On April 7, Home Minister Amit Shah gave a ‘soft’ order to the non-Hindi speaking states and the people to use Hindi, instead of English, as language of communication between them. While the Hindutva brigade wanted to couch it as innocent attempt to Indianise the intra-state communication, people at large are seeing it as another push by the Modi 2.0 to Hinduise national public space by ‘Hindi’anising the lingua franca of the diverse country.

Just an year ago, Amit Shah had declared on the Hindi Divas (September 14), that it is the national duty of every citizen of this country to use Hindi language so that it becomes the spoken language of large number of people to get qualified as one more language of communication in the UN. Thereby Indians could help Modi government in its effort to get India honourable status among the comity of nations. He also declared that only Hindi has the capacity to unite the people of this country. But since it attracted lot of opposition from the southern states in whose bitter memory the row about imposing Hindi through New Education Policy (NEP) which was still live, the Modi Government could not aggressively and openly pursue his agenda.

But now, the resolve of Sangh Parivar to push all its hidden agenda has got new strength after the success in the recent elections, especially the UP elections. Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan-Cow and Conversion, than the welfarist gimmicks, seems to be time tested agenda to polarise the society to create a semi-permanent Hindu vote bank on which the Hindu electoral majority votes Hindu Rashtra to power again and again. Hence the new round of Hindi offensive on the nation. Modi government has declared that Hindi will be made compulsory till the 10th in the North East.

One of the new alibis is that most of the tribal communities have started to use Devanagari as their script. This devanagarisation of the tribal scripts is aggressively popularised before adventing on the second stage of Sanskritisation and cultural Hinduisation of the tribes. In fact, this form of linguistic colonisation has already killed or killing many indigenous languages of the Northern India. For example, in Bihar, according to the language census of 2011, 31% of the people speak Bhojpuri and another 25% Magahi. Only 21% speak Hindi. But Magahi and Bhojpuri are not listed as Schedule 8 languages. But in the language census only languages in the Schedule 8 re enumerated! Thus, during the language census Hindi becomes the mother tongue of all these speakers whose languages are not listed in Schedule 8. The irony is the Sanskrit language which is listed as spoken by just 25 thousand people is in the 8th schedule but not the Bhojpuri which is spoken by some 2 crore people! It is also observed by some commentators that during the language census the people were asked whether they know Hindi language and not if it is their mother tongue. This is the magic behind Hindi becoming a largest spoken language in this country. According to Linguist and Scholar GN Devy, this process of ‘nation building and national integration’ has already killed 120 languages in the country. Still this linguistic genocide is celebrated as cultural victory of the Unified Indian Nation.

The Assam chief minister has gone a step ahead to circumvent the possible opposition to Amit Shah’s strictures by proposing a four-language formula in the state of Assam! And if the Sanskrit is made compulsory as a part of NEP, one can expect a Five Language Formula! Hindutva at any cost…

Another important alibi for this new aggression is that Hindi is swadeshi and English is phoren! But if one considers the linguistic characters of the southern languages which belong Dravidian family of languages, Hindi is equally a foreign language to Dravidians!

It is for these reasons, mindful of the diversity that exists, the Constitution makers accorded Hindi the status of only of the Raj basha- Language of the State- along with English and not Rashtra Bhasha- National Language. Nowhere in the Constitution concept of Rashtra Bhasha or National language is accorded to Hindi. A committee comprising of KM Munshi (a congress man in the beginning, but a crypto Hindutvavadi who joined VHP in 1963), Gopalasvamy Iyengar went in detail about the possibility, necessity and implication of Making Hindi a sole Raj basha and a Rashtra basha, but rejected both on sound rationale. Thus Articles 343 to 351 in the Constitution accords Hindi the status of language of communication of the State along with English for 15 years.

Later after the Official Language Act of 1963, it was decided to continue English as the official language without any time limit. Article 348 stipulates that the only language of the High courts and Supreme Court would be English. All the bills in the state assemblies are presented in the respective state languages and also in English. The Central bills are presented in both the languages where original draft would be in English.

In one of its Judgements, a division bench of the Gujarat High Court in 2010, made it very clear that there was no category as National Language in the Indian Constitution, and dismissed the plea filed by one Suresha Kacchadia who had appealed to declare Hindi as the national Language.

But it is also true that there was a bitter fight between the Right Wingers, Hindu Mahasabhaites and their sympathisers and the secularist in the Constitution Assembly on many issues including the necessity of making sanskritised Hindi with Devanagari script, as national language. There was also another attempt during late 60’s to impose Hindi on Non- Hindi states which was initiated by the Congress and supported by socialist like Lohia and aggressively campaigned by the RSS and its ilk. But they were not successful at that period of history.

The aggression and vigour of the new round of imposition of Hindi as national language by the Modi 2.0, stems from the successful rightward shift in the polity and the society engineered by the Hindutva forces for over few decades. The reincarnation of Savarkar and consistent effort by the RSS to sanitise his history of surrender and make him a national hero is also part of this new aggression.

Because, it was Savarkar who gave a comprehensive theory of cultural nationalism to Hindutva fascist movement in India. Way back in 1923, even a few years before Hitler wrote Mein Kempf, Savarkar wrote “Who Is Hindu” where he clearly enunciated how and why Hindus are an ancient nation even according to modern requirements. Hindus have a territory, Aryavarta, Sindhustan (For Sindhu means waters not just name of a river) spanning from Himalayas to the sea. Arynas-Hindus are a race because they are the indigenous people, first dwellers of the territory. They share a common culture along with Sanskrit Language which is complemented by Hindi. Thus, Hindi becomes an essential element of this ancient nation. Hence Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan is a war call given by even Nathuram Godse and Apte after the capital punishment was pronounced…

Even though the non-hindutva Indian Nationalism, of and including Dr. Ambedkar and Nehru, was also apprehensive of the diversity of the country leading to fissiparous tendencies in the early days of nascent nation, it did not have vicious designs of Brahminical Hindutva agenda. it is the Modi 2.0, which is agressively pursuing this agenda. A week back Mohan Bhagavat, the supremo of RSS has declared that the making of Hindu Nation is going to be completed in next few years. And the svayamsevakas wield stick not for no reason. Sometimes the “will to abide” might need force…

So, Welcome to Aryavarta, the Hindi land of Hindu nation where the dictionary meanings of Imposition mean Volunteering, stick means flowers, and Hindi means the Rashtra basha and Hindu means India –

*The author is a senior writer and activist.

The post Hindi Imposition and Hindu Nation appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Speaking at an event in Delhi on Saturday morning Shah had also said that all children in the North East would be taught Hindi. He then went on to tweet,

“भारत विभिन्न भाषाओं का देश है और हर भाषा का अपना महत्व है परन्तु पूरे देश की एक भाषा होना अत्यंत आवश्यक है जो विश्व में भारत की पहचान बने। आज देश को एकता की डोर में बाँधने का काम अगर कोई एक भाषा कर सकती है तो वो सर्वाधिक बोले जाने वाली हिंदी भाषा ही है।“

The tweet may be viewed here:

This went down poorly with non-Hindi speakers who see the move as one that is against India’s diversity. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president MK Stalin pulled no punches when he responded to Amit Shah’s pro-Hindi agenda saying, “This is India, not Hindia.” In a series of tweets Stalin also asked Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw the idea of Hindi imposition as this is not India. He also tweeted, “I ask that they clarify their position. Otherwise, the DMK will not hesitate to meet the democratic battlefield, which includes not only the allies in Tamil Nadu but also most of the states in India that are losing their rights due to Hindi domination.”

In Karnataka, people took to the streets to protest what has been dubbed “Hindi Imposition” and “Hindi Imperialism”. Former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy tweeted saying, “Today, the central government is celebrating ‘Hindi Diwas’ across the country. When is Kannada language day celebrated with Hindi as the official language in the Constitution? @narendramodi Anyone? Remember the mirror is part of this union system.” Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also tweeted, “Our opposition is not about the language of Hindi, but about its forced imposition.” He added, “Stop the false propaganda of Hindi national language. Be aware that it is one of the official languages, like Kannada. Language cannot be brought up by falsehoods. Language grows out of mutual love and give-and-take.”

Within minutes of Shah’s controversial tweet, social media exploded with hashtags like #StopHindiImposition and #StopHindiImperialism becoming top trends, overtaking even #HindiDiwas.

Some of the tweets may be read here:

The post India is not Hindia: Amit Shah’s Hindi push backfires appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
Kashmiri (22.97%), Gujarat (20.4%), Manipuri  (20.07%), and Bengali (16.63%) are the second, third and fourth fastest growing languages, respectively, according to new census  data.
 
Hindi (520 million speakers) and Bengali (97 million speakers) remain the most spoken and the second most spoken language across the country.
 
There are now 260,000 people who deem English as their mother tongue; up from 226,000 in 2001, an increase of 14.67%.
 
The most number of English speakers are from Maharashtra (104,000) followed by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
 
Sanskrit remains the least spoken among the scheduled languages – officially recognised –  with 24,821 speakers despite an increase of 76% from 2001.
 
Two scheduled languages have witnessed a drop in the number of people referring to them as their mother tongues: Urdu declined by 1.58% and Konkani by 9.54%.
 
Of the 99 unscheduled languages, Bhili/Bhilodi continue to have the most speakers (104 million marked it as their mother tongue), up from 95 million in 2001.
 
Gondi retained its second position with 29 million speakers, up from 27 million in 2001.
 
Bhili/Bhilodi is predominantly spoken by the Bhil people who are native to Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
 
Gondi is spoken by the Gonds who primarily inhabit Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh  Telangana, Maharashtra, Bihar and Karnataka.
 
