When A R Rahman says he tries to avoid films made with “bad intentions”, you want to believe him. Not just because he’s spent decades being Bollywood’s most globally respected export, but because he’s also one of the few industry heavyweights who’s even willing to acknowledge that intent is now a problem worth discussing.
That conversation came up in a recent interview with BBC Asian Network’s Haroon Rashid, who put to Rahman what many audiences — especially Muslim audiences — have been muttering for years: that it has become increasingly difficult to separate “historical drama” from outright political messaging in Hindi cinema, and that Muslim identity is often used as a visual and verbal shorthand for villainy.
Rashid pointed out that 10 or 15 years ago, a composer could sign onto a film without worrying too much about whether it was quietly selling a particular ideology.
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