Suryavanshi
This disgusting statement is a summary of the story of the movie ‘Suryavanshi’ which is currently occupying the box office in India. The film manages to evoke the deadly conspiracy theory of ‘Love Jihad’. In ‘Love Jihad’, a Muslim man is portrayed as a person who converts a Hindu woman to Islam by hypnotizing or abducting her. However, anti-Islamic scenes other than ‘Love Jihad’ are the main attraction of this film. Famous Indian actor Akshay Kumar has played the lead role in this movie. Remember, Akshay Kumar is an exclusive fan of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and an actor with an extremist image. ‘Suryavanshi’ is the most successful movie after Lakdaun. The success of this film has shattered the atmosphere of hatred and discrimination faced by about 200 million Muslims in India on a daily basis.
A young Muslim man witnesses the murder of his wife in the name of jihad. These men, working as car mechanics, make a living by making their identity Hindu. The mechanic’s wife finds out that her husband was part of a terrorist plot. When his wife tries to resist the conspiracy, he is brutally murdered by the leader of the terrorist organization who came to join the attack. Immediately after the assassination, the young men and other men praying prepare for a terrorist attack on the battlefield.
Every third frame of the film shows blood-curdling Islamophobic scenes. While Akshay, who is playing the role of an upper-caste Hindu, is teaching a lesson of patriotism, the Muslim villain is responding to the hatred. The protagonists of the film are strict towards men with long beards and wearing ‘skull caps’.
Every time the protagonist of the film teaches a lesson of patriotism to the Indian Muslims, there is a burst of applause and applause from the audience. This film does not try to hide the right-wing Hindu nationalist agenda of the Modi government. The film justifies the denial of special status to the Indian state of Kashmir. Remember, thousands of young people are now detained in Kashmir and have been deprived of internet services since 2019. As the government claims, the film also claims that terrorism has been eradicated from the Kashmir Valley after the repeal of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.
If the filmmakers had read even a little bit of news about Kashmir, they would have shown the truth. When the purpose of cinema is to spread propaganda, why show reality? After all, instead of news, propaganda is being sold. Police have recently filed a lawsuit against 102 Twitter accounts, including journalists, engineers and lawyers, for speaking out against violence against Muslims in the northeastern Indian state of Tripura in October. In Tripura, Hindu nationalists have attacked mosques and Muslim homes, but police are preparing to arrest those who have spoken out against the attacks on treason charges. For weeks, Hindu nationalists in New Delhi have been obstructing Muslims’ Friday prayers. Eventually, Muslims were deprived of worship in the presence of a BJP leader on the same day of Govardhan Puja.
In this context, films like ‘Suryavanshi’ are not only entertaining, the film depicts incidents of violence perpetrated by Muslims, but the violence perpetrated by Hindu extremists is not deliberately shown. Protagonist Akshay Kumar cites the 1993 Mumbai bombings, but hides the 1992 Muslim genocide before the attacks. He easily ignores the 2002 Gujarat riots, the 2006 Muslim-targeted Malegaon attacks and the 2008 bombings involving retired Indian troops in Malegaon. The Modi government has been targeting many madrassas and religious organizations of Muslims in India on charges of spreading terror with foreign money.
The film portrays Muslim scholars and organization leaders as the “masterminds” of a Pakistani-funded terrorist group. In fact, the filmmakers should have at least given the credit for the script to Modi and his partners. Ironically, the film is produced by Karan Johar. He is a respected director. Johar created My Name Is Khan after 9/11 to address the philanthropy of Muslims. However, this film came before Modi came to power. Johar’s recent new ideology has been hailed by the government as one of the most prestigious in the state, in the presence of the prime minister and his powerful home minister, Amit Shah.
‘Suryavanshi’ is terribly dangerous. Watching the film brings to mind how Hitler used cinema in Nazi Germany as his loyal army and as a weapon to spread anti-Semitic propaganda. If the situation had been better, the Indian film industry, actors, directors and producers would have condemned this criminal and naked Islamophobia. If Bollywood continues to produce films that promote its aggressive nationalism and hatred, Bollywood will become a bloody killer. And this image cannot be erased by any ‘box office’ record.