Tamil (-5%) and Malayalam (-10%) speaking population are falling across most states in north India even as Tamil Nadu and Kerala saw over 33% increase in the number of Hindi, Bengali, Assamese and Odia speakers, indicating a reverse migration trend from earlier decades when people from the two southern states migrated in large numbers to the north, The Times of India reported on June 28, 2018.
 
“Ascertaining the number of native speakers of a particular language by using census data  can be misleading,” Ganesh Devy, founder-director of the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, told IndiaSpend.
 
“There are factors such as migration (domestically and internationally) which tend to distort figures. Further, the census gives tribals limited options with respect to choosing a language. Therefore, it is not uncommon to see more speakers under a scheduled language when in reality they may speak a non-scheduled language.”
 
“Similarly, people living in border areas are given only one option to select as their native language even if they have more than one.”
 
Articles 344(1) and 351 under the eighth schedule of the Constitution lists 22 languages (shown in the table below).
 
The Central government is responsible for the promotion of the scheduled languages. Non-scheduled languages like English, Bhili/Bhilodi and Gondi don’t feature on the list.
 
In 2011, speakers of the scheduled languages accounted for 96.77% of India’s population, up from 96.52% in 2001 despite a 13% increase in the number of non-scheduled language speakers between 2001-2011.
 
Marathi with 83 million speakers displaced Telugu (81 million) to become the third most common mother tongue after Hindi and Bengali.
 
Gujarati, which was ranked seventh in 2001 with 46 million speakers, moved ahead of Urdu to occupy the sixth spot with 55 million speakers in 2011.
 
Urdu dropped from the sixth place in 2001 (51 million speakers) to the seventh place in 2011 with 50 million people mentioning it as their mother tongue.
 
Kannada was constant at eighth place with the number of speakers increasing from 37 to 43 million.

 
Konkani speakers in Karnataka and Kerala might put Kannada/Malayalam as their mother tongue as opposed to Konkani, which could explain the drop in the number of Konkani speakers, Devy said.
 
“Given the global backdrop against terrorism, Urdu speakers might be reluctant to declare it to be their mother tongue. Therefore, the number of native Urdu speakers has fallen despite the Muslim population increasing by around 30 million between 2001 and 2011.”
 
The increase in Manipuri speakers, Devy added, could be attributed to international immigration — foreigners settling down in Manipur and learning Manipuri in the hope of getting an Indian passport.
 
The number of Gujarati speakers might have been over-reported owing to the electoral  scam in 2007 wherein a large number of fake voter identification cards were reported, Devy said.
 
“A better way to determine the presence of a language is to  look at the number of websites on the internet in that language.”
 
(Pallapothu, an MSc Student from the Symbiosis School of Economics is an intern with IndiaSpend)
 
We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.
 

The post Hindi Added 100Mn Speakers In A Decade; Kashmiri 2nd Fast Growing Language appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
नोटबंदी के ऐलान के चंद घंटों के बाद ही आश्रम रोड के अहमदाबाद डिस्ट्रिक्ट को-ऑपरेटिव बैंक में 500 करोड़ की बड़ी रकम जमा करने की खबर मिली। इस बैंक के डायरेक्टर बीजेपी के अध्यक्ष अमित शाह हैं। 19 दिसंबर को ईडी और इनकम टैक्स अफसरों ने इस बैंक में छह घंटे तक छापेमारी की कार्रवाई की। यह इस बैंक पर दूसरी कार्रवाई है।
 

कहा जा रहा है कि नोटबंदी के तीन दिन बाद ही यानी 8 से 12  दिसंबर, 2016  को एक को-ऑपरेटिव बैंक में 500 करोड़ रुपये जमा किए गए। बीजेपी के अध्यक्ष अमित शाह इस बैंक के निदेशकों में एक हैं। अब ईडी और आयकर विभाग के अधिकारी इस मामले की जांच कर रहे हैं। यह बैंक अहमदाबाद आश्रम रोड पर स्थित है। हालांकि इस छापेमारी के बारे में मीडिया में चुप्पी रही। या कहिये कि इस खबर को ब्लैक आउट कर दिया गया। मीडिया में तमिलनाडु के मुख्य सचिव पी रामा मोहन रेड्डी और जे शेखर रेड्डी के यहां छापेमारी की तो खूब चर्चा हुई लेकिन उस को-ऑपरेटिव बैंक में छापे को मीडिया में दबा दिया गया, जिसके निदेशक अमित शाह हैं।  

 
बुधवार यानी 21 दिसंबर को आयकर अधिकारियों ने चेन्नई के पॉश इलाके अन्नानगर में तमिलनाडु ‌ के मुख्य सचिव के घर से 30 लाख की नकदी और पांच किलो सोना बरामद करने का दावा किया। इसके अलावा उनके और सात अन्य ठिकानों पर छापे मारने का दावा किया गया। आयक विभाग के सूत्रों के मुताबिक मुख्य सचिव के बेटे विवेक राव और आंध्रप्रदेश के चित्तूर और चेन्नई में उनके कुछ  रिश्तेदारों के भी यहां छापे मारे गए। इससे पहले आयकर अधिकारियों ने तमिलनाडु के तीन बिजनेसमैन के यहां छापे मार कर 100 किलो सोना, 96 करोड़ रुपये मूल्य के 500 और 1000 रुपये के पुराने नोट और 34 करोड़ रुपये की नई करेंसी बरामद की। जिन व्यापारियों के यहां छापे मारे गए उनमें से एक जे शेखर रेड्डी भी था, जिसके तमिलनाडु के मुख्य सचिव के बेटे विवेक राव से कारोबारी संबंध बताए जा रहे हैं। जे शेखर रेड्डी को बुधवार को गिरफ्तार कर लिया गया था।
 
लेकिन इन छापों की तुलना में १९ दिसंबर को अहमदाबाद डिस्ट्रिक्ट को-ऑपरेटिव बैंक में पड़े ईडी और आयकर विभाग के छापे पर मिडिया में कमोबेश चुप्पी छाई रही। सिर्फ आउटलुक हिंदी ने इस खबर को छापी। इस सहकारी बैंक में जो 500  करोड़ रुपये जमा हुए थे, उसका ज्यादातर हिस्सा नोटबंदी के ऐलान की रात ही जमा किया गया था। इस बैंक की १९० शाखाएं हैं। लेकनि इतनी बड़ी रकम सिर्फ आश्रम रोड स्थित बैंक के मुख्यालय में ही जमा की गई। दरअसल 8 नवंबर की रात से बैंक में पैसा आना शुरू हो गया था। इस सहकारी बैंक के ज्यादातर ग्राहक और डिपोजिटर छोटे वेंडर और किसान हैं। आयकर विभाग अब इस बैंक से हासिल सीसीटीवी के विजुअल खंगाल रहा है। गुजरात के दूसरे सहकारी बैंकों में भी इसी तरह के अवैध नोट काफी बड़ी मात्रा में जमा किए गए हैं। सबरंगइंडिया ने अहमदाबाद  डिस्ट्रिक्ट को-ऑपरेटिव बैंक के मैनेजर से बात करने की कोशिश की लेकिन मैनेजर श्री बहेड़िया से बातचीत नहीं हो पाई। बिजली न होने की वजह से बैंक हमारे कॉल ट्रांसफर नहीं कर पाया।
 
इस मामले से जाहिर होता है कि बीजेपी से नजदीकी संबंध रखने वालों ने नोटबंदी के बाद बड़ी मात्रा में अपना पैसा इन सहकारी बैंकों में जमा किया है। गुजरात के १८ सहकारी बैंकों में से १७ का प्रबंधन और प्रशासन बीजेपी के हाथ में है।

गुजरात के एक सहकारी बैंक के पास 200 करोड़ रुपये का डिपोजिट आया। इस बैंक के चेयरमैन गुजरात के एक मंत्री शंकर भाई चौधरी हैं।
 
क्या नोटबंदी एक फरेब है। एक तरफ गुजरात के सहकारी बैंकों का इस्तेमाल बीजेपी के लिए अपने काले धन को ठिकाने लगाने में किया जा रहा है। दूसरी ओर, सरकार केरल और दूसरे राज्यों के सहकारी बैंकों को बरबाद करने में तुली है।

आरबीआई के निर्देश के मुताबिक आयकर विभाग और प्रवर्तन निदेशालय ने गुजरात के संदिग्ध सहकारी बैंकों की छानबीन शुरू कर दी है।
 
अहमदाबाद मिरर के मुताबिक प्रवर्तन निदेशालय ने सोमवार को आश्रम रोड स्थित एक सहकारी बैंक के आश्रम रोड स्थित ब्रांच में सात घंटे तक तलाशी ली और वहां से कुछ दस्तावेज बरामद किए। अहमदाबाद डिस्ट्रिक्ट को-ऑपरेटिव (एडीसी) बैंक की वेबसाइट में कहा गया है कि इसके निदेशकों में भाजपा के राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष अमित शाह भी शामिल हैं। प्रवर्तन निदेशालय के जोनल दफ्तर से जुड़े एक अधिकारी ने 19 तारीख की कार्रवाई की पुष्टि करते हुए बताया कि 500 और 1000 के नोटों को बदलने और उन्हें जमा लेने के रिकार्ड में गड़बड़ी के शक के बाद छानबीन करने का फैसला किया गया। मुख्यालय से आदेश मिलने के बाद छापेमारी की गई।

