Conformity as a Norm: Media Research and Implications of the Left’s Control over Academia
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“Free enquiry” is a prerequisite and the central theme of any academic pursuit. It is, in fact, a prerequisite for intellectual progress. Free enquiry is the keystone of intellectual freedom. But importantly, intellectual freedom is based on the central premise that the truth is not given and academic inquiry and intellectual methods are directed towards the pursuit of knowledge that could help us understand the dimensions of what could be true. There may be hypotheses, but these can be modified as per the thorough study and observations. Intellectual freedom can thrive if there is space for everyone to err and modify. This is precisely what is at stake in the number of academic institutions today, where intellectual study is guided by predetermined notions and observations are tailored to suit the conclusions convenient to these notions. Most critically, all this is done under the noble garb of critical thinking and challenging the existing power structures. Unsurprisingly, this trend is prominent in the academic spaces dominated by the Left.
Under the guise of “critical thinking” and “challenging the structures of power,” what is sought is intellectual conformity driven by a narrow ideological orthodoxy inspired by the tenets of Marxism. Pattern is well established – the observations or conclusions are pre-determined; these predetermined conclusions are derived from a theory — the theory is a ‘scientific-theory’ – indeed, the scientific theory in social science; this theory, of course, is Marxism or its evolving avatars with different names (collectively referred in this essay as Left). But then, Marxism is not just a theory; these left intellectuals would have us believe that it is a worldview to look, analyse, critique society, and provide “emancipatory solutions”. Marxism then subtly morphs into being an emancipatory ideology from just a theory or philosophy.
This emancipatory ideology has a monopoly over truth, and it is irrefutable and infallible. Consequently, social reality as explained through this ideology must then be true. The intellectuals within the ideology then take it on themselves to spread this truth through academics. These ideological evangelists start interpreting all the social and political phenomena through the “prism” of the ideology, thereby reducing the social and intellectual spaces into an ideological battleground. The focus here is not so much on “understanding reality” as much as on “deconstructing” the reality to suit a narrow and divisive ideological program, all under the convenient garb of bringing a positive change in society.
And this pattern has penetrated deep into academia with no intellectual or academic discipline remaining untouched by it. Newer disciplines and curricula are being designed every day, where understanding and studying the subject matter is secondary to seeking some sort of conformity and ideological validation to a convenient political program. The advent of Culture Studies is just one example of this trend, where studying culture is a convenient excuse used to ‘deconstruct’ the cultures, supposedly the realm of superstructure in the conventional Marxist school of thought, arguably to explain them through the framework of class struggle and exploitation. The implications of such an approach are twofold: one, it results in reductionist explanations of reality, and two, it opens itself to misappropriation of the social phenomenon to suit the ideologically predetermined conclusions. This trend is prominently visible in the way courses are structured, taught, and the way evaluations are designed. The subject matter of this essay comes from one such experience during a project evaluation of a student. The student was presenting on the topic of “Cultural Appropriation”.
The central theme of the presentation was an apparently pervasive trend of stereotyping Muslims as terrorists or villains, visible in the films of “recent times”. The central argument of the study was that this peculiar depiction reflected the changed political realities in the country, implying a center-right government in Delhi with one of its ideological agendas as Hindutva. Hindutva, being an exclusionary idea, according to the author, inevitably results in wilfully “othering” the Muslims. This political idea, tied along with the market forces driven by profit, is influencing filmmakers to co-opt these political realities into movies. This is how the “power structure” is exerting its influence on popular cinema, and which explains the “increased” stereotyping of Muslims in movies of recent times, the student concluded.
The chain of thought, obviously not making much sense, was thought too difficult to discard. After having quizzed the student further, in terms of how a supposedly autonomous, diverse, and vague space like “films” can explain this form of “cultural appropriation,” assuming that it indeed was cultural appropriation. If one were clever enough to pick on convenient case studies of movies, one could go on and prove almost any argument — that is the level of diversity in the Indian film industry. How can anyone possibly reduce an extremely heterogeneous, diverse, and complex industry to suit one conclusion?
