No one is unaware of the subtly propagated anti-Hindu sentiment and Hinduphobia in Bollywood movies through the one-sided, flawed, and unreal stories conveyed in the movies. The same tactic has been used once again in the film Shamshera, in which the antagonist has been portrayed by the filmmakers as a brutal barbarian who is also a pious Hindu.

Despite frequent big-budget flops and boycotts, Bollywood’s focus on anti-Hindu stories has not changed. Bollywood has once again brought a villain who is portrayed as a devout Hindu and a ruthless barbarian. Sanjay Dutt appears as a villain in Ranbir Kapoor’s historical drama ‘Shamshera.’ He is presented as a traitor to India who also happens to be a police officer. He is shown in the film as a devout Hindu with a Shikha and a Tripund Teeka. His character is named Shudh Singh, a brutal authoritarian general who has imprisoned and enslaved a warrior tribe.

Shamshera is a film produced by Yash Raj Films (YRF). Recently, the same company delivered two high-profile flops in Jayeshbhai Jordaar and Samrat Prithviraj. Shamshera has Ranbir Kapoor as the main protagonist, who plays a dacoit father and subsequently his son after his death. In both personas, he is a bandit. To apprehend him, the British bring Sanjay Dutt as Shudh Singh, a villain with a devout Hindu look.

With less than Rs 21 crore in two days’ worth of box office revenue, Shamshera, a movie with a huge budget of Rs 150 crore, has decisively been rejected by fans, putting YRF under a lot of strain. The film’s script has also been panned by reviewers for its weak content with many saying the storyline has no point. Audience feedback is that Ranbir Kapoor does not match the image of a dacoit, and neither does his voice. The screenplay was not well praised by critics too.

The disguised Hinduphobia

However, though the film has been obviously rejected by a wide audience, we need to understand the Hinduphobia that is being promoted through such movies where the villain is selectively shown as a devoted Hindu who is so pious and barbaric at the same time. There are countless movies where villains are the ones who have a stretched Red of Saffron Teeka on their forehead or discuss a crime while performing a sacred Hindu ritual like Aarti.

It is unnecessary to dwell on Bollywood’s fixation with Hinduphobia and depiction of Hindus as evil creatures. It is not a new phenomenon either, as one can remember films even from the 70s, like Suhaag, which depicts a Hindu priest as a murderer and a Hindu temple as the scene of the crime, creating negative preconceptions about Hindus.

Urduwood created a negative stereotype of Hindu symbols through scenes after scenes like this

Site of murder could have been any, but chosen as Temple. Day could be any but chosen as Navratri. Killer shown as dressed as Sadhu

Film Suhaag featuring Sadi ka Mahanayak @SrBachchan https://t.co/yH9KhQijkh

— Gems of Bollywood (@GemsOfBollywood) July 18, 2022

In the movie Suhaagan, Shakti Kapoor was named Krishna and given a flute with the role of groping women on the streets. The name of Lord Krishna was used in such a demeaning movie with such a demeaning character. The dialogues of the movie were written by Kader Khan, who is well known for writing dialogues demeaning to the Hindu faith.

Give a flute and name of ‘Krishna’ to Shakti Kapoor. Make him grope women on streets

– Dialogues by Kader Khan for film Suhaagan

How Urduwood has presented Bhagwan Krishna. How many know that this kind of street molestation was actually a common practice in Arab named Ta’arrud? https://t.co/ZxhWep9ifX

— Gems of Bollywood (@GemsOfBollywood) July 7, 2022

These are just a couple of examples, if one goes through all such instances where Hinduism and Hindus have been demeaned and mocked, even a PhD thesis won’t suffice to cover them all.

Deliberate factual distortion

The entertainment industry has long been fabricating a narrative in order to make it an accepted truth. Most of us are familiar with the 1990s television series Chandrakanta which was based on Devaki Nandan Khatri’s eponymous novel and had become quite famous among the general public. However, only a few individuals know that the serial did not accurately portray the novel.

There was no positive Muslim character in the original work. Instead, it included a few Muslim characters that were either wicked or amusing. As a result, the fact that there was no positive Muslim character troubled the serial’s creators. So they made one up by altering the novel’s plot and introducing an extra character in the television adaptation.

The narrative introduced a Muslim character named Janbaaz, performed by actor Mukesh Khanna. The character played a pivotal role in helping the Hindu hero get his love interest. This is how for the sake of moderation, Hindus are shown in films as bad and deceitful, while Muslims and others are portrayed as ‘Imaandar.’

In 2021, the vilification of Hindus in Indian cinema continued with the release of the film Sherni on the OTT network Amazon Prime. The Vidya Balan-starrer movie was based on tigress Avni who had reportedly turned man-eater and was recorded to have mauled 14 people to death. 

In the movie, the character who kills the tigress is neatly presented as Kalawa-wearing Ranjan Rajhans alias Pintu Bhaiya. However, the tigress was actually killed by a hunter named Asghar Ali Khan. Additionally, Vidya Balan plays IFS officer KM Abharna in the film, but she is given a Christian name. Abharna is the one who caught the hunter.

Furthermore, with the exception of one character named Hassan Noorani, the majority of the senior forest officers, who happen to be Hindus, are shown to be corrupt and unethical. The film spent much too much time depicting Hindu cops as inept and uninterested in their jobs, despite the fact that there was no clear cause or rationale for hating on Hindus. The film even included a scene in which the perpetrator, who was turned into a Hindu figure, was shown conducting Bhajans and Puja at a government office, in order to make fun of Hindu customs for no apparent reason.

Almost all storylines in Bollywood films attempt to establish a premise that Hindus are intrinsically evil while all others, such as Muslims and Christians, have pristine intentions. The same thing has been done again with Shamshera, in which Sanjay Dutt is portrayed as a pious Hindu who abuses people every now and then and is a traitor to the people. The specific makeup of Shikha and Tripund Teeka should not be forgotten since it perpetuates Bollywood’s bizarre intention that a practising Hindu who observes rituals and prayers is a nasty, psychopathic, irrational criminal.