नोटबंदी के ऐलान के बाद अहमदाबाद डिस्ट्रिक्ट को-ऑपरेटिव बैंक में यह दूसरी छापेमारी थी। बैंक अधिकारियों ने सार्वजनिक तौर पर यह स्वीकार किया कि वे प्रवर्तन निदेशालय के कर्मचारियों से पूरा सहयोग कर रहे हैं। चेयरमैन अजय पटेल ने कहा – प्रवर्तन निदेशालय के कर्मचारी सोमवार को रूटीन चेकिंग के लिए आए थे। वे शाम छह बजे चले गए। हालांकि सूत्रों का कहना था कि बैंक में तलाशी अभियान सात घंटे तक चला। उन्होंने कई दस्तावेजों की जांच की और सीसीटीवी फुटेज खंगाले। गौरतलब है कि नोटबंदी के फैसले के ऐलान में मोदी सरकार ने जिला सहकारी बैंकों में 500 और 1000 नोटों को बदलने और जमा करने पर रोक लगा दी थी। इसके बावजूद गुजरात के सहकारी बैंक इन नोटों को जमा करने और बदलने में कैसे सफल रहे। जबकि देश की आम जनता को बैंकों की लंबी लाइनों में लगना पड़ रहा है।
 
अहमदाबाद के सहकारी बैंक पर पहली छापेमारी की खबर मीडिया में आई थी। पूर्व बीजेपी विधायक यतीन ओझा ने इसके बारे में लोगों को जानकारियां दी थी। वेब पोर्टल और पीएम को लिखी खुली चिट्ठी के जरिये इस मामले के बारे में लोगों को बताया गया था। 18 नवंबर को सबरंगइंडिया ने इस मामले की रिपोर्ट प्रकाशित की थी। सबरंगइंडिया की रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक – यतीन ओझा ने पीएम नरेंद्र मोदी पर देश को मूर्ख बनाने का आरोप लगाया था।

इसके पहले कोलकाता से निकलने वाले माकपा के मुखपत्र गणशक्ति में 8 नवंबर को यह रिपोर्ट छापी गई थी कि किस तरह बीजेपी के नेता पीएम मोदी के नोटबंदी के फैसले से पहले ही 500 और 1000 के नोटों को गैरकानूनी तौर पर बैंकों में जमा किया था। यह बताया गया था कि बीजेपी के एक खाते में किस तरह रहस्यमय तरीके से एक करोड़ रुपये जमा हो गए।

​​​​​​​असली सवाल है कि पश्चिम बंगाल में जो हुआ क्या वह दूसरे राज्यों में भी हुआ। और इससे भी बढ़ कर राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ और भाजपा के दूसरे सहयोगी संगठन का खातों का क्या हुआ।
नोटबंदी का फैसला लागू हुए 43 दिन हो चुके हैं। इस दौरान छोटे और बड़े डिपोजिटरों को बेहद मुश्किलों का सामना करना पड़ा है। मोदी सरकार की ओर से बगैर सोचे-समझे इस फैसले को लागू करने से आम लोगों की दिक्कतों को भारी मुश्किलों का सामना करना पड़ा है।
 
 
 
 

The post नोटबंदी के बाद अमित शाह से जुड़े सहकारी बैंक पर ईडी का छापा appeared first on SabrangIndia.

प्रेमचंद के बारे में कुछ ऐसे तथ्य जो ज्यादा लोगों को पता नहीं है-

हिंदी के इस मशहूर लेखक ने अपनी पढाई एक मदरसे से शुरू की थी .

• शुरूआती दौर में यह उर्दू लेखक थे और इन्होने लेखनी की शुरूआत में कई उर्दू नाटकों से करी और इन्होने हिंदी में बाद में लिखना शुरू किया .
• कहते हैं इन्हें उर्दू उपन्यास का ऐसा नशा था कि यह किताब की दुकान पर बैठकर ही सब नॉवल पढ़ जाते थे ।
अपने उपन्यासों और कहानियो के लिए तो सभी लोग इन्हें जानते है पर बहुत कम लोगों को पता होगा की वह साथ ही एक नाटककार भी थे और लोगों का कहना है कि कहानियो से पहले यह नाटक ही लिखते थे
• अंगेजी हुकूमत को इनकी रचनाओं में बगावत की बू आने लगी थी जिस कारण इनकी रचनाओं पर प्रतिबन्ध लगा दिया गया था . इस प्रतिबन्ध से बचने के लिए इन्होने “प्रेमचंद” के नाम से लिखना शुरू किया . .
• वह फिल्मों में खुद अपनी किस्मत आजमाने मुंबई भी गए थे और इन्होने मजदूर नाम की फिल्म की स्क्रिप्ट भी लिखी थी और प्रदर्शित होने के ठीक बाद इस पर प्रतिबन्ध लगा दिया गया था क्योंकि यह मजदूरों को मिल मालिकों के खिलाफ भड़का रही थी

मामूली नौकर के तौर पर काम करने वाले अजायब राय के घर प्रेमचन्द ( धनपत राय ) का जन्म ३१ जुलाई सन् 1880 को बनारस शहर से चार मील दूर लमही गाँव में हुआ था। कहा जाता है कि घर की माली हालत कुछ ठीक नहीं थी जिस कारण उन्हें मैट्रिक में पढाई रोकनी पड़ी और ट्यूशन पढ़ाने लगे. बाद में इन्होने में ग्रेजुएशन की डिग्री हासिल की. तंगी के बावजूद इनका साहित्य की ओर झुकाव था और उर्दू का इल्म रखते थे । उनके जीवन का अधिकांश समय गाँव में ही गुजरा और वह सदा साधारण गंवई लिबास में रहते थे।

काफी कम उम्र से ही लिखना आरंभ कर दिया था और यह सिलसिला ताउम्र जारी रहा । पहली कहानी कानपूर से प्रकाशीत होने वाले अखबार ज़माना में प्रकाशित हुई थी । बाद में जब माली हालात कुछ ठीक हुए तो लेखन में तेजी आई। लोग बताते है कि 1907 में इनकी पाँच कहानियों का संग्रह सोजे वतन काफी मशहूर हुआ था और यही से एक लेखक के तौर पर मशहूर होना शुरू हुए ।
 
सामाजिक रचनाओं के साथ साथ इन्होने समकालीन विषयों पर भी अपनी कलम चलाई और अंग्रेज शासकों को इनके लेखन में बगावत की झलक मालूम हुई और एक बार पकडे भी गए. इनके सामने ही आपकी रचनाओं को जला दिया गया और बिना आज्ञा न लिखने का बंधन लगा दिया गया। इस बंधन से बचने के लिए इन्होने प्रेमचन्द के नाम से लिखना शुरू किया ।

इनकी लिखी लगभग 300 रचनाओं में से गोदान , सद्गति , पूस की रात जैसे उपन्यास और दो बैलो का जोड़ा , ईदगाह , गबन , बड़े भाईसाहब , शतरंज के खिलाडी , कर्मभूमि जैसी कहानिया तो सभी जानते है पर सामन्ती और पूँजीवादी प्रवृत्ति की निन्दा करते हुए लिखी “महाजनी सभ्यता” “नमक” नामक लेख उस समय के सामंती पूंजीवादी समाज का सटीक विश्लेषण है । कई मशहूर निर्देशक इनकी कहानियों पर कई फिल्मे भी बना चुके हैं .

प्रेमचंद के वो लेखक थे जिन्होंने कहानी के मूल को परियों की कहानियों से निकालकर यथार्थ की जमीन पर ला खड़ा किया और वह सही मायने में हिंदी आधुनिक साहित्य के जन्मदाता थे.

The post आज के समय में प्रेमचंद कि प्रासंगिकता –किशोर appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Courtesy: mumbaiqueerfest.com
 

Notes from a personal diary

Experience is a double-edged knife. Neither can you have too much of it, nor can you have too little of it.

Experience has different connotations for every individual. For me it is a sum total of knowledge, the accumulation of facts and an ongoing process of storing moments of pleasure and pain, consciously but most of the time subconsciously, in the memory.

Inevitably there are limitless aspects to one’s experience. Most of these aspects are personal. Some of these are selectively applied to one’s profession. Whether you’re an artisan, a manual worker, a writer, painter, performing artist or filmmaker, your views, values and innate abilities are dictated considerably by what you have gone through, felt, related to, disconnected from, endured and assimilated.

Fortuitously, almost like water finding its own level, after several attempts, I found myself the job of a journalist. At first reluctant to specialise in the area of film journalism – still considered a mug’s game or an inferior offshoot of mainstream newspapers – I aspired to apply my formal education in political science and philosophy to my daily beat. This proved to be futile. I may have had a theoretical grasp of realpolitik but scant exposure or comprehension of state governance and its machinations.

Feverish attempts to bury the experience of watching cinema regularly and evading its myriad grids, signs and meanings amounted to denying one’s instinctive and perhaps only legitimate calling.

The informal education in cinema viewing – at the alarming rate of a junkie throughout one’s growing years and more – hurtled me towards the ghetto slot of a film reviewer, reporter and commentator. If those tags sound grandiose, do excuse me, because the work and appreciation of film writing was anything but during the 1970s and ’80s when mainline newspapers gave cinema and the arts a grudging amount of space, on page 30 instead of the current page 3, or even the front page.

Willy-nilly, one’s experience, partaking of or the exposure to cinema intensified, simultaneously on personal and professional planes. It became vital to incorporate the element of objective distancing to subjective likes and dislikes. It became vital to discard the in-built residue of bias. Bias had to be replaced with an acceptance and estimation of the multiple dimensions of creativity, ranging from the good and the excellent to the bad and the ugly.

