Portrayal of Muslims in Indian Cinema : A Content Analysis of Movies during ( 2002 - 8 )

This study examines ‘Indian cinema and Muslim image’ from 2002 to 2008. From the very beginning and particularly since 9/11 incident, the Indian film industry very often portrays the Muslim with stereotype image (which is negative). After the 9/11 incident, Muslims are being looked as suspicious people and portrayed as terrorists. Indian film industry adds fuel to the fire by making a lot of movies on Muslims and presenting them as terrorists and negative ones. This research is being carried out to scientifically explore that how and to what extent Indian cinema is distorting and changing the Muslim image. This study tests by using content analysis of 50 Indian movies which were taken out from 350 Muslim-characters based movies. Ten variables were developed to test the hypothses. Code sheet has been made to get the results in statistical form. Favorable, unfavorable and neutral were the three slants through which the content was analyzed. These slants show that whether Indian movies present Muslims as favorable, unfavorable and neutral. The overall results of these slants show 4.4% favorable images, 65.2% unfavorable and 30.4% neutral images of Muslims portrayal by Indian cinema. The results indicate that Indian cinema is distorting the Muslim image and an anti-Muslim propaganda has been carried out not only in India but also at international level.