The rise and fall of the Muslim social drama
Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Raees’ harks back to an earlier era in Hindi films, but the once-distinct genre is a shade of its former self
Lata Jha
First Published: Sat, Feb 04 2017.
In his latest film, director Rahul Dholakia’s populist gangster drama Raees,
lead actor Shah Rukh Khan is ruthlessly lacerating his back at a
Muharram gathering when he first appears on screen. The first teaser
ends with the line “baniye ka dimag aur miyanbhai ki daring”. Khan’s kohl-rimmed eyes, his unabashedly green costumes and the gentle adab his character dons, make the religious and social milieu of this film pretty obvious.
While
the filmmaker and actor may have actually set out to make a crime drama
rather than a narrative consciously centered around a Muslim character,
there is definitely no getting away from the strong Muslim ethos of the
film.
It’s a far cry from the conservative, poetic
and chaste romance that film critic Anupama Chopra called the hallmark
of the Muslim social dramas of the 1950s and ’60s. But there is no
denying that the once-distinct genre has greatly faded. So much so that
the attitude of Raees stands out today.
Rise and fall
Beginning with Sohrab Modi’s Pukar (1939) based on Mughal emperor Jahangir, the Muslim social drama genre reached its peak with Mehboob Khan’s Najma
(1943). It thrived on the inspired work of Muslim producers, directors,
screenwriters, composers, lyricists and actors, including K.A. Abbas,
Kamal Amrohi, Abrar Alvi, Khayyam, Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri,
Shakeel Badayuni, Mohammed Rafi, Talat Mahmood and Shamshad Begum.
“The
1960s and ’70s were the decades when the popularity of the Muslim
social opened a window to a world both exotic and familiar at the same
time,” says Shubhra Gupta, a film critic with The Indian Express. “Pre-Independence, Urdu was a language that was in common parlance, but in the years that followed, that ‘nazaakat’
(delicacy) of the Urdu language became restricted to the movies. So I
think it (the genre) was partly nostalgia, partly a way of holding on to
some of our history.”
Ironically, the same visual
template that made the Muslim social incredibly stunning and appealing
as a film genre may have caused its downfall.
For
one thing, many later filmmakers did not really embrace the culture, and
only used the theme, as Gupta added, to show people that there can be
some kind of intermingling between Hindus and Muslims in this really
safe space that was the movies.
Thus, gorgeous romances (Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Mere Mehboob), musicals (Mehboob Ki Mehndi, Laila Majnu) and hard-hitting offbeat cinema (Bazaar, Nikaah) evolved over time into kitschy, stereotypical representations (Bewaffa Se Waffa, Sanam Bewafa).
“Conventional wisdom was that Deedar-E-Yaar
(1982, starring Jeetendra and Rishi Kapoor) was such a resounding flop
that it completely sunk the boat and no more Muslim dramas were made
after that, in that kind of specific culture that they were trying to
show,” says Chopra.
Frailties and trappings
At the same time, the fixed visual template and heightened mood of these films exposed the trappings of the genre.
“Because
of their music and production design, the Muslim social would always be
limited to a certain time warp. As more time passed after the 1960s and
’70s and cinema and society changed, you would have to hark back to an
era for the Muslim social,” says writer and film critic Gautam
Chintamani. The Muslim social had turned into a period film.
For instance, when one watches a film like B.R. Chopra’s 1982 film Nikaah (which he originally wanted to call Talaq Talaq Talaq
in the quest to make a modern statement on the laws of divorce), a
certain old-fashioned vibe comes through despite the modern setting.
It’s the reason why any Muslim social, be it the 1943 Najma or the 1990 Pati Patni Aur Tawaif,
seems inextricably rooted in the same milieu. Such an unsullied,
old-world romance would seem even more of a misfit today to a generation
that, as Chopra says, is all about “sexting and Tinder”.
Then there is the wane of Urdu, always better suited to writing and delivering great lines than Hindi.
“Muslim
socials are not being made today because there aren’t many people who
would understand that language. The language that we have gotten used to
is a strange mix of Hindi, Urdu and a whole lot of others put
together,” says director Rahul Rawail, whose father, H.S. Rawail, helmed
iconic Muslim socials such as Mere Mehboob (1963), Mehboob Ki Mehndi (1971) and Laila Majnu (1979).
