theflaneurdiaries.com

Category: Uncategorized

Vanishing Treasures of Hindu-Muslim Syncretism in Hindi Cinema: The Dawn & Dusk of the “Muslim Social”

The last of this three-part series on the vanishing treasures of Hindu-Muslim syncretism in Bollywood traces the rise and demise of the “Muslim Social”, a genre that is important because of the space and freedom it accorded to the minority community.

Image Credit: Good News Indians via Pinterest

“The Muslim Social” is a term given to a sub-genre of drama in Hindi cinema that portrayed the social and cultural lives of Muslims in India. From exclusively chronicling the tragedies and triumphs of the Khawas (elite Muslims) to depicting the anxieties and aspirations of the Awaam (common Muslims), the “Muslim Social”, on close examination, can be seen as a mirror to the Indian Muslim experience since 1947.

This is the third and final part of a series on the vanishing treasures of Hindu-Muslim syncretism in Hindi cinema. Also Read [Part I: The Decline of Urdu in Hindi Cinema] and [Part II: The Evolution of Muslim Characters in Hindi Cinema].

Dawn and the Early Years

Sohrab Modi’s Pukar (1939), based on the Mughal Emperor Jahangir’s legendary sense of justice, is usually regarded as having been a precursor of the genre. The next notable film of this type, Mehboob Khan’s Najma (1943) was a tragic romance that emphasised the importance of modern education and thought among Muslims. In many ways, Najma was a prototype of the post-independence Muslim Social. Its restrained romance between coy lovers and exotification of the world of well-to-do aristocratic Muslims was replicated in subsequent Muslim Social films. This idealised bubble-like space filled with Lakhnavi tehzeeb (culture and etiquette of Lucknow), Urdu shayari (poetry), sherwani-wearing men and sharara-wearing women became the defining feature of the Muslim Social in subsequent decades. Movies such as Humayun (1945), Shahjehan (1946), and Mirza Ghalib (1954) may be regarded as quintessential films of the genre.

Video Credit: Channel Hindi Classics on YouTube

The High Point

The Muslim Social continued to flourish in post-independence India. Muslim film-makers, script writers, music directors, and lyricists such as Mehboob Khan, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Abrar Alvi, Kamal Amrohi, K. Asif, Sahir Ludhianvi, Shakeel Badayuni, and Majrooh Sultanpuri lent visual and lyrical splendour, giving an otherworldly feel and flavour to the films. The 1960s and early 70s were the high point for the genre with a string of successes such as Barsaat ki Raat (1960), Mughal-e-Azam (1960), Chaudhvin ka Chand (1960), Mere Mehboob (1963), Bahu Begum (1967), Mere Huzoor (1968), and Mehboob ki Mehndi (1971). Similar in their portrayal of Nawabi characters, most of these films had a powerful social message and prominent female characters navigating the complexities of enclosed worlds, frequently facing the predicament of choosing between the ignominy of love and honour of the family.

It must be noted that the 1950s and 1960s found a ready audience for such films because large sections of the population understood the language of these films, i.e. Urdu. Moreover, the feudal Muslim elite in North India’s collective memory remained fresh. It mattered little till this point that the portrayals were somewhat far-fetched and fanciful.

The Muslim Social reached its zenith with Kamal Amrohi’s magnum opus Pakeezah (1972). An aesthetic feast with its architectural grandeur, mellifluous songs, gorgeous costumes, and chaste Urdu dialogues, this epic romance is rightly regarded as an epitome of the classic Muslim Social.

While many movies of the genre featured the Tawaif (courtesan) as a stock character, Pakeezah catapulted her into the centre of the narrative, as did Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan (1981) nearly a decade later.

Blazing a Trail

The 1970s ushered in the New-Age Social with films like Dastak (1970) and Garm Hawa (1973). Written and directed by Rajinder Singh Bedi, Dastak masterfully captures the anguish of newly-weds Hamid and Salma who deal with daily knocks on their door intended for the previous occupant of the house, a famous Mujrewali (nautch girl).

The M.S. Sathyu-directed Garm Hawa takes a look at the dilemma faced by Muslims in post-Partition North India as illustrated by Salim Mirza, an Agra-based shoe manufacturer, who is torn between moving to Pakistan and staying back in an increasingly hostile homeland. Based on a short story by Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai, Garm Hawa was a masterpiece that not only blazed a trail for its own genre, but went on to be celebrated as a forerunner of avant-garde cinema in Bollywood.

Video Credit: Indikino Edutainment on YouTube

Muslim Socials of the 1980s began veering towards art-house cinema. Films like Sagar Sarhadi’s Bazaar (1982) and Muzaffar Ali’s Anjuman (1986) shed light on the socio-economic problems afflicting the Muslim community, including the sexual exploitation of women and violation of workers’ rights. But there were exceptions in the form of Umrao Jaan and B.R. Chopra’s Nikaah (1982) which harked back to the genre as it existed in the 1950s and 1960s.

Significantly, the early 1980s also marked the beginning of the end for the Muslim Social set in traditional Nawabi culture. Cast in this mould, a film like Deedar-E-Yaar (1982) sank without a trace.

Thus, the 1970s saw a shift in which the Muslim Social moved out of the classist cocoon of feudal privilege. Films of the 1980s continued to portray the bitter experiences of India’s socially marginalised, economically underprivileged Muslim community.

Nowhere is this characterisation more obvious than in Manmohan Desai’s Coolie (1982), which had a feisty porter, named Iqbal, fight for the rights of downtrodden workers.

This relegation of the hero’s social rank – from scion of aristocrats to son of plebeian parents – signaled the declining status of Indian Muslims in public life, as well as how they were popularly perceived.

The Brilliance of Dusk

By the late 1980s and early 90s, the space for the Muslim Social in commercial Hindi cinema had shrunk considerably. However, parallel cinema of this period produced several gems of the genre. Shorn of lilting qawwalis and regal sets, Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s iconic Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro (1989) is a gritty portrayal of the life of petty criminal Salim Pasha, son of working-class parents, against the backdrop of a rapidly polarising Bombay.

Shyam Benegal’s critically acclaimed trilogy of films on Muslim women, Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001) delved into diverse themes with a singular leitmotif: the plight of women doubly scorned on account of their gender and religious identity.

Another cinematic treasure of this period is Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s Naseem (1995). Featuring Kaifi Azmi as the eponymous protagonist’s grandfather, Naseem poignantly foregrounded the fears and frustrations of a lower-middle-class Muslim family against communal tensions that preceded the demolition of Babri Masjid.

Video Credit: Channel CinemasofIndia on YouTube

Decline

The Muslim Social practically faded into oblivion by the mid-1990s. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, Indian identity in mainstream Bollywood had become conflated with Punjabi/Hindu identity.

Besides, liberalisation and globalisation shaped an audience that was primarily interested in stories that reflected their upwardly mobile aspirations. This may partly explain the box-office success of movies about affluent characters, set in international locations such as Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995) and Dil Chahta Hai (2001). Bollywood, being a profit-driven industry, responded to the changed sensibilities and churned out films accordingly.

More importantly, the elements that had aided the success of the early Muslim Social – imagery of sprawling gardens, opulent havelis, splendid costumes, and bombastic Urdu dialogues – were perceived as affected and anachronistic. No wonder then, that movies like Pati Patni Aur Tawaif (1990), Sanam Bewafa (1991), and Bewaffa Se Waffa (1992) are considered kitschy and denied a place alongside their exalted predecessors. Such was the decline of these cultural idiosyncrasies that Urdu sher o shayari became the stuff of parody scenes in later movies like Daraar (1996).

