Indian Armed Forces: The Reel and Real

Hindi films are usually flippant and disrespectful towards the country’s armed forces. Why is this tolerated? Sumit Paul presents his view.

- Sumit Paul

Recently, the Indi-an Air Force (IAF) raised objection to actor Anil Kapoor wearing the wrong uniform and using abusive language in a film titled ‘AK versus AK’. The IAF also urged the streaming platform Netflix to remove the scenes with the discrepancies. “The IAF uniform in this video is inaccurately donned and the language used is inappropriate. This does not conform to the behavioural norms of those in the armed forces of India. The related scenes need to be withdrawn,” read a tweet on the official Twitter handle of IAF. This is not ‘military dictatorship’' as ignorant netizens are quick to call it. Enough is enough!

The Hindi film industry, popularly called Bollywood, right from its inception has never depicted the services the way army, navy and air force must be shown on celluloid. First of all, civil society has precious little knowledge of the services. The army has an altogether different culture and a well-guarded set of ethos that can come only through the uniform donned by a soldier. That’s the reason all war and military-based Hindi movies have never been acknowledged by the soldiers and officers because of the lousy and loud acting of our actors, who are unaware of military mannerisms and how an individual from the services’ carries and conducts himself.