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Gokul Visualising Terrorists mla edit

Published in The Teresian Journal of English Studies, Volume 5, No.1, 2013, P 63-74.

‘Visualising’ Terrorists: Representation of the Muslim Terrorist in Indian Graphic Novels



The growth of the graphic novel as a medium of expression is inextricably linked with American counter cultural experiments of the 1960s. In 1954, fearing governmental crack- downs following Dr. Frederick Wertham’s incessant attack on comics for their “corrupting influence on young minds,” the American comic book industry established a comics code authority outlining guidelines for acceptable comic book material.The underground comix movement of the late 1960s was in a way a reaction to this authoritarian gagging of artistic freedom. Revisionist and subversive, the underground comix artists substituted the ‘c’ in the comics with an ‘x’ (for adult rated) and boldly explored subjects hitherto considered taboo by the comics code authority. If the comic code meant that comics were prevented from saying anything meaningful about the real world, then by defying it, they felt they were re-awakening the revisionist possibility of the medium (Sabin 92).

Dissemination of underground comix happened outside the traditional market, through a network of head shops peddling psychedelic posters and drug paraphernalia and surprisingly, chalked up large numbers in sales. This alternative distribution system later played a vital part in the establishment of and growth of comic book specialty shops and the direct market, which brought about the rise of alternative comics and revisionist re telling of superhero tales in the 1980s. The underground demonstrated that it was possible to create comics outside the dominant publishing industry and to assert the creative rights of the individual artist as opposed to the anonymity of the artist in the assembly line studio system (Hatfield 16). Despite head shops closing down in large numbers in 1970s, the underground comix movement proved to be instrumental in shaping the counter narrative characteristics that alternative comics—and later graphic novels—would incur in terms of subject matter, treatment, artistic rights, and modes of dissemination.

However, graphic novel’s 2004 investiture in India with Sarnath Banerjee’s Corridor, concurred with a different set of social, political, and economic situations. Despite internal unrests, India was bubbling with new found economic confidence as a result of its liberalization policies, boasting a growth rate of 8.5%. The world was slowly recuperating from the global repercussions of the 9/11 attack, and the United States remained deeply mired in the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. The War on Terror had subtly posited a war between a Muslim “Them” and a non Muslim “US” (i.e. the United States) fostering in the process, a global project of “othering” the Muslim community. Concerned by these developments, speakers participating in the 59th UN general assembly plenary (11th and 12th meetings) had rightly warned the world about the increasing tendency to link international terrorism and Islam. They had reiterated the urgent need to stop the tarnishing of Muslims by unfair stereotypes, debunking the theory that there is a “clash of civilizations” (United Nations).

Examining The Believers (2006) and Kashmir Pending (2007) this essay seeks to explicate why, despite being written by Muslim writers, these graphic novels shirk from exploring the counter narrative capabilities of the medium and end up inadvertently promoting the prevalent international narrative that blindly equates Muslims with terrorist activities across the world. These works remain seminal for being the first two Indian graphic novels published by an Indian publishing company which leaves them in a position to set the tone for later works.

Changing contours of ‘Secularism’

The term secular it self has undergone significant transformation in India with its contours being continually determined by the national narrative. In India, as in other secular countries, the present narrative demands Muslims bear their national allegiances twice over. First as a loyal citizen of the state and then as a secular Muslim who shall readily distance him/herself from violent Islam. A declaration not expected or demanded of, any other religious community in India. From accused of being partial towards non believers and minorities, secularism, today, has become a majoritarian discourse coloured by the concerns of “cultural nationalism.”

On being quizzed by Ravi Sharma of Frontline on BJP’s idea of secularism, L.K Advani answered that it was “of the kind where there is ample scope for devout Hindus and devout Muslims” (Sharma). In the same interview he also clarifies that BJP equates Hindutva with nationalism and that the terms Hindu, Bharatiya, and Indian are slogans of sorts, for an Indian way of life and not the name of a creed. However in the same interview, in contradiction to his claims of Hindutva as a ‘way of life’, he also strongly assert that “the temple should be built at Ayodhya.” This is consistent with the two pronged strategy BJP has been following successfully for the last twenty years. It engages urban, middle class voters on issues of nationalism, security, and progress while reserving religious issues for the rural Hindu voters.