Shyam Benegal’s Hari Bhari (2000), Zubeidaa (2001) and Khalid Mohammed’s Fiza (2000) were effectively the last Muslim Socials. Interestingly, a little-known film named Kahaani Gudiya Ki (2005), shoddily made but well-meaning, raised pertinent questions with regard to women and Sharia law.

Although a string of films in the 2000s, namely Fanaa (2006), New York (2009), Kurbaan (2009) and My Name is Khan (2010) featured Muslim protagonists, many critics refrain from classifying them as Muslim Social films primarily because their terror-centric plots focussed on the politics of being Muslim, and didn’t really chronicle the social or cultural lives of Muslims. According to a section of critics, these types of films belong to a new genre known as the “Muslim Political”.

Diffident Steps

Filmmakers such as Hansal Mehta, Anurag Kashyap, Rahul Dholakia, and Anubhav Sinha have, in recent years, attempted to put a contemporary spin on the Muslim Social and embrace its spirit. Films such as Shahid (2012), based on the life of slain lawyer Shahid Azmi, and Raees (2017), centered on a Muslim gangster, put forth unabashed and nuanced portrayals of Muslim life. Though a film like Sultan (2016) featured Muslim protagonists, its director Ali Abbas Zafar himself remarked that he did not have religious identity in mind while envisioning the characters, and that they were Muslim by chance.

Anubhav Sinha’s Mulk (2018), entrenched in North India’s Muslim milieu, was commended for its representation of Muslim characters, though the film still had an anti-national Muslim terrorist – by now a stock character – juxtaposed with a nationalist Muslim. Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy (2019) was hailed for its portrayal of Murad Sheikh, the working-class Muslim protagonist and aspiring rap star for whom rap is a medium through which he expresses his angst against entrenched inequalities. For all its wishy-washy iconoclasm and engagement with class identity over religious identity, Gully Boy must be lauded for standing out in a cinemascape littered with the likes of Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior (2020), The Kashmir Files (2022), The Kerala Story (2023 and 2026), Chhaava (2025), and Dhurandhar (2025 and 2026).

More recently, Darlings (2022) was a darkly humorous take on how a young Muslim woman takes revenge on her cruel, alcoholic husband. A reasonably well-made film, Haq (2025) dramatised the Shah Bano case, highlighting the struggles of a woman abandoned by her husband, who evades his responsibilities under the guise of exercising his religious rights. Haq embodied the spirit of a Muslim Social, but lacked the fire that characterised earlier films like Bazaar.

Video Credit: Zee Music Company on YouTube

The Flower of Indian Cinema

Although the term “Muslim Social” has been subjected to criticism for otherisation of Muslims in Bollywood, the genre is significant because of the space and freedom it accorded to the minority community in the cultural realm of cinema. This has become all the more important, given the Muslim community’s limited political representation and its negative perception in public discourse in today’s Hindutva badge-wearing India.

In a broader sense, these films were a symbol of Hindu-Muslim syncretism in Bollywood because they are emblematic of our accommodative ethos that has a place for everyone. In that, not just Muslim Socials, but even Sikh, Christian, and Parsi Socials ought to be made.

It’s time the flower of Indian cinema acquired more colour.

October 24, 2026
Hindi Cinema’s Vanishing Treasures: Pfft! Disappeared the ‘Good’ Muslim Character from Hindi Cinema!

Muslim character archetypes have evolved in Hindi cinema over the decades. (Image generated via AI)

The second of this three-part series on the vanishing treasures of Hindu-Muslim syncretism in Hindi cinema explores the characterisation of Muslims in Hindi cinema, particularly focusing on their evolution through the decades and what that indicates about our times, then and now.

From magnanimous friends and fearless patriots in the 1950s and 1960s to menacing gangsters and cold-blooded terrorists in the 1990s and 2000s, the Muslim in Bollywood has changed a great deal over the decades. A brief examination of the many forgettable and unforgettable Muslim movie characters over the last seven and a half decades reveals how inextricably reel and real life are intertwined.

The overwhelming majority of post-Independence films did not have Muslim protagonists. Movies of a specific genre known as the ‘Muslim Social’ typically had all Muslim characters including the hero and heroine. The focus in this article is on regular films and how Muslims were depicted in these. The third and last part of this series will shine a spotlight on the ‘Muslim Social’.

Hindi Cinema in the 1950s, 60s & 70s

Newly independent India was envisioned as secular and values of religious tolerance and pluralism were considered intrinsic to the Nehruvian idea of India. Films of the era captured this secular zeitgeist by portraying Muslims as loyal friends and companions, even saviours who shook the conscience of erring protagonists. Garam Coat (1955) shows a portly Pathan, Sher Khan (Jayant) cheering up the beleaguered hero Girdhari (Balraj Sahni) and saving his life by thwarting his suicide attempt in the end. Likewise in Pyaasa (1957), Abdul Sattar (Johnny Walker), a street head masseur, is the only friend of struggling poet Vijay (Guru Dutt) in the world. In the Dostoevskian Phir Subah Hogi (1958), Rehman (Rehman) acts as the penniless Ram’s (Raj Kapoor) pillar of support and refuses to abandon him even when Ram bitterly quarrels with him.

One of the most remarkable Muslim characters in Hindi cinema was seen in Dhool ka Phool (1959). In it, the avuncular Abdul Rasheed (Manmohan Krishna) raises an illegitimate child undeterred by taunts and near-social boycott.

Video credit: Channel Ishtar Music on YouTube

The 1960s did not see a radical departure from this pattern. In Dharmputra (1961), Ashok Kumar plays the benevolent aristocrat and fierce patriot Nawab Badruddin who is forced to hand over his grandson, born out of wedlock to daughter Husn Bano (Mala Sinha), to a young Hindu doctor whose father had been Badruddin’s best friend. In Arzoo (1965), it is the comical but kindly Kashmiri houseboat man Mamdooh (Mehmood) who inadvertently unites the lovers in the end.

The 1970s saw the creation of a virtuous Muslim character, albeit one infused with flaws and frailties. One such character was the red-haired Pathan Sher Khan (Pran) in the cult classic Zanjeer (1973). A criminal running gambling dens, Sher Khan turns over a new leaf after befriending Inspector Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan). In the iconic Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), Rishi Kapoor plays one of the lead characters, namely a cheerful Muslim qawwal (singer) named Akbar. Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) had important female Muslim characters like Fatima (Nirupa Roy) who brings up the orphaned Sikander (Amitabh Bachchan) and Zohra Begum (Rekha), the courtesan with a heart of gold.

Hindi Cinema in the 1980s & 1990s

The 1980s witnessed a slight shift in the portrayal of Muslims. Though many films continued to show them as loyal friends and confidants, their depiction as working class people – oppressed and marginalised – increased.

By the late 1970s, nearly all affluent Muslims had left for Pakistan, and this portrayal may be regarded as a mirror to the community’s socio-economic condition in reality.

The 1980s also marked the beginning of Muslim crime-themed films inspired, in no small measure, by the rise of underworld gangsters Haji Mastan, Dawood Ibrahim and others. The idea spawned dozens of movies containing the leitmotif of the ruthless Muslim don, gang lord, or petty criminal.

