Can a Chak De! India Or Amar Akbar Anthony Be Released In the Times of Animal?

There’s a brief moment in Karan Johar’s My Name Is Khan in which Shah Rukh Khan’s character Rizwan Khan sits down next to a highway to pray and offers namaz. A minor character in a scene before that warns him that namaz should always be offered after looking at the place and the people around you.

To which Khan replies, that where a person is praying shouldn’t depend on their surrounding but only their intent.

This was a film set in post-9/11 America where Islamophobia was at its peak at the time, and the filmmaker was trying to convey an important, courageous message through this work.

While watching My Name Is Khan in a Calcutta theater in 2010, I didn’t feel this scene would ever need to be filmed in India because it was considered the most natural thing here. Our sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic allowed each one of us the right to pray freely, largely.

Today, if a new film that’s set in India has a similar scene in it, I’m not certain if it would even be allowed to stay or get censored before it can make it to the theaters.

Films Have Been a Divisive Medium, But Violent Censorship Sets a Dangerous Precedent

Films have always been a divisive medium, and every viewer has the right to judge every film or series however they like.

But when critiquing a film isn’t restricted to expressing one’s disagreements with it and becomes violent acts of censorship – for instance, terrorising artistes with threats of physical harm (like the Karni Sena threatening to cut off Deepika Padukone’s nose during the release of Padmaavat) or vandalising public property (like the Bajrang Dal tearing off posters of Pathaan and setting them on fire at a Guwahati cinema hall) or works simply being taken off platforms (as was the fate of Annapoorani: The Goddess of Food, which was hastily pulled from Netflix this January after receiving multiple complaints from various Hindu groups) –  it starts setting a dangerous precedent. 

At the 2007 National Film Award, the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration went to a small film called Dharm, starring veteran actor Pankaj Kapur.

In it, a Brahmin priest (played expertly by Kapur) hesitantly gives shelter to a child who has been abandoned by his mother and as time passes, develops an intimate bond with him. Later, he comes to know that the child is actually Muslim by birth and decides to give him away to the mother while immersing himself in a “purification” process. But when the child returns to his doorstep seeking refuge during a communal riot, he realises that humanity is beyond every religion on earth and stands up not just against those baying for the innocent child’s blood but also against his own prejudices. 

Not only did the film earn widespread acclaim – it also premiered in the Tous Les Cinemas du Monde (World Cinema) section of 2007 Cannes Film Festival – but went on to win the prestigious National Award given by the Indian government.

A stark contrast to life in December 2022, when “activists” of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha and other Hindu outfits were burning effigies of Deepika Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan alleging that their film Pathaan had hurt Hindu sentiments because Padukone was shown wearing an orange bikini in a song. How will fiction ever compete with the truth?

A remake of Manmohan Desai’s Amar Akbar Anthony might still work today if presented with conviction. But that preposterous yet highly effective scene at the beginning in which the three brothers, who practice different religions, are donating blood to their mother at the same time to save her life – the mother becoming an allegory for India herself – perhaps might rile up many such “activists” today.

While writing this piece, I came across a comment on X (erstwhile Twitter) in a discussion concerning this particular scene which said: “At least in Amar Akbar Anthony, the villain was a Christian. Today he would certainly be a Hindu, that too specifically a Temple going, teeka sporting Brahmin.” 

Actor Aamir Khan’s secularism comes under scanner every now and then for acting in a film called P.K. in 2014, which dared to question religious dogmas and malpractices. The film was a big success and earned a lot of money, but Khan still seems to be paying a price for it. Ironically (although not surprisingly), the rest of the major cast and crew members associated with the film – Rajkumar Hirani, Anushka Sharma, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Abhijat Joshi, etc. – didn’t have to face the same accusations.

In hindsight, P.K. could have also been called My Name Is Khan easily. Exactly when did we as a nation become this insecure of our faith and belief system? A rhetorical question, so don’t answer that.

Animal to Fighter: Hindi Cinema's Representation of Muslims Gets Problematic by The Day

In the recently released Fighter starring Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone, a Pakistani pilot codenamed Red Nose is depicted as a kohl-eyed villain spouting underwritten hateful lines mid-air.  While in one of the most polarizing Hindi films ever made and one of 2023’s biggest blockbusters, Animal, the main antagonist is played by Bobby Deol who is a Muslim man with three wives – all of whom he physically assaults, and even forces himself on one in front of the rest of his family who turn into mute spectators.

Either they are portrayed as depthless villains hatching some evil plan, against India or the protagonist, or they are full-blown patriots who have to prove their love for the country without wasting too much time.

Like in Sooryavanshi – a commercial hit – in which Akshay Kumar’s character explains the difference between a good and a bad Muslim while talking to a topi-clad Islamic priest who’s also a terrorist (played by Gulshan Grover) comparing him with a retired police officer called Naeem Khan (played by Rajendra Gupta) who has not only dedicated three decades of his life to the force but has also just returned from Ajmer Sharif! Or they have to be A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, in which case no character establishment is usually necessary. 

It might get quite difficult today to write a character like Kabir Khan, played superbly by Shah Rukh Khan, in Chak De! India whose Muslim identity forms the crux of the film and yet is never shoved in our faces. He’s declared a gaddar by the media but it’s with the help of a team of mostly non-Muslim women hockey players that he’s able to redeem himself in the end. "Mujhe states ke naam na sunai dete hai na dikhai dete hai... sirf ek mulk ka naam sunai deta hai – I-N-D-I-A!" Khan tells the team early on.  It becomes about the nation, not the states or the religion. In 2024, he might have to be introduced with a scene in which he says “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” eleven times to ensure everyone believes he’s a true nationalist at heart. 

Can We Have Films With Religious Unity Anymore?

After the bloody Partition, many of the films that came out of India carried the message of strong Hindu-Muslim unity. Late filmmaker Yash Chopra, most well-known now for his romantic sagas, championed ideas of communal harmony through his early works. His 1961 film titled Dharmputra in which Shashi Kapoor plays an adopted Hindu boy of Muslim parentage who grows up to become a religious fundamentalist is one such important film, the filmmaking may seem outdated but the ideas are unfortunately equally relevant today. Even Chopra’s directorial debut, Dhool Ka Phool (1959), is now best remembered for the song “Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banega, Insaan ki aulaad hai, insaan banega”. 

While blindly romanticizing the past is an exercise in futility, it must also be recognized that art forms – especially cinema which ably percolates every socioeconomic stratum and reaches the tiniest nooks in this country – were often intended to bridge gaps between communities and factions.

Today, directors and producers are compelled to self-censor their work to ensure that they at least get a proper release. 

Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee recently talked about how his last completed film, Tees, a story about three generations of an Indian family which starts in the 1980s and ends in the 2040s, is being held back by Netflix because the film suddenly “doesn’t fit their slate”. In other words, it’s too risky for the times. He goes on to say it’s because the system wants you to watch only one kind of cinema. And none of us are going to receive a great prize from the powers that be for knowing what that kind is. Remember Dharm? Which in 2007 was awarded the Best Feature Film on National Integration. At the 69th National Film Awards held in 2023, that same prize was given to The Kashmir Files. The prosecution is now tired and would like to rest its head and its case.