Religious protests against period film Gadar put free speech on the boil
Take Sunny Deol in a kitschy, Partition-era romance. Add religious protests. And put free speech on the boil.
Fleeing a Sikh lynch mob, a battered Sakina (Amisha Patel) runs into the arms of a burly lantern-wielding Sikh truck driver, Tara Singh (Sunny Deol). "Hand her over, she's a Muslim," the mob choruses. "Lo, ab ho gayi Sikhni(she's a Sikh now)," growls Singh who dramatically smears Sakina's hair parting with his ; blood as sindoor.
This pivotal scene inGadar: Ek Prem Katha, typical of Deol's son-of-the-soil histrionics, has audiences before some 400 screens across the country on their feet. It has also made the film, which grossed over Rs 50 crore in its second week, potentially one of India's most successful ever.
ButGadar, which means upsurge or rebellion, has also attracted protest from Muslim groups across the country, particularly in cities with a recent history of religious strife; cities such as Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bhopal.
Loosely based on the Partition-era love tragedy of a Sikh called Buta Singh, Gadar tells the story of a poor truck driver marrying an aristocratic Muslim girl in the backdrop of August 1947. Post-interval, Deol enters Pakistan to rescue the girl from the clutches of her evil politician father Ashraf Ali (Amrish Puri).
"How can they show a Sikh applying sindoor on the forehead of a Muslim girl? This and many other scenes in the film are calculated to provoke Muslims,'' argues street vendor Abdul Sattar in Ahmedabad.
Sections of the community seem to have held fast to Sattar's belief right from the film's June 15 release. Sporadic incidents of violence and arson marred the first week's shows in half a dozen theatres in the twin cities of Ahmedabad and Gandhi-nagar. Muslims and Hindus came to blows before the police dispersed the mobs.
In Sangam theatre, groups of Muslims hurled petrol pouches on the screen before setting it ablaze. Stopping the show, the arsonists trooped out and set two scooters on fire. The owner of the theatre stopped the screening for two days before the state Government assured him police protection.
On Monday, June 25, Bhopal teetered on the brink of a repeat of the post-Babri Masjid riots of 1992. A mob of 400 persons led by the president of the district Youth Congress, Arif Masood, used petrol bombs, swords, rods and stones to attack a cinema hall screening Gadar. A police constable was greviously injured and dozens received minor wounds.
Deol reacted to news of the violence with anguish: "What is sad about the protests is that they were started by cowards, but it is innocent people who are being hurt." Not every reaction was as stupefied. Gadar became the newest political hot potato.
 "There is nothing objectionable ... that merits a ban." On gadar, 2001 "Societywallahs talk about democracy. What of the public?" On fire, 1998 GOVIND NIHALANI  "It reinforces canards but deserves to be screened." Semi-defending gadar "The sign of healthy democracy is to accommodate dissent." Defending fire |
It's a familiar script and a worn-out template. The cast of characters for and against Gadar have periodically locked horns in films like Bombay, Fire and Water in the past few years.
Writing in his party mouthpiece Saamna, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray said there was nothing objectionable in the film.
Hindu organisations see a conspiracy behind the protests. Said Sanjay Nirupam, Shiv Sena MP in Mumbai: "The film shows Indians as tolerant and Pakistanis as communal and conservative. If Indian Muslims oppose the film, it only means their heart is closer to Pakistan."
The Shiv Sena was suitably provoked when the little-known Mumbai Regional Muslim League shot off a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh asking for a ban on the film or the deletion of its objectionable scenes.
"The film is biased towards Hindus," charged League President Mohammed Faruque Azam.
"It shows the suffering of Hindus but not that of the Muslims who are depicted as rapists and murderers." Azam was the first to raise the point about Patel's screen name, Sakina, being defamatory to Islam since it was the name of Prophet Mohammed's daughter.
As Zee TV - its sister company Zee Telefilms has produced Gadar - was quick to point out, the Prophet's daughter was called Fatima. Sakina, scholars say, was the Prophet's great granddaughter.
While the Congress-NCP Government in Maharashtra refused to ban Gadar, its BJP counterpart in Gujarat endorsed the film's "patriotic credentials". "There is nothing in it which would hurt an Indian Muslim. If there's anything it's against Pakistan," says Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya.
But what doesn't augur well for peace in Ahmedabad is the Bajrang Dal forming groups of youth ready to rush to any theatre where Muslims are creating trouble. The controversy is also being fanned by some Urdu newspapers in Mumbai and Bhopal.
If the RSS paperPanchajanya once carried an article calling Hrithik Roshan the Hindu answer to the Khan trio of Salman, Aamir and Shah Rukh, these papers are miffed with recent films likeFiza andZubeidaa that show Muslim girls falling in love with Hindu men.
In Lucknow,Gadar seemed to be in for a rerun of last year's controversy where hostile crowds gathered during its filming in the old city. Shia Muslims protested against the shoot inside the historic Bara Imambara, the tomb of Nawab Asifuddaula.
The Gadar crew then shifted to Roomi Gate, another historical site. One of the film's key sequences was filmed here. Tara Singh agrees to convert to Islam for the safety of his wife and child. He is brought before a mosque and hundreds of Pakistanis and is egged on by Ashraf Ali to say "Pakistan zindabad (long live)" and "Hindustan murdabad (death to)".
"Islam does not allow murdabad of anyone," insists Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, Lucknow-based vice-president of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB). He also expressed anger at his name featuring in the film's credits with BJP MPs like Vinod Khanna and Kalraj Mishra. Sadiq denies assisting Gadar's makers in any way.
The Maulana, who has a strong following among the Shias of the city, has not seen the film and has been only told of it by his supporters. "None of the protesters has seen the film,'' says producer Nitin Keni who calls the protests sporadic and insists they aren't backed by popular sentiment.
Popular sentiment is what seems to have made the film a big hit. In theatres across Mumbai, scenes of Deol single-handedly vanquishing rioters and Pakistani policemen elicit frenzied applause.
In north India and especially in Punjab, the film has broken box-office records. Set in the kitschy, patriotic mould of Anil Sharma's earlier films like Hukumat, Gadar is unabashedly jingoistic.
Rajya Sabha member Shabana Azmi says the film is provocative, but that she will defend its right to be screened. "The movie reinforces the canard that every Muslim is a Pakistani. It mixes issues of identity and nationalism, which should be handled sensitively. But it has been cleared by the Censor Board and has every right to be screened."
While Azmi holds out M.S. Sathyu's Garam Hawa as a shining example of sensitively handling the issue of Partition, Gadar's director Anil Sharma says his film has done the same in a limited way, "I'm not a documentary filmmaker. I make mainstream cinema, but Gadar is about love transcending religion and borders."
Police contingents now guard theatres screening Gadar in Mumbai, Bhopal and Lucknow. If it wasn't for the huge cinema posters outside Bhiwandi's Ratan theatre, you would think the snaking queues outside it were those of Mumbaikars boarding an aircraft.
Theatre goers not only pass through two metal detectors but are even frisked by policemen before being allowed in. On the evening of Tuesday, June 26, a firecracker inside the hall trigger panic. The gadar over Gadar is not quite the entertainment movie buffs had bargained for.
- with Uday Mahurkar, Neeraj Mishra and Subhash Mishra
