Interrogating the
idea of India: A Study of Cinematic Representations of Kashmir Conflict from
Bollywood and Beyond
Somjyoti Mridha teaches at the Department of English, North
Eastern Hill University, Shillong. He has recently submitted his doctoral
thesis at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi, on “Representing Kashmir Conflict post 1990s: The Poetics and the
Politics of Nation, Identity and Violence”. His areas of interest are Indian
English Literature, Translated Bhasa Literatures, Ideas of Nation and
Nationalism and Postcolonial Studies.
Abstract
The conceptualization and creation of the
singular political entity called India from the multitudinous and disparate
elements comprising many regions, religions, races, castes, languages that
constitute modern Indian nation state continues to be an uphill task for our
political as well as our intellectual fraternity. This profusion of differences
coalesced to form a singular nation state primarily, on the basis of certain
core principles that guide its existence. Despite innumerable problems and
lacunas in various spheres, the Indian nation state remains united though not politically
unchallenged. Fissiparous secessionist/ethno-nationalist movements in Kashmir
and the North-east as well as Maoist movement in the tribal belts of central
India have erupted since independence trying to tear asunder the very fabric of
the Indian nation state. This paper is primarily concerned with the politics of
representation of Kashmir conflict in Indian cinematic narratives from Bollywood
as well as from Kashmir. By delving deep into the representational politics of
Kashmir conflict, this paper tries to arrive at an understanding of the
ideology and the power structure embedded within the ‘regimes of
representation’. The primary objective of the paper is to interrogate and
simultaneously arrive at an understanding of the ideas governing the Indian
nation state and its praxis in the day to day reality of Kashmir through its
representation in cinematic narratives. This paper takes into consideration the
political potential embedded within these cinematic narratives which are
produced and disseminated in conditions of profound inequities existent in the
realms of politics and culture.
Keywords: Cinema, Representation,
Kashmir.
For all its magnificent antiquity and historical depth,
contemporary India is unequivocally a creation of the modern world. The
fundamental agencies and ideas of modernity—European colonial expansion, the
state, nationalism, democracy, economic development—all have shaped it. The
possibility that India could be united into a single political community is the
wager of India’s modern, educated, urban elite, whose intellectual horizons
were extended by these modern ideas and whose sphere of action was expanded by
these modern agencies. It was a wager on an idea: the idea of India. This
nationalist elite itself had no clear definition of this idea…that brought
India to independence was its capacity to entertain diverse, often contending
visions of India.
--Sunil Khilnani
(The Idea of India 5)
The practices of representation always implicate the
positions from which we speak or write- the positions of enunciation. What recent theories of enunciation suggest is that,
though, we speak, so to say ‘in our own name’, of ourselves and from our own
experience, nevertheless who speaks, and the subject who is spoken of, are
never exactly in the same place. Identity is not as transparent or
unproblematic as we think. Perhaps, instead of thinking of identity as an
already accomplished historical fact, which the new cinematic discourses then represent,
we should think, instead, of identity as a ‘production’, which is never
complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside,
representation.
--Stuart
Hall[i]
The conceptualization and creation of the
singular political entity called India from the multitudinous and disparate
elements comprising many regions, religions, races, castes, languages that
constitute modern Indian nation state continues to be an uphill task for our
political as well as our intellectual fraternity. This profusion of differences
coalesced to form a singular nation state primarily, on the basis of certain
core principles that guide its existence. Despite innumerable problems and
lacunas in various spheres, the Indian nation state remains united though not politically
unchallenged. Fissiparous secessionist/ethno-nationalist movements in Kashmir
and the North-east as well as Maoist movement in the tribal belts of central
India have erupted since independence trying to tear asunder the very fabric of
the Indian nation state. This paper is primarily concerned with the politics of
representation of Kashmir conflict in Indian cinematic narratives from Bollywood
as well as from Kashmir. By delving deep into the representational politics of
Kashmir conflict, this paper tries to arrive at an understanding of the
ideology and the power structure embedded within the ‘regimes of
representation’. The primary objective of the paper is to interrogate and
simultaneously arrive at an understanding of the ideas governing the Indian
nation state and its praxis in the day to day reality of Kashmir through its
representation in cinematic narratives. This paper takes into consideration the
political potential embedded within these cinematic narratives which are
produced and disseminated in conditions of profound inequities existent in the
realms of politics and culture.
The Idea(s) of
India
Long before the formation of the nation
state, Indian intellectuals and politicians have engaged with the idea of
India. Almost all significant nationalist leaders have written his or her
perception about India. The tradition of writing about India goes back to Raja
Ram Mohan Roy, the multi-lingual, liberal humanist intellectual from Bengal.[ii] In the absence of any concrete basis to form
a singular political entity coupled with the heterogeneity of the putative
nation, it became imperative for Indian politicians to create a discourse of
“Nation-ness”. Since the late nineteenth century, the onset of nationalist
movement in its various forms necessitated this superimposed discourse of a
singular “nation” with its origins in the hoary past. Historical linkages were
necessary to establish some kind of solidarity with the colonized people from
the far flung British Empire in the sub-continent. Tremendous intellectual
energy was spent on the project of “imagining” India and constructing a
self-image of the nation. The most influential among them is Jawaharlal Nehru’s
The Discovery of India (1946) which
makes a survey of Indian history from the Indus valley civilization to the
British Raj. Even after the formation of the nation state in 1947, India
continues to engage its citizens from all walks of life from politicians like
Sashi Tharoor, bureaucrats like Pavan K. Verma, industrialists like Nanadan
Nilekani, journalists like P. Sainath and many others, all of whom have written
about India and the ideas central to its existence and efflorescence as a vibrant
democracy.