It became abundantly clear that every film for better or worse is in a way an articulation of the director, writer or even the producer’s ethos and principles, be they hyper-commercial or alternative or a blend of both. Every film had to be seen within its context, and above all, in terms of how far it came to honesty or truth telling, never mind the outer trappings. The inner core, or let’s say the emotional heart, was paramount, as it is in any work of literature, painting, poetry, dance and theatre.

One grappled initially, not to be ruled by the age-old divisive lines, that commercial was reprehensible and the artistic was supportable. Every film has its own life and its own reason and has to be considered accordingly; the purest form of reaction being the objectively emotional, a tough task, but it has to be performed if one aims to be responsible, professional, analytical and informative.

That task is tougher since reviews have to be formatted within a prescribed word limit, averaging at 500-600 words a piece generally in the set column of a newspaper, surrounded by a plethora of advertisements.

The task was facilitated, I would like to think, because of experience, of having seen, heard and absorbed cinema of every hue and stripe, at the local cinema halls and at film festivals, most significantly, the festivals of short films and of French and Czech cinema organised by the once flourishing film society movement in Mumbai during the 1970s. There was much to see and much to reflect upon. Which brings me to the central point of the discussion.

The representation of the minority community, which has largely been cartoonish, patronising and often fantasticated. Christians and Parsis are the butt of ridicule and jokes while the Muslims are either benign Rahim Chachas and Rahima Chachis, or alarmingly in recent years, terrorists from across the border.

If there was caricaturing once, it was at least devoid of malice and politics. Indeed, during the 1950s there were sub-genres of Hindi-Urdu cinema like the Muslim mythological, the prime example of this being Hatim Tai, and the Muslim social, which found patronage specially with Muslim audiences of the urban mohallas. Not surprisingly, with changing fads, time, taste, and commercial compulsions, the Hatim Tai genre died and so did the Muslim social, the last successful one being Mere Garib Nawaaz and on a bigger-budget scale, Mere Mehboob, Mere Huzoor and Nikaah.

The male miyan protagonists were either indolent nawabs, often revealing a less-than-seven-year itch for another shariq-e-hayaat. Or they were college campus romantics a la Rajendra Kumar in Mere Mehboob and Rajesh Khanna in Mehboob Ki Mehndi. The supporting characters were more often than not equipped with quivering goatees, piety and tears, as they played good samaritans like the poor man played by the ever suffering Manmohan Krishna who raised an abandoned illegitimately born child in Dhool Ka Phool, on secular tenets. (‘Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banega’, the refrain still rings in the ears.)

Muslim women also represented patented types, which is perhaps inescapable because custom and movie tastes want them that way. For instance, the ammi jaan was expected to be snow-haired, unbending and a model of tolerance, a kind of a Mohammedali Road Ammi India. In effect, she was like every other mother in the movies, only her costumes and hair tints were different. She did namaaz the way the Hindu woman went to the temple, there was a certain grace and commonality in the representation of the mother figure.

The sister, the aapa was like the normal screen didi, peppy, innocent and frequently seduced and ravished by the villainous elements. Also, the biwi or the beloved was slotted into a groove from which there seemed to be no escape. The Muslim heroine found ancestral roots in Anarkali, the classic cinema courtesan. She was the dancing girl, the nautch girl, the tawaif, the raqassa… in countless films… till this reached some kind of apotheosis in Pakeezah. Enough?

Meena Kumari, the contradictory chaste and sullied woman, had portrayed it all. Or that’s what you thought till the shimmering, singing Umrao Jaan, aka Rekha, mesmerised viewers. Interestingly, a movie corporate baron recently asked me to write a courtesan script. The reason? His logic was, Aishwarya Rai would look very well as an updated Umrao Jaan of Lucknow. It is another story altogether that the mujra mahals of Lucknow have all but disappeared today.

Reality, a contextual base or credibility are not the issues here. Flexibly, cinema lends itself to fantasies, concoction and fictionalisation. Yet even while spinning a yarn about say extra-terrestrials or imaginary courtesans, there has to be a relation to our real anxieties, fears, wishes and dreams. Take Mughal-e-Azam, the black-and-white version that is, it is an apocryphal love story of a Mughal prince and a courtesan who did not exist according to the history records. Nevertheless, the film was made with such immense power and conviction that we tend to suspect that maybe, just maybe, Anarkali was real.

On the flip side, the maa, bahen, biwi of popular Hindi cinema were believable only intermittently. Otherwise they were theatrical, relentlessly melodramatic ammi jaans, aapas and bahu begums given to abject suffering without raising a whimper against the feudal order created by males. Whenever the women protested against subjugation, they either died or failed miserably at the cash counters, an example being the Bimal Roy produced Benazir.

Of course, melodrama, gross exaggeration and distortion are not exclusive to the representation of Muslim characters. To strike a connection with viewers from different strata, the tradition has been to avoid subtlety and restraint in order to underline matters to the nth degree.

The representation of the minority community, which has largely been cartoonish, patronising and often fantasticated. Christians and Parsis are the butt of ridicule and jokes while the Muslims are either benign Rahim Chachas and Rahima Chachis, or alarmingly in recent years, terrorists from across the border

Hindu characters have also been stereotyped without any let-up, a trait that has found further expression on TV soaps and serials. Only, they aren’t made marginal characters hanging around on the fringes of the script.

This much was obvious to me during the early years of film watching; in other words a child could tell that there was a facetious shorthand in the portrayal of Muslims. That many of the stalwart writers, lyricists, producers, artistes and directors belonged to the Muslim faith was strange, to say the least. Stranger still, I have not been able to quite understand why Yusuf Khan chose to give himself the screen name of Dilip Kumar. Was it to strike a chord with the larger segment of the audience?

Be that as it may, as one started reviewing films circa the late 1970s, one made it a religion not to lose one’s innocence and emotional bearings while watching films, even while synopsising, analysing or reconstructing them in the journalistic mode. In the ’70s there was a trend to glorify parallel or off-mainstream cinema while disparaging the commercial or the mainstream. In principle, one had to be supported and the other attacked. This I found to be an Achilles heel in some of my senior colleagues. In effect, they were setting up borders in cinema that were unnecessary and unfair. So if one raved about Manmohan Desai’s Amar Akbar Anthony or Naseeb or the films of Raj Kapoor, one was considered a bit addle-headed. Eclectic tastes in cinema were suspect. Today, mercifully, eclecticism has become the norm.

Desai’s ironical entertainer about three lost and found brothers weaned on different religions was a joyous laugh riot. Manmohan Desai continued to push the secular envelope further, not with the same impact though. Coolie, with its incredibly absurd finale – in which the hero survived about a thousand bullets – at the Haji Ali shrine is unforgettable for sure, but finally far too fantasticated and over-the-top. The same goes for Allarakha, which he produced and piloted. Manmohan Desai was a child-like adventurist and there’s little doubt that his unashamedly absurd adventures were the best of their kind.

While looking for valuable signs and meanings in the big-budget movies, it was also rewarding to discover sensitive and lastingly significant portrayals of the Muslims in alternative cinema, the most important one being MS Sathyu’s Garm Hawa. It dealt with a Muslim family faced with the prospect of losing their moorings in India because of the Partition. Several attempts have been made to tell Partition stories, but Garm Hawa remains the most emotionally moving since it touches on the central truth of a political tragedy.

An underrated film, Bazaar, was Sagar Sarhadi’s expose of the selling of young brides. For some of its truth-telling moments, the earlier black-and-white Dharamputra is important too, more as a socially conscious streak in Yash Chopra’s oeuvre before he flew off to discover the scenic vistas of Switzerland.

Of the other films that have been valuable for their treatment of minority issues, Aparna Sen’s Mr and Mrs Iyer comes instantly to mind. It took a stand, and indeed was a corrective on Mani Ratnam’s Bombay, which strove to perform such a balancing act that it was neither here nor there. Govind Nihalani’s Tamas and Dev have their hard-edged moments, while Saeed Mirza’s Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, and Naseem point to a filmmaker whose humanism was more palpable than the films’ political content, which tended to get dogmatic.

In recent times, the Muslim woman has come out of purdah but is still hidden behind a mask of tinsel and glamour, as in Veer-Zaara, which was so politically correct that it was sterile. In Gadar, too, the Muslim woman was in dire distress and served as a Barbie doll being saved by a superman. By contrast, the helpless mother of Khamosh Pani, in recent times, stood out as an authentic portrait of a woman who has no choice but to convert to another faith during Partition. Also more convincing, by the strength of her portrayal, was the character of Tabu in Maqbool, caught in the crossfire of the underworld and savage ambition.

Over the decades, critiquing the pitfall of popular cinema has been common. The question is: is this critiquing to any point? On asking this despairing question some years ago, it was filmmaker Kumar Shahani who answered, "The accumulation of criticism is the point," encouraging me to continue with my, dare I say it, love. I say love because I see it as a faith in itself rather than an occupational preoccupation or hazard.

Of this accumulation, of criticism and concurrent life experiences, came my effort, first at film script writing, an opportunity given to me by Shyam Benegal, and then film direction, a purely accidental visa to another realm altogether stamped for me by the selfless support of cinematographer Santosh Sivan, and actors Jaya Bachchan and Karisma Kapoor. They were of the opinion that if I had a story to tell, in a cinematic framework, I should go ahead and do it.