An exceptional movie is Coolie (1983), which featured a working-class Muslim as the protagonist, despite not being a ‘Muslim Social’. Amitabh Bachchan put in a power-packed performance as the swashbuckling coolie Iqbal, who fights, romances, and prays with equal ardour. Coolie abounds in Sufi imagery and symbols such as miracles worked by prayers to the “Lord of Medina”, and a badge embossed with the sacred digits 786.

In the satirical drama, Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho! (1984), the poor but good-hearted Kareem (Naresh Suri) is the only person to support the elderly Mohan Joshi (Bhisham Sahni) and his wife who decide to take legal action against their avaricious landlord Kundan Kapadia (Amjad Khan). It was Tezaab (1988) that effectively popularised the character of the dreaded Muslim gangster with Lotiya Pathan (Kiran Kumar).

The early 1990s saw India mired in multiple communal crises, including the Ram Temple Movement and exodus of Pandits from the Kashmir Valley, followed by an outbreak of insurgency in Kashmir. Further polarisation came in the wake of violent communal riots shortly after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The villainisation of the Muslim had begun both in reel and real life.

The 1990s began with a remarkable movie called Henna (1991), about a Pakistani girl Henna (Zeba Bakhtiyar) and her unrequited love for the Indian Chander (Rishi Kapoor). Caught in the exchange of fire between India and Pakistan, the eponymous heroine is killed, prompting Chander to ponder the futility of war and violence.

The Muslim Kashmiri terrorist, complete with a Kalashnikov and pheran, made his first prominent appearance in a Tamil film dubbed in Hindi named Roja (1993).

Hindi cinema in the 1990s also began dabbling in Hindu-Muslim love stories although, in line with Hindu patriarchy, the hero was almost always Hindu – reinforcing the idea of the majority conquering the minority. Examples include Bombay (1995) – another Tamil film dubbed in Hindi – and Dahek (1999). Interestingly, Shaila Banu (Manisha Koirala) of Bombay continues practicing her own religion even after marrying a Hindu man.

Sarfarosh (1999) gave Pakistan-sponsored terrorism a face for the first time in a Hindi movie through Gulfam (Naseeruddin Shah). The film also pioneered the dichotomy of the good Muslim, bad Muslim with ghazal singer and undercover Pakistani intelligence agent Gulfam, and patriotic police inspector Salim (Mukesh Rishi). In a poignant scene, the latter bemoans his allegiances being suspect on account of his religion.

Video credit: Tips Films on YouTube

Even in B-grade Hindi cinema of the 1990s, heroes were often seen single-handedly tackling gaggles of sword-brandishing goons, conspicuous by their Keffiyeh shoulder wraps and skull caps.

Hindi Cinema in the 2000-2010

9/11 changed the world, including India, in irreversible ways. The Muslim, more or less, became a stock character – a terrifying, rifle-toting terrorist; a closet jihadi plotting to kill all kafirs; or a pitiful innocent victim. That India itself suffered numerous terror attacks all through the decade added fuel to the fire. In between the Parliament attack in 2001 and Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, there were at least half a dozen bombings – in Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Varanasi, and Ahmedabad – all attributed to Jihadists.

As the gaze of the majority hardened, so did the gaze of cinema.

Fiza (2000) showed a sister Fiza’s (Karisma Kapoor) search for her brother Amaan (Hrithik Roshan) who becomes a terrorist shortly after the 1993 Bombay riots. The Kashmiri terrorist re-emerged in Mission Kashmir (2000), which presented a trichotomy of Muslims – the patriotic Kashmiri policeman Inayat Khan (Sanjay Dutt), the misguided fundamentalist Altaaf Khan (Hrithik Roshan), and the brutal terrorist Hilal Kohistani (Jackie Shroff). The 1950s loyal Muslim friend trope reappeared in Hey Ram (2000), with Shahrukh Khan playing Amjad Ali Khan.

Video credit: Channel Eros Universe on YouTube

Iqbal (2005) featured a deaf-mute boy as its impoverished protagonist Iqbal (Shreyas Talpade), who aspires to be a cricketer with the help of his drunken coach Mohit (Naseeruddin Shah). Another stupendous sports drama of this decade was Chak De! India (2007), starring Shahrukh Khan as Kabir Khan, an ex-captain of India’s hockey team, who is suspected of deliberately losing a match to Pakistan, ostensibly because he’s Muslim.

At least three big-budget terror-centric films, namely Fanaa (2006), New York (2009), and Kurbaan (2009) can be regarded as trademark products of their time, reflecting, as they did, popular anxieties.

While Fanaa brought the focus back to the Kashmiri insurgent, New York and Kurbaan offered a glimpse into the fallout of Islamophobia in the aftermath of 9/11, including the humiliation and rage among young Muslim men.

My Name is Khan (2010), the story of a man with Asperger’s syndrome named Rizwan (Shahrukh Khan) also exploited the victim-of-American-Islamophobia trope to the hilt.

Hindi Cinema Between 2010-2020

The ascension of the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its poster boy Narendra Modi to power gave impetus to hypernationalism which pervaded Hindi cinema. The films that released in the wake of 2014 throbbed with a new jingoistic energy.

So, period dramas pitted evil Muslims against good Hindus in a string of big-budget films such as Padmaavat (2018), Panipat (2019), Kesari (2019) and Tanhaji (2020), lending xenophobia the gilded touch of history. Likewise, a contemporary film like Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019) gave it fresh urgency.

Even an otherwise fine film like Raazi (2018) sent out a muddled message, underlining how patriotism gnaws away at humanity on the one hand, and extolling jingoism in the end credits on the other. But the decade also saw a few noteworthy films with nuanced characterisations such as Shahid (2013), Haider (2014), Aligarh (2015), Raees (2017), Gali Guleiyan (2017), Jolly LLB 2 (2017), Mulk (2018), and Gully Boy (2019). While the protagonists of Raees and Gali Guleiyan seemed incidentally Muslim, Mulk and Gully Boy made more overt political statements. In Mulk, a Hindu female lawyer is shown putting up a legal fight to get rid of the ‘terrorist’ label foisted on her Muslim husband’s family, while Gully Boy underscored the connection between being poor and Muslim and how the medium of rap could be empowering.

Films like Mulk and Gully Boy were in fact the silver lining in an otherwise increasingly dark celluloid night.

2021-2026: The Last Half Decade in a Nutshell

The early months of 2020 saw orchestrated communal riots in the country’s capital followed by the Modi regime’s minions in mainstream media scapegoating a Tablighi Jamaat gathering for the spread of COVID-19 in India. The same communal poison seeped cinema even as the gloom-and-doom days of lockdown descended upon India.

The Kashmir Files (2022), directed by the apple of the Hindu right’s eye Vivek Agnihotri, depicted the tragic insurrection that tore through the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s solely through the binary of aggressors (read Kashmiri Muslims) and victims (read Kashmiri Hindus). The Kerala Story (2023 & 2026) series wielded one of the Hindu right’s pet whips with which to lash the minority, namely ‘Love Jihad’. Muslim characters in these films were egregious, disingenuous plotters who seemed capable of just two emotions – lust and loathing.

