The performance of the Indian cricket team of late has been dismal to say the least. Barring the win against the West Indies a couple of days back, the Indians have generally disappointed the thronging millions who skip work and other emergencies to watch them play. The way things are going, the looming World Cup 2007 looks like a very distant dream, something that Indian team cannot even afford to dream of right now. They must, as a first, pull up their socks in the batting department. Simply flaunting the best talent in the world is not enough. One expects them to deliver which has been a rarity over the past several months.
Except Yuvraj, and to an extent Kaif, who is not even in the team that is playing Australia today, the batting has been mediocre and sometimes even downright pathetic. Sehwag looks a mere shadow of his old self. Sachin is just back from a long layoff and has already stamped his authority on the world of cricket with a scintillting innings against the West Indies in India's opening match in the DLF triseries. There is no player who can dominate the bowlers like the Little Master and the Master looks in great touch. That is about the best thing that has happened to Indian cricket for a while. the Return of Sachin 'Ton'ulkar!
The rotation policy proposed by Greg Chappel and executed meekly by Rahul Dravid is a damp squib. A number of players are being tested and rested which is creating consistancy problems in the team. A winning combination should never be tampered with, at least that is what old wisdom held. But it seems like Chappel's wisdom says something entirely different. Something that is proving to be totally disastrous for India.
One hopes the new bunch of players like R P Singh and Munaf Patel fire and remain consistant in their approach. The treatment being meted out to Irfan Pathan is also inexplicable. First Chappel criticised him in public saying that he is not in the right frame of mind. Now Pathan is gracing the bench more than the field, something which he should do in every game that India plays considering that fact that he is our frontline bowler.
It is time Indian fans demand an apology from the Board, the coach and the captain...or at least an explanation.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
One-sided verdict
A particularly prickly issue that has been bothering me over the past few days ever since the staggered verdict in the 1993 Mumbai blasts is being pronounced is this: hundreds of Muslims falsely implicated by rioters and their supporters in the Mumbai riots still languish in jails. When will their pleas be heard? Almost all the 32 police personnel including men of the rank of officer had been given the clean chit after internal departmental inquiries and nothing more. RD Tyagi, the former police commissioner of Mumbai who was responsible for the firing at the Suleiman Bakery where seven Muslims were murdered in cold blood was exonerated after an internal inquiry found him not guilty. Similarly, hundreds of perpetrators of the most heinoud hate crimes against the Muslims of Mumbai are free and about in the city without an aorta of fear...of the law that is.
A relative of one of those convicted for the 1993 bombings remarked: 'Is the police paid to arrest Muslims?' Now, what answer do you give to a question like that when this is what is amply evident and every occassion renders a feeling of victimhood as the cardinal truth. Any Muslim who has wtinessed his or her family getting brutalized, vandalized and murdered would come up with such a question. And aren't they justified in doing so? Why isn't Balasaheb Thackeray in jail yet? Wasn't he the one who incited riots in many parts of the city after large scale violence erupted following the demolition of the Babri Masjid? What about other Shiv Sena leaders who are guilty of delivering hate speeches which led to violence?
The Indian judicial system, the intelligence agencies, and the police has as yet resisted any uncomfortable questions. But one feels the time has come for the Mumbai police and the criminal justice system to come clean on the perpetrators of the Mumbai riots as well as other acts of terror such as the pre-planned and well-excuted Gujarat pogrom. Now that the verdict in the 1993 blasts is being given, ever so slowly prolonging the agony of those accused most of whom have spent more than 13 years in jail, the public pressure for justice to be delivered on the root cause of the blasts is increasing day by day. It is about time the Hindu fundamentalists too faced the music...for a change.
A relative of one of those convicted for the 1993 bombings remarked: 'Is the police paid to arrest Muslims?' Now, what answer do you give to a question like that when this is what is amply evident and every occassion renders a feeling of victimhood as the cardinal truth. Any Muslim who has wtinessed his or her family getting brutalized, vandalized and murdered would come up with such a question. And aren't they justified in doing so? Why isn't Balasaheb Thackeray in jail yet? Wasn't he the one who incited riots in many parts of the city after large scale violence erupted following the demolition of the Babri Masjid? What about other Shiv Sena leaders who are guilty of delivering hate speeches which led to violence?
