The controversy over IC-814 is not coming to an end. First BJP protested against the mercy shown to the terrorists and their Hindu names. Now Congress party has raised another issue by calling the hijacking of the plane and the release of the terrorists as the failure of the then Vajpayee government. Actually, there have been controversies over the films of web series director Anubhav Sinha. And when the subject is Hindu, Muslim and Pakistan, then obviously the speed of the discussion increases. Perhaps this is what Anubhav Sinha wants. Every film of his gets embroiled in similar political controversies, due to which his films get such publicity without any big actor, which is impossible for a small budget film. Sinha has been giving a message against Islamophobia very subtly in his films. Till here it has been fine, but when he deliberately avoids things related to religious fanaticism, then it has become natural to express anger against him. But creating a new kind of hatred to end hatred cannot be expected from any intellectual director. But not only Sinha, Bollywood has been doing this for years.
1- It is okay to show terrorists as liberal but why did Anubhav avoid showing them as religious?
In this series of plane hijacking, the director even made the kidnapped people play antakshari with the terrorists. Let us assume that the terrorists were film music lovers. The series showed that cigarettes were being shared. The sick were being taken care of. Good byes were being said lovingly. But, in the IC 814 plane, air hostess Pooja Kataria tells that one of the hijackers was quite educated, but he was telling the passengers that Islam is a good religion. It is better than Hinduism. He was asking the passengers to accept Islam. He recited so many poems in praise of Islam that even Pooja Kataria narrowly escaped becoming a follower of Islam. Now the question arises that why did Anubhav Sinha not show this promotion of Islam at gunpoint in his web series? Was he afraid that doing so would spread Islamophobia? The agenda of religious harmony is in its place but if he wanted to show the truth, he could have also shown this kind of promotion of religion by the terrorists. By doing this even the Muslims of India do not get angry.
Religion has been used extensively to fill hatred against India in terrorists coming from Pakistan. Just like the terrorists of IC 814 had named themselves Bhola and Shankar, similarly Ajmal Kasab, who was involved in the 2008 Mumbai attack, had tied a sacred thread on his hand to look like a Hindu. The hijacker of the plane was asking the passengers to accept Islam, while the terrorists who entered the Taj Hotel in Mumbai were asking the religion of the hostages and then killing them. A Turkish woman staying in that hotel later told that the terrorists had left her only because she was a Muslim. If Anubhav had been able to show this religious hatred and fanaticism instilled in the terrorists in his cinema, he would have been considered more honest. The goodness of Pakistan could have been discussed later. Glorifying terrorism is wrong. The whole world considers it wrong. Indian directors will also have to learn.
2- Anubhav is enhancing the legacy of Bollywood
Cinema has had a great influence on children born in the seventies and eighties. Remember the Muslim characters of the seventies that we grew up watching. Be it Rahim Chacha in Sholay, Sher Khan in Zanjeer or the character of Yunus Parvez in Deewar. All these characters were kind-hearted, brave and even ready to sacrifice their lives for their friends. The priests of temples were hypocrites and greedy. Till the end of the 1980s, if a Muslim got a role, it was always that of a good man. However, after terrorism in Kashmir and the killings of Kashmiri Pandits, the roles of terrorists suddenly increased in films in the nineties. A time came when the flood of these characters started giving rise to Islamophobia. After 9/11, the conditions in the country and the world became such that an atmosphere against Islam started forming. Filmmakers like Anubhav Sinha started building their arguments against Islamophobia through their films. But the strategy he adopted for this gave rise to a new kind of hatred.
3- Why so much sympathy for terrorists in IC 814?
The way Anubhav Sinha has worked on his agenda in IC 814, he seems to be successful in it. The history of his films tells us that he has to portray the Muslim minorities as kind and innocent at any cost. In IC 814, he is doing this work with full concentration. Even the Pakistani government could not have presented Pakistan’s side better than this web series. Those who understand anti-India propaganda, PR and narrative have understood well how Anubhav Sinha has shown all this. After watching the series, you will fall in love with the face of the terrorist who killed a passenger Rupin Katyal and held the Indian government hostage for about a week. Not only this, this series gives the message that Pakistan had nothing to do with this incident. Senior journalist and thinker Dilip Mandal expresses concern that, could the director and story writer have done this unknowingly? I am afraid that they have become victims of some global conspiracy unknowingly? This can happen at a time when India’s global influence in the world economy is increasing. The idea can also come from where the money for the series comes. The articles published about India in the foreign media have now become critical. All this is not happening innocently. If the power of our country increases, then the attacks will also increase.
Mandal writes that terrorism has been shown as an adventure. Pakistan has been given a clean chit. There is a mix of fact and fiction.
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