Shaurya - Only A Few Good Hindus?

Okay, I’m back after almost 6 months!

It’s not that nothing worthwhile had happened in this country that made me think, but somehow I was lazy. That’s the problem with communal Hindus, they need to be alert and on-job 24-hours like other communal beings – islamists, catholics, communists, et al. I’d try to be more regular.

I just came back after seeing a movie called Shaurya. It’s directed by journalist turned director Samar Khan. The director claimed in one of his interviews that the movie is inspired by the tribulations of his personal life – the prejudices he had to face being a Muslim.

And he surely had allowed his personal experience to ruin the movie. The movie seemed just another attempt by Muslims, ably assisted by secularists like Rahul Bose, to cry from the rooftop that they are not bad, and there are only bad Hindus (a character played by Kay Kay Menon in the movie) who either give them bad name or turn them into bad beings. I have been sick of listening to this accusation, and the movie is just another manifestation to it.

If you don’t want to believe me, go and pick up any docu-drama produced by Pakistan TV in early 1990’s where they portray happenings in Kashmir. I remember seeing such a drama on P-TV when secular Congress government allowed it to beam all over India. I still remember how they had shown a fanatic Hindu Army officer who orders killings in Kashmir, and when he is posted in Assam, he tries to rape a local girl, the only reason being that he believed Assamese were not ‘pure’ Hindus. Remember, that was the time when ISI was trying to connect ULFA and other North East insurgents to Kashmiri Terrorists.

Shaurya toes the same line. Army atrocities happen, and Shaurya seems to suggest that they happen only because there are ‘bad Hindus’ in Indian Army. The Muslim director tries to show ‘a few good Hindus’ (the concept of the movie is copied from a Hollywood movie called ‘A few good men’) like secularist Rahul Bose, or a half-believing Hindu played by Javed Jafri.

In secular India, especially in secular Bollywood, there is no concept of a temple going, tilak sporting tolerant and progressive Hindu. A patriotic, progressive and ‘nice’ Hindu has to be non-believing (just born a Hindu) and non-practicing Hindu. Whereas a 5-times Quran reading, skullcap sporting Muslim can be perfectly nice, patriotic and progressive. The central character of the movie, a cop called Javed Khan, is shown offering Namaaz in the movie, he is a hero in the movie.

Anyway, coming back to the movie, as I told, it looked to me as if I was watching a docu-drama aired by Pakistan TV, and I can’t ignore the fact that a Muslim director has made this movie. And the director wants all of us to appreciate his effort. And I hated the movie and him.

Kashmir problem is not the result of ‘a few bad Hindus’. It is the result of a psychology that asserts that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations, and they can’t live together. It is a psychology that Sir Syed Ahmed and Allama Iqbal (one of the two revered Muslims by our secularists) propagated first and ‘a few bad Hindus’ (?) reacted to it. It is the result of a belief that doesn’t need ‘a few bad Hindus’ to keep it alive and burning. Yeah, this is the first post where I assert that ‘bad Hindus’ are just a reaction to ‘bad (or true?) Muslims’, and this assertion will appear again and again through my confessions.

I, a communal Hindu, confess, that I owe my existence to other communal beings – islamists, catholics, communists, et al.