Bombay (film)

Bombay is a 1995 Indian Tamil-language Indian romantic drama film directed by Mani Ratnam, starring Arvind Swamy and Manisha Koirala in the lead, and featuring music composed by A. R. Rahman.

Quotes about the movie

• Muslim audiences were angry at Mani Ratnam's film, not just for showing a Muslim girl falling in love with a Hindu (the Muslim philosophy about this, firmly established in the Sharia, is that 'our girls are ours, yours are up for grabs'), but also for not confirming them in the victim role which they had appropriated in connection with the Bombay riots. Mani Ratnam had a miraculous escape when a bomb was hurled at his residence in Madras."... Local authorities banned the film under Islamicist pressure or threats.
  • Elst, K. (2010). The saffron swastika: The notion of "Hindu fascism". p 778-9

• Are there no limits to what Muslims can demand, and get away with, in the imagined cause of their religion? ... There is no reason why our political leaders should have to start kowtowing and running scared everytime a bunch of semi-literate mullahs gets up and starts making a noise. ... We have just seen Shiv-Sena government in Maharashtra buckle under Muslim pressure and suspend the release of Mani Rattnam’s Bombay. It is a film about inter-religious marriage and the triumph of peace over communal hatred. ... After seeing the film they came up with a list of objections so absurd that they should have been considered ludicrous in our secular land but they have been taken seriously. They object, we are told, to the last shot. The Muslim girl while eloping with her Hindu husband carried the Koran in her hand. This was bad, they said, because it seemed to imply that her marriage had Islamic sanction. ... Nor did they approve of the film’s first scene which shows a woman lifting her burqa off her face.... Offence was taken, we are told, because a Hindu family was shown being burned alive. A Muslim family is also shown being similarly murdered, because this also happened in the terrible riots of 1992, but our Muslim objectors are selective in their disapproval.
  • Tavleen Singh: Indian Express, New Delhi, 16 April 1995 Pampering the minority ego, quoted from (1997). Time for stock taking, whither Sangh Parivar? Edited by Goel, S. R.

• The Muslim leaders argued that the film "insults the culture and religion of Muslims", and that they would settle for nothing less than a ban. Says Tai: "We didn't like the film from start to finish. We believe a Hindu-Muslim marriage is illegitimate." Muslim leaders also objected to the "biased" depiction of the riots. Asks Ahmed: "Why haven't they shown what the police did?" Maulana Abdul Ludus Kashmiri of the Ulema Council who, incidentally, hasn't seen the film, doesn't mince his words: "This film was made to insult Muslims and set fire between the communities."
  • Raxa Academy General Secretary Ibrahim Tai, and Janata Dal's Faiyax Ahmed, quoted from Mani Ratnam's film 'Bombay' incenses Muslim leaders of city, A. Chandra, India Today, April 30, 1995 [1]