Don’t let the light go out

In 1981, the cinema theatre near my home in Calcutta became a mehfil-e-mushaira. At the end of each show, majnoohs walked out of the darkness humming tunes and reciting ghazals. Muzaffar Ali's Umrao Jaan allowed non-Urdu speakers to revel in the richness of Urdu culture, which most of us non-Muslims saw as exotic and attractive, yet distant. (Muslim culture would be further rendered exotic in 1982 in two films, Nikaah and Deedar-e-yaar.) These are all films of decline, where a supposedly homogenous Muslim culture is rife with problems – some easy to overcome (divorce rates), and others intractable (the demise of the kotha culture). The elegance of the language thrilled many urbane Indians, who enjoyed the patois but felt uncomfortable with the working-class and rural sections that actually spoke it.

As Ali's movie thrilled, Biharsharif burned. The local Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chapter provoked a major fight over cemetery land, the first confrontation since 1945. The riot that ensued left many dead, and inaugurated a new dynamic in Indian politics. In the mid-1980s, 60 riots shook the small towns and cities of Uttar Pradesh. Late in that decade, in 1987, Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana (written by Rahi Masoom Raza) entered the homes of millions of people. All this prepared the terrain for the rise of Hindutva, and for the mayhem of the 1990s.