The primary ideas governing the Indian nation
state are enunciated in the Preamble to the Constitution. It describes India as
a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic which shall strive to
deliver justice, liberty and equality to the citizens while fostering
fraternity among various segments of population. These supposedly core
political principles gave concrete shape to the idea of the Indian nation. The
guiding principles of the Indian nation state are indeed lofty yet the political
reality in India is far from ideal. These ideas were debated at great lengths
in our constituent assembly for about four years from 1946 to 1950 till the
constitution took effect. These lofty ideals were adopted primarily due to
historical contingencies of creating a nation state from the debris of the far
flung British Indian Empire. The sheer heterogeneity of the constituent units
in terms of regions, religions, castes, linguistic affiliations made any
project of unification, a daunting political wager. Hence, it was a political
necessity to incorporate various ideals in order to create a civic community of
citizens out of this heterogeneous populace. Yet, nation states are not formed
with political ideals but through historically determined circumstances and
realpolitik. As eminent scholar Sunil Khilnani writes,
The founding idea of India was never simply a
commitment to abstract values or ideas—of pluralism or democracy—but was rooted
in a practical understanding of the compulsions and the constraints of Indian
politics. Indians…are not virtuous, moderate, principled or even especially
tolerant people: they are deeply self-interested. But it is that self interest-
so apparent in the conduct of the political elite—which encourages them to make
compromises and accommodations. (Khilnani xiii)
The challenges to the Indian nation state
have surfaced both in terms of conflicting ideas vying for supremacy within the
paradigm of the nation state as well as fissiparous political dissidence trying
to tear asunder the very fabric of the nation state. Economic and food crisis
and all pervasive poverty were some of the initial challenges to the nascent
nation state. Since the 1990’s economic liberalization has brought about
unprecedented inequality among the different social classes and regional
disparity. The rise of the political ideology of Hindutva in electoral politics
threatens the idea of cultural and religious plurality and secular credentials of
the Indian state. Similarly, fissiparous insurgent movements are being waged
against the Indian nation state in Kashmir and North-eastern regions. But the
state which sought to control all spheres of life since its inception and tried
to truly become the “Mai-baap” sarkar must take a share of the responsibility.
The state which declared Justice, Liberty and
Equality as its guiding principles, literally invaded the princely state of
Hyderabad, the Portuguese colony of Goa within a decade of it existence. The
state also slammed AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) in 1958 on the Naga
people clamouring against the injustice of annexation. [iii]
The draconian AFSPA continues to exist stifling any vestiges of civil liberties
in the whole of North-East and Kashmir. The grim reality of economic
deprivation of the Dalits across the country and the tribals in Central India
reminds us that the state has failed to provide equal economic opportunities to
the economically marginal. While the Central government spends millions to
propagate “Unity in Diversity” of “Mile sur Mera Tumhara, toh sur bane Hamara”
brand, the national tune is far from becoming ‘ours’. Communal strife and caste
atrocities are the order of the day with occasional clashes between people of
different linguistic communities. In fact it proves Perry Anderson’s remark
that, “All liberal democracies are significantly less liberal, and considerably
less democratic, than they fancy themselves to be” (Anderson 109).
India and Kashmir
Politically speaking, the state of Jammu and
Kashmir is a constituent part of the Indian nation state. Yet, unlike other
parts of India, the state of Jammu and Kashmir has a dubious history of
incorporation within the Indian state. Unlike most of the princely states who willingly
choosing either of the nation states of India and Pakistan, Maharaja Hari Singh
of Jammu and Kashmir decided to remain independent. Pakistan made an attempt to
invade Kashmir in the thin disguise of a tribal raid popularly known as Kabaili
invasion of 1948. Maharaja Hari Singh signed the instrument of accession to
India in these volatile times in order to garner Indian military help. There is
a lot of secrecy as well as ambiguity about the document of the Instrument of
Accession but this accession formally made the state of Jammu and Kashmir, a
constituent part of the Indian Union. The Indian government agreed to have a plebiscite
in order to honour the political will of the Kashmiri populace after the
invasion has been thwarted. Many concessions were allowed for the state of
Jammu and Kashmir, like a separate constitution, Article 370, which guaranteed
considerable autonomy for the state and the title of Prime minister for the
chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir in order to placate the Kashmiri leaders
and populace but the much promised plebiscite was never held. In the subsequent
decades, political interference of New Delhi significantly worsened its
relationship with Kashmir and various efforts directed at wooing disgruntled
Kashmiris, especially central dole labeled as ‘economic packages’ produced no
significant political dividends.
It
is generally believed that the popular Kashmiri leader, Sheikh Abdullah was in
agreement with the Maharaja over accession to India though Abdullah’s
subsequent political career bears ambiguous testimony to the fact. Abdullah’s
dilly-dally with India, Pakistan and other foreign powers alternately made him
the Prime Minister of Kashmir as well as a prisoner in India. There was simmering
discontent among the Kashmiris over New Delhi’s interference about the local politics
in Kashmir. The unfulfilled promise of a plebiscite in Kashmir with respect to
accession and gradual erosion of autonomy guaranteed by Article 370 tarnished
the image of Indian state in the Kashmiri imagination. Though political
situation never got out of control till 1989 when Kashmir valley witnessed a
full scale armed rebellion against the Indian state. In a knee jerk reaction to
the rebellion, the Indian state responded with massive militarization and
slammed AFSPA leading to complete abolition of any civic rights in the Kashmir
valley. While armed resistance or militancy (depending on which side of the
geographical/political border one belongs to) has ebbed, Kashmir valley still
continues to be heavily militarized and AFSPA is in full force since the
1990’s.
