Reading the Muslim on Celluloid

While Bollywood continues to be part of the psyche of Indians and South Asians the world over, the cinematic representation of identities, particularly of the Muslim as a cultural category, also contains within ideas about visualities and their impact. The contribution of cinema to ideological milieus is immense. Hindi cinema-through its romantic narratives and culture of myth-making-has tended to be one of the most powerful tools of political communication and propaganda.

This book aims to bring cinematic narratives under the analytical lens and contextualize the representation of the Muslim in popular Hindi cinema. It also argues in favour of a noticeable transformation in the representation of Muslims in films through the 1990s and 2000s, culminating in the emergence of a secularized portrayal which is far from unproblematic. Can one discern an attempt to construct a visual binary where the Muslims can be categorized as 'good' and 'bad'?

Roshni Sengupta is Visiting Professor, Institute of Middle and Far East Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. She has earlier been Assistant Professor at the Leiden Institute of Area Studies, Leiden University, and Fellow, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden. Her research interests lie in areas of South Asian politics and culture and postcolonial studies. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and is also prolific on popular news and opinion portals.