Muslims on the subcontinent, and their leaders, must see the Bollywood blockbuster, Kal Ho Naa Ho. It’s not a great film, not even a good film. It is a slick extravaganza, technically as good as it gets. But it preys on our weakness for extending melodrama to a point where tears have to be shed. This is the first Indian film I have seen where the action takes place entirely in New York. In fact New York has never looked better. The plot, or the absence of it, is strung around some prosperous
Indian families — Punjabis, Sikhs included, Gujaratis, a Christian daughter-in-law — hiding a melodramatic secret.

The overall image is of Indians thriving abroad, very much in the fold of rampaging globalisation. The important point is this: at a time when Thomas Friedman of the New York Times is expiring from anxiety at the exponential growth of anti-Americanism worldwide, one of the most successful Indian films in recent years is set entirely in the US and, unlike other films about Indians abroad, the dramatis personae in this one are not wrapped in nostalgia for home. In fact they are merrily integrated into the US milieu. Where is the anti-Americanism? Yes—and this crucial—that it is unthinkable to have New York as the location for so much frolicking by a Pakistani, Bangladeshi or an Arab film group. In the Muslim mind, Indian Muslims included, there is a deep problem. Of course, there is an exquisite Indian twist to the tale—the two Indians dominating the film, a Gujarati Patel and a Delhi/UP Kayastha, are played by Saif Khan and Shahrukh Khan.

Anti-Americanism is as old as the US itself, only the scale and intensity has varied, even though sometimes it has even alternated with admiration. Nehru’s anti-Americanism derived as much from the Cold War as from his very British intellectual make up. It is the contemporary Muslim anti-Americanism which is a factor with its own antecedents.

The US faced widespread opposition during the Vietnam war. And yet the Chinese very swiftly joined the strategic triangle sketched by Washington against the Soviet Union. The Vietnamese, devastated by US bombing, could never sustain a “hatred” for Americans, largely because they won the war. The Muslim anger, based on real grievances, some exaggerated, has multiplied with a series of sustained defeats and humiliations, amplified by an insensitive western electronic media. Today, this anger has transformed itself into blind rage. Suicide bombings are a consequence. Desert Storm, Bosnia, the second Intifada, Afghanistan, Iraq are an unrelieved sequence of Muslim humiliation — all on live TV.

In this state of desperation, the Muslim mind latches on to any development which has an anti-American edge. Thus French President Jacques Chirac became a hero in the Muslim world because of his stout opposition to the Iraq invasion. A policy pursued in the French and European national interest had quite coincidentally placated the Muslim world. More, therefore, is the disappointment at the latest French law against Muslim girls wearing headscarves. General humiliation is now compounded by a sense of feeling cornered. Even a multicultural society like Britain is tightening laws against immigration, with Muslims being copiously in the line of fire.

How far will Muslim societies go with this “blind rage” anchored to no broad strategy? Surely, fabrication of a civilisational clash is not what Muslims want. Because, if they do, then they are walking straight into the trap laid by those in the West who are shaping a civilisational clash. It can be argued that the US has, possibly unthinkingly, conceded a much bigger victory to Osama bin Laden than he had bargained for by dismantling the liberal state. Guantanamo Bay, the sundry Homeland Security excesses, the illegal occupation of a country, an endorsement of imperialism, are all deviations from the American ideal. But none of this provides stone throwing schoolboys in Palestine any relief. Nor does it help Indian Muslims, marginalised in sphere after sphere—from political power to IT—to identify suitable leaders.

Deaths of 500 or even 5,000 US soldiers, the Homeland Security Excesses are setbacks not defeats for the US. What was set out as demonstration of US power may have turned out as an exhibition of limits to power. But Muslim “rage” is the rage of the humiliated, the defeated. What must Muslims do? Well, pull back, pause and as Mahatir Mohammad said in his brilliant speech last October, “think, think, think”. On the subcontinent, an opportunity has opened up with Indo-Pak peace enveloping the whole SAARC region and the other way around. The 500 million Muslims of the subcontinent (if you add Afghanistan), progressing in harmony with a billion others, will be an engine for moderation worldwide. America must be opposed, criticised, but barren “rage” is self defeating. If this continues, Kal Ho Naa Ho will by-pass Muslims — Saif Khan and Shahrukh Khan notwithstanding.
 

To read an Analysis of Mahathir's Speecj, Visit: http://www.saag.org/papers9/paper823.html