Nation and Cinema:
The Case of India
The political category of Nation has been
famously defined by Benedict Anderson as “an imagined political community – and
imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (Anderson 6). Theorising
nationalism and creation of nation states, Anderson selected certain
socio-historical phenomena which are primarily responsible for the advent of
national consciousness; among them, advent of print capitalism and imperialism
has been the foremost. Most theoreticians of nationalism have stressed on the
importance of the arts especially the efflorescence of imaginative literature
as a conducive factor for the development of nationalism consciousness. Scholars
of nationalism greatly privilege the advent and efflorescence of the genre of
Novel as the most suitable literary vehicle for nationalism. Some scholars like
Anthony D. Smith incorporates various other artistic medium in formation of
national consciousness,
Nationalists, intent on celebrating or
commemorating the nation, are drawn to the dramatic and creative possibilities
of the artistic media and genres in painting, sculpture, architecture, music,
opera, ballet and film, as well in the arts and crafts. Through these genres
nationalist artists may, directly or evocatively, ‘reconstruct’ the sights,
sounds and images of the nation in all its concrete specificity and with the
‘archeological’ verisimilitude (Smith 92).
Films entered the cultural firmament of the Euro-American
world during late nineteenth century. It was quickly disseminated thereafter to
the colonized territories of the European nations like India. The connection
between films and spread of nationalism is anachronistic in the context of the
Euro-American world but in the context of India, films played a crucial role. Feature
films definitely validates nation as a politically aesthetisized space through
its visual presentation and have been a primary medium of reinvigorating the
appeal of nationalism and reiterating the virtues of nationness since its
advent and subsequent popularity. The advent of feature films coincides with
the efflorescence of nationalism and anti-colonial struggles in most parts of
Asia and Africa.
In India, films came as early as 1896, when
the Lumiere Brothers screened a few short films at the swanky Watson Hotel in
Mumbai to a select British audience. Some of the films screened were Arrival of a Train at a Station, Workers leaving
the Lumiere Factory at Lyon etc. Subsequently, these films were shown to
Indian audiences in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. These moving images created
quite a stir among the audience. Films caught the Indian imagination and
pioneering figures like Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar, Hiralal Sen,
Dhundiraj Govind Saheb (popularly known as Dadasaheb Phalke) started making
their own films which ushered in the silent era of Indian films. The three
great colonial urban centers of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras became sites of
film production in India. Dhundiraj Govind Phalke is regarded as the father of
Indian cinema since he made the first full length Indian feature film, Raja Harishchandra in 1913.[iv] In
fact, a lot of films in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Tamil language were made
before India achieved freedom. Hindu mythology became the staple subject of
films. Ancient and contemporary literature also provided the films with popular
and ready scripts. Bombay emerged as the most prominent among the film making
centers in India attracting both investment and talent from all over India
including Calcutta and Madras.
While cinema never received proper state
patronage like that of literature in various languages or the Classical arts,
it always served the cause of the nation state since independence. This
conscious move to placate the state was primarily due to massive popular appeal
of the nation state in the fifties and sixties which the cinema industry wanted
to capitalize. The movie industry was also eager to receive state recognition
in the form of awards. The strict rules of censorship and skewed structure of
revenue generation puts the film makers at a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis
other artistic professions and the state. Nevertheless, films made across the
nation have been performing the role of according cultural legitimacy to the
nation state in most instances. Popular Hindi movie industry based in Mumbai
has been at the fore front of celebrating and aestheticizing the national space
and national life. During the fifties and the sixties, Bollywood primarily
aestheticized the rural Indian life celebrating agrarian labour and the scenic
beauty of Indian villages, consciously erasing any mention of caste system or
communal sentiments. The nation was celebrated in movies like Mother India (1957) where the nation is
metonymically represented as a nurturing mother or in songs like “Yeh Desh hai
Veer Jawanon Ka” from Naya Daur
(1957), “Mere Desh Ki dharti Ugle Sona Heera Moti” from Upkar (1967), “Hai Preet Jahan Ki reet Sada” from the movie Purab aur Paschim (1970). The success of
Mother India illustrates the perks of
showcasing an aestheticised rural, agrarian nation. The film received two
National Film awards in 1957 and became India’s first submission for the
Academy awards for Best Foreign Language Film. It also bagged a lot of Filmfare
Awards for 1958.
In most Bollywood movies, celebration of
nationalism and the nation, which for all practical purposes extend to the state,
took the form of aestheticization of diversity or showcasing national unity and
secular values despite the presence of vivid differences. National identity was
privileged over any assertion of regional or religious differences in these
movies. The social world portrayed in most Bollywood movies have been primarily
Hindu though camouflaged as secular and respecting differences. There was a conscious
attempt at attenuating religious or regional differences present within the
precincts of the much lauded and occasionally apotheosized “Desh Ki Dharti” while
accentuating differences with other nation states, usually, Pakistan (portrayed
as visibly Islamic and conservative) but occasionally China, USA and the UK
according to the demands of the plot. Bollywood movies across the decades have
remained primarily silent about the caste system or communal disharmony. There
are notable exceptions like Achhut Kanya
(1936) or Aarakshan (2011) which
portrays the predicament of underprivileged Dalit communities or Parzania (2007) which portrayed communal
tension and state apathy in vivid details. Bollywood caters to a large section
of the Indian populace across regions. There is a tendency to erase the points
of conflict among different sections of the population in order to maintain and
enhance its popularity across caste/class/religious and regional barriers. The
resultant outcome is the portrayal of a superficial sort of national bonhomie
propagated by the Central Government of India for obvious political reasons.
