What does a 17th century play have to say about 1995 Kashmir?
‘Hamlet is one of the most intensely appropriated literary characters of all time. There are wilting Romantic Hamlets, nationalist hero Hamlets, humanist dissident Hamlets, Puritan Hamlets, disenchanted philosopher Hamlets, existentialist Hamlets, yeshiva-bokher Hamlets, and so on.’[1] – Margaret Litvin, Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost.
In the introductory chapter of the Arden Shakespeare’s third edition of Hamlet, the playwright’s longest and perhaps most renowned play is celebrated for its capacity of ‘seemingly endless retellings and rewriting by others.’[2] As a result, a strong tradition of adapting Shakespeare in order question the contemporary moment persists in literature as well as wider artistic fields. In light of this fact, it is therefore most fitting that Hindi-film director Vishal Bhardwaj utilised this notoriety and applicability in order to retell the tragedy within the context of the separatist movement in 1990s Kashmir. In Haider (2014), the adaptation’s central protagonist played by Shahid Kapoor, returns to his hometown of Srinagar to discover the disappearance of his father, Dr Hilal Meer (Narendra Jha). Upon his return Haider also discovers the Indian Army’s overwhelming presence which has resulted in rampant terror attacks and mass disappearances/killings.
Bhardwaj’s Haider (2014) is the most vocal and candid of the very few Bollywood films that have attempted to address the political intricacies of the occupied territory, and remains moderately subversive to the polarizing discourse on Kashmir. The contrasting narratives characterize the conflict as ‘a dispute over real estate between India and Pakistan’ wherein ‘those who do not subscribe to the dominant discourse are portrayed as anti-national.’[3] The film honours the forthright tone of its source material, striving to not only contribute to this discourse, but additionally redefine it. In doing so Haider uses Shakespeare ‘as a passport for creative interaction between the lived experience of the local and the networks of meaning with a more global scope.’[4] In other words, the film centralizes filmic language, in order to accessibly present and interrogate (within both local and global spheres) the Indian army’s role in the Kashmir conflict. This effort is embodied most productively during Haider’s address to the public, which holds a keen resemblance to Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy from Act III, Scene I. My investigation will analyse the ways in which this famed extract as well as central aspects of Hamlet’s narrative are mobilized in this scene to address the sense of political unrest in Kashmir.
From Rotten Denmark to Rotten Kashmir:
The ‘rotten state of Denmark’[5] personifies the narrative’s looming deceit, corruption and inevitable downfall, amounting to Hamlet’s contemplative soliloquy. As he ponders life and death, Hamlet’s extended speculation is provoked by the actions of external sources, namely his uncle King Claudius and mother Gertrude. Hamlet’s lamenting of the tribulations in life includes ‘the scorns of time / Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely.’[6] By listing his mistreatment in all spheres, the protagonist’s victimhood is asserted, thereby further villainizing the play’s central antagonists. This translates seamlessly to Haider’s address, which utilises mise-en-scène to criticise the Indian government’s active contribution to the subordination of Kashmiris. Using the city square Lal Chowk in Srinagar as the backdrop of this scene alludes to ‘the political leaders of Kashmir [who] deliver their speeches’[7] at this site, yet betray the very citizens whom they vow to protect, thereby exposing the hypocrisies of the Indian government, whose constitution outlines the autonomy of Kashmir whilst simultaneously occupying and oppressing the territory.[8] The scene directly addresses this by inserting Haider’s uncle Khurram (Kay Kay Menon), who leads a counterinsurgency militia for the Indian government. The film’s critical lens proceeds as Haider mockingly announces the title of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution[9] to communicate its falsity in providing justice. This establishes the juxtaposition between the film’s central binary oppositions (Haider/Kashmiri citizens and Khurram/Indian government) to articulate this divide within the wider political context.
Haider’s allegiance to the Kashmiri people is further reminiscent of the musings in Hamlet’s soliloquy, particularly the line, ‘the undiscovered country from whose bourne / No traveller returns’.[10] Although the Jacobean hero refers to death here, the social and political unrest of Kashmir would legitimize equating the region to such collapse. Considering that in 2014, the conflict recorded ‘80,000 dead, 6,000 mass and unmarked graves, and thousands of disappeared youth – post resistance of 1989’[11], the omnipresence of death although widespread is inordinately contained within its borders. Hamlet’s insinuation that those who embark upon death do not return translates to Haider’s personal devastation for witnessing the downfall of Kashmir. The film expresses this through the noose around Haider’s neck, symbolizing the inevitability of death under Indian occupation for countless Kashmiri citizens – a reality from which ‘No traveller returns.’ This observation is substantiated by Michael Slater, who notes, ‘the forms of torture viewers confront in Haider stem[s] directly from the vexing accounts of actual survivors and the material evidence offered by the dead bodies.’[12] This demonstrates how the film references existing discourse in order to expand upon its own discussion of the conflict.
