www.sacw.net | July 11, 2004
India: Demonising Minorities:
The Burden of 'Dev'
by Harsh Mander
One of the most mischievous and dangerous myths that have been actively engendered in India in recent decades is that the Muslim community as a whole is implacably violent, communal, terrorist and anti-national. It matters little that the ground realities are painfully different, of a minority community struggling against great odds, battling poverty unemployment and discrimination, yet inextricably enmeshed in the pluralist socio-economic, cultural and political fabric of the land .
The systematically demonised image of the Indian Muslim as jehadi and treacherous has been used as a stunningly effective instrument to manufacture hatred and consolidate the political support of increasing segments of the majority community, by creating and constantly fanning their insecurities. As these poisons of hatred and mistrust seep into more and more hearts, the Muslim community finds itself under siege, alienated, impoverished and in despair.
This demonised representation of the Indian Muslim has been aided not just by deliberately distorted textbooks, but also by popular modes of communication, especially cinema. It is not by mere chance that in most Hindi films in recent times, Muslim characters appear mainly as anti-national terrorists, or violent members of the criminal underground.
There is peril enough to pluralism truth and justice when these false and inflammatory stereotypes are deliberately fostered by mainstream film directors. However, our anguish is deepened when a thinking director like Govind Nihalani co-writes and directs a film that powerfully reinforces each of these stereotypes and what is worse, lends to them a spurious authenticity.
In the opening sequences of Govind Nihalini's recently released film, Dev, the leading protagonist, portrayed as a noble large-hearted and resolutely impartial police officer, sets the tone by advising a delegation from the Muslim community to control madrassas, which he alleges teach their students secession and jehad. Most independent investigation maintains the contrary, that whereas the majority of madrassas focus far more as religious teaching than modern education, very few propagate violence, treachery or hatred. The film on the other hand, makes no comment on the web of schools fostered by the Sangh Pariwar, especially in rural and tribal regions, that actively foment hatred against minorities.
The same police officer who declares that for him the Constitution of India is his sacred Geeta, condones a police encounter of a kind that continues to recur, most recently in the Ishrat Jahan tragedy, in which an alleged terrorist is gunned down by the police in his home along with wife and infant child. The police officerís own son is also depicted to have been killed earlier by Muslim terrorists.
Nihalini claims in many interviews that his film is inspired by recent communal events in Gujarat. However actually every stage, he twists and distorts contemporary history.
A large body of independents citizens reports by several of the most credible activists and jurists of India have established that the Gujarat carriage was planned over a considerable period of time by organizations of the Sangh Pariwar, with tacit support of the state government. Instead the only build-up to the mass brutality that Nihalini depicts through almost one half of the film, is of unscrupulous and manipulative Muslim politicians fostering disaffection and terrorism, leading eventually to the gruesome tragedy.
The flashpoint for the carnage in the film, the parallel to the Godhra Sabarmati train incident, is depicted to be a bomb blast at a Hindu place of worship, killing children and women. Nowhere does Nihalini acknowledge the doubts about how the Godhra train tragedy actually occurred. What is far worse, reminiscent of both Modi and Vajpayee, the large hearted police officer reminds an angry and disillusioned Muslim youth that it was this act of terrorist violence that led to the subsequent communal conflagration.
The film fortunately acknowledges that the Chief Minister and senior police officials enabled the mass violence to continue unchecked by wantonly refusing to apply force to control the marauding mobs. However, nowhere is it acknowledged that this was a one sided genocide, targeting almost exclusively the Muslim community. Instead, violence is portrayed from both sides of the communal divide, and not surprisingly the first stone is shown as being cast by the Muslims. It is claimed that five times more Hindus died in police firings than Muslims. Innumerable enquiry commissions have established the reverse, that 70 per cent of people killed by police in police firings are Muslims.
Even in the subsequent subversion of the justice system, with parallels to terrorizing of a Zahira Sheikh to not to file her FIR and give evidence against her assailants, nowhere is guilt apportioned by Nihalini to the state government. Instead, once again it is the power hungry Muslim politician who pressurizes his own community to keep silent.
Nihalini uses the device of ideological debates between two friends, both senior police officers, to examine the causes of communal violence in India. The communal police officer, unrepentant to the end, repeatedly labels Muslims as a 'traitor community' and his comments were received with stray applause in the cinema theatre where I watched the film. Opposition to his views by the principled police officer was muted, with reference to the legal and moral duties of the police officer, never to the fascistic mobilization and impact of the Hindu communalism.
The film redeems itself belatedly in the closing sequences in which the protagonist courageously defies illegal orders not to use force, and also compassionately gives refuge to a Muslim youth who is alienated and disaffected. To him he says, 'One dies the day that one witnesses injustice and yet does not speak out.'
How I wish that Nihalini himself had the same courage and compassion to see impartially the injustice around him and raise him voice against it. Instead, he has chosen to reinforce stereotypes, blame the victims and foster further the demonisation of a segment of own people.
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