The scripts for the Shyam Benegal-directed triptych Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zubeidaa were extremely personal, drawn from the lives of my maternal family. Mammo was a grand aunt who was living in Pakistan but longed to return to India as she considered it her home. Sardari Begum was her younger sister, who rebelled against family orthodoxy to become a flamboyant thumri singer of the 1930s ultimately to end up lonely and meet with a tragic end. Zubeidaa was the story of my mother whose second marriage to a Rajasthani Maharaja precipitated scandal and her death, at the age of 19, in an air crash.

The scripts drew on anecdotes, investigation and real-life events. Without having the base of close-to-the-bone reality none of these three stories would have been possible. Ornamentation of the real stories is what I tried to avoid. In fact, downplaying the inherent melodrama in the stories is what I aimed for, whether successfully or unsuccessfully is not for me to say or even remotely guess at. All I can say is that the task of re-telling the real stories of three Muslim women, of some substance and nostalgia, was a therapy, a means of coming to terms with the women I’d known to a degree, always searching for the missing pieces in the puzzle of their stories.

To come to Fiza. I directed Fiza simply because filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma, for whom the script was researched and written, suggested far too many alterations. The catalyst for Fiza were the restless and eternally watchful lives of several families in Mohammedali Road. Sons, brothers and husbands had vanished after the ’93 communal riots in Mumbai. Were they dead, or alive or… ? The immediate reaction of the film industry and a section of journalists was: how can he dare to make a film when he’s been critiquing them?

The reaction didn’t affect me to the extent of giving up what I’d ventured out to do, because I saw filmmaking as an extension of journalism. If I was straying into another medium of reportage, comment and storytelling, there were no written codes or laws to prevent me from taking the step. Perhaps the sudden popularity of Hrithik Roshan, who has been cast as the missing brother, before he became hugely popular with the release of his debut film Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, evoked inordinate curiosity. But it did help me considerably in getting the sub-text of the film across to a large audience. The sub-text was simply this – the ruination of human lives caused by political self-servers.

A sequence showing the Muslim girl, Fiza, dancing up a storm to the lyric ‘Main nachoo bin paayal’ elicited a horde of negative reactions. This was a compromise, an item number, how could a Muslim girl do this? That was exactly why the sequence had been in the original script, it wasn’t an afterthought tagged on because of commercial compulsions. A sequence in Sarhadi’s Bazaar had shown Muslim men and women dancing and drinking at a party. I wanted to echo that – a Muslim girl need not be a closeted, shrivelling lily. She could enter a disco and dance up a storm. In real life they do, but on cinema this was believed to be taboo.

Next, I directed Tehzeeb, a look at a troubled mother-daughter relationship, inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata, a work of tremendous literary quality in the writing. The sub-text here was to depict a Muslim family like any other, unencumbered by shararas, burkhas or serving sheer-korma at Id festivities. The point was missed; the film was marketed haphazardly and received lukewarmly, to put it mildly. Too heavy some felt, too slow others said. The only silver lining is that women audiences seemed to relate to it.

If there are two questions that I feel wary about, they are, "Why do you always make films about women?", "And why are they all about Muslims?"

What can one say but to emphasise that one narrates stories one feels strongly about and concerned with? I have just completed filming a third film titled Silsilay which is about women again, and one of the three women portrayed is the character of a Muslim housewife.

I may be absolutely wrong, I may be partially right. But cinema, like other art forms, has firmer roots when it draws from the real and the experiential.

While searching for the identity of the Muslim woman, I hope to find my own identity, if not today, then some day soon.
 

MUGHAL-E-AZAM
Saajan se jo naina milein
Naina milein, naina milein, naina milein,
Saajan soh jo naina milein
Toh man ki pyaas bhuje…

(So I gaze into my love’s eyes,
So I gaze into my love’s eyes,
And quench the thirst in my soul…)

The sultry sounds of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan echo through the black and white landscape. By a fountain in the moonlit gardens of the palace, Prince Salim, resplendent in brocade and jewels, uses a large white feather to gently caress the beautiful face of the woman sitting before him. Hers is a face of incredible beauty framed by the chiffon and zari of her dupatta. Their gazes are locked. Anarkali’s smiles are bashful, yet laden with passion. His look conveys a myriad messages as her eyelashes flutter, her lips part. He strokes her gently, carrying the feather from her lips to his. Their eyes speak volumes, clouded by desire. As he leans forward to kiss her, the feather shields the embracing couple.

In the distance, Sultana watches.

MR & MRS IYER
A motley collection of passengers sit dead still in the interior of a bus as fires are seen raging outside. It is late evening; the scene is tinged in deep earth colours lit by flame. To the eerie tom-tom of drumbeats, two mobsters enter the bus menacingly, asking each passenger their name. The gang-leader is dressed in a loud printed shirt, a saffron tilak on his forehead, while his colleague sports a saffron headscarf. A traditionally dressed South-Indian Hindu woman clutches her baby to her breast as she and her neighbour exchange looks. Two Sikhs sit frozen in their seats.

The gang-leader grabs a young man by the collar and pulls him out of his seat.

Rioter 1: Tell me your name!… Didn’t you hear what I said? Tell me your name!

Youth: Sohail.

Rioter 1: Sohail what? Sohail what?! …What is your father’s name?…Tell me your father’s name, Sister-f****r!

Youth: Sohail Rai… son of Samir Rai.

Rioter: Drop your pants! Drop your pants!

Rioter 2: Abbe, drop your pants you a******e!

The passengers wait in trepidation. The young man takes down his trousers; the mobster gives him a cursory look and throws him back into his seat. The rioters move on. Neighbours clutch at neighbours. Every passenger is paralysed by fear.

A man says: "We are all Hindus here. All Hindus." Another adds: "All Hindus. All Hindus." From the rear of the bus a bespectacled man rises to interject (in English): "No, not all. Not them (pointing at an elderly couple). They are Muslims – the old man and his wife – Muslims." The rioters stop in front of the old man and his wife.

Rioter 1: Your good name?
Old man: Iqbal.
The gang-leader restrains the other rioter as he lunges forward. è
Rioter 1: This could also be a Hindu name… Iqbal What?
Old man: Iqbal Ahmed Khan.
Rioter 2: See! Trying to pass himself off as a Hindu, the a*******e! B*****d! We’ll finish off your whole family! Get up!
Rioter 1 (to his colleague): Enough! Don’t talk rubbish! Get back! Get back! (Turning to the old gentleman) Come Iqbal saab, please come outside with us. We have something we’d like to discuss with you.

Old man: But we have to go to Calcutta…
Rioter 1 (baring his teeth): Why are you so afraid? Not in front of everyone, we need to make some inquiries in private. Come on.

The old man and his wife exchange looks and he gets up to follow the men, turning to ask her: Najma, my teeth?

His wife nods and gives him his dentures from the bag on her lap: Here… You’ll need your spectacles too (Handing him his spectacle case). As the three men move off, she stops them, holding out a packet of pills: He hasn’t been keeping well lately, it is cold, these tablets…

The gang-leader sniggers: Don’t worry; he won’t need them where he’s going.

They make their way out of the bus. As they are about to leave, a young woman in the front row starts wailing, pleading with them in English. Realising that her husband is in dire trouble, Najma calls out to stop them and starts to follow them. They drag her out of the bus as well. The young woman in front screams out to stop them. The gang-leader hits her and flings her on to the floor of the bus. As a co-passenger tries to intervene he is warned off.

At the rear, the young man, bristling with anger, jumps up in protest. Thrusting her baby roughly into his arms, his neighbour admonishes, "Just hold him!" Dumbstruck, swept up in the fear and the emotion of the moment, he is left holding a howling infant in his arms.

GADAR
In a ceremonial ground by a flag post bearing the Pakistani flag, a young couple – an Indian Sikh, Tara Singh, his wife Sakina, a Pakistani Muslim, and their little son – are being grilled by sundry Pakistanis as a large crowd looks on.

Qazi (priest): You are fortunate, Tara Singh, as Allah has beckoned you to his fold, that he has given you the opportunity to become a Muslim. What do you think? Do you accept Islam?

Tara Singh: A man’s biggest duty is to protect his wife and child.

Qazi: Do you accept Islam?

Tara Singh: Kashi and Kaaba are one and the same.

Qazi (shouting angrily): Do you accept Islam or not?! (His voice reverberates menacingly in the surroundings, as the crowd waits with bated breath for Tara Singh to reply.)

Tara Singh: I accept.

Qazi: Maashallah, Subhanallah, then come to the mosque and proclaim this honestly and in all good faith… (He is interrupted by Sakina’s father, Ashraf Ali.)

Ashraf Ali: One minute, Qazi saab! Before he takes a single step into the mosque let us find out whether he is worthy of being a Muslim! (To Tara Singh) Fine, if you accept Islam, say Islam Zindabad! (The crowd shouts Islam Zindabad! Sakina looks at her husband and her father anxiously.)

Tara Singh: Islam Zindabad.

Ashraf Ali: Hmmm. Say Pakistan Zindabad! (The crowd shouts Pakistan Zindabad!) è

Tara Singh (glaring): Pakistan Zindabad. (The crowd cheers.)

Ashraf Ali: Now say Hindustan Murdabad! (Sakina looks at her husband and her father anxiously.)

Tara Singh (shouting angrily, his voice ringing through the ground): Ashraf Ali! We have no objection to your Pakistan living long but Hindustan has lived long, is living, and will always live long! (He advances, waving his fist in the air) Hindustan Zindabad! Hindustan Zindabad! (His young son echoes the words.) Hindustan Zindabad!

Ashraf Ali: Don’t talk rubbish! As long as you don’t say Hindustan Murdabad how will the people of this country believe that you are a true Muslim?!

