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Spend long on India’s highways and you’ll soon see them, vast and gaudy, their white-toothed heroes gazing out. Movie billboards, thousands of them, each showcasing some romance or spy flick as the trucks and taxis rattle by. Now, though, these Bollywood staples are joined by something new. There she is, her bob cut with streaks of white, atop a large pair of retro glasses. The actress is Kangana Ranaut: but it’s clear she’s trying to imitate Indira Gandhi, India’s first and only woman prime minister.
Emergency, which lately appeared in Indian cinemas, portrays the 21 months from June 1975 that Gandhi suspended the constitution and ruled the country by decree. Citing rising political violence, and long-standing tensions with Pakistan, the Premier’s actions have been deeply controversial ever since. But if you know anything about Kangana Ranaut, you shouldn’t expect subtlety alongside your popcorn. For beyond producing, directing and starring in Emergency, the 38 year old is also a member of parliament for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
As a Hindu nationalist outfit, the BJP has always loathed Gandhi’s secular brand of politics. That’s clear enough from those billboards: Ranaut’s Indira practically snarls, a narcissistic demagogue as flames smoulder ominously behind. Not that she’s alone. For decades, after all, politicians here have understood the immense power of the big screen, especially when so many Indians remain illiterate. Yet if Indira Gandhi’s own Indian National Congress exploited movies in the past, the BJP is doing something new, borrowing its links to the stars to dehumanise its foes — not just long-dead Gandhis, but many millions of Muslim citizens too, a strategy that could yet turn deadly.
Since independence, Indian politicians have revelled in the silver screen. The cinema of the Fifties and Sixties, the heyday of Congress rule, reflected Jawaharlal Nehru’s founding vision of socialist nation building. One classic example here is Ab Dilli Dur Nahi (“Now Delhi is Not Far Away”). Released in 1957, it follows a young boy who visits the capital to secure justice for his falsely imprisoned father, pleading his case to none other than Nehru himself. Other movies from this period invoke similar progressive pieties, lionising ethnic minorities and assailing greedy landlords.
At the same time, Congress was happy to ban any movies it didn’t like. In 1975, for instance, it temporarily repressed Aandhi because it apparently drew on Gandhi’s relationship with her estranged husband. It’s a strategy that continued for as long as Congress was in power. In 2014, to give one example, it banned Kaum De Heere (“Gems of the Community”) because it allegedly glorified Gandhi’s killers. Gunned down by her own Sikh bodyguards, in 1984, they claimed revenge for an attack by Indian troops on the Golden Temple, the most sacred shrine in Sikhism. Politically, if not ethically, such sensitivity makes sense. Indian politicians have for long understood that cinema can sway voters in their favour. Boasting a vibrant film industry even before independence from Britain, in 2023 the sector pulled in $1.3 billion, with the industry pumping out some 1,500 films a year.
Yet if Congress pulled the plug on films for political gain, and on releases they felt could spark communal strife, its BJP successors have embraced film far more aggressively. Over their decade dominating the country’s politics, indeed, what can only be described as Hindu nationalist propaganda has flooded Indian cinemas. It’s worth returning to Emergency here, with Ranaut using her film to effectively paraphrase Modi that Gandhi’s rule by decree “was a dark chapter” in the country’s history. Considering Gandhi used the Emergency to suppress a range of Hindu nationalist organisations, that antipathy makes sense.
In truth, though, BJP-aligned films usually have a far bigger target in mind than the Gandhis: Muslims. It’s a history that runs deep. The BJP’s parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), exists largely to undermine the Muslim presence in India, ever since its formation as a quasi-fascist organisation back in 1925. Vinayak Savarkar, the group’s founder, carefully curated the idea of Indian freedom from the British Empire, even as he hoped to be free of Muslims too, envisaging a state where Hindus reigned supreme. Even today, leaders from both the BJP and RSS label Muslims as “terrorists” and “termites” — and just a few weeks ago, a BJP official in the southern state of Kerala told Muslims to “go to Pakistan” if they weren’t happy in India.
Certainly, these ideas are reflected in BJP-backed movies. A case in point is The Sabarmati Report. Released in November 2024, and produced tax-free after support by BJP officials, it covers an infamous 2002 pogrom in the northwestern state of Gujarat. The violence apparently started after an argument between Hindu pilgrims, returning from a shrine on the Sabarmati Express, and Muslim vendors at Godhra station. Even 22 years on, the details of what happened next remain murky. But what’s certain is that a fire started in one of the train’s carriages, killing 59, before vengeful Hindu mobs massacred over 1,000 random Muslims, raping and torturing as they went.