Popular Indian
Movies and Kashmir in the 1960’s
Bollywood’s search for a scenic landscape is
linked with its fascination for song and dance sequence celebrating the romance
between the hero and heroine. Kashmir provided the much needed scenic landscape
within the country since the sixties. Popularity of Kashmir as a scenic
shooting location began with Shammi Kapoor and Saira Banu starrer Junglee
(1961) directed by Subodh Mukherjee. It was quickly followed by Shammi Kapoor
and Sharmila Tagore starrer Kashmir Ki
Kali (1964) directed by Shakti Samanta, Shashi kapoor and Nanda starrer Jab Jab Phool Khile (1965) dicrected by
Suraj Prakash and Rajendra Kumar and Sadhana starrer Arzoo (1965) directed by Ramanand Sagar and many others. I have
highlighted four movies here which have a significant portion of the plot set
in Kashmir though Kashmir primarily remains a scenic landscape for the
efflorescence of romance between the hero and heroine. The movies could be
decoded with a certain formula where at least one character comes to Kashmir
for tourism and falls in love with a local resident and finally marries after a
few superficial complication of the plot. In most movies, the local resident is
the heroine which is crucial considering the hierarchical nature of gender
relations in the sub-continent. The beautiful heroine becomes a symbol of
embodied beauty of the Kashmir Valley. The dialogue between the romantically
inclined individuals reiteratively refers to the incredible beauty of the vales
of Kashmir. For example in Kashmir Ki
Kali, Champa exclaims, “Kitni Khoobsuraat Vadi Hai” which is accompanied by
the visual aid of a long shot at the beautiful vales and almost superimposed omnipresence
of flowers in and around the valley. The beauty of the Valley is conflated with
the Kashmiri girl who is usually portrayed as the “Phoolwali” as in Kashmir Ki Kali or a connoisseur of
flowers as in Junglee. Flowers seem
to have double entendre showcasing both the virginal innocence of the heroine
and the incredible beauty of the landscape. It is usually the metropolitan
wealthy non-Kashmiri Indian man who wins her in the course of the movie almost
symbolizing the political relation between India and the Kashmir valley. The
movies seem to symbolically suggest that Kashmir valley can be a part of
cosmopolitan modernity of the Indian nation state only through continued
political allegiance to the Indian nation state. This political message is
significant in the context of ambiguous political assimilation of the state of
Jammu and Kashmir with the Indian Union. The only notable exception is Jab Jab Phool Khile where the man is
from Kashmiri, but later on it is revealed that his origins are from elsewhere,
presumably from other parts of India.
In fact, the visual tropes of Bollywood parallel
the political ideology of the Indian ruling elite. The visual tropes of all the
Bollywood movies from the 1960’s seems to reflect Jawaharlal Nehru’s depiction
of Kashmir in his book of collected writings, The unity of India,
Like some supremely beautiful woman, whose
beauty is almost impersonal and above human desire, such is Kashmir in all its
feminine beauty of river, valley and lake and graceful trees…I watched this
ever changing spectacle, and sometimes the sheer loveliness of it was over
powering and I felt almost faint. As I gazed at it, it seemed to me dream-like
and unreal like the hopes and desires that feel us and so seldom find fulfillment.
It was like the face of the beloved that one sees in a dream but that fades
away on awakening (Nehru 223).
Feminization of the Kashmiri landscape is ideologically
equivalent to the feminization of the colonized territories by the
West-European colonial administrators in their personal or official writings
about the colonies during the nineteenth century. In the light of subsequent
history of New Delhi’s interference and domination of Kashmiri politics since
Indian independence in 1947, it is apt to surmise that the cinematic
representation seems to ideologically conform to the hegemonic political aims
of the Indian nation state over Kashmir valley. The overarching ideology of the
movies behind the all too romantic and innocent pleasures of love and flirtation
between two unequal (in terms of social class, education and mobility) but
consenting adults seems to allegorically symbolize the political relations
between the insular, underdeveloped and poverty stricken Kashmir valley and the
ever munificent and politically dominant Indian nation state.
Another very striking feature of Bollywood
representation of Kashmir is that characters from Kashmir are invariably
portrayed as Hindus. Even characters wearing ethnic Kashmiri Muslim dress has somewhat
North-Indian Hindu names like Champa in Kashmir
Ki Kali, Raj Kumari in Junglee or
Raja in Jab Jab Phool Khile.[v] The
Hindu population of Kashmir valley comprises of the miniscule Kashmiri Pandit
community (only 2 to 3%) of the population before the exodus of 1990’s. Representing
Kashmir as a land inhabited by Hindus, these movies seem to project Kashmir as
a natural part of the notionally secular but culturally and politically Hindu
nation state of India. In a not so significant moment in Arzoo, the Kashmiri houseboat owner cum tour guide, Mangloo takes
Gopal to Shankaracharya Temple in Srinagar. The presence of ancient temple
within the valley naturalises Kashmir as an integral part of Hindu India trying
to obliterate the political history of Kashmir valley. On the contrary, there
is no mention of any of the Islamic monuments like the seventeenth century
Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar in any of the movies from the 1960’s. Characters visit
places of exceptional natural beauty, like the Gulmarg snow fields, Char Chinar
in Dal lake, takes Shikara ride wearing ethnic Kashmiri Muslim dress but they
never visit any mosque as part of their tour. In Jab Jab Phool Khile religious differences between Raja and Rita are
never broached in the course of the movie, even when Raja is trying to fit into
the upscale Hindu social circuit of Bombay based Rita. The movie primarily
focuses on the differential class position of the two romantically inclined,
consenting but unequal adults on their way to establish conjugal relationship.
The fact that Raja is a Muslim would have formed the primary social hurdle in
any Indian social set-up among two paramours trying to socially sanctify their
conjugal love. By subtle maneuvering of the plot and crucial elision of facts,
the movie tends to pay lip service to the notion of secularism propagated with
much fanfare but seldom followed by the Indian polity. In fact, the movies
actually never mention religion thereby eliding the crucial socio-political
fact that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in
the Indian Union.
