Defamation of Hinduism in Bollywood Movies

Like many other Indians I was so excited that Slumdog Millionaire, a movie set in India, received the best movie award at the Golden Globe Awards that I rushed to see it. However, my pride and joy turned to sadness because, for no special advantage to the storyline, it showed Hindus rioting and killing Muslims. It also showed eye-gouging of a child in the context of a favorite bhajan (devotional song) of so many Hindus, darshan do ghanshyam. In fact the screenplay has been changed substantially from the novel to include sensational but defamatory materials. Although a vast majority of Hindus are secular and nonviolent (the number of sectarian killings in India, although not justified- are far less than in Northern Ireland, Horn of Africa, Pakistan and many other parts of the world), since the Bombay riots of 1993, it has become a trend in Bollywood to depict Hindus as killers of Muslims, because Hindus are soft targets, not reacting as angrily or violently as some other communities do when their prophets are slighted . Starting with Bombay (1995) that was based upon the Bombay riots of 1993 that were started by Muslims in South Bombay but subsequently avenged by Shiva Sena, Bollywood has made Parzania (2005) and Dharm (2007) in which Hindu mobs are shown marauding Muslim neighborhoods. Parzania (2005) sounds like a one-sided extrajudicial trial and conviction of Hindus of Gujarat and tries to incite negative feelings against Hindus in Parsees who have lived in harmony with Hindus for centuries.  It does not mention the beginnings of these riots in Godhra in which innocent pilgrims were burned to death (although the beginning did not justify the end). Dharm (2007), too, shows a Muslim mother pleading with a Hindu priest to take her child in his care to save him from Hindu mobs attacking and killing Muslims, but his humanity takes the better of his orthodox views and he risks is life to save the child.  These movies gloss over the fact that the majority of Muslims in India live in harmony with Hindus.

Negative stereotyping of Hindus in Bollywood is coming from several quarters. Some producers and writers who themselves are products of secular and liberalized Hinduism, such as Geeta Mehta, have made a business of profiting from the social evils that crept into Hinduism in the medieval times. Instead of presenting a balanced picture of the good and bad in the religion and depicting a few enlightened characters from within the Hindu society as well as bad ones they present an almost evil caricature of Hinduism. While her theme of atrocities against widows is noble her movie does not include enlightened Hindu characters (Hindus reformers as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Debendra Nath Tagore and Swami Dayananda campaigned against mistreatment of widows) and adds fuel to the fire by showing child abuse. In Chingari (2006) Mithun Chakravorti plays the role of a pundit who rapes village women in the name of tantra.   Although the movie ends with a rebellion by women, one gets the impression that pundits and swamis are rapists and imposters. Banaras (2006) shows the cruelty of an upper caste Hindu against the lower caste lover of his daughter and once again the complicity of Hindu priests in the injustice. 

While Bollywood brazenly portrays the social evils of Hinduism (because Hindus are indifferent or tolerant), it rarely displays the social evils of other religions and communities in India, perhaps for fear of reaction and agitation. While Hindu priests and rituals are often scandalized, the clergy of other religions are shown as noble and kind. While the sacred words of other religions are used respectfully in appropriate contexts, Hindu sacred words such as Om Shanti Om (Om Shanti Om, 2007) are used profanely in dance sequences involving half-clad women gyrating sensually.

Bollywod has tremendous power in shaping the fashions, social behavior and worldview of Asian-Indians and others' view of India and Hinduism and therefore, should be cognizant of its social responsibility. While I understand that media has a responsibility to create awareness about social evils and am not advocating for sanitized images of religions, I object to the discriminatory behavior of Bollywood towards Hinduism and its priests, rituals and sacred words.  I urge Bollywood story writers, movie directors and producers to present a balanced view, not to hurt the feelings of any community, not to belittle their prophets, avatars and clergy and not to incite hatred against a particular religion or community.

