Page - 91 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

rorist.” Khan’s epic yātrā, or pilgrimage, (noticeably echoing Forrest Gump’s) lasts so long that he ultimately meets a new president, Barack Obama – a leader more receptive to the protagonist’s plight, signaling hope that America’s new political dispensation will mark an end to Western (and, in fact, Indian) anti-Islamic prejudice. As is often the case, the line between protagonist and Hindi-film superstar is gauzy, particularly when audiences are well aware that after September 11, 2001, Khan the actor repeatedly faced difficulties from Homeland Security when entering the United States.42 By then he had become a global brand with his own production company. Apparently, even he was not immune to the ignominies of religious and racial profiling as part of the “War on Terror”. To say that Khan’s recent roles have become self-consciously “meta”, then, would be an understatement. More recently, in Raees (Rahul Dholakia, IN 2017), Khan plays the titular bootlegger who escapes poverty through a combination of brutality and savvy to become a major Gujarati kingpin.43 Significantly, the Muslim anti-hero refuses to distinguish between Muslims and Hindus, seeing all members of his composite neighborhood as “my people”. This is a world in which the broth- ers Amar, Akbar, and Anthony would feel at home. After all, the period film is set in roughly the same time and location as the 1977 masterpiece. As Khan resuscitates an earlier 1970s’ Muslim stereotype (that of the gangster), he is likewise summon- ing and endorsing India’s earlier multicultural vision of itself. In the age of social media and satellite television, when Khan is pilloried for daring to speak out against intolerance, King Khan has found a way to shrewdly communicate through his char- acters. While certainly the most numerous, Muslims are not India’s only religious minori- ty. Sikhs fare better in Bollywood films, but like Muslims of old, they generally serve as sidekicks to Hindu protagonists (The Company, Ram Gopal Varma, IN 2002) or, more often, as harmless turban-wearing background players employed as proof of secular India’s composite religious culture, exemplified by the famous slogan “Hin- du, Muslim, Sikh, Īsāī Bhāī Bhāī Hain.” (“Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Christian are all brothers”). This is all the more surprising given the ubiquity of Punjabis in the Hindi film industry as producers, directors, playback singers, and actors. By the late 1990s, the “typical” North Indian protagonist had become a Punjabi, and the quintessen- tial heartland, the Punjab (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge; Veer-Zaara (Yash Chopra, IN 2004)). By the turn of the century, a non-Indian could be mistaken for thinking that all of rural India was blanketed in golden mustard. Given the ubiquity of Punjab, Punjabis, and things Punjabi, then, one could expect to see more Sikhs in films other 42 Kumar 2016. 43 The nostalgic lionization of a pre-economic liberalization (gangster) entrepreneur can be interpreted as a not so subtle endorsement of India’s new economic regime. 90 | Kerry P.  C. San Chirico www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 73–102