The Indian judicial system, the intelligence agencies, and the police has as yet resisted any uncomfortable questions. But one feels the time has come for the Mumbai police and the criminal justice system to come clean on the perpetrators of the Mumbai riots as well as other acts of terror such as the pre-planned and well-excuted Gujarat pogrom. Now that the verdict in the 1993 blasts is being given, ever so slowly prolonging the agony of those accused most of whom have spent more than 13 years in jail, the public pressure for justice to be delivered on the root cause of the blasts is increasing day by day. It is about time the Hindu fundamentalists too faced the music...for a change.
The Left conundrum
The fact that Gurgaon, the high-end, part-urban, industrial suburb of Delhi, carried on business as usual through the bandh call given by left unions against the police atrocity whereby scores of protesting, retrenched workers were beaten, their skulls smashed and limbs broken, leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It appears as if the bloody faces on television and reports of riotous policemen maltreating workers have hardly touched a chord with those who matter, in the political echelons, among the masses and least of all with the trading community which dominates Delhi’s socio-economic landscape. Not uncommon, considering the manner in which the labour issue has been handled in India through the past fifty-eight years since independence.
The argument put forth by M.N Roy against the call for supporting all freedom movements across the world given by Lenin in the First International has stood like an edifice and witnessed the slow and silent marginalization of the working class movement in India and the subsequent ramifications for those who toil in mills and factories across the country. The transfer of power from the British elite to the English-speaking, Western-educated, Indian elite has had a bludgeoning impact on the manner in which labour issues are tackled in the country. The levels of sensitivity among the people have been even lower. Then of course, there has been a partial take-over of the worker’s universe by communal forces through their ipso facto labour friendly formations such as the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.
Left unionism too has been languishing for a while now for want of greater support and encouragement from dissenting workers, the government machinery and various other sectors. The Gurgaon episode, however, has demonstrated that trade unionism can be revived if greater levels of commitment are displayed by all those involved. In fact, a high degree of effort is now required particularly in the face of the multi-national corporate onslaught. Rights of Indian workers need to be protected now, more than ever before.
Foreign companies thrive on repulsive and profit-friendly policies and show scant regard to the needs of millions of Indian workers who emerge as the backbone of their rising market credibility. Open economies moving towards liberalization regimes, such as India have more often than not, disregarded the plight of men and women labouring in multi-national corporate factories with little or no wage rights and facing a fair share of employer high-handedness.
Even though authorities might claim that the Gurgaon labour unrest was a on-off affair and nothing drastic needs to be done, some stringent action against the offending officials and the real perpetrator of the crime – the Honda Motor Co., could act as an incentive. It is not enough to gloat aver the bull-run at the Sensex and pay lip service to sloganeering relatives. This perhaps is difficult considering the tight situation in which the labour parties find themselves in. Being part of the ruling UPA, they are incapacitated to a great extent. A more pro-active role is expected from communist leaders.
Can they deliver? For one, by raising an issue with the government about the ongoing process of privatization. What will be in it for the worker? What can the working class expect from the left parties? Left leaders must understand the need to create a niche for themselves by turning the tide and making privatization more labour-friendly. The workers have had enough of haranguing with employers and the machinery, which somehow does not seem to pay any heed.
Critics might argue about the futility of the suggestion stating that the left movement has lost its bearings in India and should shut shop. There is vast, untapped potential in the form of students in left-oriented universities such as JNU who could be future leaders, grassroots workers or even simple voters. The sooner this rich and creative resource is brought into mainstream politics, the better it would be for the communists to gain ground in areas that have not been traditional bastions.
Being a student of JNU, I have to state that the level of commitment that is displayed during elections within the campus is exemplary. Months of preparations go into the strategies that are thought out and followed. Another striking element of JNU politics in the posters. Informing, driving, exhorting and appealing, these posters bring life into the campus. And needless to stay, SFI posters are predominant. Past record proves that the campus is going to remain a red bastion for years to come. Such talent should not be allowed to waste. The communist movement must undertake to involve students in grassroots work.
