Can The Terrorists Speak: Revisiting the 90’s Bollywood and its Nuanced Understanding of the ‘Terrorist’ Question

Abstract

In January 1990, the Indian government appointed Jagmohan Malhotra as the Governor of Kashmir for the second time in response to the escalating violence of the separatist groups and the subsequent uprising in the valley. The chief minister of Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, resigned at the same time, saying “he could not cooperate with a man who hates the guts of the Muslims” (qtd. In Ali 118). Jagmohan’s objective was to restore order in the valley by any means:

Our first and foremost objective was to assert the authority of the state ... no matter what the costs, no matter what the sacrifices. Our resolve, our will, had to be made clear ... It had ... to be conveyed to all concerned, in no uncertain terms, that ... no soft underbelly of the state would be offered to punch or fool with. (Ali 118)

Ironically, the Indian cinematic lens (post-2014) prefers to project the typical terrorist with a simple one-note-destruction agenda where his hatred is primarily guided by religion. However, Roja (1992) was probably the first Indian film to address the conflict zone within the nation where the antagonist, more than a person, was an -ism. Meenakshi Bharat in Shooting Terror classifies the early Indian cinematic narrative on the subject of terrorism as 1) The pseudo-documentary style 2) Glorification of the Indian Army style (focusing on the Nationalist angle). It is interesting to observe that the latter garnered favourable response from the youth of ‘New India’ (post-2014), where breaking into the enemy home is applauded for a just cause. Early Indian postterrorist films (released in 1990s), however, approached the subject from a psychological perspective. Amaan, Altaaf, Meghna, Kripal these names are easily identifiable as common middle-class characters stuck in traffic on their way home after a long day. With flashbacks and flashforwards, the audience gets to know them layer by layer as imagined by the director and the camera. To hate, to understand, to sympathise or to seek answers were the choices left for the audience to discover at the end of the films. The directorial presentation of choices was soon replaced by an emotionally charged hall full of homogenous appeals for vengeance. The shift in the presentation of the terrorist-protagonists, was primarily motivated by the socio-political changes during and between the two timelines. The 90s Bollywood, primarily distinguished by the romantic chartbusters and heartbreak melodies, was deeply motivated by the turbulent bilateral relationship of the neighbours (India and Pakistan) in the larger political context and the nation’s desperate attempt to restore order in the valley.