In response to the question, the student directed us to a host of “scholarly” literature around the same theme, which supposedly studies this very phenomenon. It should not come as a surprise, there indeed was a host of “scholarly” publications that discuss this very phenomenon — the underlying premise being that films, being a popular medium, are heavily conditioned by the existing power structures, and consequently this popular medium serves the purpose of the “ruling elites”. This goes to show, the researcher concluded, how popular media and films serve the interests of the ruling class and the market forces.
The entire study was certainly guided by a set of predetermined conclusions. Curious to see how the published scholarly works justify such absurdity, I started checking some of the published works in journals, books, and magazines. Take, for instance, this polemical piece by Pranav Dhavan[i] (Taking this as reference since this was shared by a researcher to explain and prove how stereotyping is subtly practiced). The author here emphatically asserts that, “with the Hindu right wing’s growing hegemony over political and institutional power, these cinematic representations add to a vitriolic atmosphere wherein Muslims are demonized and brutalized,” almost with a direct insinuation that the political elite is exerting a wilful influence on films to serve its ideological agendas. But this in itself does not serve the ideological purpose, as the rise of Hindutva must be contextualized in the supposed takeover of bourgeois capitalists’ forces to bring about a tacit coalition of the bourgeois and the Hindu right. To get to that, the author constructs a rather irrelevant temporal breakup for movies of pre- and post-liberalization while arguing that the vice of othering Muslims is indeed a post-liberalization phenomenon.
The author argues that “During this pre-liberalisation period, Bollywood was used to further the constitutional values of liberal democracy, (Nehruvian) secularism and inclusiveness,” but post-liberalization, the trend is fast deteriorating at the expense of these plural and secular values. To substantiate this claim, the author refers to Maidul Islam’s “scholarly” works on the representation of Indian Muslims in Bollywood. We will come to some of these “scholarly” works of Maidul Islam later in this essay, but one would assume that the author would bring to light at least some relevant data to substantiate powerful claims and arguments made in this polemical essay. There is none. Instead, the author compiles an arbitrary set of data to buttress preconceived notions: “If one considers the top 12 Bollywood movies that crossed the Rs.300-crore mark in box office collections, except Sultan (rank 5, released in 2016 with a Rs.584 crore collection) and 3 Idiots (rank 8, released in 2009 with a Rs.392 crore collection), the other 10 films did not have a single Muslim protagonist based in India”. The author further adds that “The films with the third- and fourth-highest box office collections, PK (released in 2014 with a Rs.735.42 crore collection) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (released in 2015 with a Rs.604.23 crore collection) do not show any prominent Muslim character as an Indian citizen, although the first half of Bajrangi Bhaijaan is set in Chandni Chowk, a religiously diverse locality in Delhi” and comes up with the conclusion that this set of “data” proves the communal bias against Muslims in the Bollywood.
First, this set of information does not add up to anything. Arbitrarily taking 12 Bollywood movies and identifying whether the “protagonist” in them was a Muslim or not is a rather convenient way of arguing a case for bias against Muslims. Not having a “protagonist” may be based on multiple factors, like the specific need of the story and the context, the script, and even the core premise of the plot. For instance, Dangal, which was one of the major hits during the time considered by the author, would not have a Muslim protagonist simply because the story, which is inspired by real life, does not require it to be that way. But what happens if one were to flip the logic and see who were the main antagonists in some of these movies — they certainly were not Muslims — would the same argument hold? But such is the logic that gets celebrated as scholarly works.
Coming to more of such “scholarly” works that use the same “logic,” let us look, for instance, at Maidul Islam’s book Indian Muslim(s) after Liberalization[ii]. In the book, a chapter is dedicated to studying how Indian Muslims are imagined in the post-liberalization Hindi cinema. The chapter seems to revolve around two basic premises — one, there is a lamentable lack of Muslim protagonists in the Hindi films, which, according to the author, is a starkly “post-liberalization” phenomenon. Wherever characters do exist, the author argues, they are “supporting” ones and they reinforce certain strongly held prejudices about Muslims. Second, arguably more ludicrous but equally concerning, is the claim that Hindi films in the post-liberalization era have engaged in large-scale misrepresentation of Muslims, painting them as terrorists, gangsters, or anti-nationals. This, the author argues, is a function of the changed national political dynamics in favor of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), supposedly a “Hindutva” party. Let us examine the second premise, which the author emphasizes more and also forms the theme of this essay.
