at February 2, 2006 9:24 AMHere is an interesting link I found via Desipundit - Shobak: Outsider Asians - I don’t know who wrote this and I am still in the process of reading through this paper that claims to investigate the depiction on Muslims in India via three blockbuster movie - Sarfarosh, Mission Kashmir and Fiza. For those who don’t realize it, one of the movies was directed by a Christian, one by a Muslim and the other by a Hindu. The main character in Sarfarosh is a Hindu played by a Muslim, in Fiza the main characters are two Muslims played by Hindus and in Mission Kashmir, they are a Muslim played by the son of a Hindu and Muslim and a Muslim played by a Hindu. Quite interesting when you put it that way isn’t it - the entire intermingling of cultures, relegions…
Anyways, here was a passage that stood out me as I was reading it -As the police take their position against Amaan, he begs his sister to shoot him, saying, “I died a long time ago on the streets of Mumbai. Let me die with honor.” And Fiza pulls the trigger. In this complex and heart rending climax, Fiza stands for the assimilated Muslim and Amaan for that trajectory beyond the pale of normality. In their dialogue honor can be taken ironically to mean both living by the duties of the proper minority citizen and dying with the cry of those who will never be allowed into the nation.Can you tell what is askew in the picture? What the heck is an “assimilated” Muslim in India? How can someone who can trace their origin in the country centuries back (I am talking about most Indian Muslims here) be anything but native? What kind of a mindset looks at them as some kind of other that needs to assimilate into the nation instead of implicitly being of the nation?
And then there is this doozy - “Similarly, in Mission Kashmir the drama centers on the possibility of Muslims being included in the nation.” Well, we want to include them in our nation and along with the Hindus and Budhhists who also call the region home. Kashmir is not all about Muslims, y’know!
Ok, I am done - I am not going to read any further - inspite of stuff like “In Mission Kashmir, Altaaf is that element of infection that challenges the fantasies of immunity that animate contemporary discourses of Indian nationalism.” (yeah, really! Indians feel very immune..from what?), I was willing to give this article a chance. I was willing to read with an open mind and try to understand the author’s perspective and where he was coming from - this made me stop - “(constellated around such bogeys as “jihadi terrorism,” the internal Muslim “threat,” cross-border infiltration, and global and Asian balance of power, etc.),” So, according to this guy, “Jihadi Terrorism” is just a made up thing - why don’t we tell that to the school teachers beheaded in Thailand, the clubbers blasted apart in Bali and numerous such instances where the only link seems to have been the belief in fanaticism. Before putting the internal Muslim “threat” in scare quotes, I invite the author to examine the speeches given by Islam’s luminaries in public places such as Delhi’s Jama Masjid against India. Of course, cross-border terrorism just never, ever happens in India - no one obviously crosses over to kill migrant Hindu workers in Kashmir - it is all just a bogey, you children!
It really bothers me when people still talk of accepting Muslims in India as if they were immigrants - people forget the shared history - the shared trauma - the not-so-distant past whose painful memories still have not completely faded from the Indian psyche. Why is it that there are only Hindu nationalists and not Muslim nationalists? Don’t Muslims feel proud of their India? Why is every single article aimed at pointing fingers at someone or the other while conveniently forgetting there is another side to every story? I am absolutely tired of this. In my opinion, not every Muslim in India is guilty until proven innocent the same way not every Hindu-oriented program considered somehow discriminating against Muslims.
The author also very conveniently glosses over the fact that each of the movies mentioned also feature nefarious Indian Hindu characters as well as virtuous Muslim characters. There is an incredible amout of effort dedicated to striking a balance between religious reality and religious frenzy in the movie that is sadly lacking in the author’s papers. It is almost like he had a set of ideologies and was trying to work backwards to prove them from movies, no less. Think about it - think about to my first paragraph that outlined the main characters and the actors and directors of the movies and it will be clear how the author could not have been any more wrong.
