Page - 80 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

way for the second and third generations in the United States, there was a con- scious attempt to maintain a connection to a homeland perceived to be slipping away. Now there were films catering (often pandering) to these longings, all with the support of the Indian central government. Popular films like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Big-Hearted Will Take Away the Bride, Aditya Chopra, IN 1995) are many things, so we should abstain from facile reductionism, but they are certainly palliatives to both national and diasporic constituencies, alternatively assuring them that Mother India is still essentially Hindu even as their new home is not (a dubious premise), that modernization and Indian-ness are not mutually exclusive (more on this shortly), and that Indian family values are indeed superior to those of the Oth- er – that Other variously if mostly negatively construed. The Oscar nomination of Lagaan (Land Tax, Ashutosh Gowariker, IN 2001), in the category of Best Foreign Film, and the showing of Devdas (Sanjay Leela Bhansali, IN 2002) at Cannes con- ferred legitimacy on both Bollywood and these middle-class yearnings. As Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai respectively salāmed and namastéd15 their way down the red carpet, it might have dawned on segments of these Indian audiences, “Maybe masālā is acceptable after all. Maybe so are we.” Can we assume that Hindi popular cinema broadly represents a Hindu public? I be- lieve so. The contention itself rests on dominant and pervasive notions of the Hindu concept of dharma in Hindi films, the subject to which we must now turn our attention. Dharma and the Dhārmik in Indian Film: A Necessary Précis While beginnings are often debated, and searching them out can be a fool’s errand, it is significant that the first (and second) Indian features were dhārmik, which is to say, religious in nature.16 The candidates for first include Pundalik (Ramchandra don’t feel British suggests Asian Network poll”, in www.bbc.co.uk, 30 July 2007, http://www.bbc. co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/07_july/30/asian.shtml [accessed 15 November 2019]. 15 The typical Islamic greeting or wishing of peace, salām, in South Asia consists of moving the open palm roughly from the waist to the brow, whereas Hindus, and religious adherents of other tradi- tions, place both palms together in front of the chest in the namasté gesture. Rai and Khan greeted Cannes well-wishers using the gestures of their respective religious traditions. 16 I am using this term dharma capaciously to refer to the constellation of meanings connoted by law, moral and ethical code, right action, conformity with the truth of things, and, more common nowa- days. as the Hindi equivalent of the English word “religion”. Dhārmik is the adjectival form of dhar- ma. Admittedly, translating dharma as religion is problematic, a Western, reductionistic imposition, but one that is largely accepted by modern-day Hindi speakers. I am also placing bhakti, or devotion, broadly under this dhārmik rubric, fully cognizant that historically in South Asia, bhakti can both circumvent and reinforce Brahminical worldviews. Dharma and the Religious Other in Hindi Popular Cinema | 79www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 73–102