that to be a lie. The Bombay ‘riots’, at least the second phase, were a genocide against the Muslims and Zakhm does not hesitate to say so.

But more importantly, the syncretism of Zakhm’s female protagonist is the Sangh Parivar’s worst nightmare. In fact, syncretism is anathema to all fundamentalists because it blurs boundaries between different traditions and makes separations virtually impossible. The blurring of borders, the cultural mix, the impossibility of originary claims, the occupation of multiple spaces have been historically resisted by all orders that seek to restrict, regiment and control. It is perhaps for the same reason that Hussain’s paintings were also under attack.

At a more mundane level, cuts are an assault on film aesthetics and the director’s vision. It alters the film text in a way that is not envisaged by the authors. Such moves need to be resisted by screening the ‘Director’s Cut’ in as many places as possible. Multiplicity, cultural heterogeneity and syncretism are precariously contingent upon free speech and erasure is inimical to the process. Therefore, whenever censorship is used to delete words and images, we must ask, whose interest is finally protected?