Film critic says Bollywood is mass producing ‘pro-government’ films ahead of India’s elections

new bollywood movie trailers, sabarmati report, The film opens with a shot of a railway platform overlaid with the word Ayodhya, a city in northern India that has been the focus of conflict between India’s Hindus and Muslims for decades.

There is a brief scene of Hindu pilgrims wearing saffron garlands and holding religious flags passing in front of the train, before the editing cuts to the interior of the train, where women are seen chanting “Ram” invoking the Hindu deity. The scene depicts Hindu religious songs being sung with the chants of “Ram” in the background. Lord Rama.

After the young girl smiles at the camera, the footage cuts back to the scene outside the train car, where a frenzied crowd of men can be seen throwing stones at the train. A fire broke out on the train and a woman’s screams could be heard.

The words “Based on a True Story” appear on the screen in bold letters, and one of the two actors playing the TV reporters says, “I don’t think this was a fire accident,” and the other says, “This was done on purpose.” It was set on fire.” .

The “true incident” is a fire that broke out on February 27, 2002, on the Sabarmati Express train as it passed through Godhra, Gujarat, the hometown of Hindu supremacist Prime Minister Narendra Modi in western India. This refers to the deaths of 59 Hindus.

The train was carrying around 2,000 passengers, most of them Hindus returning home in response to a call from the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad group to visit Ayodhya as part of a campaign to build a Ram temple on the site of a 16th-century temple. was. A century-old mosque destroyed by Hindu mobs in 1992.

At the time, it was reported that some Hindu passengers misbehaved with Muslim hawkers on the Godhra station platform, prompting an attack on the train. An investigation completed in 2006 found the fire to be an accident, but the Supreme Court rejected the report as invalid, established a special investigation team, and found that the fire had been intentionally started. A special court in 2011 found 31 people guilty and sentenced 11 to death, but the sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment.

The attack sparked one of India’s worst incidents of sectarian violence, killing at least 1,000 people in Gujarat state, most of them Muslims, and propelling Mr. Modi, then the state’s top government official, into national politics. stage.

Renowned film critic Raja Sen said: sabarmati report The film is one in a series of recently released or upcoming films that serve as right-wing propaganda for Mr. Modi and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who are seeking a third term in power in the general elections that begin this month. It is one.

“I can’t help but feel that all of a sudden there are a lot of movies coming out. There’s an overabundance of movies that are particularly specialized in one direction,” Sen said. National.

“These propaganda films are exaggerated and misleading, but on some level some people may believe them, and that’s scary.”

propaganda mechanism

sabarmati report is one of 12 such recent productions by Bollywood, the Hindi film industry that dominates Indian cinema.

film Article 370was released in February and deals with the Modi government’s controversial decision in 2019 to repeal a constitutional provision that gave semi-autonomous status to Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority region. .

The prime minister supported the film, saying it would “help the public obtain correct information.”

Other films have clear anti-Islamic tendencies, such as: Razakaar: Silent Genocide of hyderabad, This was funded by the BJP leaders.

The film tells the story of a militia allegedly used by the Muslim rulers of Hyderabad who refused to annex the princely state to India at the end of British colonial rule in 1947. Militia allegedly attacked Hindu subjects who supported accession before India took control of the country. By force.

Another recent movie, Jahangir National Universitytells the story of a fictional university using clips from news outlets of protests at Delhi’s acclaimed Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The left-leaning university, commonly known as JNU, has been at the forefront of protests against the Modi government’s policies such as the citizenship law, which 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 referring to critics of the government and Hindu nationalism).

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

film vaccine war He has demonized the media for criticizing Mr. Modi’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 500,000 Indians. Swatantra Veer Shavalkar The film is a biopic of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the father of Hindu supremacy revered by Mr. Modi’s party.

None of these movies did well at the box office.

Last week, state-run national television network Doordarshan aired the 2023 movie. story of kerala, The film depicts how Hindu women from the southern provinces converted to Islam and were recruited by ISIS. Although there is a basis in fact, the number of such incidents falls far short of her 32,000 claims in the film.

Indian security officials estimate that about 100 men and women from the southern coastal state have joined or attempted to join ISIS.

“That tilt is especially scary than any movie. So many people are exposed to the same kind of thing,” Sen said.

“What’s scary is the fact that Bollywood is so submissive and neatly in tune that it’s only a matter of time before someone makes a really good propaganda film, which becomes much more insidious and convincing.” “I guess so,” he said.

boycott campaign

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

India has always been a target for politicians, and under the current government, attacks on those deemed to go against the beliefs of India’s majority Hindu community have become more frequent.

Some of the industry’s top actors, most of them Muslim actors and producers, have been the target of a boycott campaign by Hindu nationalist groups over their lives on and off camera.

Bollywood megastars such as Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan have faced anger over their own statements in recent years, and their films have also been targeted.

However, many collaborate with the ruling government and Hindu nationalist groups.

“On the one hand, there are celebrities who are in tune with the narrative and want to be on the winning side, and on the other hand, there are people who are worried about backlash and don’t want to be pariahs in their world,” Sen said.

“In many cases, they are left with no choice,” he says.

censorship

While pro-government content has proliferated, increased surveillance by authorities has left little room for content critical of the ruling party to be produced.

In recent years, there has been an increase in censorship of scenes, dialogue, and even song and dance sequences.

A censor board removed a scene from last year’s Bollywood film “Beed” that juxtaposed images and speeches of Mr. Modi with the misery of millions of Indians during the coronavirus pandemic.

Producers of the film Pattern have been forced to change the color of the swimsuit worn by actress Deepika Padukone in the song following violent protests by Hindu groups. This is because the original color, saffron, is associated with Hinduism.

“As long as there have been movies, there has always been propaganda. Since 9/11, we have seen the ‘otherization’ of Muslims in films and television around the world, and we have become steeped in that stereotype. Ta. But now it is reaching a disgusting extreme,” Sen said.

“While there is nothing inherently wrong with this film being released, it should be criticized because it pretends to be factual, when in fact it is not. “We share one side of the world, but the other side is not fully allowed to express itself. The other side is made to disappear.”

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