There
are few people, Rawail adds, who know about that culture or can come up
with a story that uniquely belongs to that cultural background. This
perhaps has to do with the complexities of both the Hindi film industry
and the Muslim social fabric within a broader national discourse.
“When I made Shahid
(2012), and we were trying to sell it to some distributors, one of the
suggestions that came up was that I should change the name of the film.
Having a Muslim name will put the audience off is what I was told,”
recalls filmmaker Hansal Mehta. “You’re trying to create more
progressive characters but you don’t want to take on the Muslim law
board or the Ulema. These are fears and I was asked these questions
during Shahid, which was a Muslim social in an updated form. Even
now when I pitch a story with principal characters being Muslim, there
is resistance from studios. It is not allowing us to tell new stories.”
Not surprisingly though, the poster for Mehta’s upcoming film, Omerta, shows a young Muslim man praying.
The broader Bollywood discourse
Perhaps
the discomfort with such explicitly religious characterization may have
to do with the evolving entertainment landscape.
In the 1990s, films like Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994) and Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) and the televised versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata strengthened the concepts of the extended Hindu family and nation. What followed through movies like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) and Dil Chahta Hai (2001) were urban narratives and a dramatic change in characterization.
Among
many other things, that might explain why the three biggest male stars
of the country—Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan—have hardly
played Muslim characters, despite being Muslims themselves.
It
has to do with the lack of choice and Bollywood’s current market
constraints of perpetuating a Hindu (and, increasingly, Punjabi)-centric
universe where making any other religious or ethnic statement that
would put too much focus on the same.
“I think we’ve
shied away from showing characters that are obviously religious as time
has passed,” says Apurva Asrani, who edited Shahid.
“They
are urban and don’t wear their religion on their sleeve anymore. He
could be Hindu, Muslim or Christian—his name just happens to be Khan.
Back in the day when Amitabh Bachchan played a Muslim character in Coolie (1983), he did the namaz, went to the mosque and wore the number of the Prophet on his arm. You don’t see that anymore.”
That
could stem from Bollywood’s tendency to appeal to the lowest common
denominator. The only stories that come up when one thinks of a Muslim
social today are those of deprivation, poverty or injustice. Or stories
recycling the same stereotype and narrative of 1970s and ’80s Bombay
where every Muslim is a gangster (as is Shah Rukh Khan’s character in Raees).
In her book 50 Films That Changed Bollywood (1995-2015),
Gupta dedicates a chapter to the “othering” of the Muslim character in
mainstream Hindi cinema that resulted because the world depicted in the
socials was waning.
“The whole point is it mustn’t
offend anyone. We should neither alienate anyone nor make it look like
we’re trying to talk about one particular section only,” Asrani says.
“We make our stories generic and play up base emotions. We don’t do it
as in-your-face, but even now it has to be a story of everybody, so
we’ll always have one Muslim character, the odd Bengali neighbour or the
Parsi carom player. We like to please everyone.”
Nationalist issues
But
like the apprehension Mehta senses in the industry, some others
emphasize that the alienation could have deeper implications and be a
reflection of the way we are constructing our societies and identities
in the first place.
The idea that it may actually
be difficult today to make a film that’s not majoritarian or doesn’t
pander to the whole majoritarian view of being and thinking—politically,
socially and culturally—is very real.
“It’s not a
directive that has been written down but now, especially in the last
couple of years, it is clear that this is the India we want,” Gupta
says. “We do not want the other to be part of major narratives at all.
It’s not just about Muslims. Where do you see the Christians or any
other religion or gender? Where do you see the Dalits in mainstream
cinema? It’s like the majoritarian view has imposed itself on creative
expressions across the board, whether it’s literature or cinema, or
theatre. If a creative person wants to go off the beaten track, it is
completely at their own risk.”
Indeed, cinematic and
societal changes have been so impactful over the years that an
authentic contemporary Muslim social seems like a challenge today. Which
is why, despite its unabashedly Muslim ethos, Raees hardly rings
the same bell as some films it visually resembles. Like Chopra said, “I
think it’s a crime drama, I would never watch Raees and think back to Mere Mehboob.”
In other words, Raees is a Muslim social with the Muslim but without any of the social.