Apart from the recent Hindi films Raanjhanaa and Ishaqzaade which had Muslim heroines, both incidentally named Zoya, one would really need to think hard to remember the last time a mainstream Bollywood film depicted a flesh-and-blood Muslim as the main character.

This is apart from the nostalgic, mushy films made in the backdrop of Partition, such as Gadar: Ek Prem Katha and Veer-Zaara.

And, as far as the heroes are concerned, apart from the characters of Kabir Khan and Rizwan Khan, both played by Shah Rukh Khan in Chak De India and My Name is Khan, or Samir Sheikh played by John Abraham in New York, what we see more often these days are Muslim characters as bhais (mafia) or terrorists - basically the bad men.

When it comes to stereotyping, not much has seemingly changed in Hindi films since Independence, as even the bygone era of successful ‘Muslim Socials’ such as Mere Mehboob, Mere Huzoor and Ghazal depicted Muslims as qawwals, nawabs or tawaifs (singers, princely lords, nautch girls).

Rachel Dwyer, a film scholar associated with School of Oriental and African Studies, London, has traced the trajectory of the ‘archetypal’ Muslim in Bollywood films down the ages.

She sees 10 ‘archetypes’: Veiled beauties ( Chaudhvi Ka Chand, Mere Mehboob), tawaifs and nawabs ( Pakeezah, Muqaddar Ka Siqandar, Mere Huzoor, Nikaah), emperors ( Muqhal-e-Azam, Jodhaa Akbar), loyal sidekicks (Jayant playing the adorable Pathan and Sher Khan played by Pran in Zanjeer), poets and qawwals ( Mere Mehboob, Amar Akbar Anthony), intolerant Muslim ( Gadar...), the gangster ( Agneepath), the Pakistani ( Ek Tha Tiger, Kurbaan, Sarfarosh) the terrorist ( Fanaa), and the rare modern Muslim ( Chak de India).

In fact, flesh-and-blood Muslim characters - who we meet, see, work and interact with every day - never seem to have been on the radar of Hindi film-makers. “You will never see a Muslim schoolteacher, professor, factory owner, engineer or even clerk,” says documentary film-maker Sohail Hashmi, who feels ‘real life’ Muslim characters never occupied any space in the minds of Bollywood film-makers, then and now.

“Since the 1950s, Muslims have been depicted as endearing Pathans, because they were clearly outsiders and spoke a different language. They wore shalwars, long shirts and jackets and could not be confused with Indian Muslims... they did not alter the image of the Indian Muslim, who was either a decadent feudal, or a drunken, dreamy-eyed poet, or a woman who was always a courtesan,” says Hashmi.

The great yesteryear actor Jayant (father of Amjad Khan aka Gabbar Singh of Sholay) appeared in about 150 films but is, till this day, etched in memory only as an endearing Pathan.

Post-9/11 saw the assertion of ‘religious identity’, thanks largely to Western (read US) paranoia or ‘Islamophobia’. India had its share of terror attacks in Mumbai, Delhi, Malegaon, Hyderabad among other places, followed by the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, in which thousands of Muslims were killed.

Bollywood, which by now was getting corporatised as far as financing is concerned, probably saw a ‘selling opportunity’. Soon we had films that increasingly depicted Muslims only as ‘terrorists’, followed by ‘good Muslim’ and ‘bad Muslim’ films, such as the Rajeev Khandelwal-starrer Aamir. Yes, an occasional Iqbal (Nagesh Kukunoor) did turn up like a whiff of fresh air, though not strictly from what is called the mainstream Bollywood stable.

So, why are Muslim characters still shown playing a marginal, stereotypical role in Bollywood films?

More so, in an industry which was once dominated by film-makers such as Mehboob Khan, Kamal Amrohi, K. Asif, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, actors such as Waheeda Rehman, Madhubala, Meena Kumari and Dilip Kumar (name changed), and to this day is ruled by the Khans — Shah Rukh, Salman, Aamir (names not changed).

Hashmi strongly feels this is because the average Muslim has been marginalised in social consciousness, primarily because s/he has been marginalised in society as well.

“The Muslim is paying for staying back (during Partition). The only positive role that a Muslim gets in mainstream cinema is to die saving a Hindu. This is the only way s/he can prove his/her patriotism,” he says.

Interestingly, a content analysis of 50 Bollywood movies during 2002-08, done by Muhammad Ashraf Khan and Syeda Zuria Bokhari of the Department of Mass Communication B.Z. University, Multan, confirms this bias.

It categorised the depiction of Muslims as favourable, unfavourable and neutral.

“The overall results of these slants show 4.4 per cent favourable images, 65.2 per cent unfavourable and 30.4 per cent neutral images of Muslims….” The analysis is available online.

Hashmi feels films such as Aamir, probably well-intentioned, also tend to walk into the trap of stereotyping. It deals with how innocent people are dragged into terrorist plots, but reinforces the ‘unfavourable’ clichéd depiction of Muslims.

Interestingly, even as Muslim ‘stereotypes’ have stayed in Hindi films in one form or the other, one thing has clearly changed in the ‘business’ of Hindi films - the credit rollout. Earlier, the film name in the credits rolled out in three languages - Hindi, Urdu and English. With films moving away from single screens to multiplexes, Urdu has been dropped.