Construction of Differences Through Movies: A Case Study of Portrayal of Kashmiri Muslims in Indian Movies

Abstract

Indian movies are very popular in sub-continent and have equal rate of viewership in Pakistan as they have in India. On the other hand, movies have been known as the best tool for agenda setting since years. This had been experimented successfully at first in second world war and afterwards in USSR-Afghan war. This paper explores the portrayal of Kashmir’s in Indian movies in the same context of agenda setting. The main objective of the study is to determine whether Kashmiri Muslims are positively or negatively portrayed in Indian movies and are given equal representation or not. The researcher has employed the survey research and content analysis method for the study. Three Indian movies involving Kashmiri characters have been selected for content analysis. For the survey purpose, students of University of Punjab have been selected as population and a sample size of 150 have been taken through simple random sampling. The results of the study show that Kashmiri Muslims are portrayed as rebels and terrorist, and, are given only negative characters to perform. The study explains this phenomenon with help of Agenda Setting Theory.