Strongholds only in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura do not do justice to the workers of India. We would like to see the left parties doing well in other parts of the country too. Just why did the communist movement slacken off in the last five decades after independence is difficult to understand considering the fact that India remains and will remain for a long time to come, an agricultural and labour-dominated economy.
Bigger political formations, dominated by the elite bourgeoisie, have on the other hand have made use of issues from religion to secularism to garner vote share and support among the masses. One only needs to look at Gujarat to figure out how the Hindutva forces have transcended all levels of constitutional decency and made waves across the state. It is a pity that the communist parties have been unable to gather momentum in the larger states.
Maharashtra is a case in point. The Indian labour movement grew and flourished in the mill yards, lanes and by-lanes of the middle-class suburbs of Mumbai. The same suburban milieu now seems to be have been taken over by the Shiv Sena and the NCP to some extent. It is thus not a co-incidence that the left has never been able to emerge as a forceful formation in Maharashtra politics. Again, the student community holds the key.
The argument put forth by M.N Roy against the call for supporting all freedom movements across the world given by Lenin in the First International has stood like an edifice and witnessed the slow and silent marginalization of the working class movement in India and the subsequent ramifications for those who toil in mills and factories across the country. The transfer of power from the British elite to the English-speaking, Western-educated, Indian elite has had a bludgeoning impact on the manner in which labour issues are tackled in the country. The levels of sensitivity among the people have been even lower. Then of course, there has been a partial take-over of the worker’s universe by communal forces through their ipso facto labour friendly formations such as the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.
Left unionism too has been languishing for a while now for want of greater support and encouragement from dissenting workers, the government machinery and various other sectors. The Gurgaon episode, however, has demonstrated that trade unionism can be revived if greater levels of commitment are displayed by all those involved. In fact, a high degree of effort is now required particularly in the face of the multi-national corporate onslaught. Rights of Indian workers need to be protected now, more than ever before.
Foreign companies thrive on repulsive and profit-friendly policies and show scant regard to the needs of millions of Indian workers who emerge as the backbone of their rising market credibility. Open economies moving towards liberalization regimes, such as India have more often than not, disregarded the plight of men and women labouring in multi-national corporate factories with little or no wage rights and facing a fair share of employer high-handedness.
Even though authorities might claim that the Gurgaon labour unrest was a on-off affair and nothing drastic needs to be done, some stringent action against the offending officials and the real perpetrator of the crime – the Honda Motor Co., could act as an incentive. It is not enough to gloat aver the bull-run at the Sensex and pay lip service to sloganeering relatives. This perhaps is difficult considering the tight situation in which the labour parties find themselves in. Being part of the ruling UPA, they are incapacitated to a great extent. A more pro-active role is expected from communist leaders.
Can they deliver? For one, by raising an issue with the government about the ongoing process of privatization. What will be in it for the worker? What can the working class expect from the left parties? Left leaders must understand the need to create a niche for themselves by turning the tide and making privatization more labour-friendly. The workers have had enough of haranguing with employers and the machinery, which somehow does not seem to pay any heed.
Critics might argue about the futility of the suggestion stating that the left movement has lost its bearings in India and should shut shop. There is vast, untapped potential in the form of students in left-oriented universities such as JNU who could be future leaders, grassroots workers or even simple voters. The sooner this rich and creative resource is brought into mainstream politics, the better it would be for the communists to gain ground in areas that have not been traditional bastions.
Being a student of JNU, I have to state that the level of commitment that is displayed during elections within the campus is exemplary. Months of preparations go into the strategies that are thought out and followed. Another striking element of JNU politics in the posters. Informing, driving, exhorting and appealing, these posters bring life into the campus. And needless to stay, SFI posters are predominant. Past record proves that the campus is going to remain a red bastion for years to come. Such talent should not be allowed to waste. The communist movement must undertake to involve students in grassroots work.