Watch the film, though, and you’ll get a rather different impression of what happened, with The Sabarmati Report bluntly blaming Muslims for the death of the pilgrims while ignoring the butchery that followed. Tellingly, Modi was chief minister of Gujarat during the slaughter — and was quick to praise the film, which earned almost 300 million Indian rupees. “It is good that this truth is coming out in a way that is accessible to everyone,” he wrote on X. “A fake narrative can only last so long — facts eventually prevail.” Statements like these unsurprisingly make India’s 170 million Muslims queasy, especially when Modi had the film screened at an auditorium in Parliament House, an event also featuring both the information and broadcasting minister and the defence minister.
And if victims and their families have little to cheer from The Sabarmati Report, films that cover the massacre more evenly have also been repressed. In January 2023, for instance, the BJP invoked emergency laws to block a BBC documentary examining Modi’s role during the riots. A month later, India’s Income Tax Department raided the BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai, ultimately forcing the corporation to restructure its activities in the country. Feature films covering the pogrom have also faced legal challenges. That includes Kai Po Che, a 2013 movie that petitioners claimed unfairly blamed Hindus for the violence.
Nor, of course, is this simply a matter of a single film, or a single act of communal slaughter from many years ago. Rather, Modi and the BJP have developed close links with Bollywood to promote their jingoistic brand of Hinduism. As Kangana Ranaut hints, that begins with the stars themselves, with several backing the party in their public statements. And if it’s hard to know where ideology ends and professional expediency starts — Vicky Kaushal is just one of the actors to get big after playing a Hindu hero, with the rugged 36-year-old netting a National Film Award for his troubles — there are other links here too. That’s clear enough financially: several pro-BJP movies have received the same tax-free treatment as The Sabarmati Report. It helps, too, that Maharashtra, the home of Bollywood, is now under Hindu nationalist rule, with several stars recently attending the swearing-in ceremony of the state’s BJP president.
And if all this again speaks to the enduring power of cinema as a political tool in India, hardly surprising when 25% of people still can’t read and write, you equally get the sense that many films are best understood as telling one single story: Muslims are a danger to Indian life. One good example The Kashmir Files, which implausibly depicts the 1990 exodus of Kashmiri Hindus as a genocide systematically arranged Kashmiri Muslims, even though many actually fought to protect their Hindu neighbours. Article 370 covers similar themes, while The Kerala Story feels even more crass. Depicting Muslims as brutes intent on smuggling vulnerable Hindu girls into ISIS slavery, the film’s marketing initially suggested 32,000 women had suffered such a fate — until complaints forced the filmmakers to clarify that the blockbuster only compiled the “true stories of three young girls”.
Like with The Sabarmati Report, meanwhile, these movies have explicitly received the Modi mark of approval. And if that’s another reason for ambitious directors to stay on side — a good word from him can see box office takes soar — filmmakers have delved deeper into history to make their politics clear. One good example is the 2020 film Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior. Released during Modi’s second term, and set in the 17th century, it paints the subcontinent’s Muslim Mughal rulers as barbaric, bloodthirsty monsters, whose ultimate goal is the economic and political subjugation of Hindus.
Nor, of course, is cinema the only place that the BJP is flexing its anti-Muslim muscles. From its muzzling of journalists, to its lavish funding of friendly broadcasters, it’s little wonder Reporters Without Borders ranks India 159th for press freedom worldwide. The media, for its part, is happy to oblige its paymasters: in 2020 several Indian news channels blamed Muslims for Covid. Though they never questioned how the BJP’s faulty vaccine provision resulted in mounting deaths, they did promote conspiracy theories claiming Muslims were intentionally spreading the disease.
