Re/presenting Afghans in Hindi cinema: the popular geopolitics of India-Afghanistan relations

Saxena, Chayanika

doi:10.1080/13562576.2022.2138311

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Finding himself in this predicament, he promises to return to India after a month to receive his punishment in exchange for being allowed to take Habibullah's corpse with him to Kabul and, according to his promise, returns to India from Kabul to turn himself over to the law. While these conflicts of principles serve to demonstrate the respect that Badshah Khan and Ranveer Singh have for each other on account of their noble identity respectively as Pathan and Rajput, they also present a contrast between the trope of the noble savage and that of the civilized noble, one that is made possible by a process of objectification in which Indian films present the ethnic synecdoche in which Afghans are equated with Pathans (Saxena, 2022). The fact that Habibullah, an Afghan criminal, is captured by the Indian legal system and that Badshah Khan has to contend with a Rajput on equal terms betrays an Indian selfconsciousness where the need to present a noble identity to match the Afghan one is made apparent through the effectiveness of the Indian legal system and the Rajput code of honour.…”

Section: Savagery and Nobleness In Khuda Gawahmentioning

confidence: 99%

Savage Desires: Afghanistan as a Site for Othering in Dharmatma and Khuda Gawah

Haque

2024

rupkatha

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This paper aims to explore how Afghanistan is represented in two mainstream Bollywood films from the pre-9/11 period using Orientalism as a theoretical framework. While much literature exists on Afghanistan being Orientalized in Hollywood films, Bollywood representations of Afghanistan have not been studied from similar critical lenses. With the recent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban after a twenty-year-long war, it is more urgent than ever today to examine Bollywood representations of Afghanistan given the crucial importance of India as a key geopolitical entity in the region. The paper shall study two films from the pre-9/11 period in order to understand if Bollywood has Orientalized the region like mainstream Hollywood films. Bollywood films well known for taking their influences from Hollywood productions, make it likely to be the case.

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Section: Savagery and Nobleness In Khuda Gawahmentioning

confidence: 99%

Savage Desires: Afghanistan as a Site for Othering in Dharmatma and Khuda Gawah

Haque

2024

rupkatha

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European screen locations in the Indian film industry: evolutionary, spatial, and collaborative perspectives

Kozina,

Stachowiak,

Ciglič

et al. 2024

GeoJournal

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India has long been known for its film industry and remains by far the largest film producer in the world, surpassing other film-producing superpowers like the US and China. A major factor in India’s dominance in the global media landscape is the outsourcing of film production, especially within Europe. Although there are studies trying to explain the context and mechanisms of foreign settings being incorporated into Indian filmmaking, this knowledge remains scattered and unsystematic. The objective of this paper is to comprehensively examine the evolutionary, spatial, and collaborative dynamics of Indian filmmaking in Europe by analysing statistical data from IMDb as the world’s largest film database. Our findings show that Indian filmmakers appeared relatively infrequently in Europe until the mid-1990s. The British Isles and Western Europe, with London and the Swiss Alps as the main centres, became the first and most popular destinations for outsourcing Indian films. However, this trend has changed in the last two decades, with the focus shifting to other areas in Southern, Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe as well in recent decades. The initial wave of Bollywood productions has gradually been followed by other regional cinematographies. The increasing presence of Indian film shooting in Europe has also led to growing co-production between filmmakers on both (sub)continents. The paper provides a solid basis for further exploration of socio-economic linkages between India and Europe, especially in terms of job creation, local economic development, tourism, and cultural exchange.

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If you know, you know: Imperso-nation and mimicry in Pathaan

Ram

2023

New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film

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Pathaan embodies the essential Bollywood as being everywhere and everything in both form and content. Oscillating between the mythical and the farcical, combining allegory, nostalgia and inside jokes, Pathaan is action, comedy, romance and drama all at once. This reflection draws upon Sumita Chakravarty’s conceptualization of the ‘imperso-nation’ and Homi Bhabha’s idea of mimicry to discuss how Pathaan engages with nationalism, transnationalism and imperialism. In Pathaan, identities are, as Chakravarty puts it, ‘piled up’ and reassembled to allow the male action hero to impersonate as the patriotic son, the mobile cosmopolitan, the ‘new man’ lover and the secular unifier. Masquerade and imitation in Pathaan emerge not just in content but also in form. The reflection concludes by discussing Pathaan as colonial mimicry, where imitation, while flattering to dominant power, is also subversive as it slips into mockery to disrupt Hollywood superiority and Western surveillance.

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Re/presenting Afghans in Hindi cinema: the popular geopolitics of India-Afghanistan relations

Cited by 3 publications

References 61 publications

Savage Desires: Afghanistan as a Site for Othering in Dharmatma and Khuda Gawah

Savage Desires: Afghanistan as a Site for Othering in Dharmatma and Khuda Gawah

European screen locations in the Indian film industry: evolutionary, spatial, and collaborative perspectives

If you know, you know: Imperso-nation and mimicry in Pathaan

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