Tara Singh: There are more Muslims in Hindustan than in this country. Their lips, their hearts all cry Hindustan Zindabad. Does that mean they are not true Muslims?!

Ashraf Ali: Stop your speechifying! If you don’t say Hindustan Murdabad you can’t take Sakina with you!

Tara Singh: Stop! That’s enough! If I can bow my head for my wife and child I can cut off everyone’s heads too!

There is an outcry as the Pakistanis surge angrily towards him. He then pulls a hand pump out of the ground and swings it around wildly, felling attackers with his blows.

MAMMO
A young boy in shorts and T-shirt and a burkha clad woman, Mammo, are walking along a city road.

Boy: What sort of things?
Mammo: Like seeing hell on earth.
Boy: You’ve seen Hell?
They stop in their tracks.

Mammo: Yes, beta. May God never show us those times again. Your Nana, God rest his soul, and I left everything we had in the dead of night, stuffing whatever we could in our hands, our pockets; we were leaving for Pakistan. We were taken to the border along with other refugees. From there, by foot … What a time it was! Doomsday, it was doomsday! Fire, bloodshed, plunder and pillage, bodies, screams. Our hair stood on end. (Scenes of fire and strife in the dark of night play on the screen. Gut-wrenching cries are heard.) We were about 400-500 of us going from this side to that side. There were an equal number coming from there. The people leaving here were Muslims and those coming from there were Hindus and Sikhs. But we were all in the same boat. Our country, our land, had turned into Karbala (the site of a great war in Islam), God! There was a young woman walking along with me. She had two little children clutched to her breast, the unfortunate. One boy died in her arms. Who had time for a shroud or burial? We came to a river and people said that the dead child should be thrown into the water. That poor hapless woman was not in her senses. She threw the live child into the water and clutched the dead child to her bosom. I can still remember her glazed eyes staring wildly. And that scream of hers…Ya Allah!

Stunned, the young boy asks: You saw all this with your own eyes?
Mammo: I saw this and much more…
Boy: Mammo Nani, I am going to write about all this one day.
Mammo: But who will read it? It isn’t good to cry about one’s sorrows…

Archived from Communalism Combat, February  2005, Year 11    No.105, Cover Story 2.

The post The Muslim maa, bahen, biwi in Hindi cinema appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The changing face of the heroine in Hindi cinema: from armament to ornament

The Hindi film heroine has had a fairly interesting reign on the silver screen. Alternating from the progressive to the regressive role model, she has, like the chameleon, changed her image and attitude to adjust to the times and trends.

Her arduous journey began in the early ’30s. If Chandulal Shah’s Miss 1933 explored her freedom of choice, Homi Master’s Samaj Ki Bhool did a widow’s right to remarry. There were some films that lent her voice but only through borrowed identity. In Saher Ka Jadu, made in 1934, she arrives in the big city disguised as a man to look for her father who has fallen prey to urban vices. And in Hunterwali, dedicated to punishing the evildoer, she hides behind a mask while doing her good deeds. The strongest message among the films released at that time was in V. Shantaram’s Duniya Na Mane, applauding a young girl’s defiance to consummate marriage with an old widower. Came Independence, and the heroine slowly learnt to express herself. The bride in Aag, ’48 turns away from her disfigured groom on their wedding night. In 1949 she is a spirited woman loved by two men in Andaz.

Gradually the heroine developed a demeanour, a self-assurance that was unmistakable. The heroine symbolised the human conscience. The ethereal dream sequence in Raj Kapoor’s Awara, where she is sent to heaven and the hero to hell, and his final return to ‘Ghar aaya mera pardesi’ is an immortal memory for cinema goers.
 

Interestingly, the two extreme images of the woman, the fiery and the submissive, came in the same year, 1953. In Sohrab Modi’s Jhansi Ki Rani she was on the battlefield, fighting for freedom. In Bimal Roy’s Parineeta she surrenders her freedom for tradition! There were times she needed taming, as in Aaan in ’57 and times when she was mature beyond her years. Paro and Chandramukhi in Sarat Chandra’s Devdas are two extraordinary women while the hero is a weak man running away from responsibilities. The same is true of Ashok Kumar, undeserving of the beautiful Kalyani in Bandhini.
 

In years to come the heroine continued to play a range of roles. As Gulab the streetwalker in Pyaasa she is supportive of the hero when everyone lets him down. Kathputli in ’57 explored the perils of a professional woman, in this case a dancer. Madhumati in ’58 emphasised that the woman did not need a man to seek her revenge – she accomplished it as a ghost after death. In 1959, Guru Dutt’s Kagaz Ke Phool, about an actress involved with a married filmmaker, elaborated on how the relationship destroyed him while the actress went on to become a big star. The film marked a subtle beginning in the emergence of a woman who opted for career over love.
 

In a strange way, the Indian heroine was always a cross between our very own Sita and Draupadi from mythology. At times the suffering martyr who goes through a trial by fire to prove her chastity and at other times the daredevil who initiated the (battle of) Kurukshetra.
 

There were phases when she was bogged down by domesticity and failed to respond to her beloved’s fantasies, as Sandhya in Navrang or the self-respecting untouchable Nutan in Sujata, ’59. These were characters that evoked social consciousness. In Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anuradha she was the neglected wife of a busy doctor. In K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam she challenged the emperor with ‘Jab pyaar kiya to darna kya’ which will remain an inspiration to suffering lovers for years to come.
 

At times the tragedienne and at times the seductress, at times defiant and at times diffident, but her dignity always remained untarnished. If at all her role was overstated, it was under extreme provocation. In Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, the chhoti bahu, in a desperate bid to hold back her husband from going to his evening’s entertainment, takes to alcohol.
 

As the court dancer in Amrapali, ’66 she turns down an emperor because her love for her country is greater than her love for the king. And as the ailing widow deserted by her in-laws in Phool Aur Patthar she stands witness for a criminal, uncaring of the moral and social implications. They were women with a mind of their own even if their lives didn’t always end happily-ever-after. The wife in Bahurani and the courtesan of Mujhe Jeene Do, ’67 were women who survived compelling circumstances.

In a strange way, the Indian heroine was always a cross between our very own Sita and Draupadi from mythology. At times the suffering martyr who goes through a trial by fire to prove her chastity and at other times the daredevil who initiated the (battle of) Kurukshetra

At the same time, for some strange reason, the heroine could never get out of the pati-parmeshwar (husband-is-Lord) mould. She removed her husband’s shoes and treated him like a deity. Her submission seemed to comply with the mood of society at the time. Her undisputed honour, of course, came in the role of a mother. Mehboob Khan’s Mother India was her acid test of endurance, sacrifice and of justice. And she passed it with flying colours.
 

A tangible contrast to the all-virtuous heroine was the vamp. Quite often a cabaret dancer, her presence was essentially to add glamour. Popularised by Cuckoo, perfected by Helen and followed by Bindu and Kalpana Iyer, once in a while the vamp traded places with the heroine. Mala Sinha in BR Chopra’s Gumraah was the wayward wife while the vamp, Shashikala was the husband’s confidante. These were rare examples.
 

Around this time, colour was creeping into cinema in more ways than the obvious. Shammi Kapoor, after Tumsa Nahin Dekha and Junglee, was being pitted against the trio, Raj-Dilip-Dev, as the rebel star. Kapoor refused to take cinema seriously. He wanted to have some fun and turned the ’60s into an acrobatic decade. The majority of films released during this phase (Ziddi, Love In Tokyo) concentrated on the hero wooing the heroine relentlessly. The era marked a strident beginning towards sexual harassment, no matter how harmless. Clones of songs like, ‘Lal chadi maidan khadi’ from Jaanwar, ’62 continued right up to ‘Khambe jaisi khadi hai’ from Dil, ‘90. To put it succinctly, the focus was shifting to the physical attributes of the leading lady and our songs bear testimony to how she was being gradually transformed into an object of sexual desire. And yet, not all the films made during this era were frivolous. Delving into the old format, some serious trends continued. Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anupama and Suchitra Sen’s double-role starrer Mamta were serious statements on family relationships.
 

With the arrival of the king of romance, superstar Rajesh Khanna, the heroine had to re-emerge and prove an effective foil, a vivacious, saucy queen for the king. For quite a while she held her own despite the Khanna hysteria. But as Khanna’s popularity increased, the queen found herself slowly dwarfed in his awesome presence. Uncomfortable about being pushed into the background, she surprised viewers with the odd unconventional portrayal. Waheeda Rehman as Rosie, desperate to break marital chains to live openly with her lover in Guide, Nanda as the devious schemer in Ittefaq, ’69 and Hema Malini as the possessive mistress in Lal Patthar are some examples.
 

In the coming years, the heroine evolved an even more intriguing persona. She was the haunting ghost of Woh Kaun Thi, ’64, the wanton call-girl of Chetna, ’70, the widow who dared to love in Andaz, and the courtesan who dared to dream in Pakeezah, ’71.
 

After a while, the complexities became overbearing. The cinema goer craved for simple, uncomplicated real-life stories. Guddi, ’71, and Jaya Bhaduri’s girl next-door appeal came like morning dew. She epitomised middle-class sensibility: Uphaar, Piya Ka Ghar, Parichay, Koshish and Kora Kagaz explored common man concerns. In Anamika, however, even Jaya defied her image, deceiving the hero by faking amnesia on the grounds that all is fair in love.
 