There is a subtle politics of national
acculturation through crucial dialogues embedded in the movies where Kashmiris
willingly acknowledge their Indian nationhood. In Jab Jab Phool Khile, when Rita wishes to educated Raja, he rejects
English language on grounds of the dissolution of the British Raj from the
sub-continent, but willingly embraces Hindi, the official language of the
Indian state. The movie bypasses the fact that the state of Jammu and Kashmir
is the only state in India which embraced Urdu as the official language of the
state. As a Kashmiri Muslim, Raja’s natural linguistic choice should have been
Urdu. The movie also bypasses the Urdu-Hindi debate raging in other parts of
the country triggered by Pakistan’s adoption of Urdu as the state language. In Arzoo, the Kashmiri houseboat owner
refers to Nehru’s death with grief which is equally shared by the Delhi based
Gopal. Arzoo was released in 1965, a
year after Jawaharlal Nehru’s demise which could have been a great cause of
national mourning in most parts of India. But, in Kashmir, the political
situation was quite different. The optimism shared by common Kashmiris in 1947
about their inclusion in the Indian Union eroded with the imprisonment of
Sheikh Abdullah in 1953. But what is crucial about the year 1965 in the context
of Kashmiri history is that the expressions of ‘Sadar-i-Riyasat’ and ‘Prime
Minister’ were dropped and Jammu and Kashmir like any other state in India got
Governors and Chief Ministers. The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir was
previously referred to as Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. This political
move was regarded as an erosion of autonomy and privilege by the political
fraternity in Kashmir and these sentiments were shared by the Kashmiri
populace. The visual representation of a common Kashmiris mourning for Nehru is
somewhat superimposed and represents allegiance of the Kashmiris to the ruling
elite of the Indian state. These subtle erasures and crucial inclusions take us
back to the second epigraph of the paper. If identities are produced through
cultural representation then Bollywood movies of the 1960’s generates a
Kashmiri identity which is amenable to India’s political interests thoroughly
eliding the fissiparous political aspirations of the valley.
Popular Indian
Movies and Kashmir post 1990’s
There emerges a paradigm shift in the tropes
of representing Kashmir in Indian popular movies post 1990’s. Similar to the
political fraternity in New Delhi, the glitterati in Mumbai were taken aback by
the velocity and intensity of the armed resistance of 1990’s in Kashmir valley.
Cinematic representation shifted their focus from the “Khoobsurat Vadiyaan” and
“Kalis” of Kashmir to the nitty-gritty’s of an armed resistance directed against
‘Mother India’. The popularity of Kashmir soared as a scenic location among the
Indian movie makers since the sixties yet they never engaged with the simmering
discontent among the local populace until the onset of armed resistance in the
1990’s. While the “Haseen Vadiya” was still there, now they are infested with
“Atankvadis” and became the backdrop of blood curdling anti-state criminal activities
like terrorism and abduction. For the first time, Bollywood movies started
portraying politicized Kashmiri Muslims voicing their desire for greater autonomy
or independence from India, albeit in a seamier light. The conflict ridden
Kashmir Valley was represented for the first time in a Tamil movie, Roja (1992) directed by Mani Ratnam. Roja ushers in a new era of cinematic
representation of Kashmir juxtaposing the fabled beauty of the valley with that
of violent anti-state activities. Bollywood began its engagement with Kashmir
with Hritikh Roshan starrer Mission
Kashmir (2000) directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. It was followed by Yahaan (2005) directed by Shoojit Sircar,
Lamhaa: The Untold Story of Kashmir (2010) directed by Rahul
Dholakia and the most recent Haider
(2014) directed by Vishal Bharadwaj.
Movies dealing with Kashmir post 1990’s are
invariably a celebration of Indian nationalism and the efficiency and magnanimity
of the India state. All the movies mentioned above except Haider, uncritically celebrate the role of the Indian state in
Kashmir, thoroughly abstaining from any mention of military high-handedness and
the promulgation of exceptional laws like that of AFSPA which accorded
unprecedented impunity to the security forces. Apparently, these movies seem to
propagate the much reiterated view that all the actions undertaken by the state
were primarily for the “security” of the people. In fact words like ‘security’ in
Roja or ‘Hefajaat’ in Yahaan are repeatedly cited as the
reason for massive army presence in the valley. Yahaan portrays a Kashmiri Muslim man, father of a young Kashmiri
girl, acknowledging the fact that army personnel are deployed in Kashmir valley
for their protection. Most state officials, invariably Hindu, except the
character of Inayat Khan in Mission
Kashmir, are portrayed as saviours of both the nation and local Kashmiris. On
the contrary, most Kashmiri nationalists/secessionists are shown as
fundamentalist Islamic mujahedeen with ideological and military base in
Pakistan surmised as a cradle of fundamentalist Islamic jihad. Almost all the
movies blame Pakistan for the armed resistance in Kashmir thereby purging the
Indian nation and government of any responsibility for the political debacle in
Kashmir. One notable exception is Haider.
The earlier brand of nationalism visualized and propagated by Bollywood was
through aestheticization and celebration of the diversity of Indian culture and
communal bonhomie within a bucolic and scenic rural set-up. Post 1990’s, movies
dealing with Kashmir celebrate nationalism in the form of nationalist/military
jingoism. It also includes representing military action against an intransigent
populace in the context of Kashmir.
Victorious army actions have become the rallying point of cinematic nationalistic
fervor with reiterative declaration of Kashmir as an integral part of India in
most movies.