Vivek Agnihotri went on to direct two other crappy, loopholed dramas, ‘The Bengal Files’ (2025) and ‘Udaipur Files’ (2025) which purported to ‘reveal’ the truth about real-life communal events but only turned out to be a hotchpotch of bad acting, gratuitous violence, and inflammatory dialogues. The communal content trope, cloaked in the finery of history, made its reappearance in Samrat Prithviraj (2022) and Chaava (2025).

A better film in this Modi regime-pleasing, hate-spewing universe was Article 370 (2024), a fairly riveting drama about the abrogation of Article 370 in the Kashmir Valley. If propaganda and hate-driven narratives were swirling about with great speed till this point, they reached a crescendo with the so-called espionage thrillers, namely the Dhurandhar films (2025 and 2026). Both parts revelled in their goriness, packing in hours of anti-Pakistan, anti-Muslim, pro-Modi regime narratives slathered many times over with the goop of majoritarianism. Both were blockbuster films, sadly underlining that the audience were being fed what they wanted.

It is pertinent to mention Darlings (2022) a fun film about an abused Muslim housewife who decides to take matters into her own hands. I liked this film because it ‘normalised’ Muslims, showing how problems like alcoholic husbands beating their wives are as common in that community.

Video credit: Channel Netflix India on YouTube

Homebound (2025) presented a refreshingly realistic portrait of the frustrations and helplessness of the contemporary young Indian Muslim. The depiction of everyday micro-aggressions perpetrated against Muslims was masterful in my opinion.

Web Series Taking up the Mantle

Luckily, a few web series have excelled at showing more nuanced portrayals of Muslims. In the social horror Ghoul (2018), a flesh-eating demon in a dystopian future shows the mirror to the minions of a totalitarian regime. Likewise, Leila (2019) explored the horrors of a corrupt, dystopian fascist state that enforced segregation on the basis of caste, class and religion.

Paatal Lok (2020), presented a cornucopia of India’s most pressing social problems including caste violence, the nexus between crime bosses and politicians, and the ubiquitous discrimination faced by Muslims in India. In one scene, when Imran Ansari (Ishwak Singh) is about to appear for his mock IPS interview, a co-examinee tells him he is going to be selected anyway because they need to fulfil the minority quota. This barb, couched in polite well-wishing, drives home one of the most hard-hitting points enunciated in any entertainment medium in recent years – even educated, so-called ‘mainstream Muslims’ are othered in India.

Video credit: Channel Prime Video India on YouTube

Reel & Real are Both Scary at Present

Films are not just a form of art; they are also a profit-driven business. So there is nothing appalling about films capitalising on popular sentiments. After all, producers are more likely to back films they believe will sell.

But the continual production of religion-baiting films, coupled with the stereotyping of Muslims, is worrying. Besides, the fact that many of the most communally divisive dramas in India have received state patronage, with several BJP-ruled states directly promoting and granting these films tax exemptions speaks of the dark times we are living in. It could be the real communal frenzy feeding the reel communal frenzy, or vice-versa, and neither bodes well for the future of India or Indian cinema.

Luckily, we have a precedent to look towards. There are films that chose to be the nation’s conscience and drew attention to the iniquities unfolding around us.

Films like Kissa Kursi Ka (1977) and Aandhi (1975) are shining examples of films that intrepidly took on the government (then the Congress party) at the zenith of its power. The 1950s films, helped by the prevailing Nehruvian secularism, also stepped forward to heal the wounds of Partition and communal riots India was still smarting from.

All hope is not lost. Brave filmmakers should come forward and stop films from becoming mere tools of propaganda. This has now become imperative.

October 13, 2026
Vanishing Treasures of Syncretism in Hindi Cinema: The Magic Known as Urdu

If cinema can be said to mirror the zeitgeist of a society, Urdu’s conspicuous absence from Hindi films is a sad reminder of what we, as a nation, are headed for. This three-part series will delve into the vanishing treasures of syncretism in Hindi cinema, beginning with the loss of language.

Image generated via AI

“Jaan ke badle mei jaan, ye insaaf nahin inteqaam hai!” (One murder in retaliation for another isn’t justice; it is revenge!) As Ashok Kumar uttered these words in a thundering speech in the last scene of the movie Kanoon (1960), I was struck dumb. The profound truth of his words coupled with the eloquence of language lingered in my head long after the credits rolled.

The B.R. Chopra-directed Kanoon is a riveting courtroom drama that raises startling questions about the lacunae in the judicial system. Though the film is in Hindustani – the language nearly all Bollywood films of the era were made in – I couldn’t help but feel that its impassioned dialogues would not have been as effective in another language.

While there isn’t a scintilla of doubt that Hindi cinema has matured and metamorphosed over the decades, it has unfortunately also lost much along the way. Among these things is its portrayal of India’s cherished Hindu-Muslim syncretism through a profusion of Urdu dialogues and lyrics, Muslim characters playing central and important supporting roles, and the creation of a genre – known as the “Muslim Social” – exclusively depicting the Indian Muslim experience.

This article is the first in a three-part series that will explore in detail the loss of the Urdu language, the absence of Muslim characters, and the abandonment of the ‘Muslim Social’ respectively. All three articles will also delve into the socio-political reasons behind the disappearance of these cultural treasures and what that could mean for India as a nation.

Video credit: Channel Jashn-e-Rekhta and Rekhta on YouTube

Credits

For much of the 20th century, the title of almost every Hindi movie was flashed in the opening credits in three languages, namely English, Hindi, & Urdu in that order. This can perhaps be understood as a token acknowledgement of Hindi cinema’s core North-Indian audience, deemed to comprise Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims. It can also be seen as an act of giving credit to the language. Moreover, the order of language while displaying the title suggests that this may have been a way of showing quiet regard for the minority speakers of the language. However, this is no longer the norm. Though the practice hasn’t been abandoned altogether, a film title displayed in the Nasta‘līq script is increasingly becoming a rarity.

Songs & Spoken Words

If one were to make a list of Hindi cinema’s most cherished songs, it would be hard to find one that does not contain a generous smattering of Urdu vocabulary.

Be it eulogising the beauty of the beloved, bemoaning the perfidy of the lover, pondering the futility of worldliness, or articulating patriotic zeal – the Urdu language has covered, with consummate perfection, a whole spectrum of human emotions in Hindi cinema songs.

Even if stripped of melody, these songs would be admirable on account of their sheer lyrical beauty. “Jab Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya” (Mughal-e-Azam, 1960), “Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind Par” (Pyaasa, 1957) “Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein” (Kabhi Kabhi, 1976), and “Tu Shayar Hai, main Teri Shaayari” (Saajan, 1991) are only a few examples.

Some of the best lyricists of earlier decades such as Majrooh Sultanpuri and Sahir Ludhianvi were native speakers and even scholars of the Urdu language. Others, such as Anand Bakshi, demonstrated how Urdu vocabulary could be seamlessly woven into the everyday Hindustani of Hindi cinema.

The continued usage of Urdu by a new generation of non-Urdu speaking lyricists well into the 90s is indicative of the language’s general acceptability among filmmakers and audiences alike. Though lyricists such as Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, and Irshad Kamil continue to weave the magic of Urdu into their songs, the usage is not as pervasive as it once was. The last three decades have witnessed an influx of Punjabi and English words into songs which has further pushed Urdu to the margins.

