Bollywood Films As Bridge Builders Among Indo-Pak People
This article was first published in the print edition of Manushi Journal. (Issue-110, Jan-Feb 1999)
In the last few weeks much has been said and written in praise of Vajpayee’s dramatic and commendable peace initiative toward Pakistan. Many are puzzled at the sudden turn of events because for decades the governments of both Pakistan and India did everything within their powers to keep the unhappy memories of the 1947 partition alive. The sarkari propaganda machinery in both nations have tried to instill unthinking fear, hostility and hatred for people on the other side of the border. The rulers in each country have cynically manipulated people’s emotions and anxieties for their own selfish electoral purposes. They have deliberately generated hysteria and appropriated a lot more power for themselves in the name of protecting national interests against enemies across the border.
Despite the enormous amount of effort and resources they have wasted to promote hatred between the two governments, their success with their peoples has been rather minimal. Five decades after the tragic Partition, the people of both countries seem to have compelled their leaders into understanding that they are not willing to be manipulated much longer. The following incident reflects this popular perception of a fairly large spectrum of people on both sides of the border…