Originally posted by: EkPaheli
Exactly. These things were always going on but the difference is that previously the media was controlled by an ecosystem that was clearly working for their agendas be it for the missionaries, Islamists, leftists or whatever and whoever else. The government in centre for decades was hand in glove with the same as well.
We now have a government that can and does talk about these issues. We have social media where people don’t need to be well connected or patronised to be heard if what they have to share has substance regardless of the subject matter. That’s exactly what Gems of Bollywood is - they have simply inspired a whole generation to look and think critically of the unfair treatment and a bitter reality against natives of this homeland, whose religion is native as well be it Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists or Jains.
You see movies across decades and a pattern emerges which is not someone being paranoid or creating a conspiracy theory about something nonexistent and absurd, rather something that was deliberately done.
Take the example of Hindus and you see them made as villains of all sorts and these people wouldn’t be just Hindu in name but also in practice. Most villains would don a tilak, Rudraksh, Kalava, Janeu and even be seen doing some Pooja or Havan before or after they committed a heinous crime as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. And maybe such people exist - but then again so do Christian criminals, so do Muslim terrorists. Why is it that if you show a Muslim yelling Nara Ae Taqbeer as is the case with the 26/11 scene of Dhurandhar it’s called a Propaganda but not when Hindus do the same? How is it that we never see a Christian commit any crime and then go to a father or a bishop and confess their sins as if that washes the whole thing off and allows them to do more in the future with some moral and divine permission?
Why are Sikhs - the most martial community of India always made as clowns? Parsis as jolly Gujarati speaking folks who only go Oh Khudaai and do nothing wrong?
A pattern that is hardly discussed is how in yesteryears Bollywood had many heroines who were Muslims even if they went by Hindu screen names. I can’t say this for other industries in India as I am not well versed with regional cinemas so anyone who is aware of the same can tell if the same thing happened there or not - but the pattern is there. Nargis, Meena Kumari, Zeenat Aman, Waheeda Rehman, Mumtaz, Saira Banu to name a few off the top of my head are superstars of their own eras in Bollywood - all Muslim women. Notice how when they did movies, women were dressed more conservatively and decently even when they followed trends that were globally popular at their respective times. These women would wear modern outfits which could be western but they were never skimpy or worse meant to titillate the audience. A sleeveless dress, a tight fitting suit, a skirt that ended near the knees was the max that happened.
The first woman to go onscreen in a bikini becomes a Hindu - Sharmila Tagore. The vamps of the era played by actresses who would wear outfits considered risqué for their times included Helen, Aruna Irani, Bindu, Padma Khanna. Mostly Hindus with one Catholic woman amongst them if my understanding of Helen being Catholic is correct.
But fast forward to the era of the Khans and most Muslim women in the industry simply disappear or are the sort who aren’t expected to dress skimpily, perform bold scenes, dance provocatively, chug down drugs and alcohol, smoke cigarettes - those roles went to Hindu girls specifically. The line between a vamp and a heroine disappeared when it came to costumes. I am not saying that clothes are a parameter to judge someone’s character - Hollywood certainly has it worse - given their heroines go naked onscreen like it’s NBD; but why this trend happened at a time when Muslim heroines disappeared entirely onscreen? Name one film actress from the past few decades who has done all the above things and is a Muslim - a practicing one. One whose popularity can be compared to say the Kapoor sisters, PC or anyone else. Katrina Kaif can’t be included here as though she’s the daughter of a Muslim father, her mom is Christian and she’s been raised as such.
Alia Bhatt cannot be named here as by the time she entered the industry - things were set in motion and were so far along that if she wanted to be an actress she couldn’t afford to do anything else. Ironically, the movie where she’s probably the most covered up is also one where she plays not just a girl who ends up being trafficked but later on runs the whole business herself. The glorification of a woman who ran brothels and was involved in other criminal activities was so bizarre that I couldn’t for the life of me understand parents who dressed up their little girls as Gangubai. Like, how are you so thick that you don’t comprehend she’s not some heroic figure to idolise? She literally was stupid enough to fall into this trap and then she became one of those people who would trap other girls similarly and worse. Not to mention her name is Gangubai - a twist on Ganga - the holiest river for us Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists.
How is it that when caste issues, class issues are shown onscreen with Hindu characters they become authentic but no such thing is mentioned when Christians or Muslims are concerned? Aren’t there Shias and Sunnis and then like 70 other minor communities that are fragmented between these two sects? Aren’t there Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Orthodox sects and Restorationists? Within the Protestants you have Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists etc. If there are no differences in the way these people worship the same one god they believe in, no differences in their opinions regarding certain aspects of their own religion - then why are they so segregated as well? Name one movie since independence which has a single one of these things mentioned.
But you will easily hear Hindu Baniya, Thakur, Dalit, Brahmin. A stupid movie recently has a scene where the main character is asked about his Gotra for an interview. Gotras are not for educational or even professional purposes, but for marriage alone and that too simply to avoid marrying a cousin, which now has been scientifically also proven to be a basket full of issues and health complications for any child born of such a union. When 2 people share the same Gotra they don’t marry not because there’s some kind of classism element involved but simply because sharing the same Gotra implies that they share the same forefathers somewhere down the line and thus have the same set of paternal genes no matter how much modifications have happened to them over the generations courtesy of the women who have birthed them from other Gotras. A single recessive gene combining with another in the two parents can lead to a child born with health issues that can be absolutely avoided. What’s wrong in wishing for a healthy child? Moreover, what’s wrong in hoping that the child you bring in this world doesn’t unnecessarily suffer owing to no fault of theirs, after all, if the parents didn’t know or care or think things through and a child was fated to suffer from health issues that will plague them for their lifetime, what was their fault in the same? But Gotras are villainised whereas now even reports are out from Islamic countries, Pakistan included, that clearly state that marriages between cousins is leading to the birth of children with health issues and complications beyond healing. Why would you doom your child to such a life if you can avoid it? Is marrying a cousin to keep wealth in the family so important that you ensure the line itself goes extinct via such births? That’s akin to cutting the nose to spite the face. But sure, demonise it and then cry about it with a victim card when your blatant lies and agendas don’t work and you are called out rightfully for spreading lies and misinformation for your own benefit.
The issue isn’t that Hindus have suddenly become intolerant - the issue is that Hindus have a voice now.
Leaving this comment with a food for thought. In 2011, 3 years post the 26/11 attacks, the Congress was still in power and they meant to introduce a bill that would put the onus of any mass violence, domestic riots, any civil unrest on the majority community of the land aka the Hindus. Not the majority of that particular area where the incident took place but the country on a whole but luckily somehow the BJP managed to stop it despite not being in power but in the opposition. We Hindus were about to be termed and prosecuted as terrorists for any and every incident that might have happened for no fault of ours but the fact that we are following the ways of our ancestors and have not converted to either Christianity or Islam - religions brought to us by invaders.
If that doesn’t explain why we voted Modi and BJP to power, and why we keep them there beyond their genuinely good performance in other aspects of running a country that matter, nothing will.
Why would we hand over the baton of power in the hands of people who would vilify us in our own homeland just for existing?
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