It is worth remembering that the most iconic dialogues from movies such as Pyaasa (1957), Anand (1971) Sholay (1975), and Deewar (1975), were heavily infused with Urdu words. That these dialogues continue to be replayed through memes and parody is testimony to their enduring quality. The genius of writers Abrar Alvi, K.A. Abbas, the duo Salim Khan, and Javed Akhtar, and Gulzar deserves special mention in this respect.

Film dialogues are well-written nowadays, but they are awash with not just English phrases, but also dialect-related words and intonations. While this has lent authenticity, one does miss the lyrical refinement and cadence of Urdu. Though Urdu words such as Daulat (wealth), Taaqat (strength), Muhabbat (love), Jaan (life), Waqt (time), Wada (promise), and Insan (human) continue to be used in modern films, many in the audience may not think of them as Urdu vocabulary. Urdu’s waning glory in Hindi cinema can also be gauged from the callous approach to pronunciation. No one really cares to stress the last syllable of Haqq (right), or the gurgling sound of “gh” in Kaaghaz (paper) any longer.

Video credit: Channel Being Cinematical on YouTube

The Steady Decline

Urdu – born of the marriage of foreign tongues Persian, Arabic, and Turkish with indigenous ones such as Sanskrit, Braj and Mewati – was nurtured in the imperial capital of Delhi. Though Persian remained the official language of the Mughal Empire till 1857, Urdu was the chosen language of the masses across north India, spoken widely on the streets, in bazars, military camps, and family parlours.

The Partition of British India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947 saw large numbers of Delhi’s Muslims migrate to Pakistan; Muslims had constituted nearly 33% of the city’s population. Millions of Urdu speakers from the United Provinces, Bombay, Hyderabad, and Calcutta continued to migrate in waves after 1947.

According to the Census of India 2011, the percentage of Urdu speakers in India has fallen by about 1.5% since 2001, with the total percentage having plummeted to below 4.2%. Other than Konkani, Urdu is the only language that registered a decline in the number of speakers, despite the Muslim population of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar – areas typically home to native speakers of Urdu – having increased in the same period. This suggests that even native speakers are gradually turning to Hindi, not least due to increased educational and employment opportunities.

Image: Overcrowded refugee train during the Partition of India (1947) by Unknown Author via Wikimedia Commons

Partition and the creation of Pakistan were events that sowed generational hatred across both sides of the border. Unfortunately, Urdu became the biggest casualty of India’s ensuing bitter relations with Pakistan and that of communal politics.

From being labelled a language of Muslims – a communal badge foisted by the British since the late 19^th century – it was tacitly labelled the language of Pakistan. Hindi, the new official language of the Union of India, was carefully purged of Urdu vocabulary, resulting in the emergence of a Sanskritized version.

The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the early 1990s saw the political and cultural climate of North India undergo further changes. With the Hindu supremacist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as its ideological parent, the BJP has been committed to promoting Hindi since the beginning. To the BJP, using Hindi to unify vastly heterogeneous Hindus into a religio-cultural monolith is a core component of its ethnocentric ideology, as evidenced by its famous slogan “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan”. Since 2019, the BJP has tried to impose Hindi through the three-language formula under the National Education Policy. Now tied to the disbursal of central education funds, the clause continues to face considerable backlash from southern states such as Tamil Nadu.

Video credit: Channel Rekhta on YouTube

The Role Cinema can Play

If cinema can be said to mirror the zeitgeist of a society, Urdu’s conspicuous absence from Hindi films is a sad reminder of just what we, as a nation, are headed for. It is noteworthy that outside its cradle, Urdu is thriving with tens of millions of speakers scattered the world over. Clearly, Urdu does not need us.

However, it is we who need Urdu. Urdu isn’t merely a language, but a child of the confluence of civilizations, a symbol of the Indian sub-continent’s shared heritage. While a mere return of Urdu to Indian celluloid may not help revive its fortunes in the country, it could still give it the cultural stimulus it needs.

It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that the collective amnesia with regard to Urdu could mean the loss of a significant chunk from the mosaic of cultures that is India.

October 5, 2026
Podcast Episode: Language, Politics, And Cinema

Pip: Welcome to The Flaneur Diaries podcast, where we follow the bylines so you don't have to get lost alone. Today's episode covers a lot of ground — Kashmir's forgotten castes, satirical startup advice for patriotic entrepreneurs, a 1974 feminist film hiding inside an exploitation poster, and the Arabic hiding inside your everyday Hindustani.
Mara: All of it from nandini sen. The posts range from on-the-ground reportage to literary criticism to linguistics — different registers, same restless curiosity. Let's start with political identity and who gets left out of the big national story.
Kashmir's Forgotten Castes and the Cost of Big Politics
Pip: The abrogation of Article 370 generated enormous debate about conflict and sovereignty, but the piece Fragile, Floating Lives asks a different question entirely — what happens to the communities nobody was arguing about in the first place?
Mara: The post profiles the Watals and Hanjis, marginalized service castes at the base of Kashmir's caste hierarchy. Here is how one resident, Mohd. Shaffi, frames the ceiling on his own mobility: "Though I belong to a family of hereditary fishermen, I work as an ASI and no longer rely on fishing to earn a livelihood. However a Hanji must always remain a Hanji."
Pip: So a government job moves the income but not the address, not the social category, not the ghetto. The upward mobility is real and also strictly bounded.
Mara: And the political situation compounds it. Most residents interviewed expressed neither enthusiasm for Azaadi nor trust in the Indian government. One anonymous source put it plainly: "It is common knowledge that the Indian Government wants Kashmir, not Kashmiris." The post notes that post-abrogation, earlier ambivalence has hardened into deeper distrust.
Pip: The second post in this theme, How to be an Atmanirbhar Deshbhakt, approaches the same government from a very different angle — five satirical startup ideas for self-reliant patriots, including a restaurant that only serves food the ruling party approves of.
Mara: Right, and that piece is doing something structurally similar — it uses absurdist humor to surface real data, like youth unemployment reaching 16.2 percent in June 2026 according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey. The satire is the delivery mechanism for the statistic, not a substitute for it.
Pip: The Hanji fisherman and the pakora-seller are not so far apart, which may be the point.
Mara: From political identity, the writing itself is worth a look.
Writing on Instinct, Not Audience
Pip: The short post I Don't Tailor My Writing to Popular Tastes is almost a manifesto — it answers the question of how to write what people want to read by declining the premise entirely.
Mara: The answer is direct: "I write what I think I should write about, what others should know about because it's funny, or serious, or simply interesting to find out. I write stuff that would have fascinated me, if I were the reader. Most of all, I write what appears as a seed in my head and asks to be watered and looked after."
Pip: Instinct as method. No audience research, no optimization — just tend the idea until it becomes an article.
Mara: And the honesty in the follow-up matters. The post doesn't dress this up as a philosophy. It immediately adds, "I hope I don't sound cocky. I really do wish I knew more about what people actually want to read." That combination of conviction and genuine uncertainty is what makes it land.
Pip: Which is also, incidentally, a fair description of the Fragile, Floating Lives approach — go to the place, talk to the people, write what you find.
Mara: From how the writing works to what it looks at — a 1974 film that still reads as current.
A 1974 Feminist Film That Still Lands
Pip: The Working Girls gets the full critical treatment — a 1974 American indie exploitation film that turns out to be a precise portrait of young women hustling through economic precarity.
Mara: The post frames the film's opening scene as the thesis statement. Honey, unable to pay for a meal, offers to help the restaurant manager with work. He leeringly suggests another form of payment. Her response: she begins stripping immediately, right there, until he panics and throws her out. The post reads this as Honey transferring "the stigma of offering sex to the man who demands sex."
Pip: One gesture that reverses the entire power dynamic. Fifty years old and still a clean move.
Mara: The post traces director Stephanie Rothman's career — mentored by Roger Corman, made several cult films, then found the industry simply would not meet with her. Producers, the post notes, "didn't want to see a woman wield that kind of power." The film's feminist architecture and its maker's fate are the same argument.
Pip: And the post makes the case for cross-cultural relevance — scenes about landlord rules, unmarried women as social threats, and a boyfriend who thinks hitting a partner is acceptable all translate directly to a 2026 Indian context.
Mara: From cinema to the language that runs underneath all of it.
The Arabic Hiding in Everyday Hindustani
Pip: The linguistics post Arabic Elements in Hindustani starts with a simple observation — why do so many Hindustani words sound alike — and then answers it with a full structural explanation.
Mara: The answer is Arabic verbal noun patterns. The post explains: "Most of these are really verbal nouns of derived trilateral verbs in Arabic, meaning verbs formed by adding one or more letters to the basic verb, to form another verb with a different meaning." That shared skeleton is why Imtehaan, Intezaar, and Iraada all rhyme.
Pip: So the resemblance is not coincidence — it is grammar. The words were built from the same molds.
Mara: The post catalogs four categories beyond verbal nouns: Arabic plurals, active participles, passive participles, and everyday vocabulary. Words like Kitaab, Kursi, Aadmi, Waqt — the post points out that most speakers use at least a dozen of these daily without registering them as Arabic at all.
Pip: The political implication is left implicit but is hard to miss — the language that right-wing nationalism treats as foreign infrastructure is load-bearing.
Mara: The post closes by invoking Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb, the syncretic culture of northern India, and asks a practical question: "How far can you purify the language you speak?" Mixing, it argues, is not contamination. It is how languages survive.
Pip: Which rhymes with everything else in this episode — identity, instinct, cinema, grammar. All of it is about what you carry without knowing it.
Mara: Kashmir's service castes, a satirical jobs guide, a 1974 film, and the Arabic in your Hindustani — the thread is the same: what gets overlooked when the bigger story takes all the room.
Pip: Next time, we'll see what else theflaneurdiaries.com has been quietly tending. More seeds, presumably.

