Explaining the Hindu-Phobia of Bollywood.
Understanding the thinking process of the Bollywood Hindu Phobia Content creators.
Bollywood has always been critical about Hinduism, but after Modi became prime minister of India, the tone of its content has changed, they have become more biased about Hinduism. The old Bollywood used to show the side of Indian culture that was worth removing. Now, Bollywood has started targeting the basis of Hinduism. Chanting mantras like Aham Brahmasmi in the whole series and then doing horrible things, using names of Hindu gods for villains, twisting the original stories of gods, making shows on the malpractices of Hindus which are not even relevant now, showing a Hindu priest as the main villain are the prominent theme of the content coming out of Bollywood. Here are the reasons for it:
Dominance: Bollywood movie named PK criticizes all the major religions of India. There was not a single issue against criticizing religion, but the problem was that the main points that movie criticizes were against Hinduism. One can argue that India is a Hindu dominate society, and that’s why Hinduism was mostly in the center of attention, which is a fair argument. Most of the people can relate to these faults of the religion even if they are not Hindu. Hence it is only natural to only criticize Hinduism instead of any other religion in India. Produces would not make movies to which people can not relate. So, the fact that Hinduism is the majority population of India and most people can understand it leads to Hindu-Phobic content.
Tolerance: Most of the points in the movie PK were against Hinduism, although there was not much backlash from the Hindu community and Hindu religious groups. Instead, most of them praise the movie. One of the main reasons for that is Hindus don’t teach their children to defend Hinduism. They let them think free and make their own opinion on religion. Most of the time, children also get exposed to the criticism of Hindus, this criticism goes into their mind, and they remember it. So, the topics that criticize by Bollywood movies have already been in their mind. They have already processed these points, so there is nothing new to think about these subject matters. These criticisms have already been in the public domain. Hence there is no reason to retaliate. In short, they have become tolerant or immune to these criticisms.
Self-Criticizing: It has been a tradition in Hinduism to ask questions and then try to answer them, and most of the time, these questions criticize the religion itself. Many sages of the past have promoted the idea of criticism, so it is like Hinduism to criticize itself. Hence every valid and accurate criticism is appreciated and encouraged. Encouraging criticism work as an incentive toward making a Hindu-Phobic content.
Intolerance: The other dominant religions in India sees their Gods as the utmost authority, and whatever their god has said has the utmost reverence. Whatever their sacred texts tell them is a commandment in itself. In consequence, they do not promote criticism of their religion. Some of these religions condemn any criticism against their religion or god. Sometimes there is a severe punishment for saying anything against them. Therefore producers try to stay away from any trouble.
Punch-Up: Hinduism is the dominant religion in India, and all others are minorities. People see the majority as the strong-section of the society and minority as a weaker section. People try to help the weak, but never care to think for the strong. The philosophy of Punch Down and Punch Up works here. So, the producers try to show the better side of minority religions and try not to criticize them.
Social Media: Social media has connected us all. With this connection, we see people can influence others. If one person says something, then there is going to be a substantial effect on a different person. Social media affect our minds, and most of the time, there is always some trend is going on. One of the most recent trends is to make fun of Hinduism and try not to be very religious. People try to disassociate from their religion to look cool. It directly affects their tendency to be tolerant of any criticism of Hinduism.
The above-stated points do not make Bollywood Hindu-Phobic, the moral support that these points only nudge Bollywood to make Hindu criticizing content. The reasons that make Bollywood Hindu Phobic are as below:
Balancing by Liberals: There is a tendency of Left Liberals to safeguard minorities. Everywhere in the world, they try to stop the promotion of the majority’s religion because they see it as the injustice for the minority religion. Their mastermind made them watch some horrific videos where the majority religious community do some atrocities on the minority religions, ultimately making them radical against the majority religion. Ruling party BJP, in its core, is a Pro-Hindu party. BJP promotes Hinduism as other religions promote theirs. To counter this promotion, left-liberals of India make Anti-Hindu content because they see this as a balancing act against Hinduism and BJP.
Revenge: The past of Hinduism has not been virtuous. Maybe, it was better in ancient times but not in the past few centuries. I’m not talking about the Moguls and the British. I’m talking about the caste system. Many more unfortunate things happened in the past, but the one thing that hurt the nation the most was (and still is) the caste system. Still, some people face this issue daily. It makes a section of society resentful of upper-caste Hindus, and they want to express it. The best way to express it is to vent it on social media, but a few take this to the next level.
Outside forces: No one can deny the fact that there are people who do not want India to succeed. At the same time, some people want to spread their religion all over the world (apparently this the only way they can show world dominance). These both kind of people sees India either as a threat or as an opportunity to convert. Ultimately, they try to win or defeat India. The best way to do this is to make Indians fight themselves. One thing they can do is to fund anti-Hindu content. So people who firmly connect with Hinduism criticize the maker, on the other side, people who support criticism try to defend the maker, successfully creating an ideological divide between the two sections of the society.
After reading this post, a leftist would say that the writer is trying to glorifying Hinduism, and a rightist would say that the writer should have been harsher on the liberals because it is all their fault. And the writer thinks sometimes we should try to see things as they are, rather than following the narrative.
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