The Theme Of Religion In The Movies Fiza (2000) Pk (2014) & Kai Po Che (2013)

Kai Po Che (2013)

Kai Po Che is a movie that demonstrates a melting pot of culture and boiling communal tensions. The movie shows the different disruptions caused and the havoc created during the year 2001 when an earthquake hit the state of Gujarat that started creating a religious difference and then ultimately led to the riots caused between the Hindu and the Muslim community in the year 2002.

The movie displays how the friendship and innocence of three friends got tarnished due to a series of events taking place between the period 2000-2002 which involves the Gujarat Earthquake and the Godhra Burning Train incident. While the movie covers themes like ambition and betrayal, the film also paints a fascinating portrait of an India that is on the brink of the future, and yet still divided by wealth and poverty, by class and religion. The wealth disparity that caused the friends to borrow money but after and unforeseen accident had to be paid off and the bias against the Muslim community that led one of the leads Omi to take revenge on the entire community.

Discrimination based on religion has taken place in India since its independence and the partition which is why another theme of the movie is the effect of anti-secularism on the mind-set of the people. When an attack on a train caused the death of his parents, one of the characters of the movie Omi played by Amit Sadh irrationally decided that the only way to avenge the death of his parents was to storm in to a Muslim community and kill every Muslim in sight. Even though democracy & secularism is supposed to be followed in India, sometimes it seems like a pipe dream.

Fiza (2000)

Khalid Mohamed's Fiza is a gem of a movie. It portrays how happy families are affected in the times of wars, violence, hatred and dehumanisation of people at the time of such riots. The movie depicts the impact of 1993 Mumbai riots between the Hindus and the Muslims. It shows how the life of Armaan (Hrithik Roshan) was affected after he was able to save himself but ended up killing many people and became a terrorist. The impact on his life was so huge that he couldn’t fit back to his normal life and was led astray.

Thus when wanted by police and unwanted by his group, he committed suicide. One of the major themes of this movie is the criminalisation of religion. A man who was a part of the 1993 riots is labelled a criminal and invariably then pulled into a terrorist group.Such a powerful message is delivered through the movie that the riots not only affect the individuals but also their families as is portrayed by the character of Armaan’s mother who out of grief and disappointment commits suicide as well as his sister who spent years looking for him and the trials that she faced in the process.

PK (2014)

Rajkumar Hirani makes this film by looking at the religious differences with a different perspective. This is the alien perspective as the main character Aamir Khan is an alien who tries to find answers to his question by following different religions. An important aspect of the movie is the focus on the belief that God will help you find whatever you are looking for and that religion has all the answers. The differences of religion are portrayed when people ask Aamir khan to follow different religions when he discovers that different religions exist in India and every religion has its own beliefs and practices. He further discovers that people are commercialising religion to earn money. When trying to prove this to the people, Aamir Khan receives a lot of hatred and resistance and being called “PK” (drunk) as people in India follow religion blindly.

The entire movie revolves around this theme as Aamir khan tries to prove his point and try to get his remote back in order to go back to his alien land. One scene liked most was when Aamir khan called 4-5 people in a pravachan of Tapasvi ji and asked him to tell the religion and the people were judged on the basis of clothing. This proves that a person’s religion and thus his activities are judged on the basis of what they wear. At the end, Aamir doesn’t deny the fact that God exists instead he says that the belief in him has led people astray and they are most focused on such religious practices that do more harm than good just to portray their devotion.