Not, of course, that this matters simply for India’s spiralling international reputation. On the contrary, Modi’s usurpation of his country’s media is having a real-world impact on the safety of Muslims. In 2023 alone, India Hate Lab, a Washington DC-based group that documents hate speech against India’s religious minorities, recorded 668 hate speech examples targeting Muslims. Even more striking, there’s suggestive evidence that calumny against Muslims in the cinema can have an practical impact on the streets. Admittedly, the line between media and violence is hard to trace explicitly, but it’s surely telling that 59 cases of communal violence were reported in India last year, a significant rise on the 32 from 2023. Other links are even more explicit. After the release of The Kashmir Files, anti-Muslim videos soon went viral on WhatsApp, with one exhorting Hindus to shoot the “traitors” in their midst. Muslims themselves are clearly worried too, with one opposition politician comparing The Kashmir Files to Nazi propaganda.
Together with other ominous signs — an amendment to India’s citizenship act, coupled with a national register of citizens, may leave millions of Indian Muslims liable to detention and deportation — and the future looks bleak. That’s especially when you examine upcoming releases in Indian cinemas. One example is Chhava. Scheduled for release next month, it features a Hindu hero (once again) decimating evil Muslim kings. If only by comparison, Emergency almost feels balanced.
India has had an unfortunate history with Muslim violence. But then, who hasn’t?
India has had an unfortunate history with religious violence. But then, who hasn’t?
And do read Indian history to know that the violence was mostly brutal against Hindus during 1000 years of Islamic tyranny
Am I correct in saying K S Lal put the death toll between about 1000 AD and 1750 at 88 million ?
Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent – Wikipedia
Since Butto and then Zia Ul Haq of Pakistan has been pushing a more agressive form of Islam.
2008 Mumbai attacks – Wikipedia
Yes. Even more perhaps, but how will we know? Nalanda University was burned and centuries of records were destroyed.
Many forget nowadays that extreme cruelty pervaded the entire Islamic rule other than perhaps the era of the Nawabs of Avadh( Shia kings of present day North India).
That is why the East India company was seen as a deliverer from tyranny. In most areas.
Yes
Yes, that’s why Hindus were forcibly converted and lost their religion… oh wait…!
The main reason most westerners go to India is to see the Taj Mahal
Bollywood should make a movie about real historical fact.. For example, about the biggest genocide of history: that of Hindus by their Muslim invaders and colonisers.
Bollywood only glorified Muslims. It never talks of the historical distortions against Hindus. Until recently. And so activists masquerade as authors as the person who wrote this drivel.
No prizes for guessing who funds India Hate Labs et al
As soon as there is a bit of balance in presenting the majority sufferings at the hands of a pampered minority there is false propaganda as this one-sided piece.
Is the co-opting of cinema stars/celebrities into politics not part of subcontinental culture? The author is concerned about what is happening when it is the “wrong” celebrities and the “wrong” party they are supporting. Imran Khan in Pakistan got all the way to the top (and may do so again if he is allowed by the military) by being the country’s no.1 cricketer. Not so sure about Bangladesh/Sri Lanka but it wouldn’t suprise me if, after the ousting of the Sheikha Hassina government, Bangladesh turned to celebrities either for the holding of high office (like Pakistan) or for country-wide endorsements (India) both of which connect with non-elite citizens. It doesn’t seem to be the worst political sin in the world. Modi seems to be giving his people something they clearly keep turning up to vote for. Congress need to get rid of the Ghandi dynasty and get a grip or the BJP won’t be able to lose.
UH, please don’t publish nonsense activists spewing’s as facts.
In reality people like this author live in an alternative reality of their own.
Can this author trace the Muslim underworld links of Bollywood in some detail? Or deny the fact that movies from Bollywood dominated by the Khans always glorify terrorists, Pakistan and sundry other anti national trends?
Till the middle of 2014 the public sphere in academia, cinema, the arts and the entire media eco system was dominated by Congress.
Even now it mostly is. And with funding from the likes of Soros and hostile state intelligence agencies.
In truth Bollywood like Hollywood is Woke rubbish in the main.
A mendacious and silly hit job.
UH please have the guts to publish my views- as I am an Indian and a cinegoer here.
Incidentally Bollywood is far inferior to regional Indian cinema from Bengal, Kerala or Maharashtra.
A nuanced work on the Partition violence is Mati in Bengali.
Ms. Aswani’s description of ‘Emergency’ had me reaching for my John Keay: Midnight’s Descendants. Mrs. Gandhi started the Emergency principally to prevent the courts kicking her out of the Lok Sabha for dodgy electioneering. The Emergency itself was characterised by imprisonment without trial, violent slum clearances and forced sterilisations. If Ms. Ranaut portrays Mrs. Gandhi as a villain, she has just cause.
