Ibne Siraj :
Every nation to the best of its capacity as well as sincere efforts tries to promote own history, tradition, heritage, beliefs, values, norms and attitude. Those engaged in making cinema or drama-serials for small screen try to draw upon the great cultures with good stories along with music for the cinema lovers around the world. This is how cultures of different countries come to the closeness of the people in every country. The Muslims with their own politics, economy, culture and rich tradition play respective roles on the world stage. Besides books and other media of learning, art is one of the vistas and in the present world cinema, due its mass appeal and significant availability. An introduction to cinema being produced in the Muslim countries allows the believers in Islam to take a critical reflection about their own beliefs and culture, as well as providing a window for those who are of other faiths.
Some countries like the United States, Japan, France and India have a strong arts culture, and an affinity or presence to the medium of film. The Muslim world does not easily fit in this category, so how else can it be viewed. Besides providing entertainment, film can present a window to the economic, social or moral challenges of a society.
There are volumes of books on world, regional and national cinema of Muslim-majority countries having a cinema history like Egyptian or Turkish cinema. However, ‘Muslim Cinema’ is not a known entity. The Muslim world, although perceived as one entity, is not monolithic. It is made up of different regions, countries, states and communities. And although religion is the basic underlying theme, each region comes with its own differentiating culture. Besides the Muslim majority countries from Morocco to Malaysia, there is also large minority of Muslims in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, and India.
It is utter disheartening to see that Islam and the Greatest Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (SM) was portrayed negatively and wrongly many a times in several films made by non-Muslim film makers. Such film makers, especially in India, often portrays the Muslim characters negatively in their films and serials, mostly branding them as bandits, dacoits, thieves, rapists, smugglers, robbers and servants obviously to downgrade the believers of Islam in the world view.
Even, whores, brothel girls, extra woman in life, maid servants and cabaret dancers are mostly drawn from Islamic names to serve the lust of rich Hindus in cinema and serials. India has long been engaged in playing a pioneering role in such sordid activities, portraying the Muslims negatively in literature and in the visual media. Whereas, Indian cinema flourished so highly as the Muslims put in their creative genius in this industry for decades-from story writing to lining up, script writing, song writing, music composition, singing and in other areas of technical disciplines.
Although Muslims have had an on and off-screen presence in the Hindi cinema, most of the narrative has avoided the Muslims or relegated them to the sidelines. There is a strong theme of Indian and Hindu fundamentalism in films and serials. The role of minorities, not just Muslims, but Christians and Sikhs as well, has largely been stereotyped. Bollywood is secular but it still has its dominant Hindu religious motifs in almost all films. These show up in the presence of worship, marriage and death. Muslim character portrayal of men has been either timid or violent.
In the case of women, the typical portrayal is that of someone who is promiscuous. Every year, so many films produced in India show Muslims as criminals, crooks, and the people who cannot be trusted. Though the Muslim characters remained anonymous, yet the viewer could recognize the appearance as Arab, wearing specific costume, carrying briefcase and puffing cigar. This type of presentation of the Muslims became direct and clear in the late 80s and 90s.
Bollywood is the reflection of India’s day-to-day life and thought. The depiction of Muslim characters in the Bollywood films from Nawabs, Badshah and aristocrats to rascals, thugs, terrorists, streetmen and hooligans is very gradual and systematic. The alternation of Muslims from philanthropists to terrorists is the reflection of changing perception about Muslims in the Indian society under its so-called cover of socialism. There were type of movies, which portrayed Muslims as rulers and showed their resplendent past. The theme of such movies was affirmative in the perspective of Muslims. It was in the 70s, when the scenario of movies began to change regarding the presentation of Muslims, and they depicted the Muslims as indolent and futile rulers, who squandered their money on prostitutes. The development of Muslims as the characters of underworld was the hallmark of the 70s and 80s movies.
Beside, there are a few movies, which depict and present the issue of Hindu-Muslim communal riots. But these movies are made with semi-willingness. The presentation of the Muslim characters as terrorists and extremists reached its pinnacle after 2001. Due to terrorist attacks of 9/11, the political scenario of entire world was changed and Muslims and Muslim countries became the direct victims of the wrath of the West and the rest. Subsequently, they were accused and suspected by everyone and everywhere.
A review of the selected Bollywood movies shows that a majority of the movies portray Muslims negatively. This challenges Bollywood’s position as only an entertainment media. If Bollywood has no political agenda as such then it has to change its perception about Muslims. It needs to adopt an unbiased approach towards their portrayal. It should deem Muslims as normal human beings with complexities and issues and not as stereotyped characters.
Recognizing fanatics within Hinduism can be a counter-balance strategy, which may enable viewers to understand that extremists can exist in any given community. Labeling Islam as a terrorist or peace abhorring religion is certainly a misplaced assumption. Bollywood needs to ameliorate their views and ideas about Muslims and Islam, more so because Muslims are the largest minority in India.
A number of research works are available on how the image of Muslims is distorted in Bollywood. Faiza Hirji in her article entitled “Change of Pace? Islam and Tradition in Popular Indian Cinema” analyzed the role of Islam in Bollywood movies. According to her, Islam being a mandatory organ of Bollywood is always portrayed in heinous and obnoxious way. Hirji has discussed how the norms of terrorism, violence and intercultural misunderstanding are associated with Islam.
Rachel Dwyer, professor of Indian cultures at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, gave a lecture on Muslims in Hindi Cinema charting the changes in portrayals of Muslims in Indian cinema through its 100-year history. She began by acknowledging that though India is home to one of the largest Islamic populations, Muslims are still a minority community. A large proportion of this minority community has been influential in shaping the Hindi film industry, and the real influence of Muslims in Hindi cinema became apparent when films began to incorporate sound in 1931. Urdu, a language spoken primarily by Muslims had an effect on the language of the films and their dialogue and songs, Dwyer said. Urdu was the language of the Islamic court at a time when the Muslim rulers controlled India. It was romantic and elegant, and, as a result, made the “image of Muslims bouncing poetry at every opportunity part of popular imagination in India cinema.
This is one of the many manifestations of Islamicate in Indian cinema, in addition to the melodic Bollywood songs drawing from Sufi influences and accompanying wine and other images that do not match traditional Islamic beliefs. As the directors seek to reach a broader audience with their films, they replace Urdu with more colloquial Hindi, but retain those Islamicate components like themes from the Arabian Nights, “exotic even within India.”
Around 1947 when India was rife with communal violence, movies used the Islamicate to promote national unity. Some historical movies highlighted the Hindu-Muslim relationships of the subcontinent, to prove that “India’s past doesn’t belong to any one community.” Dwyer focused the latter part of her talk on how the portrayal of Muslims in Hindi cinema had changed in the 2000s after 9/11. She pointed out that a film would not gain popularity if it showed Muslims in India as terrorists-as a result, several movies told stories of Indian Muslims who became terrorists outside of India. She concluded her talk by noting that Muslims in Hindi cinema today are not properly represented, they are only shown to fit a stereotype.