Strongholds only in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura do not do justice to the workers of India. We would like to see the left parties doing well in other parts of the country too. Just why did the communist movement slacken off in the last five decades after independence is difficult to understand considering the fact that India remains and will remain for a long time to come, an agricultural and labour-dominated economy.
Bigger political formations, dominated by the elite bourgeoisie, have on the other hand have made use of issues from religion to secularism to garner vote share and support among the masses. One only needs to look at Gujarat to figure out how the Hindutva forces have transcended all levels of constitutional decency and made waves across the state. It is a pity that the communist parties have been unable to gather momentum in the larger states.
Maharashtra is a case in point. The Indian labour movement grew and flourished in the mill yards, lanes and by-lanes of the middle-class suburbs of Mumbai. The same suburban milieu now seems to be have been taken over by the Shiv Sena and the NCP to some extent. It is thus not a co-incidence that the left has never been able to emerge as a forceful formation in Maharashtra politics. Again, the student community holds the key.
The ‘Ideology’ of Rang de Basanti
Very poignant mores of urban, middle class existence have found a resonance in creations of classical masters of the cinematic form such as Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak who pronounced their class bearings and leanings through the celluloid medium. Whereas Ghatak – an active Marxist – delved into the peripheries of society to bring to life some of the most mind-boggling stories which would otherwise have remained on the sidelines of art and storytelling, Ray postulated a rearguard view of the changing Indian society, capturing the existential dilemma of a whole plethora of people duly portrayed as characters on the silver screen.
Hindi cinema – known more often than not as three-hour fixes churned out by the dozen by Bollywood, the vulgarized epithet provided to an industry that has emerged as a bulwark against the imperialist onslaught of the American film juggernaut that has captured the markets almost completely in the rest of the world – has had a rather long journey through its creative and restorative phases as Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan and Guru Dutt gave way to the Manmohan Desai’s and the Sippy’s who treated the movie-watching public to glamourized versions of middle class angst and the marginal people rising against a tyrannical and despotic establishment.
The subsequent de-humanization of Hindi films received an impetus with the work of filmmakers like Suraj Barjatya who presented us with two over-the-top marriage video recordings masquerading as films; Sanjay Leela Bhansali, whose biopic Devdas was not only claustrophobic and stifling but also inane and petty in terms of both performances and narrative; directorial ventures coming from the Chopra stable transported the viewer to a nether world of palatial, almost immodest dwellings and their Punjabi occupants closeted in their make-believe, surreal warps where in-house politics, songs and dances were the order of the day with love lurking somewhere in the background.
The most pathetic occupant of this pretentious and soulless universe of Hindi cinema is undoubtedly Karan Johar and his brand of films. While Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was gender-insensitive and derogatory to say the least, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham reinforced the unwritten rules of patriarchy like no other film had ever done before. The women in the film are devoid of any agency, going to an extent of being reprimanded by the husband for opening their mouth against something that the husband said or did.
This crowding out of Hindi films by themes disconnected with the mass of Indians, catering only to the nouveau riche segment of the urban landscape as well as the confused NRI population waiting desperately to get back to their roots through a possibly cinematic outlet, one that would give them a heady dose of everything from rich, luxurious lives and mammoth pujas and aartis to the forbidden love of the good son with the zippy yet ungainly middle class girl next door, perhaps had succeeded in trivializing the media. One film that has rewritten the rules of the game over the last few months and provided a new idiom to the audience as well as future filmmakers, completely revolutionizing the manner in which issues are dealt with and symbolized on the silver screen has been the cult success, Rang de Basanti.
I call it a cult film for primarily two reasons. Firstly, the film has captured audiences across the spectrum. From the brand, ear, navel and nose stud- flaunting urban youth to the convulsing marginalized ghetto-dwellers outside the large metropolises where the pelvic gyrations of a Madhuri Dixit and a Mallika Sherawat are enough to enrapture the audience, Rakeysh Mehra’s period-present drama has found more than a foothold. The completely unexpected thread that runs through the film – one that had created a storm in the Communist world as the great revolutionary Lenin and the reticent Indian M N Roy debated the efficacy of lending support to anti-British and anti-colonial movements across the world – which defines the ethos of Rang de Basanti is the other reason why I call it a cult movie. The Lenin-M N Roy debate has perhaps for the first time found an echo in mainstream Indian cinema.