Despite their discomfort with minority rights, the majoritarian Hindu right sits perfectly at peace with the institutional procedures of the Western/modern state and the idea of secularism. Secularism stands to mobilize, on its behalf, the will of an interventionist modernizing state. In doing so, the presence of religious or ethnic particularisms from the domains of law or public life can be erased, which in turn helps, a perception of a homogenized content to the notion of citizenship, replace the current discourse of national culture (Chatterjee). Partha Chatterjee has argued that such a stand allows the Hindu right to deflect accusations of being anti-secular while developing a modernist critique of Islamic Fundamentalism and accuse “Pseudo-Secularists” of preaching religious obscurantism and bigotry.

The ability of secularism to stand up to the challenges posed by fundamentalism have been questioned and found wanting by social scientists like T. N Madan and Ashis Nandy in India. Nandy, especially, has been a vociferous critic of secularism, going so far as to call himself “anti-secular.” He identifies two distinct streams into which religion in South Asia has been split into “religion as faith” and “religion as ideology.” This “religion as faith” serves as an edict for a way of life, a tradition that is non monolithic, plural, and tolerant. In contrast, “religion as ideology” functions as a sub-national, national, or cross-national identifier of populations fighting for non religious, political, or socio-economic interests. It is usually identified with one or more texts rather than the lifestyles of believers (Nandy, The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance). This dichotomy is important for Nandy, as he considers the idea of secularism an import from nineteenth century Europe seeking to keep religion and public life separate and incompatible to the non western meaning of the concept. Asserting that the modern state always prefers to deal with religious ideologies rather than with faiths because it finds lifestyles more inchoate and unmanageable, he concludes that the concept of secularism is a by-product of enlightenment and modernity standing in contradiction to the idea of religion-as-faith and in confluence with the modernizing state that promotes religion-as-ideology (322-24).

Madan’s and Nandy’s stand endorses Gandhi’s concept of religion as a source of values that permeates arenas of social life and politics. This sense of religion-as-faith carries with it an attitude of tolerance to other persons and their religions while standing opposed to the idea of religion-as-ideology propounded by the Hindu right and the Islamic ideologues like Jamiat-e Islami founder Maulana Abdul Ala Maududi. While the political motivations for the rise of terrorism in the name of Islam in India can be attributed to the rise of the Hindu right, rapid globalization that engendered a pan Islamic brotherhood, Indian middle class’s increasing affiliation with the United States, and the failure of the Indian Muslim league to address the issues of the lower rungs of the Muslim community, the ideological source has been the teachings and writings of Maulana Abdul Ala Maududi. Maududi reiterated the need to set up an Islamic government with religion as its manual, even branding Muslims who indulge in secular democratic processes as non believers. Maududi’s idea of religion-as-ideology does on the surface differ from its secular variant proposed by the Hindu right, but both end up using coercive power of the religion-as-ideology discourse to persecute non confirming citizens.

The prevalent discourse of secularism in India, given the above mentioned developments, makes it a prescribed rather than a subscribed position as far as Muslims are concerned. It denies the existence of a position other than the two extremes: either that of a fundamentalist or of an apologetic secularist. This reluctance to recognize differing positions results in the assertion of stereotypes and makes impossible, a neutral enquiry into the reasons for the rise of terrorism in India.

The idea of Hindus as a specific political community can be traced back to the early nineteenth century reactions to the onslaught of excessive modernism, Christian evangelism, and exposure to European ideologies of nationalism. This primarily classical, vedantic, and brahmanical attempt to redefine Hinduism as a proper religion used a nativized ideology of nationalism in its project to convert Hindus into a conventional European style nation. It defensively rejected or devalued the various cultures of India in favour of a “high culture” more acceptable to the modern Indian and post- Enlightenment Europe (Nandy, Creating a Nationality 57-58). Since independence, right wing Sangh Parivar has made effective use of this idea of political modernism by constantly emphasizing nationalism, secularism, national security, history, and scientific temper. By mounting systematic political attacks on the forms of ethnicity and religious cultures identifiably different from their ideas of mainstream culture, they have made minority communities easy targets of criticism, social engineering, and a crude form of Indianization derived from ideal-typical definitions (Nandy, Creating a Nationality 78). The Ramjanmabhumi issue and the subsequent demolition of the Babri Masjid was a logical conclusion of this project, a political movement given religious colour so that this possibility could be exploited. The articulation of Muslim as the enemy becomes imperative for the Sangh Parivar if its ongoing project of politicization of the Hindu identity is to be accomplished. It is this concern gets manifested in the writings of Himani Savarkar, President of Abhinav Bharat, when she asserts that, “We must declare ourselves a Hindu Rashtra where everyone is a Hindu. Anyone who isn’t should be declared a second class citizen and denied voting rights (Datta).”

