Anti- Muslim
Cinema, a new trend nurturing under Hindutva Culture by Syed Ali Mujtaba
In recent years Indian cinema is being fed on the growing trend
of anti-Muslim hate movies. The Bollywood film industry is churning out the
distorted portrayal of Muslims in the last nine years or so and such plots
have matured to their real structure after the BJP government came to power
under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.
Movies made in these years include; The
Bollywood has been using the medium of cinema to attack Indian
Muslims for a long time. Such films are serving the designs of the RSS and the
BJP with the hidden agenda to give a push to create a Hindu Rashtra where
Muslims will become third-class citizens, with limited rights and with limited
avenues for recourse.
Earlier Bollywood was known for making movies that promoted
Hindu-Muslim brotherhood and communal harmony. They used to be declared
tax-free by the government to promote the constitutional values of
Another purpose of making such movies is to divert the mind of
the people from real issues, like soaring unemployment and economic distress,
and other such things. The local media plays a big role in the promotion of
such movies and in changing the political discourse of the country. The media
instead of debating over the economy or other critical issues choose to talk
about the newly released anti-Muslim film and make them busy talking about and
forgetting the real issues.
During the Karnataka election campaign, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi openly promoted the film ‘The Kerala Story’. He told the crowd
at a rally in Ballari, Karnataka; “the Kerala Story is based on a terror
conspiracy. It shows the ugly truth of terrorism and exposes terrorists'
design.” He urged the people to go and watch the “ugly truth.”
After Modi openly promoted the scandalous film, several BJP
politicians too came out in support of this film. The Kerala Story was released
in BJP-ruled states and declared tax-free. As a result, this film earned
millions demonstrating the popularity of hate-centric films. The same can be
said about The Kashmir Files, which minted huge money
propagating hate against the Kashmiri Muslims and successfully polarizing
Indian society.
In cinema, business formulas are being experimented and the kind
of movie that churns much money is presented in different permutations and
commutations to make more money. Cinema is a smarter and quicker medium to make
money. It’s a medium where with a small investment, a high return is ensured.
Examples are
The problem with the anti-Muslim film is that they
cherry-pick incidents and don’t see it from a larger historical perspective.
These films serve the purpose of the mental manipulation of the audience’s
understanding of history and give a push to the ruling party’s majoritarian
political agenda. In the case of Kashmir Files, the film blamed Kashmiri
Muslims for it, while they had actually protected the minority Hindus. In the
Kerala story, it is told that 32,000 Hindu women were converted to Islam and
sent to
It looks obvious that the Indian film industry is walking in the
footsteps of Nazi Germany to prevaricate, control, and influence a specific
group of audiences to achieve political goals. The “big lie” strategy is
used to brainwash the Hindu masses to convince them to develop apathy towards
the Muslims loathing them for all the ills of the country.
Another alarming trend is the roles of the members
of the censor board who allow hate Muslim movies to fit enough to get screening
certificates. The members of the censor board are hand-picked by the government
and are loyal to the ideology of the ruling party. They give certificates of
screening to such films ignoring their consequences on society.
Earlier, the censor board did not allow such communally charged
films to be screened at all. But now under the BJP rule, such kinds of movies
are allowed to be screened even though they are promoting enmities against the
communities in the country.
This is a generational level of destruction that is happening in
The kind of hatred, the kind of maliciousness, and the kind of
visceral heat generated by these movies are nothing but simply fissures in the
country can be called an anti national activity. These films are widening the
gap between communal spot lines, creating an atmosphere of hatred in Indian
society. Indian citizens are watching this facet of the Indian cinema’s changing
colors but no one dares to raise a voice of protest against such a dangerous
trend. This is the harsh reality of contemporary
