Hinduphobia today is a major class phenomenon too, with generational degradation at that. It is quite apparent in Bollywood too. Unlike their parents or grandparents, today’s Bollywood bratpack seems to wear its arrogance and disdain for the public on its sleeves
In the fantastic science fiction novel/TV series The Man in the High Castle, America lost World War II and is now under the heel of two tyrannical regimes — Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Life is terrible for the majority as the ruling regime rubs their humiliation in their faces with spectacular propaganda stunts on top of all the violence too (Jahr Null, Year Zero, all statues and memories of the past must go!). But there is something like light flickering at the end of the gloomy tunnel. A mysterious figure is circulating contraband in the form of movie clips that depict a different world altogether. In this movie world, America is free.
Without spoiling the fun about the show, I will say that the last few years of social media growth have brought the same kind of hope as The Man in the High Castle‘s movie clips to Hindus (albeit mixed with heaps of anger and needless infighting too). Self-educated scholars, activists, grassroots journalists, traditionalists, reformers, all sorts of voices have emerged to express, sometimes smartly, sometimes, less so, exposes of a world of tyranny, cruelty, injustice and lies that was sometimes so in our faces we never even noticed them. And no matter how much the old elites either try to fight it down, or the new elites try to control it so they continue to sell their messiah-messaging, the reality simply cannot be “unseen” now.
Hinduphobia, anti-Hindu prejudice, genocide-mania, blood-lust, Alamgir-philia, Taimurnama, call the malevolent sicknesses what you will, these are naked as a sword on a medieval battlefield to too many people now. The elites may retreat behind their mansion gates and media-academic-fan club defences, but their words and deeds, and indeed, their character, all seem to be on display for the public to see clearly now.
It is in this context that we should see the conversation that is emerging around the popular media-monitoring handle “Gems of Bollywood,” and more importantly, the most recent incident of police brutality against young Hindu protestors at the Ujjain Mahakaal temple. Various social media voices, especially on the emergent “RW” side, seem to be distressed about Hindus did there and are sharing a somewhat similar view as their Leftist opponents who would call the event “Hindu Talibanisation.” However, I do not think the issue here is “intolerance” or “free speech violation” on one side as much as the normalisation of Hinduphobia, misogyny, privilege and entitlement, on the other.
I hope to disabuse some of their assumptions here, and I will try to do so step-by-step.
First, if you have seen that video clip of the policemen slapping, shoving, and mistreating the poor Hindu protestor at the temple who is seemingly not doing anything to threaten them, and your sympathies and concerns are about something else instead at this time, you should step back and cut back on some of the influences that “RW” propaganda (that exists too) may be having on you. Why do we not feel sorry for him? Why do we not try to understand the depth of pain that lets him hold Shiva’s feet as his defence against a cultural industry and its leading lights who have gone brazenly public with their naked hatred for Shiva, Kamadhenu, Krishna, all the gods and revered beings of his ancestors (however misguided it might seem to your cosmopolitan sensibilities)?
He does not have a global apparatus of propaganda on his side to describe him as an “austere religious scholar” (nor has he done anything to even deserve such an odious comparison), nor even an eco-activist. PETA and Western animal rights groups will not even try to see his protests, driven by a desire to protect cows after all, as an animal rights issue simply because his idiom of understanding and expression is indigenous, native, Hindu.
No one will speak for him in the world where he is but a video clip we will watch and forget. The Left will mock him and despise him, just as they did with another working-class Hindu youth a few months ago who dared to call for a boycott of Qatar Airways over their government’s mendacity and entitled Hinduphobia (if you are reading this, sir, please note I honoured your call and cancelled my booking on that airline, not a whole lot, but a few thousand dollars at least withdrawn from their clutches).
The poor in India are fighting Hinduphobia and elitist entitlement unlike many of us who are relatively privileged to pick and choose our issues on social media. It is perplexing therefore that we are able to identify with criticisms of Bollywood (aka “Nepowood”) for its elitism and arrogance towards their viewers while we somehow feel compelled to withhold our sympathy for the Hindu sentiments of the same critics and protestors.
Second, we also need to see the protests against a poisonous, highly weaponised media industry for what they are, accurately, and proportionately. The protests at Ujjain were nothing of the sort that happened some years ago in Hyderabad and elsewhere during the Da Vinci code release, for example (nor like what happened to Charlie Hebdo or Slaman Rushdie, to underscore the obvious). “RW” social media “influencers” should recognise criticism as well as real-life non-violent demonstrations as a legitimate, as well as necessary, part of the Hindu plan to survive another generation or two at least, I guess.
