Americaroopam: Kamal Haasan’s Flawed Scripting
Ram Puniyani
The release of Vishwaroopam,
the latest film from Kamal Haasan was mired in controversies. (Feb 2013).
Haasan decided to arrange a pre-screening for some groups, despite the film
being cleared by the censors. These Muslim groups raised lots of objections and
demanded for the ban on the film. As matters unfolded, these groups agreed for
the release of the film after some cuts in the film, which the renowned
actor-producer did and film went on to get very good response on the box
office.
The demand for ban was
totally out of place and unwarranted. The cutting of some scenes and the
background recitation of Quran, before and after the acts of terror, was done
by the producer. .Film all through creates the feel that Quran is the source of
inspiration for violence. Though Haasan went on to say that the film is a
tribute to Indian Muslims, as such the film falls in the trap of the
Islamophobia created by America, American media and media here at home. Briefly,
in the film the hero helps the US troops against Taliban forces and helps in
the Americans in preventing the blast by Muslim group. An analysis of script of
the film can be summed up by stating that the hero of the film, a Muslim
working with RAW; is a very conscientious person out to save the World from the
terror created by Muslim groups. Some writers have summed it up by saying that
the film tries to portray ‘one good Muslims and all other bad Muslims’. It
leaves an impression that the terrorist Muslim groups are creating problem all
over and US is the savior, its agencies trying to protect US and the World from
these dastardly acts. Film also roughly goes on to portray that Muslim children
are given the arms training right from childhood, and Quran is their training
manual for these acts of terror.
While one knows the impeccable
secular credentials of both the lead actors of the film, Kamal Haasan and Rahul
Bose; still the film is based on the script which is very superficial in its
attempt with tackling the problem of terrorism. It’s not that it is the first
film trying to grapple with the phenomenon of terror. There had been earlier
attempts to deal with the theme, some of them doing a commendable job to go
beyond the obvious in unraveling the deeper causes of terror then restricting
to the understanding that terrorism is to Islam itself. Films like New York, My
Name is Khan, Tere bin Laden Aamir and others did a good job as the script writers
tried to break the shackles of the US propaganda and the ‘constructed social
common sense’ that ‘All Terrorists are Muslims’. This film takes this formulation
as the basic dictum adds to that the imagery that the terrorists keep carrying
Koran, keep offering Namaz, and keep shouting Allah Ho Akbar while indulging
in the acts of brutality.
How come such a serious film
maker like Kamal Haasan falls in to the trap of the US inspired thesis which
links terrorism with the teaching of Islam? Haasan claims to have 300 evidences
for his script. Going by the story line of the film it seems that his sources seem
to be lacking deeper scholarship. One guesses that what is paraded as evidence
is mostly the propaganda of dominant global power, America. Look at the
statement made in all seriousness that Americans don’t kill women and children!
Will the script writer be able to defend it after going through the list of
victims of US aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq to give the recent examples?
The film while caricaturing
Mullah Umar, as Omar in the film, or the nature of whole Taliban gang, gives
the impression that all this is due to what Koran teaches. Here the film gives
the impression, the script goes out to elaborate that the hero stands as an exception
to all the bad Muslims out to destroy the World. One can say the story line of
the film is the passive acceptance of the dominant World view. Karl Marx
remarked that the dominant ideas are the ideas of the ruling classes. One can
modify it to state that the dominant groups-powers can and do manipulate the
social thinking and hide the truth. They project the falsehoods, which the
large sections of society go on to accept. Same thing was articulated by Noam
Chomsky, the US human rights activists, in his classical formulation of ‘manufacturing
consent’. The extensive study undertaken by Chomsky into the policies of US
Empire showed its machinations to create the opinion in its favor while
attacking other countries for its narrow political goals.
It’s not that there are no
dissenting scholars and serious researched material on the subject. There is
enough in the arena of serious scholarship and some dedicated websites, which
show the deeper truth. One can very well mention the two profound works of
scholarship on the subject, Mahmud Mamdani’s ‘Good Muslim Bad Muslim’ and Tariq
Ali’s ‘Clash of Fundamentalisms’, which show the deeper connection of the
current terror groups, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda outfits themselves being the
product of the US attempt to dominate West Asia for controlling oil wealth. The
US imperialists worked with the thesis that oil is too important a commodity to
be left to Arabs for control. The deeper peep into the current history of West
Asia will clearly show the role of CIA in promoting the Madrassas, which picked
up Salafi version of Islam to indoctrinate the generation of Muslim youth to undertake
acts of terror. The whole sequence of Mujahideen, Taliban and Al Qaeda had been
the outcome of that. All this, was richly funded by the United States to fight
against the Russians; occupying Afghanistan. Apparently later Al Qaeda turned
its guns against Western powers and today is playing the Frankenstein’s monster.
The whole formulation of ‘Islamic-terrorism’ was the creation of US media post
9/11 2001, linking Islam-Muslims with terrorism. Here one is not referring to
the conspiracy theories, which are doing rounds through various films and
social media.
It’s a tragedy of times that
despite the large presence of social media and serious scholarship on
contemporary history of West Asia, the popular conceptions are those dictated
by the US media, and Kamal Haasan’s script neatly falls into the superficial
trap laid by the global ‘social common sense’. How come the film mentions the
involvement of Al Qaeda type groups into the acts of terror in Malegaon and
other cities in India, while totally forgetting Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur,
Swami Assemanand and their ilk who are currently in jails accused of being
involved in the series of blasts in different places in India! Why film makers
and others remain confined to the superficial level of analysis, which in turn worsens
the popular perceptions? Surely, deepening of these perceptions does suit the
interests of the Imperialist powers and also the communal forces. This pattern
of projection of terrorism leads one to conclude that the power of ideas propagated
by America, the other dominant social groups with their prowess to influence and
shape the opinions emerging from mainstream media and films like Vishwaroopam,
is immense. Films like Vishwaroopam have their own right to be screened without
any cuts but are disgusting for the poverty of their research and regressive
values, which in turn strengthens the Islamophobia, being perpetuated all round,
and is serving the Western powers to dominate the oil zone primarily and also other
areas. It strongly helps the communal thinking also.
