Something's Rotten in Kashmir: Postcolonial Ambivalence and the War on Terror in Vishal Bhardwaj's Haider. (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dadabhoy, Ambereen
• Is Part Of: Shakespeare. Volume 17:Number 1(2021)
• Page Start: 15
• Page End: 28
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Islam -- Muslims -- postcolonialism -- global politics -- terrorism -- national identity; Periodicals; 822.33
• DOI: 10.1080/17450918.2021.1892810
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1745-0918

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Haider, the terminal film in Vishal Bhardwaj's Indian Shakespeare trilogy, reconfigures Hamlet in the context of Indian-occupied Kashmir. Haider, tethers Shakespeare's play to contemporary geopolitical issues destabilizing the Indian subcontinent, the uneasy and anxious location of Kashmir within the Indian national and political imaginary. Drawing on the turmoil of the nativist insurgency and Indian government sponsored counter-insurgency, which literally turned brother against brother, Bhardwaj's aptly pivots to Hamlet as the vehicle through which to represent the conflict. While Bhardwaj's adaptation offers a compelling meditation on the ways in which postcolonial adaptations of Shakespeare can interrogate the very notion of postcoloniality, particularly when portraying a state—Kashmir—of ongoing colonial contest and violence, Haider is further complicated, I argue here, by its ambivalent participation in "War on Terror culture, " which demands a certain pathologically violent depiction of Muslim identity and in which the film eagerly and easily traffics.