Hindutva boycott of Hindi films

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Several boycotts have been started against Hindi films by Hindu nationalists in recent years, with the term Urduwood being used to characterise the Hindi-language Bollywood film industry as a Muslim-dominated, anti-Hindu industry which favours the use of Urdu over Hindi. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Contents

History

Bollywood has historically had many Muslims involved in the production of its movies, with some of the most popular film stars being Muslim, especially the Khans of Bollywood and many of the lyricists and songwriters infusing Urdu into the scripts; [7] [8] Urdu, which is heavily influenced by Middle Eastern languages such as Persian and Arabic, is generally associated with South Asian Muslims. [9]

Names

Along with Urduwood, related terms that are used are Khanwood (referring to the dominance in Bollywood of actors with the common South Asian Muslim last name Khan), Jihadwood, and Dawood-wood. [2] [10] [5]

Boycotts

Accusations of Bollywood films hurting Hindu sentiments have led to calls for boycotts against several major films in recent years under the hashtag #BoycottBollywood; [11] [12] [13] Bollywood producers have said that the threat of boycotts has led them to avoid certain topics in their films. [14] In addition, there have been more recent films which are nationalistic or pro-Hindu. [15] However, some films have been able to succeed regardless of the boycotts, [16] and there seems to have been an overall limited impact on boycotted movies' revenues. [13]

Some boycotters have called for South Indian cinema to be promoted instead, claiming that it was more respectful in representing Hindu culture, [17] [1] [18] [19] however some South Indian films were also boycotted by them. [20] [21]

See also

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References

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