M N Roy – during deliberations at the Second Congress of the Communist International in the year 1920 – raised an issue with the Leninist formulation that full support should be provided to the anti-colonial movements – primarily comprised of and led by the bourgeois classes – including that in India. He declared that communists of any standing should have no truck with the colonial bourgeoisie, which was collaborationist and vacillating. Roy called the conglomeration of nationalist parties and formations the Progressive nationalist bourgeoisie of which the Indian National Congress was the foremost representative. While Lenin concentrated on the ‘revolutionary role’ being played by the nationalist progressive bourgeoisie and kept the question of the ‘proletariat as the vanguard of revolution’ aside, Roy posited the bourgeoisie as the chief destroyer of the interests of the Indian masses.
Rakeysh Mehra, perhaps in a burst of creative genius posits the trigger-happy General Dyer against the incumbent Defence Minister (Mohan Agashe) accused of taking kickbacks in the MiG-21 deals as faulty parts and spares are used in the machines leading to the death of young fighter pilots, one of them being Ajay Rathod (R Madhavan). The politician thus is shown to have donned the mantle of the colonial oppressor Dyer who fired at helpless Indians inside the high walls of the ill-fated Jallianwala Bagh. The M N Roy line of thought is reflected in the treatment given to this particular scene. The import is very clear. The colonial dispensation or the white Raj has been replaced by the colonization of the powerful bourgeoisie, which is mirrored by the Indian political class.
Gandhi’s decision to pull out of the Non-cooperation movement following the Chauri Chaura incident led to the disillusionment of several nationalist youth such as Bhagat Singh who later took to the gun to uphold the rigorous pattern of constant pressure on the colonizers. The Gandhi-Chauri Chaura event is episodic in that it defines the break that came about in the mass movement and the growth of the revolutionary movement in right earnest, one that made the legendary Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Ashfaqullah Khan, Chandrasekhar Aazad and Ramprasad Bismil household names. This also led to the emergence of a trenchant critique of Gandhi’s politics, which pronounced that he treated the bourgeoisie with kid gloves and actually pandered to the interests of the landed and wealthy classes.
It was also around this time that socialism became the prime-mover of the revolutionary terrorists who saw equality and egalitarianism as the only way out for an India mired in the exigencies of religion, caste and the Raj. The revolutionary critique of nationalist, bourgeois politics pioneered by Bhagat Singh, remarkably well-read and articulate at 23-years of age based its argument on the role of the proletariat in the attainment of complete freedom from all forms of oppression. ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (Long Live the Revolution) – a slogan coined by Bhagat Singh and his comrades – symbolized the attack on the existing methods and means of social segregation along with a veiled counter to the overlordship of the British. Freedom for these young revolutionaries thus not only meant an overthrow of the colonial masters but the also the forms of production generated and protected by the bourgeoisie.
Rang de Basanti highlights a few important markers of the revolutionary’s life that exhibit his political orientation. The film opens with Bhagat Singh (Siddharth) reading Lenin before going to the gallows, a cumulative indication of the practice of armed, irreligious revolution that these men lived through. A young Bhagat Singh chopping off his hair, a symbol of his Sikh faith, thus giving up his overt religious identity for a larger cause is the other scene that signifies the overall ideology of the film. This act signals his firm decision to sever ties with religion. The fact that the film also showcases an intriguing sub-plot of Hindu-Muslim antagonism is reflective of the secular ethos that dictates the narrative.