The federal structure of the Indian Union and
paternalistic relation of the Central government with the constituent units is
symbolically represented by the cinematic device of adoption. In Mission Kashmir, Inayat Khan, a secular Kashmiri IPS officer adopts Altaaf,
a Kashmiri Muslim orphan. In Yahaan,
communal and national bonhomie is beautifully projected through a series of
adoption in the film. Sri, a Kashmiri Pandit girl, another orphan, has been
adopted by Adaa’s family portraying communal harmony or remnants of Kashmiriyat
in the Valley. And in the final shot of Yahaan, we see Amaan, wearing Indian
army uniform walks towards the camera guiding both Adaa and Sri symbolizing domestic
harmony as well as metonymically representing harmony of the Indian nation state
with both the Pandits and Muslims of Kashmir. Their relative heights with
Amaan, the representative of the Indian state as the tallest, seems to project
the power relations embedded within both the federal structure of the Indian
Union as well as majority/minority divide in Indian politics and society. As a
representative of the Indian state, the role of Vikram Sabarwal as the savior
of both Aziza and Aatif, budding pro-India Kashmiri politicians in Lamhaa is equally symptomatic of similar
power structures. Aatif’s patronizing attitude towards the Kashmiri Pandit
community in the refugee camps of Jammu is reminiscent of Adaa and her family’s
attitude towards Sri in Yahaan.
One of the striking features of the post-90’s
cinematic representation of Kashmir is its association of Islam. While the
erstwhile Bollywood movies were self-consciously trying to erase Islam from
Kashmir valley with a near total absence of any Kashmiri apart from the
beautiful maiden/lad of the vale and the tour guide, these movies portrays the
all-pervasive presence of Kashmiris and their association with Islamic rituals
and monuments. All these movies portray Kashmir as the fertile ground of Jihadi
forces and anti-India activities. The representation of Kashmir as an Islamic
space is visually validated with reiterative presence of bearded Muslim men,
Kashmiri/Pakistani/Afghani, alternately shown as offering namaz publicly at a
mosque or privately inside their homes and wielding the Kalashnikov. Hazratbal
Shrine and the Jama Masjid of Srinagar have iconic presence in Mission Kashmir and Lamhaa and are repeatedly shown in the course of these movies. Images of anti-state violence perpetrated by
these men in the form of bomb explosions as in Mission Kashmir or abduction of state officials as in Roja or holding innocent hostages as in Yahaan seem to equate violence and
anti-Indian activities and sentiments with Islam (Ananya Jahanara Kabir). In
contrast to the anti-national Muslim terrorists, the state officials working on
behalf of the India nation, mostly army men like Vikram in Lamhaa and Amaan in Yahaan
or an engineer like Rishi working for
the army in Roja are all visibly
Hindu and portrayed as saviours. Tejaswini Niranjana’s analysis of Roja remains valid for all the three
above mentioned movies, “…the Kashmiri militants always appear in clothes
marked as ethnically Muslim; their ethnicity reveals them as anti-modern
(therefore anti-national or anti-Indian), intolerant and fundamentalist, while
the Hindu ethnicity as displayed by the chief protagonists is merely part of
the complexity of being Indian…[their] work, directly related to the security
of the country, is presented as truly nationalist; and, interestingly, his
nationalism is not anti-western but (although never stated) is anti Muslim”
(Niranjana 79). Such sentiments are common in the Indian public sphere
primarily dominated by the Hindu majority population, especially after the rise
of Hindutva as a potent force in Indian electoral politics since the 1990’s. In
fact they seem to indicate “Kashmiriyat’s putative destruction, with the added
implication that it is the Kashmiri as Muslim who, left to his own devices, is
up to the usual mischief” (Kabir 21). In fact the movies tend to conflate
issues of Islamic fundamentalism and Kashmiri desire for independence or
autonomy, thereby, visually reiterating the classic south-Asian
religio-political divide, obliquely evoking memories of partition at the
founding moment of the Indian nation state.
There is a near total absence of any member
of the Kashmiri Pandit community in these movies except in dialogues between
characters as the unsuspecting victim of the armed resistance. Interestingly,
all the movies refer to the Pandit exodus of the 1990’s. The victimization of
Kashmiri Pandit community and their exodus from the valley has become a
convenient issue to be exploited to delegitimize Kashmiri resistance. Pandering
to the popular perceptions of the Indian populace, Indian movies share and
reiterate the official narrative of the Indian government, conveniently washing
their hands off any responsibility. In fact, it also erases the support of
Kashmiri Pandit intellectuals like Sanjay Kak, Suvir Kaul, Nandita Haskar and
Nitasha Kaul towards the movement for freedom in Kashmir and their vehement
criticism of atrocities perpetrated by the Indian security forces in the
valley.[vi]
Kashmiri Movies
As opposed to Bollywood movies, Kashmiri film
makers began cinematically representing their own version of the reality in
Kashmir as late as the last decade. While documentaries like Jashn-e-Azadi directed by Sanjay Kak have
become very famous, this paper is primarily focusing on films like Zero Bridge (2008) directed by Tariq
Tapa, Harud (2010) directed by Aamir
Bashir, and Ziyarat (2011) directed
by Suresh K Goswami. To distinguish Indian and Kashmiri movies is
geo-politically unviable since Kashmir continues to be a part of India in spite
of varied forms of political dissidence. The categorization followed in the
paper is viable when the inherent ideology of these movies is taken into
consideration. Haider complicates the
categorization followed in this paper since its screenplay has been written
jointly by the Kashmiri author, Basharat Peer and Vishal Bharadwaj. Tahaan (2008) directed by Santosh Sivan
also complicates the categorization primarily because of the perspective
focussed in the film. Ziyarat remains
an abortive attempt at promoting Kashmiriyat in an amateurish narrative while Zero Bridge is primarily about the
unsuccessful attempts by a socially underprivileged Kashmiri youth at various occupation
and love. The troubled political condition of the valley remains in the
backdrop without being properly exploited within the cinematic narratives in Ziyarat and Zero Bridge. The Kashmiri attempt at self representation achieves
fruition in Harud.