Maidul Islam argues that with the rise of Hindutva politics coupled with a market-led economy, filmmakers are seen to be adopting narratives that misrepresent Muslims in India. To substantiate his position, the author studies two movies that were released in the 1990s. He writes, “…with the misrepresentation and stereotypical image constructions of Indian Muslims, it is vital to analyse two hit films of the late 1990s, when there was a noticeable rise of Hindutva politics in the country. One of these is J.P. Dutta’s Border (1997) and the other is John Mathew Mathan’s Sarfarosh (1999). These two films can be classified within the genre of systemic films wherein the film portrays a system (equated with the nation) that can be justified on the basis of a perceived threat from outside the system.” He further adds, “The treatment of the above-mentioned theme in the two films seems to indicate that the solutions to the problems arising out of the adoption of the neoliberal dispensation inside the system are only in fighting off the external and alien forces, which are depicted as enemies of the system.”
This is a classic case of how one assertion is used to prove another assertion. Simply put, what Maidul Islam is arguing is that movies like Sarfarosh or Border are justifying the actions of the “Indian nation” based on a “perceived” outside threat, and that the neoliberal dispensation is using this “perceived outside threat” as an excuse to cover up the problem arising out its economic behavior. To understand the reductionist logic in this argument is not a difficult task. The author here first asserts that the threat is only a “perceived” threat, and this perception is used to gloss over the internal problems of the neoliberal economic framework. But since this is an insufficient reason for the political program of the neoliberals, they tied up with Hindutva elements to take over the political space. To substantiate this circular reasoning, the author conjures up an artificial othering of Muslims in India as a real Hindutva political program. There are multiple inaccuracies in the logic that can be demolished with a simple truth.
First, the threat captured in both movies is not a perceived one, but a real one. This is easier to prove in the case of Border, because the movie is based on the actual war between India and Pakistan. The movie dramatically depicts Pakistani aggression and the Indian response during the “Battle of Longewala” in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. How an actual war can be dubbed as a perceived threat beats the logic entirely. Second, the war depicted in the movie was fought during the “socialist” era of Indira Gandhi, who was the Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977. To characterize that war episode as an example of “perceived threats” showcased by the popular media to cover up neoliberal problems is a self-defeating argument.
Moving next to the author’s analysis of the movie Sarfarosh, which deals with the story of an IPS officer tracking an elaborate network of crime, drugs, and violence, which eventually is discovered as aided and abetted by the Pakistani deep state through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Again, this is not a perceived threat as the author claims. That the state of Pakistan is engaged in a divisive proxy war against India is a well-established fact corroborated by multiple pieces of evidence over the past decades[iii]. Pakistan has routinely used a network of organisations and individuals, including individuals in India, to wage a proxy war against India. The movie simply plugs this fact into a fictional narrative suitable for the movie. In the process, the movie does depict some Indian Muslims working in an elaborate and sophisticated network supported by Pakistan.
But Maidul Islam concludes that “… evidently, this film problematically questions the patriotism of Indian Muslims.” A movie plot, based on the known activities of Pakistan’s ISI, is characterized by Islam as a deliberate ploy of the Hindutva-market axis to depict Indian Muslims as terrorists. Islam further opines that movies like Sarfarosh “…effectively did the ideological work of re-affirming the nation while demonizing the Muslim ‘other’ with relentless ferocity.”[iv] These observations are justified through flimsy logic and cherry picking of instances from the movie. The pattern is common with other so-called “eminent scholars” as well.