A dialogue with a preacher

उपदेशक बोला

यह जीवन अनित्य

और असत्य है

केवल जीवनातीत अनंत ही

नित्य और सत्य है

आँख मूँद लो

कान बंद कर लो

शरीर को नकार दो

तुम केवल आत्मा हो

यह 'सत्य' है मान लो

प्रश्न उठा जीवन के यह 

कुछ क्षण जिन्हें 

मैंने छुआ है

देखा और भाला है

ही तो मेरी पूँजी हैं

खो दूँ इन्हें मृत्यु के 

उस पार की मृगत्रिश्ना मैं 

सत्य असत्य का द्वन्द 

और  पाप दंड का 

भान हुआ मन में  

अल्पज्ञ ही सही 

पर मेरा सत्य, मेरा यथार्थ  
यही क्षण, यही वर्तमान है

जो साक्षात विद्यमान है

अमर हूँ तो कल भी था

कल भी रहूँगा
पर आज मुझे जीने दो

जीवन की हाला को पीने दो

Shining India, a Satire

The following appeared in India Abroad as khao-piyo-mauj-karo

On my recent trip to India I could feel the material progress in India – the glittering malls, the dual carriage toll roads, the flyovers, and lavish weddings in farm houses. All parties, all dining table and living room discussions revolved around material goods that are available in India which were once available only in the US. Everyone has a smart phone and many have ipods, Mack air, and laptops. While the children and the youth phone and SMS, the middle aged adults watch TV serials or Sa-re- ga-ma. In their leisure they either watch or deliberate upon the troubles between silver screen mother and daughter in laws. I saw few reading books, magazines or even newspapers. I, too, did not read the newspaper because it was filled by the trinity of scams, Bollywood and cricket. The Hindi papers were gossipy tabloids with very poor diction and syntax. Everyone was watching or talking or surfing the net. No one was reading and discussing history, literature, poetry or talking about global events such as global warning. Everything was mostly inane and trivial when it came to national discourse. While Bollywood has touched upon a few important topics through art movies, the TV serials have dumbed down whatever little intellectual curiosity was extant among Indians and whatever intellectual content was in broadcast media in India. TV serials are like a soporific, stilling the mind and insulating it from all the realities of the world. And isn’t that is what broadcast media are supposed to be. Work hard to earn nice dough and then enjoy it with your family and friends. They, the politicians and economists, will take care of the world. Drinking alcohol has become a symbol of modernism. More pubs have opened in Delhi in the last ten years than libraries, according to a playwright. But is there anything more than khao-piyo-mauj-karo in life? Yes, and it is called culture. The culture consists of language, literature, values, music, theatre, other performing arts, painting and other fine arts, and the external accoutrements of attire and food.

Before the advent of broadcast media, Indian culture was informed by tradition, literature, newspapers, discourses in religious institutions, coffee houses or village parks, theatre and fine arts. After independence, Bollywood slowly took over, because the former requires some effort but Bollywood required only a few rupees. Today the popular culture is shaped almost entirely by the glitter and jazz provided by Bollywood. Our dance forms that had a glorious history have been relegated to antiquity by lip synching and hip swinging histrionics of Bollywood dance, instead of thoughtful op-eds and investigative reports, the main pages of our newspapers are dominated by Bollywood gossip and cricket. Our TV either plays Bollywood or emulates it both in song and act - in song through sa-re-ga-ma and in act though intellectually empty serials. Rarely is there a poetry competition or recital, a discussion of a new or old novel, of performing arts, or important social issues. Few know about poets such as Jayashanker Prasad or writers like Mulk Raj Anand. There is a collective amnesia about our colonial history and its heroes. Zee TV and Sony TV have accelerated the cultural decline. The serials hold attention by their vapid plots bringing advertisement dollars to two companies that are incorporated outside of India and have no stake in refining Indian culture. There is no parallel to public broadcasting corporation to refine the taste. Our languages have been polluted by a khichri (pidgin), sometimes outright vulgar, Bollywood language full of clichés and devoid of metaphor. Bollywood projects a boozing and smooching life style that few Indians can afford and puts Indian womanhood on sensual display for middle easterners to whistle and pass lewd remarks on.

I am not blaming only Bollywood or TV for this cultural dumbing down. Despite tall claims of religiosity religious institutions in India have failed to stall the loss of traditional values. Secularism has been misinterpreted as a separation between religious institutions and all other aspects of life while it is only a separation of religion and state operations. Ethics, or righteous conduct, the true reason d’être of religion has been relegated to a background. Religion has become a glitzy tug-of-war for benedictions and votes. While most stalwarts of Indian freedom struggle such as Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Tagore and Rajagopalchari drew their soul force from the principles of Hinduisms, today even the slightest mention of Hindu ideals gets a label of communalism from the secularists.

The liberal media, too, has contributed to the cultural nihilism by deriding all Indian values as archaic and socially exploitative. Borrowing most of the paradigms from the west, these ultraliberals dub everything from sari to lajja or haya and sexual modesty as tools of women’s exploitation and glorify drinking, smoking and getting laid outside of marriage as women’s lib. They dub all Indian history as figment of imagination of the nationalists and Indian languages as native vernaculars.