Harud
captures the existential realities of everyday Kashmir plagued with massive
militarization and the disciplining technologies of the Indian state. Rafiq’s
impotent rage at the omnipresence of military and feeling of emasculation is
symptomatic of common Kashmiri sentiments. Harud
revisits and reinterprets some of the popular tropes of Bollywood movies within
the cinematic narratives. Rafiq’s urge to learn photography coupled with his
discomfiture as the object of photography can be interpreted as the Kashmiri
angst at self-representation and anxiety about Indian representation of
Kashmir. In a profoundly existential moment when Rafiq tries to capture a snap
at the Dal Lake, he observes a Shikara full of armed personnel being rowed by a
Kashmiri boat man. Through this shot Bashir talks back to Bollyood representations
which have reiteratively represented the Shikara ride as part of the amorous
exercise from Kashmir ki Kali to
recent movies like Mission Kashmir and
Yahaan. Instead of pondering over
issues of national integration and global networks of terrorism which are
primary concerns in Indian popular movies, Kashmiri movies primarily depict
characters trying to eke out a precarious existence in an economically and
politically stifling zone of conflict.
Haider and
Tahaan, both the movies focus on the
existential realities of common Kashmiris in a heavily militarized conflict
zone. The all pervasive presence of the Indian armed forces and its mechanism
of surveillance like crackdowns and check posts have been repeatedly shown in
the course of both the movies. Tahaan
poignantly represents the loss of innocence in the context of economically
crippled and socially turbulent Kashmiri society. Tahaan becomes the easy
target of the militants who tries to exploit his infancy in order to perpetrate
violence against the Indian armed forces. Both the movies puts forward the
message of abjuring violence as a form of resistance to the Indian state
machinery which may be interpreted as supporting status-quo in the context of
the Kashmir but there is a severe critique of the high-handedness of the Indian
military establishment and corruption of the state machinery.
The dilemmas of Rafiq and his friends who are
torn between the choice of becoming militants or escape to other parts of India
exposes the lack of economic opportunities in the valley. Dilawar’s struggle in
Zero Bridge to get a suitable
employment vindicates similar situation. Dilawar finally decides to relocate to
Delhi with his beloved. Kashmiri movies also complicate the dichotomy created
by Indian popular movies between good Kashmiris Muslims with allegiance to
India and bad Kashmiri Muslim engaged in Pakistan supported militancy in the
valley conflating with the good Muslim/bad Muslim dyad employed as a trope for
representing Muslims in India.
Indian
Representation vis-à-vis Self Representation
Ananya Jahanara Kabir’s formulation that
“Indian representations of the valley perpetuate three sorts of violence—the
violence of the founding moment, the violence of legitimizing authority, and
the violence of maintaining authority, Kashmiri counter-representations
complicate this violence” (Kabir 22) yet we cannot neglect the intricacies and
subversive potential of visual medium which speaks in spite of the auteur’s
intension. Despite Bollywood’s tireless efforts at presenting Kashmir through
the “dominant regimes of representation” within the Indian context, the cinematic
narratives obliquely refers to the other side of the story. While most of the
Indian movies on Kashmir tend to hinge on the budding and efflorescence of a
romantic relationship within the context of the troubled but beautiful valley
of Kashmir, all-pervasive presence of Indian military ruptures the innocence
embedded in the discourse of inclusion
and integration. Repetitive depiction of armed personnel and armoured vehicles and
demands for Identity cards from Kashmiris in public places within the valley disengages
these cinematic narratives from popular notions of democracy and civil rights
in India. It brings forth “the question of power, to the lines of force and
consent” (Hall 76). There is a trend of progressively critical representation of
the Kashmir issue in Indian popular movies, evolving from an absent presence in
the sixties to the Roja-like all too
simple good Indian/bad terrorist binary and finally a full-fledged criticism of
the Indian state and its administrative and military paraphernalia in Haider. The “diffuse, deferred, and not
necessarily entailed”[vii]
political potential of popular cinematic narratives surface through the
apparently innocuous question of Roja about the presence of armed personnel in
the empty streets of Srinagar, Altaaf’s nightmare of army atrocities in Mission Kashmir, Shakeel’s informed and sensitive complaints
about the massive militarization of the valley in Yahaan, use of slogans like “Azadi” in the election campaign and reference
to movement to search for the disappeared Kashmiri men in Lamhaa
and Haider’s onomatopoeic rhyme of AFSPA with the English word of “Chutzpah”
also demarcating the only possible way of venting out the pent up frustration
of hapless, freedom craving Kashmiris. In fact, Kashmiri self representation in
cinematic narratives develops on these themes elaborately with local nuances
which are absent in the Indian cinematic narratives. Indian cinematic narratives
on Kashmir are embedded within the over-arching dominant narrative of the
Indian nation state and popular perceptions of the Indian populace (majorly
Hindu) though there are occasional bouts of liberalism and dissonance within
the narrative. The Kashmiri movies are more about Kashmir than about political
relations between the Indian Union and the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Conclusion
Movies dealing on Kashmir broach questions of
power, consent and legitimacy in the domains of national and regional politics
and its subsequent impact in cultural representation. Dominant and popular
regimes of representation like that of Bollywood creates images of relatively
powerless society and culture like that of Kashmir in the self-image of the
majority Hindu community amenable to its political, social and national
interests thereby obliterating dissonance and dissidence from cultural
representation. Kashmiri cinematic narratives strive for self-representation
within the limitation of technical know-how, acting skills and in the absence
of any niche market. Their very presence interrogates and challenges the
dominant images of cultural representation of Kashmir, its inhabitants and
their political aspirations delegitimising the over-arching ideologies of the Indian
political and cultural regimes.
Endnotes
[i] This quotation has been taken from Stuart Hall’s essay, “Cultural
Identity and Cinematic Representation”.
