India is the second most populous country in the world, with Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and numerous others rubbing shoulders in teeming cities and poor villages. Most Indians get along, but there are pockets of unrest, and marginalized people of different religions sometimes air their grievances through violence. (Although America is diverse, it has not faced religious conflicts and problems of poverty on India’s scale.) Most Indians are not directly affected by the violence. I grew up knowing it was there, for instance, and a part of India’s history, but not much more.
The Indian film-censor board crouches in this explosive milieu, determined not to be responsible for any sectarian violence. “The censor board would not look favorably on films that portrayed minorities, especially Muslims, in poor light,” says Richard Delacy, an expert on Indian culture and languages who teaches a course on Bollywood at Harvard University. “There would be riots.”
Aha. So one reason the terrorist is humanized is purely pragmatic: filmmakers must get past a peace-loving censor board, and they want to reach as wide an audience as possible. Fair enough. But Delacy believes filmmakers want more than commercial success. “They are trying to have a positive impact,” he says. “It shows a critique of the state on the part of filmmakers, but not in a way that the state could object. That’s what humanizes the terrorist, as well — it shows the state as having contributed to circumstances that pushed people to terrorism. Filmmakers would make the argument that, in films, [showing] what makes a terrorist, and the nature of terrorism, could have a positive influence on society.”
But that’s also the rub. Bollywood movies don’t just humanize terrorist protagonists, they glamorize them: the terrorists wear great outfits, sing and dance, love passionately, and have the best lines. The films do have serious suggestions about who the terrorist is, and what created him or her, but could a gullible viewer take away the message that terrorism is cool?
No way, says Delacy. “People are used to Hindi films being Hindi films. Audiences have always had an understanding of this as just a film, with no relationship to reality. People take it in the right spirit.”
I recall a 1981 love story called Ek Duuje Ke Liye (Made for Each Other), in which the doomed lovers kill themselves rather than be separated. The movie set off a spate of copycat suicides in the country by couples who thought their romances, too, were doomed.
But Delacy has thought about this. “Aspects of society [in which] people feel isolated and fragmented, not having a support structure or community, could contribute to [such] responses. Community is still important in India, so films play only a particular role in people’s lives. If you have other structures around you, they help you integrate, and people for the most part live peaceful lives.” Besides, he adds, “I think it would undermine the legitimacy of [terrorism], to have a person who seems so ideologically committed singing and dancing around trees.”
To paraphrase: if you’re anchored in community, and recognize fantasy when you see it, a Bollywood movie cannot turn you into a terrorist unless you’re already a wack job.