There has been enough smearing and attempted delegitimisation of what has been at best a peaceful consumer boycott of some Bollywood products already by the guardians of the old propaganda order. On that note, I should address one criticism that has been made of “Gems of Bollywood,” that the presentation of clips about “kafirs,” women as r*** objects, and so on are taken out of context and create an overwhelmingly skewed impression of Indian movies.
For what it’s worth, I must share that I used to hear a similar complaint in American colleges when we used to screen media-education documentaries that compiled examples of sexism, objectification, racism, and so on. Experiencing and understanding the scale and depth of the rot is a part of the critical media education process. We can always think of contexts and what examples may be excused on our own. But the point is the media ecology as a whole. Social media sites, not even trained or well-funded media researchers, are doing their best to spread critical awareness; not only about Hinduphobia, but also about glaring misogyny too. We can differ on details and have our disagreements on interpretation, but we cannot discount the evidence.
Third, there is quite clearly a class difference in responding to threats to Hindus and Hinduism. Working-class Hindus, whether in India or in the Indian diaspora, face Hinduphobia in ways that the bulk of middle class and upper middle-class Hindus (especially in the diaspora) haven’t quite done so (though that might be changing too). Some Hindus in the “RW ecosystem” (or echo-chamber), still seem to persist in the rather obsolete political propaganda that having “efficient secularism” as opposed to “pseudo-secularism” will end decades or centuries of systemic distortion and exterminatory intent against pagan/kafir/polytheist lives and worlds. I am cautiously enthused to see some young voices in this camp shake off some of these assumptions, but it needs to be done with far more urgency and intensity. The halls of governance and technocracy-building are not where survival will be determined. Temples, sacred lands, and sacred animals, are ground zero.
Finally, all of these issues need to be seen not only in instant-reaction terms but in inter-generational terms. If you are a Hindu parent who is active on social media (either on the strongly cow and temple side, or on the more liberal secular RW side), consider what impact your words and actions are having on your children and their friends. Are you able to take them along with your worldview? Are you educated enough in the ways of their cohort’s experiences in time, school, pop culture, propaganda? When you try to talk to them about it, do you come across as angry “Boomer”/intolerant “nationalist” and such? Even if you are, are you providing them with enough experiences and memories of Hindu life so that when and if they wake up they will have enough to fall back on?
Remember, our peers were probably not as brainwashed to be Hinduphobic twenty or thirty years ago as our children might be now. If they associate Bollywood, Aamir Khan, and other celebrities with cool, woke, seemingly universal progressive values, how will you show them that the problem is not with what such values say they stand for, but for the magnitude of the lie itself?
Hinduphobia today is a major class phenomenon too, with generational degradation at that. It is quite apparent in Bollywood too (as someone observed on a recent Twitter chat on the subject). Unlike their parents or grandparents, today’s Bollywood bratpack seems to wear its arrogance and disdain for the public on its sleeves. What gives them that chutzpah? Is it only the money and fame? I fear it’s that and also the peculiar inoculation from reality that today’s shallow “Woke” education in the posh schools and colleges leaves some youngsters with. They are so deeply convinced they are progressive, pro human-rights, pro-poor, and so on, that they simply turn off to obvious human realities glaring at them through their tinted car windows (just see the video clips on news channels to understand the contrast; celebs posing in a car versus ordinary Hindu devotees of Mahakaal being police-brutalised outside).
In conclusion, I would like to remind us that the bond that exists between art, artists, and audiences can still be a sacred one. Earlier generations of cinema performers and viewers knew it well, and many celebrities gained from it tremendously in terms of adulation, wealth, and even votes. I have seen, and heard, much from my mother and her colleagues to reflect the sense of respect members of the industry had towards their public in their time. Fame can be a dizzying, distracting thing, but a sense of accountability towards not only the image but the people who hold you in that image is an important ideal to live for. Shallow showmanship and photo ops around temples and politicians are hardly a substitute for that ideal. I hope Indian cinema finds a better future somehow. (And in the unlikely case that someone from that movie team is actually reading this, please, go get the poor protestors out of jail, listen to them, give their sentiments a platform; use your celebrity machine to help the poor, the cows, and all who have suffered directly or indirectly because of your industry in the past).
The writer is Professor of Media Studies, University of San Francisco. He has authored several books, including ‘Rearming Hinduism: Nature, Hinduphobia and the Return of Indian Intelligence’ (Westland, 2015). Views expressed are personal.
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