The WikiLeaks Bollywood Anti-Terror Conspiracy (Video)

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/meanestindian/4321322575/in/photostream/">Meena Kadri</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Kurbaan starts just like any other Bollywood flick: An unknown woman is irritated by an unknown man who’ll eventually win her heart. In this case, the man tricks her and takes the cab for which she was waiting in line. But this film is not your typical Mumbai-based song-and-dance production: It’s a heavy-handed action film…and a cautionary tale for terrorists! And according to a WikiLeaked State Department cable, it may be the product of a conspiracy between American diplomats and Bollywood bigwigs to propagate an “anti-extremist genre” in Indian films.

The leaked cable recounts a 2007 London meeting between US officials and several Indian producers, directors, and actors. The parties discussed “the potential of working with the Indian film industry—’Bollywood’—on delivering an anti-terrorism message” that would help clip extremism, particularly in the British Muslim community:

A lively discussion produced a number of possible ideas, including developing ways to promote existing anti-terrorist films, and to develop funds for similar productions. Once such an anti-extremist genre is established, participants believed that major Bollywood figures would be willing to speak out on the issue.

If UK Muslims of South Asian descent are sitting on some sort of a “To bomb or not to bomb?” fence, a film industry widely known for its sultry song and dance numbers seems like an unfit propaganda partner:

But, even if that’s what you think of when you think of Bollywood, that’s not all there is. Kurbaan director Rensil D’Silva—who was not at the London summit—left out the midriff-baring song-and-dance numbers and cut straight to the message in many of the dialogues: “But even for a second, don’t think this is Allah’s will…because Allah’s will does not justify taking a life. And whenever a bomb explodes, only innocents die.”

&

There’s certainly no fault in such a message—except that in the case of Kurbaan, it fails to acknowledge the complex ideology of radical Islamists, reducing terrorists’ intentions to mere revenge for the loss of a family. The closest the film comes to grasping the nuances of the Muslim world is a quick reference to the CIA:

But if this film is indeed part of the US’s propaganda campaign, the only responses we’ve heard from conservative Muslims—in India, at least—are a resentment of stereotypes, offenses taken at the song lyrics, and consternation about the heroine’s smooth, bare back shown on Kurbaan‘s movie posters. Whatever America’s plans are for it, Bollywood has a long way to go before winning any wars of ideology.
 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate