Kanak Astha filming the nation

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Kanak Astha
1829133
Filming the Nation
BMEC 441 A
Prof. Sonia Ghalian
School of Business Studies and Social Sciences
8 th December 2019
Dematerializing religion in Indian Cinema: Popularization of Muslim actors and their
role in national identity construction
Abstract
Indian cinema shares an eccentric relationship with Nation, its culture and the identity
it projects. India is one country, but has over 800 "mother tongues"; 16 languages with
scripts of their own are recognized in the constitution; the diversity in religions, races,
costumes, customs, food habits, looks and outlooks, cultural backgrounds is greater than
within the entirety of Western civilization. (Gupta) Imagination of the nation as a
unified mythical community or family in Hindi Cinema collapses under the weight of its
own contradictions as “gender, heterosexuality, class, and religious communities crosshatch
the nation, and each of these disrupt the nationalist narration in Hindi cinema to reveal a
different history”. (Virdi). The presence of Muslim actors in the industry and the
related fandom and popularity they receive reflect on how Hindi cinema
accommodates the religious politics by eradicating it in its underlying structures. While

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Euro-American eruptions of melodrama during the interwar and post-war years are
viewed as “dramatizing the retreat into the private sphere in the face of crisis within
the public sphere,” in Hindi films these two spheres—family and “nation” coalesce in
the film hero’s personal narrative (Landy). This paper aims at exploring how Hindi
cinema through ages has aimed at dematerializing the religious politics within the
industry through portraying Muslim actors into culturally appropriate roles and how it
has been received. The main actors in focus throughout the paper are Dilip Kumar
and Nargis . This paper also aims to illustrate on the roles played by these actors
throughout the course of history e.g., Mughal-e-Azam and Mother India to create
unforgettable characters who inspire the national identity vividly.
Keywords: Nation, National identity, Muslim, Hindu, Popular Film, Dematerialize, Indian
Cinema.
Introduction
India shares a strange history with cinema even before the industry came into
existence. Interestingly, going back in history tells us that in 1896, the Lumiere brothers
demonstrated the art of cinema when they screened Cinematography consisting of six short
films to an enthusiastic audience in Bombay (Willemen) making the presence of cinema in
Indian subcontinent almost indispensable. Jyotika Virdi talks about how Popular Indian
cinema can be denoted as national cinema not only because “it is produced and
consumed predominantly within national boundaries, but also because of other factors
that identify a national film industry” (Virdi). She categorizes these factors as:
a) inheriting and circulating notions of national identity,
b) negotiating conflicts experienced by the imagined community,
c) producing new representations of the nation, and

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d) constructing a collective consciousness of nationhood through special cultural
referents.
Since the advent of Independence and the aftermath of partition, India has witnessed a
strange adverse animosity between Hindu and Muslim identities. Though, India was
free from the reins of foreign rulers in 1947, but it started a war this country never
wanted. India has had a rich history of Hindu and Muslim rulers who have dedicated
their lives to this homeland. But the foreign invasion by British created a chaos as
the invaders tried to pin down the real definition of “Indian Identity” by creating a
new history of India in comparison to British history and re-labelling the Muslim
rulers as barbaric making their descendants born barbaric. It has been an ever-going
battle where religions clash time and again to claim identities and create political and
social turmoil. On the other hand, within this very country exists an industry which
has tried to surpass this religious battle by the means of entertainment i.e., Indian
Film industry. This industry is unique because this space allows the interchange of
identities without any space for conflict based on religion at least. Industry has
incorporated amazing Muslim actors, directors, producers as well as music composers
into it who have proved their worth time and again. One such great Muslim artist is
Dilip Kumar ( original name: Muhammad Yusuf Khan ) who became The Tragedy King
making each of his role unique and inspiring. His career started off with his role as
Ram in Shaheed where he portrays himself as national independence fighter. This kind
of inspiring role linked with Hindu identity was the need of the hour as the movie
was released in 1948 ( a year after Independence). Following the success of Shaheed,
Dilip Kumar delved into the tragic role a lover with broken heart in Mela. Mela
portrays the afflicted love interested between Mohan ( Dilip Kumar) and Manju (Nargis)
and how their love remains incomplete as Manju gets married to elderly and Mohan

