Gadar:Muslim League's objections justified?

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>Publication: indya.com >June 28, 2001 >URL:

http://news.indya.com/thegadaranalysis.html > >New Delhi · > >The controversy

may have fuelled box-office collections. But cascading protests across the

country against Nitin Keni's Sunny Deol-Amis

Patel starrer Gadar are threatening to fuel more than that. >Already, there have

been protests in Bhopal, Luknow, New Delhi, Ahmedabad and even Mumbai against

the film. In Ahmedabad, angry Muslim viewers torched six vehicles and burnt a

portion of the theatre, taking exception to certain scenes and dialogues in the

film.

>

>According to the Muslim League, Gadar hurts the religious sentiments of the

minority community. In fact, the Mumbai Regional Muslim League has also said

that it will file a petition in the Mumbai High Court against the Censor Board

for Film Certification, demanding that certain guidelines be issued for the

depiction of all religions in Indian films. > >But what are they protesting

against anyway? Just how communally slanted is the plot and dialogue of the

Partition-and-after saga? > >First, consider the plot. The film tells the tale

of the romance between Tara Singh (a Sikh man) and Sakina (a Muslim woman) at

the time of Partition. It opens in a village now in Pakistan, where Hindus and

Sikhs are being terrorised into crossing over to India. > >The next sequence

cuts to gory scenes of brutal massacre and rape at railway stations. A train

arriving from Pakistan with piles of blood-stained bodies brings along with it

the massacred family of Tara Singh, a truck-driver. > >During the riots that

follow, Tara Singh meets Sakina, the convent-educated young woman from an

influential business family. Sakina's family succeeds in fleeing India, but not

without losing Sakina at the crowded railway station. Angry Sikh youths assail

her on identifying her as a Muslim. > >Tara Singh saves Sakina, provides her

shelter at his home, despite facing stiff opposition from kith and kin.

Inevitably, they fall in love and get married. > >One son and many years later,

Sakina finds out that her father is actually now the mayor of Lahore in

Pakistan. She, of course, is overjoyed and visits her family in Pakistan. Her

happiness turns out to be short-lived. > >Her family in Pakistan does not

acknowledge her marriage with Tara and detains her in Pakistan, against her

wishes. Press reports suggest that Sakina was forced into marrying Tara. > >Her

politically motivated family wants her to play the "sympathy wave" and enhance

her political career. So Tara visits Pakistan - without a visa - to fetch his

wife and, many problems later, finally succeeds. > >In essence, you might say,

the film is a simple love story, with the customary dose of cross-community

conflict and amity. Sure, since the backdrop is the Partition, the film does

have its fair share of gory scenes, abusive dialogue and a strong

community-driven perspective. > >But there's more to Gadar than such a

black-and-white picture. In a sense, of course, it is a tribute to the

naturalism in the film that it evoked the protests that it has. > >Actress and

Rajya Sabha MP Shabana Azmi, while not criticising the film outright, has said

on record that "there are subtle but definite communal undertones of a villain

and a hero in the film, and that the hero is a Sikh and the villain a Muslim."

> >Is she right? Counters a movie critic: "If there are any undertones, they

are political rather than communal. One cannot make a film based in the era of

Partition without portraying the communal disharmony at that time, which the

film has successfully done. Even if her family detained Sakina in Pakistan, it

was probably less because of her marrying a Hindu and more because her father

wanted to further his own and her political career." > >"There is no good or

bad in the film. There is nothing against Islam, although there are a lot of

anti-Pakistan statements. The director has just depicted the situation then, as

it was. More importantly, it is a true story and in real life Sakina was a

Muslim and Tara was a Sikh. It was actually Sakina's family that was the

villain, not Pakistan or Islam. After all, in the end, it's a Muslim who helps

them escape," points out a member of the audience of the film, at a recent

screening. > >"In fact," says an avid movie-goer, "if anyone must protest, it

should be Indians - whether Hindus or Muslims is irrelevant. A character says:

"Hindustan Murdabad", not Hindus or Muslims murdabad. Because we are a

democratic country, we don't mind criticism of our own country, which is why

the film has not hurt the sensitivities of us as Indians." > >But while that

may represent the popular sentiment, what of the official objections listed by

the Muslim League? > >Objection 1: A dialogue at the beginning of the film

states that Muslims had raped non-Muslims. The Muslim League has objected that

the dialogue suggests that Muslims as a community were rapists. > >Actually,

the film depicts atrocities - too well documented by now to be disputed -

committed by members of both communities on one another. Gadar begins on the

solemn and violent note of Indo-Pak Partition. > >History is witness that

trains from both Lahore to Amritsar and from Amritsar to Lahore reached their

respective destinations full of blood-stained dead bodies - and that scores of

both Hindu and Muslim women were raped mercilessly. The film does not ignore

the double-edged violence and violation. > >Why, even Sakina, left behind at

Amritsar railway station, is shown to have been close to being raped by a gang

of Hindu Sikhs who jumped her after identifying her as a Muslim girl. >

>Objection 2: The use of the name Sakina for the character of the Muslim girl

played by Amisha Patel is deliberate, as Sakina was the name of Prophet

Mohammed's granddaughter. > >Was there malice intended? Is malice intended when

a character in a Hindi film is named Rama, for instance? > >Objection 3: The

film suggests that Sakina does not believe in Islam and converts to another

religion because of that, rather than because of her love for the Sikh man. >

>If that were the case, Sakina could have changed her name and religion in the

seven-odd years when she was married to Tara Singh before she went back home.

She would have disowned her family and not offered namaz. > >Crucially, nowhere

does Sakina suggest that Islam is bad or even that the "other" religion is good.

However, she does apply sindoor, but that seems to symbolise, in the usual

broad-stroke Hindi film style, the convergence of the two religions. > >In

fact, the film cleverly steers clear of any religious slant and concentrates

more on the India-Pakistan divide than on the Hindu-Muslim divide. > >Objection

4: The film depicts atrocities being committed on Hindus and Sikhs during the

migration across the borders, but does not depict any exploitation of Muslims.

Muslims too suffered during Partition and the film ignores this historical

aspect, thus losing balance. > >The film has scenes where members of both

communities are shown at the receiving end. If Tara Singh's parents and sisters

were killed, so was Sakina's brother. The film effectively shows the

"tit-for-tat" mentality that existed at the time. Atrocities committed by all

communities are an integral part of the film. > >It is probably a barometer of

the politics and sociology of hatred that has permeated India today that every

community is quick to interpret the human condition as a slight upon itself. >

>At the end of the day, Gadar is a film that depicts narrow-mindedness and the

suffering it causes ? and no community has a monopoly on that. > >

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