Silence in the Stories

The Believers traces the growth of religious fundamentalism in Kerala, through the tale of two Muslim brothers. One brother pursues an academic career abroad and the other embraces a whirlpool of terrorism and religious fundamentalism. The secular, educated younger brother returns home to find his brother, friends, and neighborhood divided on religious lines nurturing mutual distrust. Chagrined at the rapidly deteriorating situation, he sets out to make his brother see the light of reason and persuade him to forsake the path of violence. In the end, the two brothers reconcile, and the elder brother he is unable to escape his inevitable end at the hands of the law even though he sees the futility of violence.

To his credit, Abdul Sultan does touch upon the alienated existence of the Muslim community, the growth of Hindu fundamentalism and the economic backwardness that haunt the lower rungs of the community in an attempt to provide an over deterministic view of the rise of Muslim fundamentalism. Sadly, this is done with a few references strewn across the story and predictably, the work stops short of exploring these reasons in depth. The reasons are always provided by the hardliners in the story while the secular characters adopt an apologetic tone continually lamenting the loss of secularist ideals. This, in effect, undermines any trace of legitimacy of such claims.

By limiting the discussion of the politicization of Hindu identity by the right wing Hindu groups to a few remarks, The Believers inadvertently plays down the magnitude of the effect that it had on the feelings of alienation, insecurity, and fear of persecution increasingly felt by the Muslim community post-Ayodhya and Gujarat where the state had first been a silent spectator and then an active participant. In its discussion of terrorism in Kerala, The Believers also indulges in a convenient categorization of Muslims into “Good” and “Bad.” The good, educated, logical, modern, and secular younger brother is pitted against the bad, uneducated, irrational, anti-modern, and fanatic elder brother. This is reminiscent of George W. Bush’s post – 9/11 categorizations of Muslims into good and bad (Mamdani 15). It holds “bad Muslims” responsible for terrorism and anticipates a Muslim civil war. In this war “good Muslims” would attempt to clear their names and consciences by joining the crusade against “bad Muslims.” Mahmood Mamdani identifies in such a categorization, a hidden presumption that all Muslims are “bad” unless they prove themselves “good” and laments that “the presumptions that such categories exists masks a refusal to address our own failure to make a political analysis of our times” (Mamdani 16). This international narrative of “good” verses “bad” Muslims co-opted in The Believers is faulty, as it largely engages the effect and not the cause of terrorism. A similar tendency is also visible in Kashmir Pending, the second graphic novel brought out by Phantomville.

Kashmir Pending recounts the transformation of a young man of the Kashmir valley into a hard core terrorist and his subsequent realization of the senselessness of violence and abhorrence of it. In other words, this is the transformation of a Muslim into a “bad Muslim” and then back to being a “good Muslim” again. The protagonist is shown to be weak in his studies and easily influenced by the fiery speeches of communal leaders. His decision to join the struggle is largely irrational and hastened by the killing of a vegetable vendor in a cross fire between holed up terrorists and security forces. This would again amount to the stereotyping of Muslims as irrational and an innately violent community, unconsciously supporting the prevailing international narrative that proposes a collective restraining of anti- moderns for the betterment of civilization. Nasser Ahmed tries to present what he takes to be a neutral and honest account of the struggle in Kashmir, but like Abdul Sultan in The Believers, forgoes a detailed discussion of the circumstances that brewed such a resistance. He rightfully details the ideological influence, training, and the assistance that the armed struggle receives from Pakistan. Yet, he remains silent on the tumultuous circumstances the state’s accession to the Indian Union occurred. The effect of this action can never be over emphasized. The silence continues in matters of corrupted governments and bureaucracies, lack of economic development, Cold War politics, and the reactionary attitude of the administration. All of this has contributed to the present state of affairs in Jammu and Kashmir.

