‘Exoticised, alienised, villainised': A book looks at how Muslims have been portrayed in Hindi films

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In the introduction to Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity: Production, Representation, and Reception, academic Nadira Khatun writes, 'Bollywood has represented Muslims through a selective ideological lens and often overlooked situating them in landmark Indian socio-political historical events.'
Khatun adds that Hindi cinema has portrayed Muslims in 'essentialized' and 'homogenized' ways.
'Muslims are always associated with a few religio-cultural components, such as the Urdu language, biryani and meat as a food habit, sartorial practices such as wearing the skull cap, burqa and Pathani dress,' Khatun writes. '…But the truth is that Muslims around the nation observe different diets, language, and sartorial choices.'
Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity (Oxford University Press) analyses the diverse ways in which Muslims have been represented in Hindi cinema down the decades. Between the 1940s and the 1970s, films portrayed Muslims as rulers or aristocrats, a representation that appears positive but was misleading, Khatun says. 'The audiences of those films formed an imagined image of Muslims, and that image was in absolute contrast to the real image of Indian Muslims at that time,' she writes.
In subsequent decades, Muslim characters were often gangsters, terrorists or collaborators with Pakistani spies. The book, an expansion of Khatun's doctoral thesis, also examines noteworthy contemporary films with Muslim characters, such as My Name is Khan (2010), Dear Zindagi (2016) and Gully Boy (2019).
The renewed interest in the historical genre is in stark contrast to older films such as Mughal-e-Azam (1960) and Jodhaa Akbar (2008), Khatun finds. Newer films such as Samrat Prithviraj (2022) and the blockbuster Chhavva (2025) identify Muslim rulers as foreigners and despots who delight in torturing their Hindu rivals.
'It can be argued that Bollywood as a mass art form has responded to selective historical moments of the past and present,' Khatun writes. 'Through these selective ultra-nationalist and ultra-violent representations of the notion of the Hindu nation and Muslim Other, Bollywood has contributed to the hegemonic Hindutva discourse.'
Khatun spoke to Scroll about what prompted her interest in the subject and how she views the evolution of Muslim representation. Here are edited excerpts from the interview.
What prompted you to write Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity?
I have been told multiple times, you don't look like a Muslim. I felt that Bollywood plays a huge role in the perception of how Muslims look or behave in a particular way.
I grew up in the 1990s when the Khans were the biggest superstars, but they were playing Hindu characters like Prem and Raj. Meanwhile my family members were marginalised in some contexts. So my own identity issues led me to choose the subject of the book.
What has been the general pattern of the representation of Muslims in cinema?
Earlier, Muslims were either exoticised, alienised or villainised. They were rarely shown as ordinary citizens with regular lives and regular jobs.
Between the 1940s and 1960s, there were many films about Muslim kings and nobles. In later decades, you had Muslim social films where Islamicate culture was primarily portrayed.
After the 1990s, particularly following the demolition of the Babri Masjid [on December 6, 1992], the idea of the enemy changed. Previously, villains were Mogambo and Gabbar Singh. From the 1990s onwards, the enemies were characterised as terrorists, gangsters, brutal invaders and rioters.
A film inspired by an actual incident such as a terrorist attack is held to be more believable. Films with a lead protagonist who is a Muslim invariably place the characters in the middle of issues or show Muslim women facing oppression, such as Secret Superstar.
Or take a film like Lipstick Under My Burkha. The Muslim character played by Konkona Sensharma is struggling with the number of children she has. Women, particularly, are shown as going through subjugation or repression.
Darlings reinforces the stereotype of Muslim men as violent. Domestic violence is everywhere, it isn't restricted to any one community. That said, Alia Bhatt's character Safeena in Gully Boy is assertive, she has a voice.
Usually, Muslim girls are shown as very weak or oppressed. There are rare film texts where you have the characters like Safeena who owns her religion and wears a hijab because she wants to and not because she is subjugated.
Muslim characters also feature prominently in films with patriotic or nationalistic themes.
Muslim characters are supposed to prove their nationalism or allegiance to the nation. This is even the case with a non-mainstream film like Iqbal. You are putting out the message that you have to prove your nationalism to be considered a good Muslim.
A new trend I noticed was supernatural elements with Islamic demonic powers, such as Pari and Roohi. The women in these films are shown to be subjugated, they get possessed and they need supernatural forces to gain power.
Films like Gully Boy and Mulk have saviours coming in from the outside. Audiences believe that Muslims are the way they are shown in films. Muslims are usually side characters.
Did your research throw up positive examples of representation?
The Hindi film industry has always had a reputation for being secular and giving space to marginal cultures. This isn't the case in other film industries. Take Bengali cinema – even its most celebrated directors have largely ignored the community.
There are examples of Muslims being represented in a fair way, where they are not shown as obviously religious. In these films, Muslims are mostly character actors and not the lead protagonists. Films like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara or Dear Zindagi have regular, ordinary Muslim characters.
It's fascinating to see Jehangir Khan [played by Shah Rukh Khan] in Dear Zindagi. As an audience member, I didn't look at him for his religious identity. His predominant identity is that of a therapist. He is like any other human being.
Also in recent years, we lack the cinematic representation seen in the films of Saeed Mirza and MS Sathyu in the 1980s and 1990s, which were critical of the socio-political events of their times. We are avoiding or entirely ignoring issues – the lynchings, the bulldozing, the attacks on meat sellers, the loss of livelihood.
We are living in a time of sustained attacks on Muslim identity and an attempt to erase India's Muslim heritage. How is this playing out in films?
If you look at the filmmaking part, there are fewer Muslim filmmakers, writers and lyricists. Muslims are being represented by non-Muslims, except in a few cases like Zoya Akhtar, Kabir Khan and Imtiaz Ali.
Kabir Khan's New York is at least trying to generate a dialogue about the roots of terrorism. His film Bajrangi Bhaijaan doesn't demonise Pakistanis as well as Muslims because many times, 'Muslims' and 'Pakistanis' are used interchangeably. So, an insider point of view also matters.
More recently, we have Muslims in historical films. In movies like Padmaavat or Chhaava, Muslims are shown as outsiders and villains who want to harm the nation or torture Hindus, who are shown as the original inhabitants of the country.
The older Muslims historicals, such as Mughal-e-Azam and Shah Jahan, glorify and exoticise rulers. This is problematic too. How can an ordinary viewer relate to these films? Jodhaa Akbar in 2008 was the last film where a Mughal ruler was shown in a positive light.
If you must take up social issues, why not subjects that have wider implications in the contemporary societal context, topics that can help us make sense of the larger politics?
Some of these forms of representation have a direct impact on society, such as what happened in the case of Chhaava. There is a definite polarisation. One of my participants said that audiences are learning about history from cinema. That said, cinema isn't the only culprit – there are larger politics at play.