Bollywood is producing 'pro-government' fare ahead of Indian elections, says film critic

The trailer of a new Bollywood film, The Sabarmati report, opens with a photo of a railway platform superimposed with the word Ayodhya, a city in northern India that has been at the center of conflict between the country's Hindus and Muslims for decades.

Hindu pilgrims wearing saffron garlands and holding religious flags are briefly seen passing a train, before the montage cuts to the inside of a train carriage where women are singing Hindu devotional songs against the backdrop of chants of “Ram , Ram” invoking the Lord, the Hindu deity. Rama.

A young girl smiles at the camera before the footage cuts back to the scene outside the carriage, where a frenzied crowd of men are shown throwing stones at the train. A fire breaks out on the train and a woman is heard screaming.

Based on True Events appears in bold letters on the screen before one of the two actors playing the TV reporters says, “I don't think it's a fire,” to which the other replies: “It was deliberately set on fire.”

The “real events” refer to the death of 59 Hindus in a fire aboard the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002 as it passed through the western Indian city of Godhra in Gujarat, India. Home state of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

There were about 2,000 passengers on the train, mostly Hindus returning home after responding to a call from right-wing group Vishwa Hindu Parishad to visit Ayodhya as part of a campaign to build a temple there Ram on the site of a 16th century. century mosque which was demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992.

It was reported at the time that some Hindu passengers had misbehaved with Muslim vendors on the Godhra platform, instigating them to attack the train. An investigation concluded in 2006 found that the fire was caused by accident, but the Supreme Court rejected the report as invalid and set up a special investigation team which concluded that the fire was started deliberately. A special court convicted 31 people in 2011. Eleven were sentenced to death, later commuted to life sentences.

The incident triggered some of India's worst sectarian violence, in which at least 1,000 people were killed in mostly Muslim Gujarat, and propelled Mr. Modi, who was then head of government of the State, on the national political scene. scene.

According to the eminent film critic Raja Sen, The Sabarmati report is one of a series of recently released and upcoming films that serve as right-wing propaganda for Mr. Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who are seeking a third term in general elections that begin this month.

It's hard not to see that many films come out suddenly. There is a glut of films particularly oriented in one direction, Mr. Sen said. The National.

These propaganda films are hogwash and misleading, but on some level some people can believe them, which is scary. »

Propaganda machines

The Sabarmati report is one of a dozen recent productions from Bollywood, the Hindi-language film industry that dominates Indian cinema.

The film Section 370published in February, addresses the controversial decision by Mr. Modi's government to abandon a constitutional provision in 2019 that granted semi-autonomous status to Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority region.

It was approved by the Prime Minister, who said the film was useful for people to get correct information.

Other films have a clear anti-Muslim bias, such as Razakars: Silent Genocide of Hyderabad, which was funded by a BJP leader.

The film tells the story of a militia allegedly used by the Muslim ruler of Hyderabad who refused to merge his princely state with India at the end of British colonial rule in 1947. The militia allegedly attacked subjects Hindus who supported accession before India took over the state. by force.

Another recent film, Jahangir National Universitytells the story of a fictional university with excerpts from news agencies about the protests at Delhi's renowned Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The left-wing university, known as JNU, was at the forefront of protests against the Modi government's policies, such as the citizenship law that allows only non-Muslim immigrants to become Indians. BJP leaders and supporters have often accused the university of being a breeding ground for anti-nationals and urban-naxals, a broad term used to refer to critics of the government or Hindu nationalism.

Jahangir is the name of the fourth emperor of the Muslim Mughal dynasty who ruled much of India from the 16th century to the mid-18th century.

The film Vaccine war demonizes the media for criticizing Mr Modi's handling of the Covid pandemic which has killed half a million Indians, while Swatantra Veer Savarkar is a biopic on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, father of Hindu supremacy idolized by Mr. Modi's party.

None of these films did well at the box office.

Last week, national television channel Doordarshan aired the 2023 film. History of Kerala, which tells the story of how Hindu women in the southern state were converted to Islam and recruited by ISIS. Although it is based on factual events, the number of these cases is far from the 32,000 claimed in the film.

Indian security agencies estimate that around 100 people from the southern coastal state, both men and women, have joined or attempted to join IS.

The point of view is scarier than any particular movie. Many people are exposed to only one type of thing, Mr. Sen said.

The fear is that Bollywood is falling in line so meekly and clearly, and it's only a matter of time before someone makes a really good propaganda film that will be much more insidious and compelling, did he declare.

Boycott campaigns

Bollywood produces more than 1,000 films per year and remains India's largest and most popular media industry. Its scope is vast and its stars are treated like gods.

He has always been a target of politicians, with attacks becoming more frequent under the current government for anything seen as contrary to the beliefs of India's majority Hindu community.

Several industry figures, mostly Muslim actors and producers, have been the subject of boycott campaigns by Hindu nationalist groups because of their lives on and off camera.

Bollywood megastars like Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan have faced wrath for their remarks and been targets of films in recent years.

But many have rallied around the ruling government and Hindu nationalist groups.

On one hand, there are famous faces who would happily follow the narrative and perhaps want to be on the winning side, but there are also people who worry about backlash and don't want to be an outcast in their world., Mr. Sen said.

In many cases, they have no choice, he said.

Censorship

While pro-government content is on the rise, increased surveillance by authorities leaves little room for the production of content critical of the ruling party.

Censorship of scenes, dialogues and even song and dance sequences has increased in recent years.

Scenes from last year's Bollywood film Bheed, which juxtaposed the misery of millions of Indians with images and speeches by Mr Modi during the Covid pandemic, were removed by the censor board.

The producers of the film Pathaan had to change the color of the swimsuit worn by actress Deepika Padukone in a song sequence following violent protests from Hindu groups as the original color saffron is associated with Hinduism.

There has always been propaganda, as long as there has been cinema. We witnessed, after September 11, the “othering” of Muslims in films and on television around the world, and we fueled these stereotypes. But now it is reaching a sickening extreme, Mr. Sen said.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this cinema happening, but this cinema should be denounced because it claims to be factual, and it is not. We share one side of the story, and the other side is absolutely not allowed to represent itself. The other side was made to disappear.

Updated: April 12, 2024, 6:00 p.m.