Media Bytes

These silences and omissions by the writers reflect the ideologies of their times and show how the principles of a society control and determine what can be and cannot be said. This necessitates a wider reading that encompasses the portrayal of Muslims in mainstream Indian media and cinema. Nasserudhin Shah, one of the most respected Indian actors had recently noted that, “Muslims stereotyped as terrorists in films is an unfortunate thing and films are cashing in on prevailing sentiments in different sections of the society (Stereotyping Muslims in Films as Terrorists Unfortunate). This has been a subtle and long ongoing project which has gathered speed with recurring incidents of communal violence and explosions in the last decade. Amit Rai identifies a genre of ‘cine patriotism’ in Bollywood mainstream cinema, that seeks to represent, visualize, and narrativize the sovereignty of the supposedly secular, but in practice upper-caste, Hindu Indian nation (Rai). He finds that:

Contemporary representations of Muslims in Hindi films position specific cultural and religious identities as both necessary and intolerable to the security of the Indian nation. The figures of the radically alienated Muslim, juxtaposed with the patriotic Muslim

and Christian citizen, and the dominant, often unmarked Hindu show how difference is crucial to the stability of the Indian nation– but not excessive difference: the militant Muslim is the figure of an intolerable difference… a monstrous “other” that needs to be

exorcised from a Hinduized national family.

Similar disturbing trends can also be found in the mainstream media, including the news channels that have come to dominate the process of formation of public opinion in India. While Naxalites, Maoists, and other groups involved in subversive activities are termed radicals, fighters, and rebels by the media, any such Muslim group invariably attracts the tag of terrorists. Ajith Sahi, an investigative reporter with the Delhi based Tehelka, in a blog interview with Yoginder Sikand noted that, “A hidden anti-Muslim bias pervades the media, although media persons who like to call themselves secular and liberal would hate to admit this. This is reflected, for instance, in the fact that in most cases of Muslims arrested on grounds of terrorism, all that we have are ‘confessions’ before the police, which are not admissible as evidence before courts, because obviously such ‘confessions’ are often false and procured after brutal torture. But the media simply projects these statements as supposed evidence, and then weaves this picture of Muslims as terrorists (Sahi).” However the same media had refrained from doing the same with Hindu fundamentalists and had completely failed to anticipate a Hindu Terrorist attack as was exposed in the case of Malegaon blasts. Vinod Mehta, senior journalist and editor of Outlook enquiring into the allegations of media unfairness towards Muslims, admits that the media tend to go for the hard line voices because they are easily available and make interesting, saleable copies or bytes (Mehta).

Finding the Market

The publishing industry, cinema, and media are all part of the Althusserian notion of the “Ideological State Apparatus” and perpetuates the dominant ideology of capitalist society. However, given the variety and omnipresent nature of the media in this age, governments across the world have realized that propaganda in its conventional sense is no longer a sensible option (McNair 195). The silences and gaps in these graphic novels, films and media reports allow us to see this ideology at work. The capitalist ideology being rooted in the ideas of modernity and manifesting in the projects of colonization and globalization would hate to admit that the specter of terrorism haunting the world is its own creation. It needs to perpetuate the narrative of Muslims as anti- modern, irrational and violent and indulge in a categorization of Muslims into good and bad for its own sustenance. By tacitly endorsing the theory of clashing of civilizations and thereby divorcing economic and political reasons, it seeks to hide the fact that the recent western interventions in the Middle East and Afghanistan has its roots in the lure of the petro dollars and the unfinished business of Cold War years.

The nascent Indian graphic novel industry’s reluctance to engage in a counter narrative discourse, like its American counterpart of the 1960s, is largely dictated by the market and social conditions. Being the insignificant part of the 2,400 Cr Indian Book industry (English) graphic novels cannot but follow the ideology of the market. It is unable to compete with the sales figures of say, Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone, estimated to have sold over 700,000 copies (Business World, May 11, 2008). The graphic novel industry in India seems to have a pre-conceived notion of the reader whom it seeks to address. It positions itself as being above the pulp fare churned out by the traditional comic book industry, and the profile of the reader that it intends to court does not encompass the larger generation who has grown up reading Amar Chitra Katha and other indigenous comic books of the 1970s and 1980s. As Sarnath Banerjee puts it in an interview with Samit Basu:

Historically comics reading population was quite narrow-minded, people could make an acute demographic profile of an average comic book reader. However that profile has changed already, at least in the west….The comics form is crossing over to Cinema and advertising. In short these are exciting times for comics. Unfortunately, I feel we have to wait till it gets filtered down from the western, particularly the American market. In France the first print run of comics is 10,000 copies even for a beginner, in India 5,000 copies is the magic number, it means you are a bestseller.