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kills her by accident and in redemption takes the guilt and goes to jail. This guiltridden
hero was a new kind of hero emerging which had audience’s sympathy. But
his real fame came from And (Saigal)az (A Matter of Style, dir. Mehboob Khan, 1949)
where the heroine , Neena (Nargis) eventually murders the manager of her estate, Dilip (Dilip
Kumar) when her husband, Rajan (Raj Kapoor) suspects her fidelity with the manager. This
complex psychological melodrama moralises that the newly independent nation,
somewhat contradictorily, should embrace capitalist modernisation while retaining feudal
family structures and values. Dilip Kumar’s naturalist underplaying often presented him
as an innocent loner caught in and destroyed by conflicting social pressures, as in,
Andaz, where drama of male guilt is paid for by the woman. Madhav Prasad talks
about ‘spectacular narration’ in the context of Ravi Vasudevan’s analysis of Andaz
where Vasudevan breaks down a segment from Andaz to understand the combination
of codes and what they signify. He observes that “there is a parallel in the way in
which the narrative reorganizes the family so as to secure a stable position for the
middle-class hero.” (Prasad 19-20)
Kumar’s style developed tragic dimensions over the next decade as his portrayal of
Shamu the blind singer in the Oedipal drama Deedar, where in spite of getting treated
for blindness, when his childhood love fails to show any reminiscence of childhood
memories related to him, he chooses blinds himself again. Again, in Devdas, his
portrayal of Devdas Mukherjee, the lovesick aristocrat who goes rogue when his
childhood love gets married, was his way of setting the bench up as a tragic hero.
Devdas also becomes pivotal for his career as an actor as this film was based on the
great tragic novel by same name written by Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay which was
already been adapted to screen a few times. But Dev Babu portrayed by Dilip Kumar
was so inspiring that Bimal Roy’s Devdas rose the success ladder pretty quickly. Dilip

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Kumar was a tragic hero throughout his career, portraying inspiring roles bigger than
life where ironically major of his roles were related to Hindu identity making him a
star amongst the audience.
In 1957, Mehboob Khan released Mother India, and in 1960, Karimuddin Asif released
Mughal-e Azam. Before and during this period there were other films made by some
of Bollywood's greatest directors- those films were and remain classics- but these two
films in many ways are the two most important films of what is often called the
'golden era of Bollywood'. By this time, Bollywood had long created an India that was
very different to the real India outside (Bose). Here, none of the bitterness and divide
between the two great religious communities, that only a decade earlier had led to the
partition of the land, applied. In the India of Bollywood, Hindus fell in love with
Muslims and even married them, as it was quite common for Muslim actors and
actresses to play Hindu characters (Bose). In the film, Ram Rajya, the only film Gandhi
was supposed to have seen, which tells the story of the great Hindu god Ram, who
had come to earth as the perfect human being, it was a Muslim who played Ram,
while a Hindu played the demon Ravana who wanted to destroy him (Bose). In that
sense, Mughal-e Azam was only noteworthy for being the only film where Dilip
Kumar played a Muslim in a film. In all his other film roles, which numbered more
than sixty-five, Dilip Kumar, who was brought up as a devout Muslim, which he
remained all his life, always played Hindu roles. Dilip Kumar himself was part of this
cinematic religious reversal when in a 1981 film, Kranti, he played the Hindu, while
Shatrughan Sinha, who later became a politician, joining the BJP, a staunch Hindu
party, played the Muslim (Bose). Historical representations indeed pose the question of
present impersonating past. When K.Asif’s Mughal-e Azam came out it was clear that
Hindu-Muslim antagonism was being displaced onto a nostalgic image of Mughal

