Everyday Muslim: Breaking Stereotypes In Hindi Cinema's Muslim Portrayals

“The motion picture is able to stir up emotions more deeply than any other product of art,” said the Supreme Court as a justification for film censorship when director K.A. Abbas challenged the very idea of censorship of films by the Censor Board. Pre-censorship was justified by the court on account of the ‘instant appeal’ of movies, their versatility, realism and their simultaneous invocation of the visual and aural senses, which the court felt prompts people to suspend disbelief. The last decade has seen a dramatic shift, from films as a medium of entertainment to an instrument of propaganda being used to set narratives, particularly in the manner in which Muslims are depicted in Hindi cinema.

The representation of Muslims in Indian, and more particularly, Hindi cinema has gone from one caricature to another, from characters wearing sherwanis and spouting Urdu poetry in Mere Mehboob (1963) to ISIS-sponsored love jihad in Kerala Story (2023) and bloodthirst in Udaipur Files (2025). As the makers of Kerala Story come out with a sequel which, going by the trailer, promises to plunge to new depths of hate propaganda, we need to take a moment to appreciate a film that attempts to chart a new course.

As Hindi cinema, by and large, continues to fail to come up with a film depicting the normal everyday life of an Indian Muslim sans stereotyping and caricature, The Great Shamsuddin Family, directed and written by Anusha Rizvi, comes as a surprising breath of fresh air. The film is centred around a middle-aged English scholar, Bani, who, driven by fear generated by constant news of criminal prosecutions being launched against writers for expressing ideas unpalatable to the State, has decided to move to the United States. She is preparing her presentation for a job interview for a teaching position at an American University, when her family chooses to have all manner of crises during the 12-hour submission deadline that she is struggling to meet. The crises include dealing with a large amount of cash that her cousin has received as mehr (dower) from her recently divorced husband as part of their separation, another cousin who has eloped with a Hindu girl and brought her home, and a third cousin whose husband’s phone is unreachable while news comes in of a car set ablaze on the Delhi-Gurugram expressway in an incident of communal violence—all this unfolding at the same time that their mothers decide to descend on Bani’s house, oblivious to what is going on in the lives of their children.

While the film depicts a small sliver of Muslim society, the class of western-educated upwardly mobile Muslims who have found a place in the mainstream, this is still an important section as it also represents the elusive aspirational life for the stock of Muslims, who constitute a disproportionate share of the country’s poor. So, although the apartment overlooking Humanyun’s tomb in Central Delhi, a mehr amount of 25 lakh rupees and the opportunity to migrate to the US by taking up a teaching position at an American University may not be the lived reality of the average Indian Muslim, the cares, concerns and fears that the film expresses are shared by the community at large.

Bani, tired of looking over her shoulder fearing State reprisal by way of criminal prosecution for her writings, is all of us, the wife fearing her husband may have been the victim of the latest incident of communal violence is every Muslim wife and mother waiting for their loved ones to return home in the evening, and the family afraid of a mob landing up at their door to avenge an inter-faith relationship is relatable to every inter-faith couple in today’s India. And what ironically is most unusual for Hindi cinema, is that in the backdrop of these concerns is a bunch of Muslims just being normal people.

People who dress in a variety of different ways depending on their various levels of adherence or otherwise to religion; who pray or don’t depending on their age and stage of life; children, some of whom smoke or drink behind their parents’ backs; and young people who have between them the entire gamut of romantic relationships—from committed traditional marriages to broken ones, from loving modern relationships to adulterous liaisons. The Shamsuddin family is a reflection of every middle-class Indian family, a luxury that Hindi cinema seldom allows its on-screen Muslims.

The Great Shamsuddin Family is not a political film. But it is nevertheless a courageous one. Not because the ideas it expresses are rebellious, but because it comes at a time when tolerance for any attempt to normalise the Muslim identity is at an all-time low. To place things in perspective, let us employ something similar to the famous Bechdel Test used to evaluate female representation in films. The statement of the Bechdel Test is—a film passes if it features at least two named women who talk to each other about something other than a man. For me, the test for purposes of the present analysis is this: a film qualifies if one of the lead characters in it is shown as Muslim, and nothing turns on it. No good Muslim bad Muslim tropes, no terrorism angle, no reference to Pakistan, no propaganda, no stereotyping, just Muslims living lives and doing things. Let us apply this test to films released in the last ten years.

In an industry dominated by the Khans for decades, attempts to normalise the portrayal of Muslim characters are shockingly few and far between. Shahrukh Khan’s Dear Zindagi (2016) barely qualifies because although he plays a therapist with a Muslim name, Jahangir Khan, the film centres around Kaira, played by Alia Bhatt, and tells us nothing about Khan’s life outside of his therapy sessions with Kaira. Besides this, while Pathaan (2023) was celebrated for its bold title, as the film progresses, it is made clear that the protagonist does not know of his own origins—he was raised in an orphanage, joined the Indian Army and is called ‘Pathan’ only as an honorific given by the inhabitants of a Pathan village in Afghanistan that he saved in an operation by the Indian Army. Oh, and he says “Assalamualaikum” in the film. Twice. Salman Khan’s contribution has been Sultan (2016), the one film that actually clears the test on all fours. Sultan centres around the lives of two wrestlers who eat, pray, love and nothing turns on the fact that they are Muslim. Besides this, the only other manner in which Salman normalises being Muslim is by releasing his films on Eid every year. Aamir Khan came close with Secret Superstar (2017), the story of a Muslim girl who wants to become a singer, but he could not resist the trope of an abusive Muslim husband and father who fully conforms to the image of the Muslim man peddled by right-wing propaganda, abusing and confining his wife and daughter. Saif Ali Khan has not meaningfully even tried to enter the space; his greatest act of rebellion in his many years in the industry has been to name his son Taimur.

Besides the Khans, one filmmaker in recent times who comes close is Zoya Akhtar with Gully Boy (2019) where the lead characters were depicted as Muslim and yet, nothing turns on their religious identity in the story. The film is the story of a young boy, Murad Ahmad, from the Dharavi slum in Mumbai who wants to be a rapper. The fact that he is Muslim is completely incidental to the plot and his religion merely serves as a backdrop, such as in a scene where he is shown praying before his big opportunity to perform on stage. His girlfriend, Safeena Firdausi, wears a hijab, but otherwise lives the life of any other teenager in a large Indian metro. But here too, the film falls hard with the stereotype of the abusive polygamous Muslim husband, Murad’s father, who enters into a second marriage and brings home his young wife, becoming the source of Murad’s existential angst that surfaces in his rap.

Besides these, no other films come to mind in the last decade that pass the test. Of course, yesteryears’ scriptwriter, Javed Akhtar, deserves special mention here as he has unwittingly contributed more than anyone else in recent times to giving a platform for expression of Muslim religious identity, except that he achieved it by trying to do the opposite and getting his nose rubbed in the dirt by a young mufti in a now viral public debate on religion.

Sad indeed are the times we live in, when we have to celebrate something as small as normalisation of the Muslim identity in a film. But celebrate we must, because it is by design that something so small has been made so rare, since political power in India now feeds off communal hatred, and the demonisation of the Muslim ‘other’ is critical to its growth and sustenance. Swimming against the tide requires courage, which at present, few besides Rizvi are demonstrating in her industry.

(Views expressed are personal)

Saiyyad Mohammad Nizamuddin Pasha is a Delhi-based lawyer.

This article appeared in Outlook's March 01 issue titled Horror Island which focuses on how the rich and powerful are a law unto themselves and whether we the public are desensitised to the suffering of women. It asks the question whether we are really seeking justice or feeding a system that turns suffering into spectacle?