Sudhanva Deshpande, another “eminent intellectual” of the same ilk, argues with the same logic, and using the same movie examples, claiming that “Profit-making is the only logic that seems to underpin the Mumbai film industry, and it appears that there is profit in communalism”. Yet another such intellectual, Nadira Khatoon, in her paper studies almost the same set of movies to come up with the bizarre conclusion that post 90s (read as post-liberalization) Muslim representation in the movies results in the “othering of Muslims as an enemy, where Muslims are seen a source of terror within the nation-state along with conflating of Muslim-terrorist-Pakistani”.[v]
Checking other such published works leads us to the conclusion that their so-called case studies make the same assertions, based on the same set of movies, with the same illogic. It follows the same pattern of selective and convenient study of cases, effectively used to arrive at a predetermined conclusion of an alleged tacit axis between Hindutva and neoliberal economic forces. This axis is deliberately creating stereotyped images of Muslims at the detriment of their original identity. On the face of it, therefore, it appears there is a lot of scholarly work on this phenomenon. But this is misleading. There is absolutely nothing new in the research design, the approach, case studies, and the conclusions. Almost everyone is using the same pattern. There is no attempt at substantiating their arguments with any new information, facts, or data, and the “research” is nothing but convoluted circular reasoning and political grandstanding. How do such papers get through the review processes and get published? Because if we were to treat the same set of movies with the needed nuance, the fallacies of these “scholarly papers” can be easily exposed. Let us take the example of the movie, which almost all these “scholars” write about – Sarfarosh.
For example, Maidul Islam problematizes the fact that the main antagonist is a Muslim, a ghazal singer who works secretly for the ISI. In another instance, the author quotes a dialogue from the movie where the protagonist, a Hindu Rajput, retorts to his subordinate Muslim police officer that he does not need a Salim (meaning Muslim) to save the country. This, for Islam, is “mouthing of Hindutva rhetoric,” which is aped in other movies as well. However, these “examples” of othering Muslims are weak and self-defeating.
First, the antagonist is not Indian but a Pakistani who had moved from India to Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947 into a secular India and an Islamic Republic of Pakistan. He is doubted by his superior in the ISI for being a muhajir or a refugee. Due to his anger against the partition and his bid to reassure his doubting superiors in Pakistan, he engages in a proxy war against India. In the second instance, while the protagonist does so in a particular context and in rage he is also shown as sincerely regretting it later. In fact, the protagonist is seen as the biggest supporter of Salim, and Salim emerges as the most trusted lieutenant in his mission, along with other Hindu officers, throughout the movie. How can anyone possibly deduce from instances like these, sliced and diced conveniently, that the film is an example of neoliberal-Hindutva propaganda? But weak logic is not the only thing such research suffers from. Equally important is the selective use of instances from the movie to substantiate the conclusions that are arrived at a priori.
If one were to carefully analyze the movie, the observations would be distinctly different. Sarfarosh, for example, does not single out Muslims as the “bad guys”. In fact, some of the key conspirators, and arguably most of them, are shown as Hindus — devout Hindus! Take, for instance, the character of Rambandhu Gupta a.k.a Mirchi Seth, who is shown as the nodal agency to circulate the arms and other consignments procured from Pakistan into the interiors of India through an elaborately evolved network of individuals and organizations. Mirchi Seth is shown as having full knowledge of the Pakistani involvement in it through ghazal singer Gulfham Hassan, the main antagonist. Yet, he chooses to work with him. Throughout the movie, he is shown as a temple-going, devout Hindu engaged in a war against India. Every single frame of his character in the movie (see the image, for instance) reinforces his religious credentials as a Hindu. The same is the case with another character called Bala Thakur, who manages the supply of weapons to brigands like Veeran through Mirchi Seth. Thakur, a tilak sporting devout Hindu, who routinely takes astrological advice from Mirchi Seth, and his accomplice Shiva, are shown hand in glove with the proxy elements from across the border. The moviemakers go the extra mile to make sure that the religious affiliations of these bad guys are visible.
On the other hand, the movie constantly makes a point that religion is not to be equated with terrorism and that most Muslims in India suffer because of the adventurism of a few. In one of the famous monologues during the climax of the movie, the protagonist equates the machinations of the criminals like Mirchi Seth with the proxy elements supported by Pakistan. How does this then square up with the hypothesis, or rather conclusions, of our eminent scholars who want to paint an image of a supposed takeover of cultural and media spaces by the forces of Hindutva and the “market”?
The other examples that all these papers seem to refer to are the depiction of Muslims in the movies based on crime and the underworld. According to Maidul Islam, “The other processes of mythification and mystification of Muslim representation in Hindi cinema takes place through the portrayal of a direct relationship between Muslims and the criminal world. Showing such connection between crime and Muslims is a way in which forms of pre-liberalization Hindi cinema are carried on to the post-liberalization phase.”
