Dil Se features equally surreal scenes. One slow-motion song-and-dance sequence shows the lovebirds Amar (Shah Rukh Khan) and Meghna (Manisha Koirala) in different landscapes and multiple outfits, looking tragic and embracing while fire, explosions, barbed wire, and more fire appear as metaphorical (and actual) obstacles. The absurdity of the pair falling in love while still having time to make multiple costume changes as the world is destroyed by terrorists is part of Bollywood’s ludicrous and endearing DNA.
Terrorists as only human
It might seem from the preceding account that Bollywood filmmakers’ approach to terrorism is cavalier and ham-handed, that they dive headlong into India’s hot-button issues with nary a clue. Not so. In an industry that loves clichés, films dealing with terrorism are surprisingly astute, if you look past the blur of stimuli flying at you from the screen. For all their formulaic elements, the films offer, via dialogue between characters emotionally involved with each other, arguments for and against violence as a response to injustice.
In the 2007 movie Dhokha (Deception), Zaid (Muzammil Ibrahim), a young Muslim police officer in Mumbai, discovers upon his wife Sarha’s death in a nightclub that she is the suicide bomber believed responsible for the explosion that killed 20. Shocked, he sets out to either clear her name or discover who Sarha (Tulip Joshi), his shy and affectionate wife, really was. He soon learns of a great personal tragedy in her past, and the influence of a mullah in her life. Later, Zaid is able to use his knowledge of past trauma to help another young man sever his ties to the mullah, just in time to prevent another suicide bombing at a train station.
The “terrorists” are depicted as frightened, impressionable young people responsive to human contact, rather than as hardened monsters unworthy of communication. The tentative thesis the movie asks us to consider is that personal suffering can be shaped into larger resentments by powerful religious orthodoxy, and a compassionate helping hand might loosen this influence better than attempts at extermination.
The movie’s other themes of a love triangle and friendship tested by strife (as well as the ever-present song and dance) dilute its preachiness, except for a speech at the end that spells it all out for us in typical Bollywood fashion. But that’s to be expected, and even welcomed, in this genre.
In Dil Se, a reporter questions a terrorist.
“You look just like us,” notes the reporter.
“What had you expected?”
“What is your aim?”
“Independence.”
“From whom?”
“From your government. India.”
“Why?”
“Fifty years ago, when India became independent, many promises were made to us. Not one was kept. We’ve been oppressed.”
“Yet it’s your country.”
“No. To you it seems Delhi is India. States in far flung areas have no meaning because they are small. Delhi cares for vote banks. We’re cannon fodder.”
“You terrorists . . . ”
“We’re not terrorists — we’re revolutionaries.”
Despite the numerous excesses of Dil Se, its suggestion that terrorism is the last resort of those whose governments abandon them is not that far-fetched. Just recently, Colin Powell, on the October 18 edition of Meet the Press, invoked a similar rationale as an urgent reason to address world poverty. “We need to increase the amount of resources we put into our development programs to help the rest of the world,” he said. “Because when you help the poorest in the world, you start to move them up an economic and social ladder, and they’re not going to be moving toward violence or terrorism of the kind that we worry about.”