The coming-of-age of the hard-boiled, bigoted present-day Hindu zealot Laxman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni) and his relationship with the liberal Muslim youth Aslam (Kunal Kapoor) – once the bete noir becomes someone for whom he cares deeply – is the best portrayal of communal relations in modern Indian cinema. The subtle yet immanent rage that infuriates Aslam in all his encounters with Pandey makes a profound statement on the state of the post-Partition, post-Babri, post-Gujarat Indian Muslim. As Pandey metamorphoses into Ramprasad Bismil, the poet-revolutionary and Aslam becomes Ashfaqullah Khan, the gulf between the present and the past seems to close up. The climax of the film is instructive. Both Pandey and Aslam, by now friends and brothers in arms, die together hand in hand, a silent but powerful indictment of communal discourses and their impact.
Rang de Basanti’s narrative also does not impinge on the tautology of class consciousness at the same time the differences are finely etched. In a break from the past as far as Hindi films are concerned, the film dares to bring forth the underlying complexities of a class-divided society. The scene where Sukhi (Sharman Joshi) – a representative of the urban middle class – accuses Karan – the brooding young son of a millionaire arms dealer – of having used the rest of them to settle scores with his father is illuminating. The class divide creeps into the accusations as he condemns their vulnerability to fall victim to the machinations of a cruel system. Karan is seen as one wielding power owing to his societal status while the rest of the characters become pawns in the hands of a sharply divided country. The scenes that follow carry the class narrative further as Karan decides to put the ghost to rest by leading the others in a battle to the finish. Again the climax provides an insight into the fact that he kills his father to prove that he did not actually know of his father’s misdeeds and that thus, was merely one of them, a pawn, a victim.
For the first time, a mainstream Hindi film brought middle-class, marginal characters into full fruition in its treatment and narrative. DJ’s (Aamir Khan) lines would help to put this in perspective: ‘Gali ka kutta bhi nahin bhonkega hamare marne pe’(Even dogs won’t bark at our deaths). Not only does it put the feeling of despondency and helplessness in context, the dialogue charts out a brilliant critique of progress and regress in Indian society. The structural duplicity of present –day India weaves its way through the film through the pronouncements of all the characters including Karan and Aslam who project a nihilistic attitude when denouncing the real India where the population is shooting through the roof, unemployment is a permanent problem and the system is so moth-eaten that everyone who tries to change things is co-opted by the high, mighty and corrupt. Their nihilism gradually diminishes with time and the fact that their friend gets killed in a MiG crash and they end-up battling the system single-handed and unarmed.
The juxtaposition of the past with the present, another first for a Hindi film, is an essential ingredient to put the narrative in perspective. The critique of the Indian political system would have been but another monologue on what all is wrong with it. Rang de Basanti tells what we could do about it. Not only is the film a debilitating effort to throw up the wrongs of the ruling, dominant class, it succeeds in its mission of creating a persona that thrives on pain and trauma. With a crucial socialist argument for a background and a pioneering leap towards rewarding cinema, Rang de Basanti, unlike any Hindi film of the past carries and pronounces an ‘ideology’ of its own.
Hindi cinema – known more often than not as three-hour fixes churned out by the dozen by Bollywood, the vulgarized epithet provided to an industry that has emerged as a bulwark against the imperialist onslaught of the American film juggernaut that has captured the markets almost completely in the rest of the world – has had a rather long journey through its creative and restorative phases as Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan and Guru Dutt gave way to the Manmohan Desai’s and the Sippy’s who treated the movie-watching public to glamourized versions of middle class angst and the marginal people rising against a tyrannical and despotic establishment.
The subsequent de-humanization of Hindi films received an impetus with the work of filmmakers like Suraj Barjatya who presented us with two over-the-top marriage video recordings masquerading as films; Sanjay Leela Bhansali, whose biopic Devdas was not only claustrophobic and stifling but also inane and petty in terms of both performances and narrative; directorial ventures coming from the Chopra stable transported the viewer to a nether world of palatial, almost immodest dwellings and their Punjabi occupants closeted in their make-believe, surreal warps where in-house politics, songs and dances were the order of the day with love lurking somewhere in the background.
The most pathetic occupant of this pretentious and soulless universe of Hindi cinema is undoubtedly Karan Johar and his brand of films. While Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was gender-insensitive and derogatory to say the least, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham reinforced the unwritten rules of patriarchy like no other film had ever done before. The women in the film are devoid of any agency, going to an extent of being reprimanded by the husband for opening their mouth against something that the husband said or did.