With such an overriding economic concern, it becomes unproductive to be counter narrative since the prevalent national narrative on terrorism is so pervasive. Being counter narrative runs the risk of being branded anti- national and scorned by the public. Existing in a rapidly liberalizing economy, the Indian graphic novel industry has looked to cater to a readership of a post- literate middleclass fed on the ideology of globalization and armed with amazing purchasing power (Banerjee). This section of the society with a strong desire for upward mobility has been exhibiting a strong admiration and longing for a globalised Meta culture that is undoubtedly Western and particularly American (Jacob). The dress codes, food habits, and the deserted regional language medium schools in India provide proof of the overarching presence of this globalised Meta culture. Pavan K. Varma in his seminal study on the Indian Middle class has identified a crippling ideological bareness coupled with a total absence of any credible appeal to social commitment or a moral imperative that can counter the obsession with personal gain and promotion plaguing this particular class (Varma). Surprisingly, in spite of the obvious contradictions, globalism and nationalism—nationalism preaches the virtues of the nation state while globalism preaches that of the global—both products of modernization and the ideology of modernity, remain the two most important discourses exerting influence in the polity and society of contemporary India. Striving for homogeneity, standardization, and conformity unites these discourses. The pervasiveness of these two discourses forces the graphic novel in India to surrender its counter narrative history and meekly follow the diktats of the market and the ideologies that govern it.

Works Cited

Ahamed, Naseer and Saurabh Singh. Kashmir Pending. New Delhi: Phantomville, 2007.

Banerjee, Sarnath. Through the Corridors of Life Aditi De. The Hindu, 30 May 2004.

Banerjee, Sarnath. Interview with Samit Basu. 3 July 2006. Duck of Destiny. 28 April 2009 .

Chatterjee, Partha. A Possible India: Essays in Political Criticism . New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2003.

Datta, Saikant. “Godse’s War .” Outlook 17 November 2008: 30-31.

Hatfield, Charles. Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2005.

Jacob, Jose. “Towards a New Hermeneuticsof Difference in the Era of Globalization.” Mphil Diss. The English and Foreign Languages U, 2008. 35-36.

Mamdani, Mahmood. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Islam, the USA and the Global War Against Terror . New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2008.

McNair, Brian. Cultural Chaos: Journalism, News and Power in a Globalised World. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Mehta, Vinod. “Muslims and Media Images.” Muslims and Media Images: News Versus Views. Ed. Ather Farouqui. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2009. 28.

Nandy, Ashis. “Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and the Fear of self.” Exiled at Home. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2005. 57-58.

Nandy, Ashis. “The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance.” Secularism and Its Critics. Ed. Rajeev Bharghava. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1998. 322.

Rai, Amit. “Patriotism and the Muslim Citizen in Hindi Films.” 2003. Harvard Asia Quarterly. 28 January 2009 .

Sabin, Roger. Comix & Graphic Novels: A History of the Comic Art. New York: Phaidon, 2006.

Sahi, Ajit. Inerview with Yogindar Sikand. “Journalistic Fascism and Indian Muslims.” 11 November 2008. Indian Muslims. 27 December 2008 .

Sharma, Ravi. ” We Equate Hindutva with Nationalism.” 2004. Frontline. 22 April 2009 .

“Stereotyping Muslims in Films as Terrorists Unfortunate.” 14 October October 14, 2008. http://www.dnaindia.com. 29 December 2008 .

Sultan, Abdul and Partha Sengupta. The Believers. New Delhi: Phantomville, 2006.

United Nations. “United Nations, “Speakers caution against post -September 11th stereotyping, linking Islam with terrorism, as general assembly debate enters second week.” 27 September 2004. http://www.un.org. 22 December 2008 .

Varma, Pavan K. The reat Indian Middle Class. New Delhi: Penguin, 1998.