September 24, 2026
The Working Girls: An Underrated Gem of Feminist Cinema Packaged in Sleaze

Despite the film’s poster and trailer portraying it as a sleaze fest, The Working Girls deserves to be watched because it addresses the quotidian anxieties that can evoke a sense of déjà vu even in the second quarter of the 21st century.

Photo credit: Via Wikipedia / Promotional poster © Dimension Pictures. Used under Fair Use.

In the opening scene of The Working Girls, an American indie film released in 1974, Honey (Sarah Kennedy) walks into a barbecue restaurant and orders a rib dinner. After finishing, she goes up to the manager’s counter and politely confesses that she does not have the money to pay him for the dinner. She promptly offers to compensate him in another way; she could help him out at work, she suggests. The manager says he doesn’t need any help and, instead, leeringly suggests she could pay him back in ‘another way’. ‘Oh yeah, there’s that,’ she scowls. When the man asks her to wait till he closes his restaurant, she tells him she can’t, and to his utter consternation, begins stripping right then and there. Flummoxed and embarrassed, he stops her and throws her out of his eatery. Thus in one swift action, Honey transfers the stigma of offering sex to the man who demands sex.

With a blues-themed harmonica playing in the background, the very first scene establishes the tone of the film to follow — melancholic in a lighthearted way but also scathing in its social commentary on the ubiquity of lewd men and predicament of young women.

Every Working Girl Has a Story

Widely described as an exploitation film — a genre of sensational, low-budget films that flourished in the 1960s and 70s and featured gratuitous nudity, sexual situations, gore, mayhem, and violence — The Working Girls was pioneering indie filmmaker Stephanie Rothman’s last film. Despite the film’s poster and trailer portraying it as a sleaze fest, it rests on anything but titillation. Indeed, it’s a remarkable portrait of three young women grappling with the hardships of migrant, urban living — unemployment, lack of money, avaricious landlords, untrustworthy boyfriends, and lascivious men.

Video Credit: Channel Grindbin Podcast on Youtube

Protagonists of The Working Girls, Honey, an unemployed pragmatist with a Math degree; Denise (Laurie Rose), a kind-hearted poster artist, and Jill (Lynne Guthrie), a part-time waitress and stripper studying to be a lawyer, are hardly sirens who are out to seduce and fleece men as the poster’s salacious innuendo-filled tagline ‘They’ll do anything for money!’ would seem to suggest. In fact, each has a high sense of self-respect and finds herself in less-than-favourable situations precisely because she won’t do anything for money.

Honey, given shelter by Denise in the little apartment she shares with Jill and Roger, a nude model, puts an ad for a job in the newspaper. After Honey arranges for the arrest of a lady who hires her to kill her husband, she gets noticed by eccentric businessman Vernon (Solomon Sturges), who hires Honey to work for him. Much to Honey’s dismay though, she is paid to do nothing except listen to Vernon. When she begins offering him some sound business advice, Vernon is dismissive and condescending, betraying his entrenched male chauvinism. It is this advice in the end that makes Vernon, albeit belatedly, realise Honey’s value. Honey subsequently comes of her own and gets a chance to act on her magnanimous nature.

Then there’s Denise, a talented poster and sign artist who decides to shelter Honey despite the latter being completely penniless. Denise makes beautiful paintings, including male nudes, when she’s not wielding her paintbrush on street corners and billboards. While there is an initial tiff between Honey and Denise because Denise begins dating Mike (Ken Del Conte), a busker, brought home by Honey, there is genuine affection between the two. In fact, one of the film’s underlying themes can well be said to be the female camaraderie between Honey and Denise.

Finally, there’s Jill who steadfastly sticks to her goal of becoming a lawyer, paying for her studies through her work as a waitress, and later stripper, at Sidney’s (Gene Elman) The Tiger’s Tail strip club. She begins a relationship with Nick (Mark Thomas), a suave local gangster who collects protection money from Sidney, and reveals his misogyny early in the film when he warns Sidney that Jill is not the stripper type because ‘she’s too smart’. When Sidney gives Jill the responsibility of managing the club in his absence, she does it so efficiently that he permanently elevates her to the position of manager.

The Backdrop

In October 1973, Arab members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) imposed an oil embargo against the United States in retaliation for the U.S. decision to resupply the Israeli military with ammunition during the Yom Kippur War. The resulting oil shock exacerbated an economic downturn, contributing to the stagflation, soaring unemployment, and skyrocketing prices that characterised the period. By the time the recession ended in March 1975, annual inflation had exceeded 10 percent, and unemployment had reached nearly nine percent.

It is against this backdrop that The Working Girls unfolds. The film captures the era’s zeitgeist through the white, working-class protagonists themselves. Honey’s ad in the newspaper says she is willing to do any sort of work, while Jill transitions from waitress to stripper primarily to earn more. Even Denise barely scrapes through and is unable to put her artistic talents to good use. Each is essentially a gig worker hustling to make ends meet. Even the boyfriends are shady. Mike the busker turns out to be a petty thug and Nick unashamedly pursues a life of crime.