This crowding out of Hindi films by themes disconnected with the mass of Indians, catering only to the nouveau riche segment of the urban landscape as well as the confused NRI population waiting desperately to get back to their roots through a possibly cinematic outlet, one that would give them a heady dose of everything from rich, luxurious lives and mammoth pujas and aartis to the forbidden love of the good son with the zippy yet ungainly middle class girl next door, perhaps had succeeded in trivializing the media. One film that has rewritten the rules of the game over the last few months and provided a new idiom to the audience as well as future filmmakers, completely revolutionizing the manner in which issues are dealt with and symbolized on the silver screen has been the cult success, Rang de Basanti.
I call it a cult film for primarily two reasons. Firstly, the film has captured audiences across the spectrum. From the brand, ear, navel and nose stud- flaunting urban youth to the convulsing marginalized ghetto-dwellers outside the large metropolises where the pelvic gyrations of a Madhuri Dixit and a Mallika Sherawat are enough to enrapture the audience, Rakeysh Mehra’s period-present drama has found more than a foothold. The completely unexpected thread that runs through the film – one that had created a storm in the Communist world as the great revolutionary Lenin and the reticent Indian M N Roy debated the efficacy of lending support to anti-British and anti-colonial movements across the world – which defines the ethos of Rang de Basanti is the other reason why I call it a cult movie. The Lenin-M N Roy debate has perhaps for the first time found an echo in mainstream Indian cinema.
M N Roy – during deliberations at the Second Congress of the Communist International in the year 1920 – raised an issue with the Leninist formulation that full support should be provided to the anti-colonial movements – primarily comprised of and led by the bourgeois classes – including that in India. He declared that communists of any standing should have no truck with the colonial bourgeoisie, which was collaborationist and vacillating. Roy called the conglomeration of nationalist parties and formations the Progressive nationalist bourgeoisie of which the Indian National Congress was the foremost representative. While Lenin concentrated on the ‘revolutionary role’ being played by the nationalist progressive bourgeoisie and kept the question of the ‘proletariat as the vanguard of revolution’ aside, Roy posited the bourgeoisie as the chief destroyer of the interests of the Indian masses.
Rakeysh Mehra, perhaps in a burst of creative genius posits the trigger-happy General Dyer against the incumbent Defence Minister (Mohan Agashe) accused of taking kickbacks in the MiG-21 deals as faulty parts and spares are used in the machines leading to the death of young fighter pilots, one of them being Ajay Rathod (R Madhavan). The politician thus is shown to have donned the mantle of the colonial oppressor Dyer who fired at helpless Indians inside the high walls of the ill-fated Jallianwala Bagh. The M N Roy line of thought is reflected in the treatment given to this particular scene. The import is very clear. The colonial dispensation or the white Raj has been replaced by the colonization of the powerful bourgeoisie, which is mirrored by the Indian political class.
Gandhi’s decision to pull out of the Non-cooperation movement following the Chauri Chaura incident led to the disillusionment of several nationalist youth such as Bhagat Singh who later took to the gun to uphold the rigorous pattern of constant pressure on the colonizers. The Gandhi-Chauri Chaura event is episodic in that it defines the break that came about in the mass movement and the growth of the revolutionary movement in right earnest, one that made the legendary Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Ashfaqullah Khan, Chandrasekhar Aazad and Ramprasad Bismil household names. This also led to the emergence of a trenchant critique of Gandhi’s politics, which pronounced that he treated the bourgeoisie with kid gloves and actually pandered to the interests of the landed and wealthy classes.
