[Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India
responded to the attacks by authorizing retaliatory strikes against Pakistan
and has tried to isolate the country diplomatically, pulling out of a regional
economic conference and using a summit meeting in New Delhi that included the
Russian, Chinese and Brazilian heads of state last weekend as a platform to
attack the Pakistani government.]
By Geeta Anand and Ayesha Venkataraman
 |
|
Indian soldiers near a
building where militants loyal to Pakistan were thought
to be hiding in Pampore,
south of Srinagar, Kashmir, last week. Credit
Tauseef Mustafa/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
|
MUMBAI, India — India and Pakistan, longtime
enemies with nuclear arsenals, have battled over borders, killed each other’s
soldiers and fought three wars since the countries’ creation seven decades ago.
Now their battle has reached the big screen.
Pakistan on Wednesday imposed a blanket ban
on Indian shows on its television networks and radio stations, a day after one
of India’s top film directors vowed not to hire actors from Pakistan in
response to a major Indian cinema group’s declaration that it would not screen
films with Pakistani casts.
The tit-for-tat measures come amid
deteriorating relations between the two countries after an attack in September
on an Indian Army base by militants who India says were from Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India
responded to the attacks by authorizing retaliatory strikes against Pakistan
and has tried to isolate the country diplomatically, pulling out of a regional
economic conference and using a summit meeting in New Delhi that included the
Russian, Chinese and Brazilian heads of state last weekend as a platform to
attack the Pakistani government.
The tension is likely to increase in the
coming months as Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party faces an election in India’s
most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where nationalism — specifically, tough
talk on Pakistan — is quickly replacing economic development as the party’s
election platform.
That tough talk has been reverberating
through the arts.
Pakistani musicians have long been a mainstay
of Bollywood, whose films and songs are also hugely popular across the border
in Pakistan. And Pakistani actors have recently entered Bollywood amid the
growing popularity in India of Pakistani-based television serials. But those
cultural ties are being cut.
The Pakistani ban on Indian shows goes into
effect on Friday. The government acted on a recommendation from the Pakistan
Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, and Pakistani officials said it was in
response to escalating curbs on Pakistani films and actors in India. The
license of any TV network or radio station that does not comply will be
suspended, the regulating authority said.
This week, a leading Indian film director,
Karan Johar, released a video in which he praised the Indian Army and said he
would no longer use Pakistani actors in his films. The move was prompted by the
decision of one of India’s biggest groups of cinema owners not to show films
with Pakistani actors, partly targeting the planned release on Oct. 28 of a
film by Mr. Johar starring a Pakistani actor.
Mr. Johar said he felt a “deep sense of pain”
at being accused of working against national interests.
The Indian Army’s military strikes in the
Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, which it conducted 10 days after 19
soldiers were killed at an Indian Army base, set off a nationalistic fervor
across India that has been picked up by the country’s media.
The Indian superstar Salman Khan, who spoke
out against the ban on Pakistani actors, was angrily denounced by one of
India’s top television talk show hosts, Arnab Goswami.
Om Puri, an actor who has appeared in
Bollywood, Hollywood and independent films, also found himself under attack
during a televised debate when he said he opposed the ban. The situation
escalated when Mr. Puri, pressed by the anchor about a slain soldier, retorted,
“Who asked him to join the army?” The actor later apologized.
Sporting ties have also been severed, with
Pakistan barred from playing in India at the World Cup of kabaddi, a form of
wrestling and tag that is popular on the subcontinent.
“We have a government that is taking a very,
very hard line on Pakistan, a political context from which the cultural
narrative is emerging,” said Harsh V. Pant, a professor of international
relations at King’s College London who is from India. “Society and the
government are in sync with this argument that we need to marginalize
Pakistan.”
The cultural standoff began on Sept. 28 when
the India Motion Picture Producers’ Association unanimously voted to ban
employing Pakistanis in Bollywood.
“As Indians, we want a good relationship with
our neighbor, but if the neighbor is not good then we have to take some steps
to show him that we are not happy with him,” Manoj Chaturvedi, the
association’s general secretary, said in an interview on Tuesday.
The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a far-right
political party, then raised the stakes with an ultimatum to all Pakistani
performers working in India to leave within 48 hours or “risk being beaten up.”
It also threatened violence against theater owners who showed films with
Pakistanis in the cast.
The Indian television channel Zindagi, which
since 2014 has aired Pakistani shows that have grown hugely popular, scrubbed
them from its programming.
Then the Cinema Owners and Exhibitors
Association of India asked exhibitors not to release any movie featuring
Pakistani performers, putting in jeopardy Mr. Johar’s new film, “Ae Dil Hai
Mushkil,” which stars the Pakistani heartthrob Fawad Khan.
Beyond a show of solidarity for the fallen
Indian soldiers, that appeal was made partly because of Mr. Khan’s silence
after the attacks, when many people felt he should have made “a statement
against terrorism,” said Nitin Datar, the president of the cinema owners’
association. The group also worried that cinemas might be damaged amid
protests, he said. Mr. Khan made a general statement opposing violence but not
a specific denunciation of the attack on the army base.
“If you map out the present sentiment across
the country, then you will find out how many people are against doing anything
with Pakistani artists,” Mr. Datar said. “It’s not only us. We’ve taken into
consideration the views of the general public also, which was conveyed to us by
our members.”
On Monday, the Mumbai Film Festival said it
would drop a classic 1959 Pakistani film, “Jago Hua Savera” (The Day Shall
Dawn), from its lineup this month. Recently restored, the movie explores the
struggles of East Bengal fishermen, played by Pakistani and Indian actors, and
has been called a masterpiece of South Asian cinema.
A week before the festival’s start, Prithvi
Mhaske, a social activist, filed a complaint with the police against the
screening of the film, threatening continued protests. “To sit in a theater and
eat popcorn and ice cream as you watch a Pakistani movie is unfair to our
soldiers,” said Mr. Mhaske, the president of Sangharsh Foundation, a Mumbai
nonprofit. Three days later, the movie was removed from the festival’s lineup.
Some analysts say the furor is a sign of
frustration over the Indian government’s inability to stop militant attacks
carried out by Pakistan-based groups, despite overtures to make peace. Pakistan
has denied any involvement in the attack on the base and support for the
militants in Kashmir.
“There is a turning of the tide about the
narrative that engagement with Pakistan culturally is good in and of itself,”
said Mr. Pant, the international relations professor. “Nobody in India buys
that argument anymore that if you do cultural exchanges and cricket matches, it
will benefit India.”
But India’s muscle flexing could have dire
consequences for the region if it continues for an extended period, he said.
“In Pakistan, we have several actors:
military leadership, civilian leadership, and renegade parts of the Pakistan
military,” Mr. Pant said. “Anyone can retaliate.”
“We don’t know the consequences of what India
has done,” he added. “This is a unique moment in Indo-Pak relations in the
nuclear age. These are new, interesting and scary times.”
