Why wasn’t Sarfarosh a propaganda movie?
Naseeruddin Shah, a darling of the Indian left-liberal, played the role of a Pakistani Ghazal singer, Gulfam Hassan, in John Matthew Matthan’s 1999 movie Sarfarosh where Aamir Khan essayed the role of ACP Ajay Singh Rathod. Naseeruddin Shah has openly advocated the need of artists being sensitive while selecting the ‘propaganda’ movie.
Of course in 1999, he was younger and might not have had a very good understanding of the world. The movie was released in April 1999, a month when Atal Bihari Vajpayee led government fell down paving the way for the next elections. But, what was more important was the plot of this movie, Sarfarosh.
In the movie – Gulfam Hassan, a Pakistani singer, was basically working for the ISI, Pakistani intelligence agency, to supply arms to insurgents in India – which included tribals and leftist groups. The interesting part was – in April 1998, a year before the release of Sarfarosh, Shiv Sena and other groups stopped a concert of Ghulam Ali, a Pakistani ghazal singer in Mumbai. The movie actually syncs with the sentiments of Shiv Sena that Pakistani artists performing in India could be spies or agents. The similarity in the names – Ghulam & Gulfam were no coincidence as Naseruddin’s character was also a ghazal singer.
Maidul Islam notes, “First, the film names Pakistan to be an enemy involved in cross-border terrorism. No other film had named Pakistan before. Ever since [then], Pakistan is now named in many commercial films,…… Second, the protagonist, a police officer, Aamir Khan, mouths the dialogue that he does not need any Salim to defend his house. A former Prime Minister of India is reported to have said in an election campaign that his party does not need the vote of Muslims……. Sarfarosh went a step further and in a chillingly sinister move casts the Ghazal singer from Pakistan as the undercover terrorist.… A whole arsenal of unexamined prepositions is bruited about without any self-consciousness or skepticism. Islam means Jihad, Muslim means terrorist; film after film hammers it down heavily till it seems the only truth possible. The possibility of any sympathetic understanding is simply ruled out by the point-of-view convention. The spectator is unwittingly made subliminal conquistadores who share the overheated perspective of the filmmaker.”
Of course, Sarfarosh cannot be a propaganda movie since Naseeruddin Shah had played the role of Gulfam Hassan.