[ii] Raja Ram Mohan Roy was
most probably the first among Indian intellectuals to articulate about a
singular India in his essay, “India—Its Boundary and History”. This essay was
reproduced in a volume titled Nineteenth
Century Indian English Prose: A Selection, edited by Mohan Ramanan and
published by Sahitya Akademi, 2004.
[iii] AFSPA was enacted
in 1958 and special powers were accorded to the army personnel posted in so
called “disturbed” areas of the North-eastern parts of India comprising of
Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. This
act was introduced in Kashmir as a response to the armed resistance to the
Indian nation state during the 1990’s and remains effective in the valley till
date. It provides complete immunity to the armed forces from any judicial
action on any grounds whatsoever. Such immunity has accelerated the count of
army atrocities in Kashmir over the years. The most notable fact remains that
even after almost seventy years of robust existence, Indian nation-state
remains perpetually insecure about its existence in the north-east, Kashmir,
the tribal belts of central India and hence the continuation of AFSPA which is
periodically renewed and extended to more territories within India.
[iii]There are certain doubts regarding the first feature film made in
India. Scholars like Sumita Chakravarty have cited the example of R.G. Torney’s
Pundalik as the first indigenously
produced feature film (Chakravarty 34). But Phalke is widely considered to be
the pioneer both by the Indian state and in the popular imagination. In an
influential article published in The Guardian titled “The Birth of India’s film
History: How the movies came to Mumbai?” , Pamela Hutchinson cites Hiralal Sen
and a few others who could have possibly made a feature fim before Phalke but
never got archived or documented.
<http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/25/birth-indias-film-industry-movies-mumbai.>
[iii] Jab Jab Phool Khile is
the only exception where the male protagonist is from Kashmir. There are other
minor Muslims characters in these movies, like Mangloo in Arzoo. Some characters are portrayed wearing the Kashmiri Muslim
dress but their religious identity is never stated clearly.
[iii] While Kashmiri Pandits are
mostly hostile towards the Kashmiri movement for Azadi on account of the
atrocities perpetrated by organizations like Hizbul Mujhaedeen and Jammu and
Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) on the community, several non-resident Kashmiri
Pandit scholars like Sanjay Kak, Suvir Kaul and Nitasha Kaul have expressed
solidarity of varying degrees with the movement and criticized the atrocities
perpetrated by the armed forces in the valley. Sanjay Kak’s documentary Jashn-e-Azadi has been a watershed
moment in the history of visually representing the conflict situation in
Kashmir. Suvir Kaul has recently published a book titled Of Gardens and Graves,
published by Three Essays Collective in 2015.
Some essays definitely express solidarity with the movement. Nitasha
Kauls’s novel Residue (2014) also
vehemently criticizes army atrocities in the valley.
[iii] In the last chapter of his book Understanding Popular Culture titled, “Politics” John Fiske
theorizes about the political potential of popular culture. According to him,
popular culture may not be political in terms of direct social repercussions
but are imbued with politics in a subterranean way. Thus, while talking of
Indian popular movies dealing with Kashmir, I have applied this theory since
Bollywood shows a more critically nuanced portrayal of Kashmir issue with time.
Even in the plot line of romance and national bonhomie there are moments of
critical engagements with the political issue. The phrases quoted in the paper
are from page no. 131.
Works Cited
Primary Cinematic Sources:
Arzoo. Dir.
Ramanand Sagar. Perf. Rajendra Kumar, Sadhana. Prod. Sagar Art International.
1965. Film.
Jab Jab Phool Khile.
Dir. Suraj Prakash. Perf. Shashi Kapoor, Nanda. Prod. Lime Light. 1965.
Film.
Jashn-e-Azadi: How we celebrate freedom. Dir. Sanjay Kak. An Octave Communications
Productions. 2007. DVD.
Junglee. Dir.
Subodh Mukherjee. Perf. Shammi Kapoor, Saira Banu. Prod. Subodh Mukherjee
Productions. 1961. Film.
Haider. Dir.
Vishal Bharadwaj. Perf. Shahid Kapoor, Tabu, Kay Kay Menon. Prod. UTV Motion
Pictures, VB Pictures. 2014. Film.
Harud. Dir. Amir
Bashir. Prod. Chasingtales. 27th July, 2012. Film.
Kashmir Ki Kali. Dir.
Shakti Samanta. Prod. Shakti Films, United Producers. 1964, Film.
Roja. Dir. Mani
Ratnam. Perf. Arvind Swamy, Madhoo, Pankaj Kapur. Prod. Madras Talkies,
Hansa Pictures (p) ltd. 1992. Film.
Mission Kashmir. Dir.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Perf. Hrithik Roshan, Preity Zinta. Prod.
Destination Films and Vidhu Vinod Chopra Productions. 2000.
Film.
Lamhaa: The Untold Story of Kashmir. Dir. Rahul Dholakia. Perf. Bipasha Basu, Sanjay Dutt,
Anupam Kher. Prod. G.S. Entertainment and PVR Productions. 2010.
Film.
Tahaan. Dir.
Santosh Sivan. Perf. Purav Bhandare, Rahul Bose, Victor Banerjee. Prod. IDream
Productions. 2008. Film.
Yahaan. Dir.
Shoojit Sircar. Perf. Jimmy Shergill, Minissha Lamba. Prod. Sahara One Motion
Pictures. 2005. Film.
Zero Bridge. Dir.
Tariq Tapa. Perf. Mohammad Imran Tapa, Taniya Khan. Prod. Joyless Films,
Artists Public Domain. 2008. Film.
Ziyarat. Dir.
Suresh K. Goswami. Perf. Irfan Choudhury, Poonam Sudan. Prod. Bluebird Films
Pvt. Ltd. 2011. Film.
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