The first Bollywood film I ever saw was lent to me by an Indian friend. It was Parzania, an account of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Tellingly, my friend had not seen it herself, she was too nervous. But then, as she was a Gujarati Jain, it was all very close to home. After I had seen it, my friend asked if it was pro-Hindu or pro-Muslim. I replied it was neither, just pro-people. It will be interesting to compare it with The Sabarmati Report.
In the wider sense, I accept that Modi is using India’s Muslims as his ‘enemy within’. He is building Indian national feeling in a country where loyalty to India ranks a long way behind loyalty to caste, region and religion. He is succeeding, but he will make all Indians pay a terrible price.
Let’s open a can of worms. Before India became part of the British Empire it was ruled by force and extreme cruelty by Muslim potentates backed by Muslim soldiers. Hindus have more reason for historic hatred of Muslims than the British. Racism (which, of course this really is not!) is prevalent throughout the world. As far as I can see Anglo-Saxons are the only ones truly worried about it, i.e. the only ones determined to take all the blame and feel guilt and shame.
It looks like Bollywood is being taken over by Hollywood’s leftovers because Hollywood is failing. Americans are waking up to what Hollywood has been pushing, so now I wonder—are they trying to set up shop in Bollywood? Maybe even stir up divisions in India? Could this be the start of India heading down the same path as the U.S.?
If I were Indian, I’d be following the money and asking who’s really behind this. I wouldn’t be surprised if America has its fingerprints all over it, just like they did with Bangladesh. But this time, it’s India. If people are paying attention, they should be watching this carefully.
Hollywood seems to be creeping into Bollywood, trying to reshape India the way it did America. It’s unsettling. This article was honestly sad to read—bad news for India. It feels like the start of something toxic.
You are presciently correct. Bollywood apes Hollywood and represents only a small elite and middle class. Most of India prefers it’s regional cinema.
Bollywood is globalist and makes its movies more for a Woke or Islamic market.
In recent years the Bwood space of mainstream commercial cinema is taken over more by South Indian movies
As I wrote before, nuanced cinema is hardly found in Bwood.
Where does Freddy Sayer manage to find such idiots ?
This is such a stupid article that it just makes UnHerd appear to be a silly magazine
UH obviously has an agenda against India. This writer is an ignoramus in most of the history she cites. Human rights in her CV shows means she is part of the ” tukde tukde” urban Naxal gang.
I am cancelling my subscription soon. If anyone here wants to keep in touch please visit my Substack
https://sayantani15.substack.com/
Rather feeble to run away from a magazine on the basis of an article or two you don’t agree with. You may well have right on your side here, I don’t know. But surely better to stay and argue your point?
There seems to be too many people online who are only prepared to live in a friendly bubble.
I don’t have money growing on trees. What’s the point of keeping a subscription if the comments are withheld?
Of late it’s futile to post as everything is held back. I would rather spend that precious forex( I have to pay extra for conversion of currency rates) on some interesting Substacks.
UH publishes constant anti India fake news. Why should a quest for seeking balance be feeble? You seem rather ill informed.
Hindu nationalists having issues with Muslims isn’t surprising…given Islam’s fundamentalist aversion to all other faiths (that they label infidels). Hindu nationalists having issues with Christian citizens ( and they do) certainly seems odd.
This article is offered freely to you, courtesy of the muslim brotherhood .
One has to enquire if the author is Muslim? Unherd, can you answer that question please? It’s quite a tirade against Hindus here, and pro Muslim.
Regardless, the U.S. has a similar problem with its Hollywood/Washington DC connections. No one can deny the Hollywood bromance between Obama and Clooney and white Dudes for Harris to name a few. Add in sycophants like Julia Roberts, Streep, et al, all worshipping at the Democratic Party altar.
What’s the difference between Hindu Bollywood and atheist Hollywood, it’s all cronyism and fanaticism
Excellent article. Well done, Unherd! Judging from the comments, there’s a vocal minority of your readers that are irrational, Islam-hating bigots, and it’s up to you if you want to cater to them or be a serious, objective, unbiased information source.
Articles like this put you in the league of respectability. Truth is truth. Not one of the fuming Islamophobes in the comments has anything to say in response to the actual article. Just the usual crowd and a couple of Hindutvas.
You are so fake you must be an ISI bot