The cycle of the Indian heroine, from armament to ornament, coincided with the advent of the Amitabh Bachchan phenomenon, in Zanjeer, ’73. As Bachchan steadily usurped Khanna’s crown, the queen found that she had no definite place beside the box-office shahenshah. She sang and danced, but only to provide relief from the relentless quest for revenge – And that too, only when the hero had the time. The heroine’s feelings became secondary. The Bachchan era saw the emergence of the ultimate glamour puss: Zeenat Aman, Parveen Babi and in later years, Kimi Katkar. They were sex symbols with hourglass figures who did all that the vamp did and perhaps more.
 

One didn’t realise when the rot set in but tediously the costumes and the roles lost character. So strong was the impact of the action hero that the heroine began fading into oblivion. The humiliation of total subjugation hurt. She made tentative forays to regain her lost identity. The mainstream had closed its doors to her, at least temporarily. So she sought a backdoor entry.

It was Shyam Benegal who was responsible for her reincarnation. First a seedling, Ankur, ’73 that blossomed in Nishant, ’75, then Manthan and finally Bhumika, ’76, were all stories about women who hit below the belt. Shabana Azmi, supported by her colleagues, Smita Patil and Deepti Naval, opened the doors to the woman of substance!
 

Mainstream cinema continued to project her as a mannequin draped in rainbow colours. If in Bobby she was the ultimate dream, in Satyam Shivam Sundaram by the same filmmaker, she was the ultimate fantasy. In keeping with her character traits, when she wasn’t the siren she was the submissive wife basking in her husband’s glory.
 

Again, it was middle-of-the-road cinema that freed her from subjugation. Gulzar’s Aandhi dispelled the myth that husband came before self. The heroine chose a career in politics over family. In Ek Baar Phir, ’80, she walked out of a loveless marriage and in Arth, ’82, her husband walked out on her to live with an actress. Arth was the first film depicting the heroine willing to live on her own, without the crutch of a husband, lover or religion.
 

Clearly, she was going through an identity crisis but it took her some time to admit this. It was BR Chopra who gave her the courage to expose her rapist in Insaaf Ka Tarazu, ’80 and it was Chopra again who said she could not be treated as a commodity in Nikaah, ’82. Lekh Tandon liberated her to an extent that she was ready to sell her womb in Doosri Dulhan, ’82 and Rakesh Roshan applauded as she avenged her killer in Khoon Bhari Maang, ’88. Her need to express and simultaneously to retreat continued and she did so in a familiar pattern. Jamini in Khandhar, ’84 is self-sufficient and dignified in pain; the protagonist Sonbai in Mirch Masala and Pratighaat, ’87 strike out violently at their oppressors.
 

Inspired by her courage, the mainstream heroine also dared to break out of the inhibitions imposed on her. She now enticed the hero with her unabashed body language, ‘Kaate nahin kat ti’ in Mr India, ’87 and became even more erotic as she heaved her bosom to ‘Dhak dhak’ in Beta, ’93. Moving with the times, the ’90s heroine was assertive, at times even over-stepping the lakshmanrekha (line in the sand, defining moral space) in her mutinous bargain for liberation. She was upfront and, for a change, having a little fun with ‘Choli ke peeche kya hai’ (Khalnayak) and ‘Sexy sexy mujhe log bole’ (Khuddar, ‘94). Her self image was determined by the changing social fabric. The exploited sister holding up a mirror to her family of parasites in Jeevan Dhara, ’82, the defiant daughter who barrages her alcoholic father in Daddy, ’91, the angry wife condemning her husband for wanting to play her deity in Mrityudand, ’97, were images of shifting equations.
 

The cinema goer needed to touch base with reality. He was filled with admiration for the Bandit Queen, ’94, intrigued by her overt sexuality in Aastha, ’97 and guilty about letting her down in Tamanna, ’97. He joined her in a crusade for power in Godmother, ’99 and saluted her search for identity in Astitva, 2000. Encouraged, she sought her lost self-esteem in Rajkumar Santoshi’s Lajja, only to end up defeated again in Chandni Bar, 2001.
 

The paradox somehow never seemed to end. The only time the heroine was able to break free of the shackles was when she revered tradition. Sooraj Barjatya’s Maine Pyar Kiya, ’90 and Hum Aapke Hain Koun, ’94, depicted the heroine as willing to sacrifice love for family honour and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, ’96, included the elders in her dream.
 

Perhaps, therein lies the answer.

Archived from Communalism Combat, February  2005 Year 11    No.105, Cover Story 4

The post Women of substance appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Man is memory. We are nothing but the sum total of our past. We are never free of the past. Karl Marx was a Christ returning to a modern world. In other words, he was the resurrection of basically the same religious spirit and ideology, although under a different garb, a different language. It could not have been otherwise. For not only Marx but all thinkers cannot help but build their philosophy upon their past. To put it differently, as a very famous French thinker, Jacques Derrida would say, to be means to inherit.
 

All questions about being or what one is to be or not to be are questions of inheritance. We are inheritors, like it or not. If you read The Road Ahead by Bill Gates, you will see it is more history than prophecy. That is why imagined futures are always more about where we have been than where we are going.

In the year 1951, two years after I was born and much, much  before you all were even thought of, Jawaharlal Nehru compelled Purshottam Das Tandon to tender his resignation and took over as president of the Congress. Purshottam Das Tandon had defeated the secular factions of the Congress the year before, to become its president in 1950. In the newly "partitioned"  India, Purshottam  was a  symbol of the communalist and revivalist outlook.  Shattered by  the irreversible loss of Gandhiji, who had been killed by the bullet of a Hindu  fanatic fundamentalist,  Nehru had sworn to go for the jugular of  the fundamentalists.
 

At a public meeting in Delhi on Gandhi Jayanti Day in 1951, Nehru proclaimed his secular credo. He said, "If any person raises his hand to strike down another on the ground of religion, I shall fight him till the last breath of my life both as the head of the government and outside."  This statement sums up everything that needed  to be said about the spirit  India  and future  Indians must have towards  secularism. And this spirit was ignited in 1951, by Nehru, the most  extraordinary  jewel that India ever possessed.

Post-Independence  Hindi cinema fashioned its products on this passionately articulated  creed of Nehru. A glowing example of this is Dilip Kumar. He is an excellent symbol of secular India. The recent revival of Mughal-e-Azam and its global success proves that the pendulum of public taste has once again swung towards films that celebrate the pluralism and the secular creed of free India and has moved away from movies like Gadar, which in a very subtle manner demonise the
Muslims, and not just Pakistan.
 

The new colour version of Mughal-e-Azam was happily lapped up by children of the current  generation. My daughter and my young son were  both mesmerised by what our ancestors had achieved in those days, both in spirit and also on the screen. My heart just swells with pride when I watch Mughal-e-Azam. It reminds me of  what Bollywood once was.  Do you know that this magnum opus was made by an almost all-Muslim crew?  It was produced and directed by K. Asif, and it had Madhubala and Dilip Kumar  in the main lead. And  above all it had  Naushad,  the music director who’s soul resonated with  Hindu bhajans. How can India and Indians  ever forget ‘Mohe panghat pe Nandlal chhed gayo re’, a song  from Mughal-
e-Azam in which  the birth of Krishna is being celebrated in the court of Emperor Akbar and in which Madhubala, an actress who is Muslim by birth, dances like Meera?
 

The phenomenal success of Mughal-e-Azam today has also demonstrated that despite all the efforts of the previous regime to strangulate the secular voice of India, India’s secular spirit is very much alive and kicking. Because if this was not so, Mughal-e-Azam wouldn’t have been a box office hit.
 

Recently  I was told by the ministry of Information and Broadcasting that Mughal-e-Azam was also screened in the Srinagar Valley, where Hindi movies have not been playing for years. The major bulk of the audience consisted of  young people of your age.  Now, ever since trouble began in Kashmir, the young  people of that region have been violently opposing anything "Indian", even Hindi movies. The cinema hall where the film was now being shown was earlier forced to close shop because no one came to the hall to  watch Hindi films. But Mughal-e-Azam  had shocked everybody. Not only was it running to packed houses, but all those young people who came to watch the film clapped and applauded all through it. This is the Bollywood that I was born in. This was the  Bollywood whose films every Indian right from Kashmir to Kanyakumari watched and  loved.
 

I remember my father, a filmmaker who made more than 100 films. Many of these  films were based on The Arabian Nights fantasies. Now my Dad was a Brahmin but despite that, surprisingly, he knew more about Islam and the Islamic culture. My mother was a Shia Muslim. I remember after finishing her namaaz she would tell us, my brother, my sister and me, tales from Hindu mythology. These stories still resonate in my heart. One of these stories was effectively put to use by me in my film Raaz. The climax of Raaz was sourced from a tale my mother told me about Savitri and her fight with the Lord of death, Yama, to bring her husband back to life from the jaws of death.
 

The Bollywood that I grew up on had  jewels  like Sahir saab (Ludhianvi). Sahir saab is the greatest lyricist Bollywood has ever known. He is a Muslim who decided to stay in a secular India after Partition. The most enduring bhajan of all times, ‘Allah tero naam, Ishwar tero naam’  was written by this extraordinary poet.  Even a great filmmaker like Guru Dutt worked with people like Kaifi Azmi and Abrar Alvi.  Chaudvin Ka Chand,  produced by him and directed by  M. Sadiq, is the best film made against the backdrop of Lucknow and the Muslim tehzeeb (culture). Most Hindu filmmakers of those times made these films dealing with the Muslim culture without any self-consciousness. They  made these films because that culture was a part of them. The filmmakers of those days had the best of both cultures in them – no wonder that age is called the golden age  of  Hindi cinema.
 

