How we fight and show it

Samir Choprarsquos Bollywood Does Battle HarperCollins is an excellent guide to how Indians can understand themselves and their nation through Bollywoodrsquos war movies Chopra a professor of philosophy at Brooklyn College New York is also the author of other books on cinema military history cricket the politics of technology and the legal theory of AI He says he chose to examine a nation in the making through Indian war movies because ldquothey are the premier vehicle of cultural expression in India showcasing music dance art design literary and dramatic expression itrsquos where Indians go to find and make dreams about themselves and their nationrdquoEdited excerpts from the interview Have Indian war films in the new millennium defined prevalent ideas of nationalism or been defined by themThe influence goes in the direction of the various forms of Indian nationalism as they grow and evolve influencing the content of these movies Indian war movies hadnrsquot been big enough hits or cultural presences other than Border to drive the construction of new nationalist images and paradigms Right now they tend to reflect the wishes hopes and fears generated and sustained by political and cultural developments they reflect how the Indian film industry has conceptualised its nation and continues to do soYou write ldquoThe Indian war movie as an aggressive polemical propaganda vehicle is a novel cultural productionrdquo Could you explain thereason for itOlder Indian war movies are more diffident in their political assertions less strident in their rhetorical style though Haqeeqat does not match this template cleanly In part this is due to older movies being made under a Ministry of Information and Broadcasting regulation that stipulated ldquoIndian enemiesrdquo could not be depicted ldquoin a negative lightrdquo JP Dutta was able to get this regulation relaxed for his 1997 Border Newer Indian war movies like Lakshya and LOC Kargil employ a markedly different visual and rhetorical grammar as does Urimdashthe lsquoenemyrsquo is clearly identified and characterised the political claims are more overt the writing is more polemicalSamir ChopraDo you see the war films made after the BJP won the 2014 national elections as different from those before it in any significant way I ask particularly with reference to Uri The Surgical Strike which you have referred toThe new Indian war movie appears more technically polished more influenced by the visual grammar of the modern action movie and is certainly far more aggressive in its assertion of a newer muscular less diffident Indian identity Uri is especially overt in its claims that it aims to salute and recognise this new Indian nation That it does so by offering a rejection of the lsquoturn the other cheekrsquo paradigm that is supposed to underwrite Indian foreign policy is significant It maps on almost directly to modern Indian nationalist claims that the time for ldquoMr Nice Guyrdquo domestically and internationally is overWhile your book doesnrsquot offer a ldquocomparative treatmentrdquo of Indian war movies with foreign ones you do use parallels and analogies Do any stark observations spring to mind when you think of Indian war movies alongside foreign especially Hollywood filmsA superficial one is that Hollywood films are more technical more varied explore a wider variety of themes and are darker and more violent There are many thematic similarities in that many Hollywood war films are also lsquomasalarsquo or formulaic films which generously employ war movie tropes Most fundamentally America has had a deeper and more intimate relationship with war one that is becoming more abstract and this is reflected in the interest its cinematic artistes have shown in the depiction of war on the screen The social dynamics of Hollywood war movies are also more complex its critiques of military and foreign policy more pointed and their treatment of warrsquos horrors more unflinchingAmong key absences yoursquove noted in Indian war cinema are antiwar films critical war movies and satire For what reasonsSeveral the lack of extended wars that bring home the costs of military action to all citizens a resurgent nationalism that casts a hallowed light over war and the military and a general historical reluctance to engage with critical histories especially at a time when a form of historical revisionism is underway and when new ldquosacred cowsrdquo are being found all the time To make critical war movies or antiwar movies or satires will require having a less elevated view of both war and the military something that must be a function of the surrounding culturersquos understanding of it Good military history would helpJP Duttarsquos Border says Chopra moves away from the earlier tendency of films to not show the Indian enemy in negative light as stipulated by the IampB MinistryYoursquove examined the Indian war moviesrsquo emphasis on a soldierrsquos group as ldquoa visible demonstration of lsquonational integrationrsquordquo Could you explain particularly in the context of the depiction of Indian Muslims in these films as well as missing references to members of Dalit and AngloIndian communitiesThe lsquosoldierrsquos grouprsquo which is a prominent trope in war movies has its own particular and peculiar form in Indian war movies It is crucially concerned with transmitting images of cultural and religious syncretismmdashthat Indians from all ethnicities and religions are united in defending the nation In almost every movie under consideration these notions are prominently placed on display So Indian Muslims are shown time and again as loyal patriotic soldiers a form of reassurance to the Indian polity that the nation fights together on the front The absence of Dalit soldiers in soldiersrsquo groups reflects actual absences in the armed forces while also reflecting a lack of national concern about their ldquointegration in the mainstreamrdquo The elision of AngloIndians is just plain historical ignoranceYoursquove linked the lack of historical battle detail in Indian war movies to the poor state of Indian military history What reasons do you see for the latterLargely twofold one Indian military history is not an area of academic concern or interest and second most Indian military history is written by veterans who face their own peculiar constraints pertaining to the Indian Secrets Act institutional loyalty closeness to the subjects of their critique and analysis and so on Both of these factors are changing rapidly And because in recent times a kind of ldquodevotionrdquo or ldquohomagerdquo to the military has become a prominent aspect of Indiarsquos militarism which has made it harder to carry out critical analysis of Indian military history A genuine Indian military history would have operational tactical strategic financial social political and cultural dimensionsmdashthis we simply do not produce at the moment