“Agar aap meri daadhi aur Osama Bin Laden ki daadhi mein fark nahi kar pa rahe hai, toh bhi mujhe haq hai apna sunnat nibhane ka.”
(If you are unable to distinguish between my beard and Osama Bin Laden’s beard, I still have all the rights to follow my religion in this country).
I thought the bahas (debate), that Murad Ali Muhammad (Rishi Kapoor) and Aarti Muhammad (Taapsee Pannu) were fighting in Anubhav Sinha’s Mulk was settled when my fellow audience who were giggling at every anti-Muslim jibe made by Santosh Anand (Ashutosh Rana) finally applauded when the judge (Kumud Mishra) asserted that the Constitution of India grants religious freedom and expression to every community in the country.
(The giggling and the applause have a special significance in the movie itself, btw!)
Although disappointed that 2018 India needs an entire film to drive home an elementary message like “All Muslims are not terrorists”, I thought Sinha did a fabulous job. I believed he succeeded in subverting the narrative of “Us and them” through powerful speeches in the court room, that almost looked like a microcosm of present day India.
I was proven wrong as soon as I left the auditorium. I heard two men behind me shame the film for being “biased” and “absolutely rubbish”.
I was intrigued. I stopped them and asked why they thought so. The conversation that followed was the exact narrative that Mulk aimed at demolishing.
Person 1: The movie talks about religious bias but why can’t they see how Muslims have driven out Kashmiri pandits from their home state?
Person 2: They did not go back to Pakistan in 1947 and we are suffering because of them now. Muslims are constantly growing in numbers in our country and most of them are not even literates.
I stood there recounting how the bigoted Santosh Anand had pulled up the same parameters to build a case of “terrorism” against the entire Muhammad family after one of their members, Shahid (Prateik Babbar) joined a terror outfit and carried out an attack on innocent people in Allahabad.
I retorted, “But how does that make every Muslim bad?”
Pat came the reply from one of them. “Then why are all terrorists Muslims?”
I quoted Arti, reiterating that terrorism is a criminal act and not a communal one.
“But sir, the definition of terrorism is the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
I recalled how Murad Ali and his daughter-in-law Arti bluntly questions why 1984 Anti-Sikh riots, Babri Masjid demolition, Gujarat riots 2002, atrocities against minority communities like Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes not considered as “terrorism”, even though all these incidents amount to “violence and intimidation against civilians for political gains”.
But I was countered. “Do you know the kind of fear I dealt with when I was studying in a Muslim-majority university in Hyderabad during the 1992 riots? My mother was constantly afraid that the Muslims will kill me because I am a Hindu. They killed so many of our men in that riot.”
I tried again. “But sir, there were Muslims also who lost their lives because of the riot?”
Person 1: I don’t care about them. I am only concerned about the ordeal my community witnessed.
I smirked, “But, it is not about ‘us and them’, right?”
Person 2: This is a long debate. This will not end here.
Both of them walked away from me. The debate was left hanging.
I left too, feeling sorry for every Anubhav Sinha who will make a Mulk in the future. Because, “Partitions are not created through borders. It is created through minds.”
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