I remember the last scene of  Ganga Jamuna in which Dilip Kumar dies saying "He Ram". Most people who saw the film then felt that the reverence with which this Muslim actor had uttered He Ram  reminded them of Gandhi’s last moments. Cinema goers imagined this was how the Mahatma must have died. However, Ganga Jamuna faced severe problems when it was seen by members of the censor board.  Some board members  who had communal leanings wanted  to delete this very scene saying that they could not have a Muslim saying "He Ram".  In spite of being secular to the core, Dilip saab faced many problems from  both within the community and outside it. He was the prime target of all those people  who had designs  to revive the religion of the majority and destroy the pluralism of India. But Dilip saab did not bow down to these forces. He stuck to his guns and remained a symbol of  secularism  for  all of us.

The recent revival of Mughal-e-Azam and its global success proves that the pendulum of public taste has once again swung towards films that celebrate the pluralism and the secular creed of free India and has moved away from movies like Gadar, which in a very subtle manner demonise the Muslims, and not just Pakistan

Recently I ran into Subhash Ghai and our conversation, after having spoken about the current state of Bollywood and what we should to do to stay afloat, slowly turned to the topic of Dilip Kumar and the need to immortalise him and put him on film because the man should be given his rightful due in history. He has been a reluctant icon because of which a lot of bogus icons have been enshrined on the altar. Dilip saab is a symbol of secularism; all his life he in fact echoed what Nehru spoke of. It was very moving to see a man like Subhash Ghai, otherwise known only for masala films, dedicate himself to make a documentary that would outlive this legend.  I had begun my career as an assistant director with the great filmmaker, Mr. Raj Khosla, with a film called Do Raaste, a box office hit. The film contained a sympathetic portrayal of a Pathan played by Jayant.
 

Now, this was a device commonly used in most Hindi films. Most of these roles were ineffective since they were insensitively projected on the screen. But some producer-directors who came from the North and who had lived with the Muslims there and enjoyed their hospitality and warmth portrayed these Muslim characters on film brilliantly. Do Raaste became a very big hit because of this noble Muslim character. A great scholar of Indian music said to me recently, "You know, the difference between Indian music and Indian film is that Indian filmmakers did not portray secularism and pluralism as brilliantly as the music directors and the lyric writers did." Somewhere, our Indian filmmaker was very simplistic, he did it as the politician does – Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai, using the ‘hugging each other, making tremendous sacrifices for each other’ formula. But it was in fact the music directors and the lyric writers in whose hearts were crucibles from where the pluralism that we keep talking about poured in and they made those wonderful tunes and songs. Ultimately music seeks to evoke some emotion in you. The ghazals and the tradition of thumris, and khayaals, the complete mixture of tehzeebs is what India is all about and that was what they portrayed through our music. I remember when I was growing up, my father made a film called Mr. X with a rock and roll number called ‘Lal lal gaal’ – a number that was a huge hit. This shows how much the Christian influences contributed to the success of our Hindi films in those days. Helen,  a Christian  by birth, was the heartthrob of the nation. She cast her spell on the people of India for almost two decades.  
 

I began my career in the year 1973 but came into the limelight  with films like Arth,  Saaransh, Naam and Janam. Most of these films were sourced from one’s own life. They were autobiographical. But  it took a tragedy like the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent bloodshed of innocent Muslims on the streets of Mumbai to hurl me into my hidden  past and make my last directorial film, Zakhm.
 

I came from the home of a Hindu Brahmin father and a Muslim mother and had the good fortune of being educated by Christian missionaries. It is because of them that I can stand here before you and speak in the language that I speak. The demolition of the Babri Masjid made me realise the naked truth that what is personal is political. When Mumbai burnt, I recalled that I too was subjected to a lot of humiliation by those very forces that were now unleashing their wrath against the minorities. When I was a child my paternal grandmother, who was a Hindu fundamentalist, had spared no opportunity to brutalise my mother and me simply because my mother was a Muslim.  After having found dizzying success and after making senseless and meaningless movies, the time had now come to make the defining film of my career. 
 

I am glad that before I hung up my gloves as a director (I continue to produce films and write them), I dared to revisit the wounds of my childhood. I told a tale that moved out into the larger domain, the public domain – the post-Babri Masjid demolition period and the subsequent bloodshed. This was Zakhm. I dared to make this film with my own funds, without State help, in a very repressive atmosphere. This was in 1998. My daughter Pooja produced Zakhm at a time when it was considered suicidal to make films that dared to incur the wrath of the Hindu fundamentalists in Delhi. 

Scene from Zakhm
 

There is a particular scene in Zakhm where the character played by Ajay Devgan slaps his brother who, unaware of his mother’s religion, her faith, is about to go and kill a Muslim boy who had burnt his mother alive. Ajay Devgan strikes him and says, "Yeh tere baap ka mulk hai kya?" (Is this your father’s land?) And says, "Kisko nikalega? Inko nikalega, kyon? Kyon ke  ye Musalman hai?" The manner in which he strikes him reminded me of Nehru’s statement of 1951 when he said, I will fight till my last breath against all those forces who will raise their hands against anybody in the name of religion – It was then that I discovered that through the virtual world, through movies, the same spirit of Nehru was somewhere expressing itself. That’s what I meant – to be is to inherit. I had inherited the sanity of the founding fathers and it was being expressed unapologetically there on the screen. In fact, recently they showed a short documentary, a half-hour programme on me on the BBC where they had, without my telling them, shown this particular portion of the film – where one brother strikes the other and says he will fight till his last breath to see that India celebrates its pluralism.  So things had come full circle. This apathetic man, this little boy, who was born in a home like this, who had moved far away from it and had gone into making escapist films, the man who had forgotten Mughal-e-Azam, but was traumatised when Bombay bled, finally made the only defining film of his career. Zakhm had bought me a lot of dignity. It washed me clean, it purged me of the aftertaste of having made some senseless films.  If Zakhm is still a part of public discourse today, that is because it carries in its core the sanity that Gandhiji and our founding fathers spoke about, fought for and died for. 
 

According to me, the first rotten phase that Bollywood saw was when, under the name of demonising Pakistan, a lot of movies actually took perverse delight in mocking and ridiculing the Muslim community. It was a phase after which the public, having made one odd film into a big hit, themselves boycotted such films. And it is unlikely now that any such films will be made since they do not run at the box office anymore.
 

That remains the saddest, most shameful chapter in the history of Bollywood, which had otherwise been very secular and had always celebrated pluralism. This only means that just as Nehru’s creed was reflected in the movies for 40-50 years, it was Nehru’s ideology that sparkled in our movies. Because, being what they are, leaders inspire filmmakers to echo what they feel. When the right wing Hindu fundamentalists came to power, they could only pass on their perversion to filmmakers, encouraging them to make movies of a new kind of genre, movies that made some sort of noise temporarily, but a noise that the people of India rejected. This was the sanity of this nation. This was secular India.
 

As we have stepped into the 21st century and we have now thankfully de-linked ourselves from that painful phase, we must be very cautious that the same forces that destabilised India in 1992 and once again in Gujarat in the year 2002 are very much alive, active and dying to get back and reassert themselves. They were there in 1951 when Nehru had to fight them; within the Congress Nehru had to fight his own people to assert secularism. The secularists of the nation must lock horns very aggressively with so-called communalists. I don’t believe in the passive stance that people take. I have always maintained that society is not devastated by the misdeeds of the bad man but by the silence of the so-called good people. It is when you and me are silent that we devastate society. 
 

You are on the threshold of a great career. You’re going to go there, into the trenches of life. During a conversation with N. Ram, the editor-in-chief of The Hindu a while ago, he said that the danger of the times is that we in institutions give our people a lot of skills and those skills certainly help one to make it in life. But what you need is an educated mind. A mind which has a broader view, which understands that whatever we do or whatever we see, will have far-reaching consequences. What you need is integrity and commitment; you need commitment to those very sane values that have seen us through. Values that are not negotiable, irrespective of the troubles we go through. You cannot negotiate the core value of India’s commitment to the secular creed. How can you do so? It would be akin to suicide. Take me for instance; when I look within myself, half of me is a Hindu, the other half a Muslim. Which part of me can I break away from without killing or destroying myself?
 

You are about to begin a new journey as the filmmakers and journalists of tomorrow. So it is important to remember what is being articulated here. Maybe the subject is so huge that it’ll take us lifetimes to discuss it. But essentially what I hope to do is ring an alarm bell. Just as I woke up after the carnage in Mumbai, after 1993, and discovered that I must dedicate myself and support platforms and movements like these. Otherwise I am in danger of destroying all that India stood for. The fight that Nehru waged has to be continued by me in the virtual world and through platforms like this. And you, as filmmakers, journalists, need to continue this too. For, if India moves away from a secular creed it will disintegrate into chaos and destroy everything that it has with such difficulty built. 
 

Let anybody rule us, but they cannot divide this country under the name of religion. And this is what we must pledge to work for. As filmmakers, as writers, as simple people who make a day-to-day living, this is one pledge that we must make. And on behalf of Bollywood, I have said that Bollywood has made a significant contribution, but as for its aberrations, forgive them my Lord for they know not what they do. There was a dark phase where they became ignorant, when the bosses asked them to bend and my brothers began to crawl. So forgive them, there were a few who made mistakes like this, but I thank god that a new dawn is here and I thank god that with you people going out into the field you will never ever let that happen again. Amen.
 

(Mahesh Bhatt is a well known film producer and writer, and former director of several Hindi films).

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