But to substantiate this charge, the author does nothing to treat the issue of crime movies objectively, but just goes on listing some “underworld crime” movies. Here, even the existence of Muslim characters as criminals in certain movies is taken as proof of the Hindutva-market axis to marginalize Muslims in India.
It is a fact that at one time, there was a prominence of mafia dons who happened to be Muslims (Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, Chhota Shakeel, Haji Mastan, Karim Lala, and others), and movies tend to capture that reality in their cinematic portrayal. But this does not necessarily have to be a ploy of the Hindutva-market axis to demonize and vilify Muslims, as is purported by our eminent scholars. On the contrary, there always seems to be an implicit balancing act by the filmmakers to ensure that no particular communal undercurrents are highlighted or observed. And if at all, there is any, it appears primarily biased against Hindus. This is observed in major underworld mafia movies, which, far from singling out Muslims, portray Hindus in a worse light than others, something which our eminent scholars tend to ignore.
Take the often-cited example of the movie Satya — a cinematic masterpiece that initiated a phase of Bollywood movies dealing with the topic of crime and underworld. The main kingpin of the underworld network shown in the movie is Bhau Thakurdas Jawale. A vile and manipulative character, Bhau is also depicted in the movie as a devout Hindu, and the frames in the movie hardly make it inconspicuous. For example, in the iconic scene of him eliminating his accomplice Bhiku, he is shown standing in front of a large painting depicting the scene of Krishna explaining the Gita to Arjuna. He is also killed during the Ganapati Visarjan procession — another symbol to emphasize his religious credentials. Despite the large presence of Muslims in the Mumbai underworld, the film hardly presents them. movie.
Similarly, Vastav — another masterpiece which focused on the conditions under which youth get sucked into the world of crime in Mumbai — depicted Hindu dons dominating the Mumbai underworld. These dons — shown as drug and alcohol stricken with no morals — are in turn controlled by corrupt politicians. All the major dons are shown as Hindus, along with the politician who is holding the strings. There is, however, one notable exception in this list — Suleiman Bhai: a devout Muslim who acts as a middleman in a world affected by crime. He is, however, shown as the only one holding on to his morals and loyal to the people he worked with, to the point of sacrificing his life for his comrade.
Movies like Agnipath do show a Muslim don of Afghan origin in the movie — Rauf Lala – which, according to Maidul, would be a sign of bias against Muslims. He, however, is conveniently silent about the fact that the movie attempts a curious balancing act by showing the main antagonist Kancha as a Hindu with a prominent tattoo of Shiva on his arms and mouthing some central Hindu precepts like karma, maya, and avatar to justify some of his actions.
The other iconic political-crime thriller movie, Gangajal, does the same thing. Sadhu Yadav is shown as a religious man engaged in heinous crimes. We can offer such a list of Hindu “bad guys” on and on. How is it then that these instances are completely ignored by these scholars? All these movies are from the same time frame used by these scholars to make a case of bias against Muslims. The glaring fact that must be understood here is that these scholars are not so much carefully studying the films for any inherent or overt biases as much as they are spreading preconceived ideas about what they perceive as true. This is not serious academic work but strategic political ju-jitsu played by the Left-Marxist-Islamist academic mafias deeply embedded in Indian universities, media, and political activism.
It so happens that there is a quantitative study conducted by Prof. Dhiraj Sharma at one of the Indian Institutes of Management that analyzes how Bollywood movies use stereotypes against different communities. His Hindi book Filmen aur Sanskriti[vi] (“Films and Culture”) presents the detailed research conducted by Sharma and his team on Bollywood movies over the decades. His team randomly selected 50 films from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s to understand the depiction of different communities. The results of the study completely contradict the so-called “eminent scholars” who have been mouthing untruths in the name of scholarly research.[vii]
Sharma’s research found that far from targeting Muslims, 84% of the Muslims in films “were shown as strongly religious and honest even when they are shown in the film as engaged in crime”. As against this, 58% of “the corrupt politicians in films were Hindu Brahmin”. Additionally, out of 20 examined Bollywood “movies that had Pakistan as the setting, in almost 18 of those films, Pakistanis were projected as welcoming, courteous, open-minded and courageous,” while Indians “were largely projected as narrow-minded, unwelcoming, and conservative”.
