B.C. author Gurpreet Singh explores roots of Hindutva influence on Bollywood and trolling of Kareena Kapoor Khan
Something strange happened when a 34-year-old Bollywood star was found dead at his home in Mumbai on June 14.
Police alleged that Shushant Singh Rajput committed suicide due to mental health issues, allegedly related to nepotism in the film industry.
Suicide is an extremely complex event involving everything from brain biochemistry to family history to a desire to escape from the self to immediate life circumstances. That makes any direct linking of suicide to a single event a foolish message at best.
But in the case of Rajput’s sad ending, the storyline was set up by the police, despite claims from his own family that it was caused by a girlfriend who stole his money. And that set the internet trolls loose on those who allegedly took advantage of nepotism in Bollywood.
Their main target was Kareena Kapoor Khan, an incredibly successful actor with a glorious 20-year career, who happened to be married to a Muslim star, Saif Ali Khan.
The right-wing trolls were relentless in making accusations about Kapoor Khan, whose family played a pivotal role in the development of the Indian film industry dating back to before Partition in 1947.
This deeply upset BC writer and Georgia Straight collaborator Gurpreet Singh because he has long admired Kapoor Khan’s work. Moreover, he saw the insults heaped on her as yet another symptom of the growing intolerance and illiberal mentality that was infecting Bollywood.
To him, it symbolized what is happening in India under the ruling Bharatjiya Janata Party, who want to turn the country into a Hindu state.
But Singh was not only outraged by India’s ongoing war against secularism and freedom of religious expression. He decided to do something, write the book By Nazneen To Naina: 20 years of Kareena Kapoor Khan in Bollywood and what that means for India and the rest of the world. The 143-page account of her career was published by the Ludhiana-based by Chetna Parkashan.
For fans of Bollywood and Kapoor Khan, there is a comprehensive analysis of her films and her performances. But this is a Bollywood book with a twist: it also provides heaps of historical context behind the roles she played and shows how far the political pendulum has swung in Bollywood over the course of her career.
Such is her debut film Refugee, targeting the hardships faced by stateless Bihari Muslims. It featured Kapoor Khan as Nazneen M. Ahmed, a Muslim in search of a homeland.
“Nazneen’s parents had to leave the Indian state of Bihar when Muslim Pakistan was separated from Hindu-dominated India, sparking community violence,” Singh wrote. “Hindu and Muslim fanatics fought battles in the streets. The bloodshed had led to massive population transfers.
“The fundamentalists on both sides murdered innocent Hindus and Muslims, causing unrest among those who found no alternative to save themselves but to leave their homes and migrate elsewhere.”
However, Singh adds in the book, “the liberation of Bangladesh forced them to flee for the second time due to cultural reasons and discrimination against Bangladeshi-speaking Muslims”.
“Bangladesh was mainly separated from Pakistan because of the persecution of Bengali Muslims who were forced by the rulers of the theocratic Islamic Republic to adopt Urdu and not Bengali as their language,” Singh continues. “Since Bihari Muslims identified with Urdu and not Bangladeshi, their loyalty was questioned by many Bangladeshis who forced them to migrate again.”
This contextualization of real history helps explain how the parents of the character Nazneen fell into the trap of people smugglers. Singh also points out that Refugee was made while India was ruled by a BJP-led coalition under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had a love-hate relationship with Pakistan.
Nazneen gives birth to a baby, becoming “a symbol of peace between the warring nations,” Singh said.
“When I heard the news, [the parents] congratulate each other and wonder what country the baby is from,” Singh notes. “They both agree that he should grow up as a global citizen of a country without borders.”
From Nazneen to Naina also pays a lot of attention to Agent Vinod, a 2012 thriller starring her husband. The theme was unity again, with Kapoor Khan playing a British-Pakistani spy opposite her husband, an Indian spy.
Singh writes that this film had “an important theme about how the two countries should unite and fight against those involved in global terrorism and the arms industry”.
In another Kapoor Khan movie, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, she plays a Hindu woman who helps a Pakistani Muslim girl separated from her mother on a railway platform. It also carried a positive Indo-Pak message with it, so naturally the religious fanatics on both sides of the border called for the film to be banned.
In 2018, BJP-supported trolls were again outraged after Kapoor Khan posted a photo of herself calling for justice over the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl, Asifa Bano, by Hindu fanatics in Kathua. At this time, Singh writes, Kapoor Khan was characterized as an apologist for Muslims.
But Singh points out that Kapoor Khan was not intimidated. She has continued to speak out on various other issues unlike so many other Bollywood A-listers. Examples include her public comments about the Black Lives Matter movement and the police murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd.
Not only that, she denounced racism and bigotry within India against Muslims and so-called untouchables. She also made a statement against the killing of father and son by police in Tamil Nadu and made repeated calls to help artisans and migrant workers suffering under the lockdown.
The nepotism controversy is just the latest in a string of fabricated episodes designed to tarnish Kapoor Khan. It carries a double sting because her husband, another big star, is the son of famous Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore.
The reality, as Singh reports, is that the couple’s ancestors were leaders in the struggle against British colonial rule. Kapoor Khan’s great-grandfather and patriarch of the family, Prithviraj Kapoor, inspired young people to participate in the independence movement through his plays.
Saif Ali Khan’s mother is the grandniece of the Nobel laureate and poet Rabindranath Tagore, who denounced the British Raj and called for India’s independence.
Singh is clearly disgusted that the people now attacking Kapoor Khan support a party that traces its lineage to a fascist movement that did not participate in the Quit India movement that seeks independence.
“Among those accusing Kareena of favoritism today are right-wing trolls and commentators, who constantly bring up her marriage to a Muslim man and leave no opportunity to brand her and her husband as Pakistani agents,” Singh wrote.
Singh rightly emphasizes that there is no way Kapoor Khan has been able to thrive in Bollywood for so long just because of nepotism. Yet another female star, Kangana Ranault, has no qualms on this subject in incendiary language that no doubt delights the BJP leadership.
The reality is that if actors don’t connect with the audience, they don’t generate receipts. As proof of that, there is the somewhat checkered acting career of Abhishek Bachchan, the only son of Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan.
Another example is Kapoor Khan’s own father, Randhir Kapoor, who never came close to the career success of her grandfather, Raj Kapoor, or her uncle, Rishi Kapoor, or her sister, Karisma Kapoor, or her cousin, Ranbir Kapoor.
In writing From Nazneen to Naina, Singh has not only shed light on a much-loved Bollywood star’s film, but also raised awareness of the impact of the growing religious community spirit on one of India’s defining characteristics: the Bollywood film industry.
The pernicious influence of Hindutva ideology on movies coming out of Mumbai is becoming increasingly apparent – and it’s something Singh has been tracking for a while in his articles on Straight.com.
Who knew that writing about Bollywood would become a job for a veteran political beat reporter? Unfortunately, that has become a necessity in Narendra Modi-ruled India.
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