The Filmmaker

In a bitter twist of irony, the woman who made this deeply feminist film encountered insurmountable misogyny which abruptly stalled her potentially brilliant career.

The film director, Stephanie Rothman in 2024.

Photo credit: Via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0

Mentored by Roger Corman, King of the B-movies, early in her career, Rothman made several ostensibly pulp movies that have since become cult classics. Apart from The Working Girls, these include The Student Nurses (1970), The Velvet Vampire (1971), and Terminal Island (1973). While other young directors who cut their teeth with Corman went on to make movie history — Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Kaplan, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola and James Cameron among others — Rothman’s career came to a sudden halt.

After The Working Girls, Rothman tried to scramble out of the exploitation genre, but failed. In various interviews, Rothman has openly lamented that she was stigmatised by the films she had made and that no-one would give her the chance to make more ambitious films even though she had the skills. Despite having the assistance of good agents, the overwhelmingly male producers of the time would not even agree to meet her because she was a woman and they didn’t want to see a woman wield that kind of power. Finally, after nearly a decade of struggle, she gave up, bringing an end to what could have been an illustrious career.

In a 2016 interview with Interview, Rothman was asked how she felt watching a film like The Student Nurses again. Her reply was poignant. ‘Well, it’s like visiting an old friend. I feel a mixture of, how shall I put it? Satisfaction and regret. Regret that I couldn’t have made more films.’

Why It’s Still Relevant

As a quintessentially feminist film centred on themes such as the agency of women, The Working Girls is suffused with a measure of universalism.

Honey, Denise and Jill are all strong women who, despite being in dire straits, refuse to be exploited. They are not ashamed of their sexuality. Honey takes an instant liking to Mike and has no qualms about inviting him home for sex. Likewise, Denise and Mike are quickly attracted to one another. When Honey storms out of Denise’s flat in a fit of rage on being told that Denise and Mike are now in love, Denise is genuinely concerned, seeks her out on the beach with Mike, and brings her back home. Jill is ambitious and headstrong, but also carries her own contradictions. That she thinks ‘there’s no justice’ in being paid so much money for stripping for a few minutes a night, but agrees to do it nevertheless, reveals the dichotomy.

In a humorous scene, Jill asks Katya (Cassandra Peterson), the club’s head stripper, how she can stand all those lecherous men looking at her body. She tells Jill she has a ‘secret weapon’ — she imagines the audience with no clothes on. Armed with this one trick, Jill finds it much easier to perform her first stripping act, successfully putting an inverse spin on the idea of an erotic performer being an ‘object’ without sentience.

But writing from an Indian perspective — having never lived in the West — I found the film to hold extraordinary relevance in 2026, divided by time and place while we may be.

The early scene in which Honey listens to Denise explain the numerous rules for tenants renting the flat she is painting a signboard for — first and last month’s rent to be paid in advance, no pets, no objects on the walls, no loud music, and so on — will at once resonate with younger millennials and Gen-Z youngsters who are living in metropolises, away from their hometowns.

Later in the film, Denise tells Honey they are being kicked out by the landlord as he wishes to sell his building and doesn’t want Denise to manage it anymore because ‘he thinks the way we live will scare off the buyers.’ This scene will easily find a cultural equivalent in our country where independent, unmarried women are seen as a threat to our ‘sanskar’ (moral values).

The quarrel between Jill and Nick towards the end of the film could well have taken place between a young Indian couple. Jill wants to break up with Nick, but Nick doesn’t wish to let her go. He wrenches her arm and menacingly tells her, ‘What are you so pissed off about? Because I hit you? Some women like that.’ Jill promptly lands a resounding slap across Nick’s cheek and tells him, ‘So do some men!’

If marriage to a wealthy man is what young women are expected to aspire to, Jill flatly declines Nick’s proposal to marry her — not least because she thinks he is a crook and won’t turn over a new leaf. I am sure Jill would have many young women cheering for her.

Don’t Judge By Its Cover…

I am not recommending you watch The Working Girls because it is intellectual or spreads ideas of class revolution or political insurrection. It makes no such pretensions. Indeed, it has its fair share of fun and fluff. I think this film deserves to be watched because, notwithstanding its lurid, grindhouse film exterior, it addresses the quotidian anxieties that can evoke a sense of déjà vu even in the second quarter of the 21st century.

While mainstream Hollywood was churning out blockbusters like Blazing Saddles, The Towering Inferno and Earthquake that deflected attention from the economic uncertainty bedevilling ordinary people, a small film like The Working Girls, without making an overt political statement, presented a realistic portrayal of young people struggling for a better life.

Above all, it wasn’t another example of bread and circuses coming from Hollywood. It promised no escape; it offered no great spectacle. And precisely that’s why, perhaps, it needs to be watched.

The Working Girls is currently streaming on Mubi.

September 18, 2026
Fragile, Floating Lives
The abrogation of Article 370 generated several narratives, most of them focused on how the move would exacerbate or end the three-decade old conflict in the Kashmir Valley. Unsurprisingly, the Watals and Hanjis – historically marginalized social groups of Kashmir – found little space in this discourse.

Akin to the Dalits of mainland India, the Watals are an endogamous social group in Kashmir associated with ‘polluting’ jobs such as skinning animals, scavenging, and sweeping. Mentioned in the 19th century travel book ‘The Valley of Kashmir’ written by Englishman Sir Walter Roper Lawrence, the Watals point to the Valley’s entrenched caste system – a taboo subject most Kashmiris refrain from discussing.

The most powerful vindication of the existence of a caste pyramid in Kashmir comes from Kashmiri sociologist (late) Bashir Ahmed Dabla. In his book titled Directory of Caste in Kashmir, Dabla classified Kashmiri castes into three different groups. At the top are the ‘Syed castes’ – Geelani, Andrabi, Qadri, and Bukhari. Below them are ‘occupational castes’ which include surnames like Wani, Bhat, Lone, and Khandey. At the bottom of the caste hierarchy are ‘service castes’ such as the Hanjis (those who dwell on water bodies), Bangi, or Sheikh. People belonging to this category are generally landless; their ancestral occupations are considered menial and polluting.

Like the Sheikh community, Hanjis are a marginalized ‘service caste’ at the bottom of the Valley’s caste pyramid. Largely confined to the Jhelum River and Dal, Anchar, Manasbal, and Wular Lakes, Hanjis can be divided into several categories on the basis of economic activity:
- Demb Hanz (vegetable growers)
- Gad Hanz (fishermen)
- Gari Hanz (water chestnut gatherers)
- Hak Hanz (gatherers of wood from water bodies)
- Dung Hanz (those who ferry passengers by paddling their boats)
- Shikare Hanz (those who ply Shikara boats)
Interestingly, Hanjis on the Dal Lake live in colonies segregated on the basis of occupation. So, there is a fishermen’s colony, a Shikara-wallahs’ colony, a vegetable growers’ colony, and so on.

(Above): Fishermen’s Colony on Dal Lake

At the fishermen’s colony – a huddle of tin and tarpaulin hovels – I met Mohd. Shaffi, an interesting case in point of the limited upward mobility the Gad Hanz could acquire through government jobs. He says, “Though I belong to a family of hereditary fishermen, I work as an ASI (Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police) and no longer rely on fishing to earn a livelihood. However a Hanji must always remain a Hanji. I am getting a pucca house constructed, but it still must be located in this nondescript ghetto of fishermen.”