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grandeur (Chakraborty). The very opening scene of this film introduces a personified
Hindustan which is trying to set the historical tone for the film by depicting the
history related to this subcontinent. This history has specific mentions of construction
and destruction in relation to rapid change in power. Personified India acknowledges
Jalal-ul-din Muhammed Akbar as one of its greatest lovers who dedicated his life to
construct a unified India transcending the barriers of religion and tradition with the
aim to bring communal harmony. Akbar’s marital alliance with Princess Jodha became
crucial as this can be observed as his first step towards putting religious differences
and conflicts behind for something bigger ( his vision of unified India ). The need for
the deliverance of imperial justice and order effectively in the film illustrates that ‘the
impulse toward synthesis becomes a mean of exploring ideological and psychic
disturbances pertaining to the group of questions that the get resolved through
emotional drama.’ (Chakraborty 165). Analysing Mughal-e- Azam using Fredric
Jameson’s three horizons of interpretation illustrates how this film in spite of being
historical makes past the symbolic realm where social and historical contradictions of
present are resolved. Here in this film, the glory of the emperor Akbar and his power
struggle with his son, Prince Salim, reflect on the conditions of social life of India
specifically on the chaotic Hindu and Muslim relationship. But ironically the exile of
Salim due to his ill-mannered behaviour turns out to be of 14 years borrowing
similarities to the Ram-Vanavas where Rama was exiled for 14 years and returns
back victorious. This kind of narration hits the religious sentiments of audience
making them more apprehensive of the actor projecting such emotions. Throughout the
film, Salim is caught between desire and duty, which is aesthetically manifest in the
relation of the erotic sentiment to the heroic, making Salim resemble Kalidas’s heroes.
(Chakraborty 172). Other attempt to bring cultural appropriation to the film brings

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focus to the sequence where Mughals are celebrating Janmashtami and Akbar eagerly
participates in the religious rituals of the festival. Also, the dance sequence performed
by Anarkali ( Madhubala ) becomes important as she is trying to be Radha in the song
emoting the appropriate emotions in subtle ways so as to emulate Radha in that
particular song sequence. Again, Dilip Kumar emerges as the tragic prince who lost
his Anarkali for honour and duty. After taking break for a few years, Dilip Kumar
came back with his iconic role of Shankar in Naya Daur, which set a new tone in
industry. The film was set in an era when industrialisation was limited to Indian cities
only. The onset of industrialisation and the crossover of technology with village
culture created chaos which is well reflected in the film. Shankar, being an illiterate
horse cart driver faces financial challenges, but his family becomes his source of
happiness. But the arrival of literate city returned Kundan ( son of the factory owner)
becomes doom for the villagers as he replaced the factory workers with automated
machines for wood cutting. The real conflict starts when Kundan brings Motor Bus to
replace horse cart provoking Shankar. But Shankar being the hero steps up and
challenges to win technology over using traditional methods and he succeeds. The
songs like Ye Desh hai Veer Jawano ka and Saathi Hath Badhana became national
hits as they successfully emote patriotic emotions.
The epic melodrama from the canon of Indian Cinema, Mehboob Khan's Mother India
(1957) came as the precursor of contemporary Bollywood cinema where valorisation of selfsacrifice
in the service of the nation was imagined as a woman. Coming from the location
with powerful histories of colonialism, Mother India suggests that the gender of the nation is
usually 'spoken' in multiple and complex ways. Basically, this movie came out a decade after
the India got its independence. In the decade preceding the film, many political and social
upheaval had taken place. The new constitution was drafted, Mahatma Gandhi was