Of Madness and Mothers:
In addition to the contemplations of life and death, perhaps the most central concern of the play’s narrative is Hamlet’s ‘antic disposition’.[13] In similar fashion to Kashmir’s likeness to death, the soliloquy’s centralization of madness is additionally comparable to the administered territory. The film replicates this as the overwhelming political disarray results in a sense of physical and psychological displacement for Haider. The original text notes that ‘by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to’ [14] – in other words, there is a strong desire to alleviate the suffering that burdens Hamlet. Through the use of synecdoche, flesh represents the body in its entirety, which shall inescapably be subject to decay both physically and emotionally. In the context of Kashmir, it should be noted that the process of rotting is not necessarily as conclusive as death, but rather connotes a slow deterioration which can be likened to madness caused by the Indian government’s persistent subjugation. The origin of this decay, as previously discussed is a result of government legislature such as Article 370, which establishes ‘unequal terms [that] invariably create conditions for the conflict to take a destructive turn.’ [15] Nitasha Kaul outlines the ways in which specific manifestations of violence cause further social and political disarray in Kashmir. Kaul references violence that is ‘masked as progress, such as the destruction of the environment, the splitting of communities by employment rewards, and the narratives of progressive Hindus versus backwards Muslims who need to be enlightened.’ [16] In order to reflect this, the scene centralizes the dislocation of the Kashmiri people through Haider’s display of madness in this monologue. He exclaims, ‘Do we exist or not? If we do, then who are we? If we don’t… then where are we? If we exist, then why do we stand here? If we don’t exist, where did we lose ourselves? Did we exist at all?’ [17] Baring a slight resemblance to Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’[18], this interrogation is performed rapidly in a variety of voices and accents to communicate the magnitude of Haider’s and the territory’s displacement. The voices imply that the sense of Kashmiri identity has been so gravely tarnished, that citizens are no longer secure of themselves or their autonomy. Additionally, the cinematography mirrors this feeling, maintaining a hand-held effect when placed on Haider to replicate the maddening and disorientating quality of subjugation under the Indian government.
Kaul additionally notes, ‘there is the violence of imaginaries that are the outcomes of cartographic anxieties, so that the unfolding of Kashmiri political aspirations could be a beheading of Mother India.’[19] This sentiment is rooted in the Shakespearean text, as Denmark’s sense of disarray is caused by the castle’s corruptive operations, thereby resulting in Hamlet’s antic disposition and unyielding misogyny towards the text’s female characters, particularly his mother. The parallelism between the fallen state and the fallen mother is indulged to rationalize and give cause to Hamlet’s madness, as he protests, ‘O most pernicious woman!’. [20] Haider’s disposition mirrors this during the scene’s final moments shared with his mother, Ghazala (Tabu). Much like Gertrude, Ghazala’s relationship with Khurram following her husband’s disappearance, embodies the corruption within Denmark, and in turn Kashmir. As Haider approaches Ghazala, she weeps at her son’s public display, burdened by guilt. When Haider presents his mother with a picture of his father’s dead body, the score’s sombre tone symbolizes Ghazala’s disloyalty to both Haider and Kashmir. As a figure of ‘nationalist iconography of the nation’[21], Mother India embodies sacrifice and purity and remains the backbone of the nation’s ideology. This is additionally noteworthy due to Mehboob Khan’s film Mother India (1957) which encapsulated these values, thereby solidifying the figure’s cultural impact in both the social and cinematic spheres. Therefore, when the scene frames Ghazala as the cause of Haider’s madness, she is framed in opposition to her son as a vehicle of the Indian government. By equating the Mother India figure with corruption, the film deconstructs the nation’s sacred ideology, invalidating the foundation of their politics, thereby condemning India’s involvement in Kashmir as immoral and prejudiced. This is perhaps the film’s most interesting effort, as it uses both Hamlet’s and India’s configurations of gender to subvert the existing discourse and prove Kashmir’s capacity to become a liberated autonomous state without external intervention.
Conclusion:
The aforementioned adaptability of Hamlet is rooted in the play’s fundamental themes of revenge, corruption and politics. Therefore many adaptations have capitalized on these universal concepts and themes, applying them to numerous circumstances, irrespective of time, setting and context. Bhardwaj’s adaptation is evidently no exception, as his decision to relocate the tragic tale in 1995 Kashmir allows audiences to observe a polarizing conflict at the height of its militarization and separatist movement. Haider’s social and political commentary is heavily dependent on the uses of film language, which accessibly communicates the film’s position within the landscape of Kashmiri discourse. The formal elements of cinema are therefore most integral to this venture, since the adaptation is performed in Hindi, and therefore cannot rely on the source material alone to carry the political commentary. My analysis dictates the success of this effort by noting how Bhardwaj paints the screen with nuance, pioneering the Bollywood industry’s most relevant and productive account of Kashmir, which is actively in conversation with surrounding discourse throughout the film.