I also met Mohd. Shaffi’s neighbour, 70-year old Haji Ghulam Mohd and his much younger Bengali wife Rasheeda. From Mohd. Shaffi, I learnt that ‘purchasing’ Bengali brides is a common practice among men of the community, especially those disabled, past their prime, or too poor to pay a hefty mehr – a prerequisite for a suitable bride in the Valley.

(Above): 70-year-old Haji Ghulam Mohd and his much-younger Bengali wife

Discrimination against Hanjis is largely directed against the poorer communities – the Demb Hanz, Gari Hanz, and most of all, the Gad Hanz. “The Gad Hanz custom of women stepping out of home to sell fish caught by their menfolk was considered an abhorrent practice; a deviation from the norm. The men were regarded as spineless, dependent on women’s earnings” says Dr. Fayyaz Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Kashmir. In recent years, Hanjis have faced further stigmatization. In 2002, Hanjis came under legal scrutiny when a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed by a local law student over the conservation of Dal Lake. Since then, the High Court has passed several orders to check the lake’s deteriorating condition, and to monitor the lives of Dal residents.

“Overfishing, pollution caused by floating vegetable gardens of the Demb Hanz, and encroachment by Hanjis are widely held as reasons for the Dal’s decline by the government and environmentalists. Though there is some truth to this argument, poor families facing arbitrary evictions and threats to their livelihoods due to anti-encroachment drives are unfortunate. Hanjis have also been known to take care of the lake and indeed, all of Kashmir’s water bodies they call home. Besides, floating vegetable gardens and shikaras – symbols of the Hanji way of life – are an inextricable part of the Dal’s heritage” says Dr. Fayyaz.

(Above): Demb Hanz Colony on the banks of Dal Lake

Significantly, official narratives avoid mentioning systemic and political factors responsible for the ruin of Dal Lake, namely the city’s unplanned urbanization, and increasing militarization, leading to closing of water inflow channels, and construction of permanent military bunkers along Dal’s shores. Instead of involving Hanji community members to find solutions, authorities have merely attempted to criminalize them as encroachers. This not only robs them of their material and symbolic identities, but perpetuates their mistreatment as a socially inferior group.

Azaadi & the Revocation of Article 370

For the last three decades, the Kashmir conflict has maintained a vice-like grip over all facets of life. Consequently, the lives of Kashmiris, including the Hanjis have become entwined with the political turmoil.

Among the persons I interviewed prior to the scrapping of Article 370, I neither encountered an aspiration for Azaadi, nor unequivocal support for India. Most of the Hanjis I met – Shikara-wallahs, fishermen, vegetable growers – were fed up with frequent disturbances and saw themselves as victims of a bad situation.

However, notwithstanding some anger and disappointment, there isn’t a total disconnect with the movement. “Kashmir is a conflict zone and involvement in the Azaadi movement is not a facile phenomenon. It’s not black or white” explains Masood Hussain, senior journalist and founder-editor of Kashmir Life magazine. “There are degrees of involvement. For instance, observing a shutdown when a call is given by the separatists and respect for martyred militants may be interpreted as implicit support for the movement. Moreover, when there is a crackdown, the police and army do not spare them either.”

Likewise, Dr. Fayyaz says, “The community is not a homogenous one. There are participants and non-participants. Besides, peer pressure ensures there is a measure of respect for the separatist movement.”

Both Dr. Fayyaz and Masood Hussain bluntly refuted the possibility of total isolation. The Hanji community had produced famous militants such as Pupa Dar, Jalaluddin Navoo, Bashir Dar, and Zahoor Dar. Dr. Fayyaz says, “The Haritar Tarzoo area of Baramullah is dominated by Hanji fishermen. This area was notorious for militancy until recently. Interestingly, native residents would lend active support to militants, particularly foreign militants. Well-acquainted with the lakes and rivers of the area and adept at rowing boats, these people would help militants escape through water routes.”

However, there seems to have been a shift since the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories (UT) followed by an unprecedented lockdown (which was followed by another interminable COVID-19-induced lockdown). The former ambivalence mixed with a desire for peace has metamorphosed into a deep distrust of the Indian government and a feeling of foreboding with regard to Kashmir’s future.

Shams Irfan, Kashmir-based independent journalist, echoes this sentiment, “Kashmir is being ruled by the centre. There is hardly any understanding of local issues. Besides, being a government with no accountability, there is no desire to reach out to these marginalized sections or analyse their problems. Their situation is only set to worsen under this regime.”

Significantly, reservation extended to Watals and Hanjis under OSC (Other Social Castes) category has been increased under the UT administration’s new rules.

“Under S.O 127 notified on 20 April 2020, reservation for OSCs in government jobs has been increased from 2 percent to 4 percent. For Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), it is now 10 percent; it was zero percent earlier. Persons from the Sheikh and Hanji community may also avail of this category. These groups are not aware of the rules. The government is doing all it can to uplift underprivileged sections of J&K” says Khurshid Ahmed Sanai (K.A.S), Additional Secretary of the Social Welfare Department.

Ironically, the EWS category may do more harm than help. Dr. Fayyaz says, “With domicile certificates being given to anyone who has resided in the UT for 15 years, the EWS category will throw open the doors to outsiders availing government jobs under this ten percent quota. Since Sheikhs and Hanjis may also avail themselves of this quota, they will face more competition, and tougher times ahead. Moreover, there is a general perception that land prices will skyrocket in the years to come. This may further curtail their limited access to land resources. Future generations of these marginalized castes may be rendered homeless.”

Two successive lockdowns lasting more than a year and the resultant economic havoc have plunged Kashmiris into unprecedented hopelessness and despair. In a new Kashmir fraught with collective anxiety over loss of control over land, burgeoning unemployment, and occupation by non-Kashmiris, these subaltern communities are the last priority, leading to their further invisiblization. Abandoned and forgotten by anti-India factions and the Indian government alike, these peripheral communities are a potent symbol of the deep fault lines in Kashmiri society. That Kashmir’s most revered separatist leaders (who are all at the top of the unsaid caste hierarchy) failed to eliminate these divisions alludes to the exclusionist nature of the Azaadi movement. Simultaneously, their economic plight speaks of the mendacity of successive pro-India governments, and indeed the Indian Government – especially the incumbent one that professes Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas – itself.

Zahoor Ahmed, a resident of the Demb Hanz colony aptly articulated the unspeakable alienation, disenchantment and world-weary pessimism of Kashmiris in general, and marginalized communities in particular, “Kashmir waise bhi khatam hai. Ab China ke saath jung ho, ya Pakistan ke saath jung ho to hi accha hai. Bomb girayenge, bacha kucha Kashmir bhi khatam kar de to hum Kashmiriyon ki jaan choote.” (Kashmir is doomed anyway. It is better if there is war with China or with Pakistan. Let them drop bombs and finish off Kashmir altogether. That way, we Kashmiris will be spared further horrors.)

(Above): A sunken houseboat in Dal Lake

NOTE FOR THE READER: This article was written in the autumn of 2020. All interviews and meetings with the persons mentioned took place in April 2019. To know more about the Watals/Sheikh community, read my article published in The Quint.
September 13, 2026