What is even more concerning was that this stereotypical depiction was considered authentic by 94% of the students whom the study surveyed. If one is to take into consideration this quantitative study, the stereotyping is much more biased against the Hindus, contrary to what our eminent scholars have been propagating through their research, which is then uncritically prescribed, read, and reproduced in the universities.
This is just one quantitative study that captures the inherent bias in Bollywood movies — prominently against Hindus. But if one were to cursorily look at the movies, it is not difficult to notice that there is a strong negative caricaturing of Hindu symbols, deities, identities, and wilful stereotyping of Hindu communities. One then wonders, how these “eminent scholars” miss this trend staring in their face but notice only stray out-of-context examples. The answer is simple.
What is happening here is not so much a study of the films and narratives, but to use them to conveniently twist Indian political, social, religious, and economic realities and make them conform to predetermined conclusions. In this case, the conclusion is that the advent of Hindutva has resulted in the othering of Muslims, and neoliberalism as a paradigm will feed into this narrative for its own survival. This may seem like an innocuous study of films, but it is not as simple as it appears. This is just one instance to show how academia is a tool for the Left to seek and impose ideological conformity. Academia is used to target alternative voices, even at the cost of twisting truth to suit their political agendas.
These ideas are presented under the garb of challenging powers and liberating ourselves from societal shackles. But the Left, in reality, is politicizing academia to create an environment of discord and struggle in society to first rationalize conflict and then generate momentum for political action. Here, the Left is weaponizing “critical thinking” to rationalize their Left-Marxist-Islamist worldview. In particular, the new subjects and curriculum like Gender studies, Cultural Studies, Film Studies, etc, are conditioning students to study the world through the lenses of Marxist theory of conflict, depicting society as a battleground of oppressors and the oppressed.
The gatekeepers of such an ideological ecosystem, in publishing houses and academic institutions, ensure that no dissenting voice gets heard. All opposition is squelched by the gatekeepers. Under the guise of liberation and liberalism, Left-leaning academics often foster an environment where every alternate view is seen either as classist or elitist and thereby to be discredited and discarded. Disciplines and subjects within those are structured and pedagogically organized to discuss only the ideological conflicts that suit the Left-Marxist-Islamist logic. The Left thus clinically practices conformity to stifle alternative voices, project its version as scientifically true, and seek a rationalization for its outdated, dangerous, and violent ideology.
The implications of such an approach are profound. Far from ensuring that academic institutions as spaces of critical inquiry and objective study where pluralistic debate is encouraged and welcomed, these courses and area studies developed, controlled, and managed by the Left are generating ghettos of ideological conformists that bring about reductionist and divisive discourse about society in general, eroding social cohesion. The consequences of such an approach are disastrous for society.
[i] Dhawan, P, ‘Bollywood: ‘Othering’ the Muslim on screen’, Frontline, The Hindu’, March 21, 2020, https://frontline.thehindu.com/arts-and-culture/cinema/article31007504.ece
[ii] Islam, M, ‘ Imag(in)ing Indian Muslims in Post-Liberalisation Hindi Cinema’ in Indian Muslim(s) After Liberalization’, 2018, Oxford University Press, New Delhi;
[iii] Behra, A. D. (2001). „The Supporting Structures for Pakistan’s Proxy War in Jammu & Kashmir,” https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/sa/sa_june01bea01.html
[iv] Guman, G, ‘The Muslim as the ‘Other’ In Bollywood’, Counter Currents, February 21, 2006 https://www.countercurrents.org/arts-ghuman210206.htm
[v] Khatun, N, ‘Imagining Muslims as the ‘Other’ in Muslim Political Films’, Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, V IX, No. 1, 2016
[vi] Sharma, D, ‘Filmen Aur Sanskrti: Evolution of Indian Cinema and Its Impact on Indian Culture’, Prabhat Prakashan, January 2023
[vii] For the data, see Sharma, D, ‘Stereotypicality in Indian cinema is not a healthy trend’, Hindustan Times, August 10, 2025 https://www.hindustantimes.com/editorials/stereotypicality-in-indian-cinema-is-not-a-healthy-trend/story-y6SG1xuOvBb0cZfWJpUg0H.html