The Indian educators, too, have done an abysmal job by making education as a commodity that is being mass produced on an assembly line. Yes, our education produces great quality doctors and engineers by gives a “pre-determined set skills. According to the great American philosopher educator, John Dewey, the purpose of education is to lead to “the realization of one’s full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good.” Yes, Indians have good content knowledge but they do they become fully informed citizens of a democratic civil society or promoters of only their personal good through their knowledge. Sadly in the recent decades, education, like everything in India, has been politicized and is being used as a weapon in vote bank politics.

India has progressed economically at the cost of its culture. The body has grown while the soul has shrunk. The technology-savvy Indians have brought money and fame to India and Bollywood, too, has brought money and fame to India. And the combination of the two has produced a vast entertainment industry through which Indians are ‘amusing themselves to death,” as Neil Postman says about Americans in his book by this name. Wayfaring stranger, a blogger, on August 15th, 2010, quotes from this book about Aldus Huxley’s prediction in Brave New World that “we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.” And we will be controlled and killed by pleasure.

Translation of Tagore's poem Senses from Gitanjali

मुक्ति नहीं मेरे लिए वैराग्य में
स्वतंत्रा अनुभव करता हूँ मैं
हर्ष के सहस्त्र पाश में

मदिरा कई रंगों और सुगंधों की

भरते हो तुम मेरे पात्र में

प्रज्जवलित करेगा शत दीप

मेरा संसार तुम्हारे प्रकाश से

और समर्पित करेगा उन्हें
तुम्हारे मंदिर की वेदी पर
बंद नहीं कभी करूंगा
अपनी इन्द्रियों के द्वार मैं
आनंद देंगे जब दृश्य, ध्वनि,
और स्पर्श तेरी शोभा का
मिट जायेंगे मेरे सब भ्रम
उल्लास के प्रकाश से

The State of Hindi in India

मेरी भाषा अनाथ असहाय
नयी पीढ़ी के अधरों पर
ढूंढ रही है कोई उदगार
टीवी, फिल्मों और संगीत में

उर्दू का कब्ज़ा है

स्कूल, कार्यालयों और व्यापारों में

धन लिप्सा से इंग्लिश में ही चर्चा है
हिंदी अशांत, घायल, आहत
मरुभूमि में कराह रही है
में सुसज्जित अलंकृत थी
... भारत माँ की प्यारी बेटी थी
तुलसी दास, मीरा की मुखबोली सहेली थी
तुम्हारे दादा दादी की भाषा अलबेली थी
तुम्हे बचपन में लोरी सुनाती थी
रामायण, महाभारत की कहानी  बतलाती थी
किंचित अपने अधरों से सराहो मुझे
स्वयं और अपने बच्चों को सिखायो मुझे
में अनपढ गंवार नहीं, सुसंकृत हूँ, बचायो मुझे
इंग्लिश सीखो, अवश्य धन और एश्वर्य पाओगे
पर क्या अपनी गरीब माँ भाषा को भूल जायोगे

A Dialogue with God

हे प्रभु !
कहते हैं तुम हो माता पिता मेरे
फिर क्यों में गाऊँ विरदावली
तुम्हारी सांझ सवेरे
नैवेद्य चढाऊं और हार पहनाऊँ
महल जेसे मंदिरों में बिठाके
रत्न जडित वस्त्र पहनाऊँ
पिता हो तो समझो स्वयमं
पीड़ा, त्रुटियाँ और क्षमता मेरी
दिशा, ज्ञान और साहस दो
... के बनू में तुम्हारा सपूत
चलकर तुम्हारे आदर्शों पर
बनू इस जगत में तुम्हारा दूत
में नन्हा बालक नहीं की
छोटे छोटे उपहारों के लिए
या कर्म दंड से बचने के लिए
करूं चापलूसी तुम्हारी दिन रात
या अपराधियों की तरह
करूं लेन देन की बात

A Thought (Ek Vichaar)

गीत को शब्द ही नहीं
भाव चाहियें
संगीत को साज ही नहीं
सुर भी चाहिए
वक्ता को श्रोता ही नहीं
श्रवण चाहिए
देश को नेता ही नहीं
नेतृत्व चाहिए
अपराधी को वकील ही नहीं
दंड चाहिए
... इष्टदेव को मंदिर ही नहीं
मनन चाहिए
रामायण को पाठ ही नहीं
पठन चाहिए
धर्मं को पूजा ही नहीं
धारना चाहिए

A song needs meaning and feeling
not only words
Music needs rhythm or melody
not only orchestra
Speaker needs to be listened
Not only listners
Country needs leadership
Not only leaders
A criminal needs punishment
Not only lawyers
A temple needs meditation and assimilation
Not only a deity