Religion and Bollywood

There has been some commentary recently about Bollywood's take on Islamic terrorism. It did in fact occur to me too, that of all the major film industries in the world, it has been Bollywood, in all its overblown, screechy melodrama, that has had the guts to take on the most vexing question of our times - Islamic terrorism and Islamic identity post 9-11. Films like A Wednesday dealt with the problem of domestic terrorism in India and one man's (Naseeruddin Shah) quest to end it in the manner he knew best. More recently, at least three films have tackled the status of Muslims in post-9/11 America: New York, Kurbaan, and My Name is Khan.



I have seen (and liked, although I cannot endorse its solution) A Wednesday. Fast-paced drama and action with a central theme that lifts it way above the usual cop thriller genre. The manner in which the harmless, middle-class Naseeruddin Shah transforms himself into a ruthless killer (without firing a shot himself) was just amazing. I confess to not having watched the others, mainly because I dread the treatment of a serious issue such as Muslim profiling in a mainstream Bollywood fashion. I suppose I will rent and watch these films at some point, but I feel that all these movies will suffer from the same weakness - a director's temptation to take full advantage of a location shoot to throw in all kinds of things irrelevant to the main theme. Eyewitness reports for My Name is Khan confirm that, along with the central character's religious identity, the film also throws in Asperger's Syndrome, Hurricane Katrina and racial problems in the south. Can one film possibly be so many things to so many people?


But overall, what is interesting is that Bollywood films are trying to present these issues for discussion, in a manner in which Hollywood and western film industries are unable to do, except via exasperating acts of provocation like the Dutch filmaker, Geert Wilder's Fitna.

In India, in general, there is a meaningful discussion of Muslim identity in the news. What I found refreshing about the program on NDTV was that the panel included a range of Muslim opinion, including Bollywood stars like Shahrukh Khan and Soha Ali Khan but also verging-on-Taliban-type Dr. Zakir Naik. Perhaps, this is because there are so many Indian Muslims that one has to take their views into account, not just marginalize them.

Perhaps, the most interesting part of the program was the audience participation. There was a young Muslim woman in hijab who stated that she would try to "counsel" any potential hijab-less friend about the "correct" way. Another woman got up and said that if any young girl in her neighborhood suddenly started wearing a hijab, she would be "worried" about her. That, in my opinion, is at the heart of the differences between orthodox Muslims and others. The orthodox don't just consider that they are following their own path to God and please could the rest of us just leave them alone to do it. They do actually consider the unveiled and the unorthodox as "bad" or "misguided". Meanwhile, the unveiled and unorthodox consider the taking on of restrictive clothing and visible markers of identity (such as beards) as "abnormal" and "worrisome." Personally, I would side with the liberals and the progressives on this matter. I would never restrict the right of a woman to veil herself or that of a man to grow a beard and to wear a skull cap (as has done Nicolas Sarkozy of France). But, I am not sure whether the orthodox of any faith would respect my right to wear what I want and practise my faith freely, if they were in a position to influence public policy. That is the real difference between us.