‘People love the Khans, hate Muslims’— book event calls out Bollywood double standards

Even positive representation of Muslims now has a ‘tonality’ problem, said panellists at a discussion on Nadira Khatun’s book Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity.

Panellists at a discussion on Nadira Khatun’s book Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity | Photo: Aleeza Ahmed | ThePrint

New Delhi: The Khans of Bollywood have “brought more joy to India than any Gujarati politician”, said Jamia Millia Islamia professor Mujibur Rehman at a recent book discussion. This is Rehman’s standard response to anyone who says the Muslim community hasn’t achieved much in the last 75 years.

The book in question was Nadira Khatun’s Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity, which explores how Muslims are represented in Hindi cinema, and how politics has influenced those portrayals.

“Bollywood is very selective in choosing themes, what gets portrayed, and what gets left out,” said Khatun, an assistant professor at XIM University, at the discussion held at Delhi’s India International Centre in April. “Communal violence and riots, for instance, rarely find space, while narratives around terrorism are repeatedly exploited.”

The panel brought together academics, filmmakers, and politicians, including Rehman, an author and assistant professor at Jamia’s Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy; film scholar Ira Bhaskar; and Rashtriya Janata Dal spokesperson Manoj Jha. In the discussion, moderated by journalist Manjula Narayan, they unpacked the production, representation, and reception of Muslim identity in Bollywood.

Outlining why she felt compelled to turn her research into a book, Khatun drew attention to the changing portrayal of Muslims in Bollywood, “especially after the Babri Masjid demolition”. Muslim characters, according to her, were increasingly vilified, demonised, and pushed to the margins.

Rehman, who wrote the book’s foreword, pointed the contradictions in public perception.

“We are in the middle of an ideological warfare,” he said. “People hate Muslims but love the Khans.” Bhaskar recalled how even the Right Wing mourned the death of actor Irrfan Khan.

Responding to criticism around the superstar Khans’ silence on misrepresentation, Bhaskar posed a counter-question: “Why is everyone else silent?”

Khatun, meanwhile, stressed it was important to look at their body of work instead. Speaking up was secondary, she argued, while films such as Chhaava —where Muslim characters are cast as villains—said more about the current scenario.

She also cited recent targeted campaigns, online outrage, and film boycotts against Muslim actors, particularly Shah Rukh Khan during the release of Pathaan and Jawan.

“Are they (Khans) still embraced in the same way, or are there larger politics attached now?” she asked.

Khatun compared the public adulation for the Khans of Bollywood with her own experience growing up as a Muslim with the same surname.

“While the stars were celebrated on screen, we were cornered in real life,” she said.

Her book, published by Oxford University Press, was released in August 2024.

“I wrote this book to show how socio-political climates shape both filmmaking and film-watching and to generate dialogue and discussion,” she added.

 

Problematic ‘positive’ representations of Muslims

The so-called positive representation of Muslims in Bollywood can have troubling undertones too. As Jha put it, even films which claim to do justice to Muslim characters often carry “shades which could have been avoided”.

Nadira Khatun cited Gully Boy as an example. While the film featured a strong female Muslim character, the wider community was depicted through familiar tropes.

“It still followed the same formula: polygamy, wife abuse. Even positive representation could have been handled with better tonality,” she said. Further, she added, Muslim characters are often shown proving their nationalism in order to gain acceptance.

Jha expanded on this, drawing from author and academician Mahmood Mamdani’s “good Muslim, bad Muslim” framework.

“In the past two and a half decades, every Muslim has had to carry a character certificate of patriotism,” he said, citing the example of Chak De! India, where the Muslim protagonist’s patriotism had to be explicitly demonstrated.

He also noted subtle shifts—like how the azaan, once a backdrop to everyday scenes, became cinematically coded with violence and bomb blasts in the 1990s.

Rehman recounted a conversation with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, who observed that Urdu subtitles, a staple of Hindi cinema in the 1950s and ’60s, have quietly disappeared.

In Chapter 2 of her book, titled ‘From Diplomat Warriors to Barbarian Outsiders’, Khatun examines how Bollywood has contributed to the “othering” of Muslims. She argues that post-1990s, some production houses increasingly equated Hindu cultural values with Indian identity, implicitly framing all other identities as “the other”.

 

A growing market for hate

The role of state-sponsored bodies in the way Muslim portrayals have evolved also came up at the discussion. It was an audience member who called the industry “choosy,” implying an invisible framework of approval and censorship.

When the censor board hesitated to pass Dharmputra, a 1961 film on Partition and communal tensions, Jawaharlal Nehru overruled them and urged it be shown in every college. In one scene, a child is told, “Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banega, insaan ki aulaad hai, insaan banega” (You’ll neither become a Hindu nor a Muslim. You’re the child of a human being, you’ll become a human being).

Later, when Indira Gandhi viewed Garam Hawa, she declared it “a vital historical film that must be screened widely.” Released in 1973, the film explores the disintegration of a Muslim family’s identity and livelihood in post-Partition India. The ending line—“Jo door se toofan ka karte hain nazara, unke liye toofan wahan bhi hai yahan bhi” (Those who watch the storm from far will find it raging there as well as here)—captures the perils of passivity and conformity.

Jha highlighted this contrast between the past and present approach of governments.

“Earlier, the State didn’t sponsor hate-based projects,” he said. “Today, the message is, ‘Want to know Kerala? Watch The Kerala Story’.”

His advice was simple: “Retain your wisdom, and visit Kerala yourself.”

But he ended on a sobering note. Hate is in demand.

“We’re living through the globalisation of othering and hate. The architecture is controlled by the market,” he said. “The market knows hate—even though it hurts, it sells. The more hate, the more wire you have.”

Aleeza Ahmed is an intern who graduated from Batch 2, ThePrint School of Journalism.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)