[1] Litvin, Margaret. Hamlet's Arab Journey : Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011: 17
[2] Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. the Arden Shakespeare. 3rd Series. Ed." Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor.London: Thompson (2006): 74
[3] Joseph, Teresa. "Kashmir, Human Rights and the Indian Press." Null 9, no. 1 (2000): 42
[4] Sarkar, Abhishek. “Haider and the Nation-State: Shakespeare, Bollywood, and Kashmir.” South Asian Review 37, no. 2 (2016): 33
[5] Shakespeare, William, Hamlet, ed. Richard Andrews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 1.4.90
[6] (Shakespeare 2014, 3.1.70-71)
[7] Ayaz, Gohar, Zia Ahmed and Ali Ammar. 2015. “Hamlet-Haider: From Rotten Denmark to Rotten Kashmir.” International Journal of English and Education 4 (3): 119
[8] Burke, Jason. "India’s Cancellation of Kashmir’s Special Status Will have Consequences." The Guardian (2019).
[9] Article 370 is a piece of legislature enacted in 1950, which dictates that Kashmir is an autonomous state, separate from the Indian administration. However, in the paper ‘Jammu and Kashmir & the Politics of Article 370: Seeking Legality for the Illegitimate’, Hoskote and Hoskote write that the article was ‘a precursor to the unequal development of people in J&K itself and in comparison to the rest of the country’.
[10] (Shakespeare 2014, 3.1.79-80)
[11] Geelani, Gowhar. "Kashmir: The Forgotten Conflict." Race & Class 56, no. 2 (2014): 29
[12] Slater, Michael. "Hamlet in Kashmir: Political Allegory in Vishal Bhardwaj's Haider." Shakespeare Bulletin 37, no. 3 (2019): 372
[13] (Shakespeare 2014, 1.5.172)
[14] (Shakespeare 2014, 3.1.61-63)
[15] (Hoskote and Hoskote 2017: 816)
[16] Kaul, Nitasha, “India’s Obsession with Kashmir: Democracy, Gender, (Anti)Nationalism.” Feminist Review 119, no. 1 (2018): 137
[17] Haider, directed by Vishal Bhardwaj (UTV Motion Pictures, Vishal Bhardwaj Pictures, 2014): 1:26:02
[18] Shakespeare 2014, 3.1.56)
[19] (Kaul 2018: 137)
[20] (Shakespeare 2014, 1.5.105)
[21] Sinha, Mrinalini. "Refashioning Mother India: Feminism and Nationalism in Late-Colonial India." Feminist Studies 26, no. 3 (2000): 623
Bibliography:
Ayaz, Gohar, Zia Ahmed, and Ali Ammar. "Hamlet-Haider: From Rotten Denmark to Rotten Kashmir." International Journal of English and Education 4, no. 3 (2015): 116-123.
Burke, Jason. "India’s Cancellation of Kashmir’s Special Status Will have Consequences." The Guardian (2019).
Geelani, Gowhar. "Kashmir: The Forgotten Conflict." Race & Class 56, no. 2 (2014): 29-40.
Hoskote, Amitabh and Vishakha A. Hoskote. "Jammu & Kashmir & the Politics of Article 370: Seeking Legality for the Illegitimate." PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences 3, no. 1 (2017).
Joseph, Teresa. "Kashmir, Human Rights and the Indian Press." Null 9, no. 1 (2000): 41-55. doi:10.1080/713658719. https://doi.org/10.1080/713658719.
Kaul, Nitasha. "India's Obsession with Kashmir: Democracy, Gender, (Anti-)Nationalism." Feminist Review 119, no. 1 (2018): 126-143. doi:10.1057/s41305-018-0123-x. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41305-018-0123-x.
Litvin, Margaret. Hamlet's Arab Journey : Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=775171.
Sarkar, Abhishek. "Haider and the Nation-State: Shakespeare, Bollywood, and Kashmir." South Asian Review 37, no. 2 (2016): 29-46.
Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. the Arden Shakespeare. 3rd Series. Ed." Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor.London: Thompson (2006).
Sinha, Mrinalini. "Refashioning Mother India: Feminism and Nationalism in Late-Colonial India." Feminist Studies 26, no. 3 (2000): 623-644. doi:10.2307/3178643. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3178643.
Slater, Michael. "Hamlet in Kashmir: Political Allegory in Vishal Bhardwaj's Haider." Shakespeare Bulletin 37, no. 3 (2019): 365-390. doi:10.1353/shb.2019.0040.