On 22nd June the Hollywood blockbuster, Air Force One, dubbed in Hindi, was being shown on UTV Action. A goateed Gary Oldman playing a menacing Russian terrorist confronts the family of the President of the United States aboard the hi-jacked Air Force One. He looks intensely at the 12-year-old daughter of the president and explains his bloodlust, "I would turn my back on God Himself...for Mother Russia." But this being a dubbed version, ‘God' was replaced by ‘Allah'.

After a thorough look at the film's transcripts, its background and other related information, it turned out that nowhere in the film is the hijacker affiliated to any Islamic organization. Neither is his motivation Islamic. The hijacker is talking about returning his motherland, the broken Russia, to its former glory - hardly on the agenda of a Jehadi you would think, and yet it was there. Allah.

Was it the beard, was it the gun or was it simple ignorance; another phrase for an easily acquired prejudice that we carry unaltered, unchecked. It's an alarming unawareness to carry especially in the hands of someone, who with a scratch of a pen or a few knocks on the keyboard, creates a world of Islamic terror where none existed and even more dangerously is passed unnoticed ready for consumption into the market.

Out of the many ways that this toxic prejudice has of getting hurled at you or cultivated into you, depending on which side you come from, you rarely expect it to enter so stealthily with a single word into your consciousness; unimpeded and locked in without much time for reflection.

In the homes that the film was watched, many must have gone to bed with the image of another gun totting fanatic with a barely coherent agenda evoking Allah. In our world today, making the connection of Islam with acts of violence must require the least effort. So it seemed almost banal to rake up a storm about a movie. But the thought of that word, that allusion, taking refuge in and lurking behind popular, mostly overlooked mass entertainment, ready to spring its outrageous assumption without getting challenged was too unsettling.
The next morning as the film came on a repeat telecast I confirmed my observation and sent a mail to the channel demanding that they retract the term 'Allah' and use 'Khuda' or any generic term that fits the dialogue. Having called them divisive, bigoted and politically motivated my fury was spent, but the dismay lingered on much longer.

The channel did get back with an executive expressing shock and pulling the film off air immediately with a definite promise to rectify the error, though I am yet to receive any communication regarding the next telecast.

Smita Singh
Bangalore
July 26, 2010