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assassinated, and the country was stepping into drastic modernization under the leadership of
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The film purposely commemorates the idea of freedom and the
unchained spirit.
The very initial scene of Mother India introduces us to its ambivalent archetypal heroine. In a
close-up we see the deeply wrinkled face of a woman, Radha ( Nargis ) as " Mother India".
She lifts a lump of clay soil from her field, takes it close to her face and lets the earth slowly
crumble in her hands, which bears the scars for a lifetime's hard manual work. And as the
camera zooms out, there is a hopeful note in the air: modern technologies are being
introduced by the government to increase agricultural productivity and lessen the peasant’s
burden. The villagers revere Radha for all she’s done and invite her to inaugurate the new
irrigation canal. In some ways, Mother India is quite conventional. Its intended messages
about women are regressive from a feminist point of view. The movie conveys that the ideal
woman is nurturing, self-sacrificing and hardworking. It ignores the reality that women did
all of this for very little reward. In the 1950s, when the movie was released, women’s legal
rights were severely restricted; for example, the progressive legislations introduced by
stalwarts like B. R. Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru, for Hindu women’s inheritance and
marriage rights, had been stonewalled and diluted in Parliament.
Mother India highlights the plight of the farmer, but glosses over or erases the specific
difficulties faced by women farmers specifically: lack of access to resources, invisibilities of
their labour, and their self-deprivation in times of scarcity. In times of food insecurity, adult
women often deprive themselves and girl children of adequate food. It is not necessarily
forced upon them; more often it’s a choice (made in the context of patriarchal society). “How
can a mother sacrifice her children?” wails Radha, at one point driven almost to insanity
through poverty and humiliation, and almost forced to sell herself to feed them . And yet she
will do it, she will kill her son, whose murderous frenzy obliges her at the end of the movie to

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choose social order over maternal love. The intensity and tragedy inherent to Mother India is
contained in this contradiction. The Mother who has fought like only Life itself could
struggle to survive and provide for its very existence, this mother will be the agent of Death,
death of her own life, death of her own child. This Arch-Mother will become the mother
Land, the Mother of Society, the mother of Culture. Lastly, a central theme of the movie is
honor/modesty. Radha values honor – her own and other women’s – over and above
everything else. Maintaining honor is the prime duty of a woman. Her honor is not just her
own, but the family’s, the village’s, and by extension the nation’s. But the problem with
honor is that to maintain it, women’s mobility, freedom and sexuality must be tightly
controlled. ( as perpetuated by society ). Interestingly, the year after Mother India was
released, Nargis had married Sunil Dutt, in a romance that stunned Bollywood, not just
because of the son marrying the actress who played his mother in a film, but also because it
was a Hindu-Muslim marriage. However, the way Sunil Dutt would later present it, he was
drawn to her because he thought she would be good for his family-just the sort of sentiments
Mother India was promoting.
The concept of nation subtends that imagination in Hindi films and centres its moral universe.
All ethical dilemmas revolve around the nation; good and bad, heroes and villains are divided
by their patriotism and anti-patriotism. Because of its reach and appeal, popular Hindi cinema
enjoys the privileged position of a national cinema. In it, the nation appears not as a melting
pot of diverse cultures but rather as a dominant, generic north Indian culture prevalent in the
Hindi-speaking belt. “National” as related to Hindi cinema bears all its varied meanings: “as
pertaining to the nation, as imbued with emotional fervour for the nation shared by varied
constituencies, and as a Pan-Indian phenomenon.”

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Works Cited
Andaz. Dir. Mehboob Khan. Perf. Nargis, Raj Kapoor Dilip Kumar. 1949.
Bose, Mihir. Bollywood: A History. New Delhi: The Lotus Collection, 2007. e-document.
Chakraborty, Sumitra S. National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, 1947-1987. University of Texas
Press, 1993.
Deedar. Dir. Nitin Bose. Perf. Nargis,Aashok Kumar Dilip kumar. 1951.
Devdaas. Dir. Bimal Roy. Perf. Vaijantimala Dilip Kumar. 1955.
Mela. Dir. S.U.Sunny. Perf. Narhis Dilip Kumar. 1948.
Mughal-e-Azam. Dir. K. Asif. Perf. Madhubala, Prithvi Raj Kapoor Dilip Kumar. 1960. e-document.
Naya Daur. Dir. B.R. Chopra. Perf. Vaijantimala Dilip Kumar. 1957.
Prasad, M. Madhava. Ideology of the Hindi Film. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Shaheed. Dir. Ramesh Saigal. Perf. Dilip Kumar. 1948.
Virdi, Jyotika. The Cinematic ImagiNation. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2003. e-book.
Willemen, Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul. Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1998. e-book.