Posted by shanti at February 1, 2006 12:38 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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I saw your article on desicritics - i write there too as dkaps! I loved your blog! Nice work, Shanti!!
Desh
www.Drishtikone.com
Posted by: desh at February 1, 2006 9:52 PM
The reason why there are still issues over integration of Muslims in Indian ‘mainstream’ is education. Unfortunately, it acts in two ways to prevent the same. Firstly, the politicians know that in order to keep their bread and butter, they need to keep the Muslims uneducated. Only that way they can create an atmosphere of hatred and anger which can be marketed in the elections. Secondly, there is very little literacy among the majority of Muslims in India which translate to alarmingly high birth-rate, increasing poverty which again brings us to even lesser education. Hence, in the absence of social (actually socio-political) reforms, this vicious circle would continue. Listening to the fact that two political parties have used Osama’s look-alike in recent elections to get Muslim votes, I don’t think that our dreams will come true in time any less than 30 years.
Posted by: Ambuj Saxena at February 1, 2006 11:35 PM
Thanks, Desh :)
Ambuj, very true - the problem is that there are no dynamic Muslim leaders who can take on the establishment and go against the tide to bring the reforms about. I still remember the political storm Rajiv Gandhi had to weather when he pulled for Shah Bano to get alimony from her husband. We consider that a basic right - unfortunately for some people, every reform is an assault on their religion - Hindu, Muslim or Christian…
Posted by: shanti at February 2, 2006 9:24 AM
Absolutely terrifc my dear Shanti Auntie :-) You’re back in form. Truly. Gloriously. But then it is nothing new: Bollywood is full of these sick stereotypes—Islamic terrorism is still a touch-me-not. I’ve seen rave reviews about Maniratnam’s horrid “Bombay” which conveniently shows only Bal Thackeray and “Hindu goons” in poor light.
The spinelessness of our political class has tapered off to other sections of the society in unimaginable ways.
Posted by: Sandeep at February 3, 2006 12:47 AM
Shanti, you talk about Muslim fundamentalist, terrorists. What about president Bush? Narendra Modi? remember the Gujrat riots? I call it state sponsered terrorism. Can any indian justify that?
Posted by: Mohammed Aavez at February 3, 2006 2:00 AM
Thanks, Sandeep :)
Mohammad, I have written about and condemned Modi in other posts already. This post is not about him. Saying someone else did it too is the worst sort of defense don’t you think?
Also, why is it that Indian Muslims (I am assuming you are one) feel like they have to defend the terrorists? Do you really feel closer to them because of your religion than to your fellow Indians? Unless you are willing to unconditionally condemn them without trying to say “what about this? what about that?”, how do you expect to be trusted completely?
Posted by: shanti at February 3, 2006 7:00 AM
Shanti,
Actually there was a purpose behind that article.
I explored it here (Apologies for link soliciting, but it is too darned long to paste it here)
Regards
Posted by: Gaurav at February 5, 2006 10:57 PM
How many Muslims have you interacted with beore you asked the question “Why are there noMuslim nationalists”, this RSS and VHP brainwashing you have gon thru has made you equate Fundamnetalist Hinduism(aka Hindutva) with patriotism, RSS VHP and other fundamentalist Hindu organiztions, the impetus for their very existence is provided by minority(Muslims,Christians and Sikhs) hating activities with corporate support in the USA from their members who have crept into the corporate America ,think that they are the owners of patritoism and to be partiotic you have to be a fundamentalist Hindu with a very hegemonic view toards the Christian and Muslims minorities in India.
Anyone who does not agree with them is branded anti national more so the follwres of “Abrahimic Religions” Muslims and Christians, some one said that patritosm is the last refuge of a “Scoundrel”. You talk about “they” and “us” and you think you are doing critical thinking by publishing crap like this!!! and more pathetic is the repsonse you get from like minded fundamntalists like you.
Posted by: Zak Ali at March 16, 2006 10:42 PM