It was also around this time that socialism became the prime-mover of the revolutionary terrorists who saw equality and egalitarianism as the only way out for an India mired in the exigencies of religion, caste and the Raj. The revolutionary critique of nationalist, bourgeois politics pioneered by Bhagat Singh, remarkably well-read and articulate at 23-years of age based its argument on the role of the proletariat in the attainment of complete freedom from all forms of oppression. ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (Long Live the Revolution) – a slogan coined by Bhagat Singh and his comrades – symbolized the attack on the existing methods and means of social segregation along with a veiled counter to the overlordship of the British. Freedom for these young revolutionaries thus not only meant an overthrow of the colonial masters but the also the forms of production generated and protected by the bourgeoisie.
Rang de Basanti highlights a few important markers of the revolutionary’s life that exhibit his political orientation. The film opens with Bhagat Singh (Siddharth) reading Lenin before going to the gallows, a cumulative indication of the practice of armed, irreligious revolution that these men lived through. A young Bhagat Singh chopping off his hair, a symbol of his Sikh faith, thus giving up his overt religious identity for a larger cause is the other scene that signifies the overall ideology of the film. This act signals his firm decision to sever ties with religion. The fact that the film also showcases an intriguing sub-plot of Hindu-Muslim antagonism is reflective of the secular ethos that dictates the narrative.
The coming-of-age of the hard-boiled, bigoted present-day Hindu zealot Laxman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni) and his relationship with the liberal Muslim youth Aslam (Kunal Kapoor) – once the bete noir becomes someone for whom he cares deeply – is the best portrayal of communal relations in modern Indian cinema. The subtle yet immanent rage that infuriates Aslam in all his encounters with Pandey makes a profound statement on the state of the post-Partition, post-Babri, post-Gujarat Indian Muslim. As Pandey metamorphoses into Ramprasad Bismil, the poet-revolutionary and Aslam becomes Ashfaqullah Khan, the gulf between the present and the past seems to close up. The climax of the film is instructive. Both Pandey and Aslam, by now friends and brothers in arms, die together hand in hand, a silent but powerful indictment of communal discourses and their impact.
Rang de Basanti’s narrative also does not impinge on the tautology of class consciousness at the same time the differences are finely etched. In a break from the past as far as Hindi films are concerned, the film dares to bring forth the underlying complexities of a class-divided society. The scene where Sukhi (Sharman Joshi) – a representative of the urban middle class – accuses Karan – the brooding young son of a millionaire arms dealer – of having used the rest of them to settle scores with his father is illuminating. The class divide creeps into the accusations as he condemns their vulnerability to fall victim to the machinations of a cruel system. Karan is seen as one wielding power owing to his societal status while the rest of the characters become pawns in the hands of a sharply divided country. The scenes that follow carry the class narrative further as Karan decides to put the ghost to rest by leading the others in a battle to the finish. Again the climax provides an insight into the fact that he kills his father to prove that he did not actually know of his father’s misdeeds and that thus, was merely one of them, a pawn, a victim.
For the first time, a mainstream Hindi film brought middle-class, marginal characters into full fruition in its treatment and narrative. DJ’s (Aamir Khan) lines would help to put this in perspective: ‘Gali ka kutta bhi nahin bhonkega hamare marne pe’(Even dogs won’t bark at our deaths). Not only does it put the feeling of despondency and helplessness in context, the dialogue charts out a brilliant critique of progress and regress in Indian society. The structural duplicity of present –day India weaves its way through the film through the pronouncements of all the characters including Karan and Aslam who project a nihilistic attitude when denouncing the real India where the population is shooting through the roof, unemployment is a permanent problem and the system is so moth-eaten that everyone who tries to change things is co-opted by the high, mighty and corrupt. Their nihilism gradually diminishes with time and the fact that their friend gets killed in a MiG crash and they end-up battling the system single-handed and unarmed.
The juxtaposition of the past with the present, another first for a Hindi film, is an essential ingredient to put the narrative in perspective. The critique of the Indian political system would have been but another monologue on what all is wrong with it. Rang de Basanti tells what we could do about it. Not only is the film a debilitating effort to throw up the wrongs of the ruling, dominant class, it succeeds in its mission of creating a persona that thrives on pain and trauma. With a crucial socialist argument for a background and a pioneering leap towards rewarding cinema, Rang de Basanti, unlike any Hindi film of the past carries and pronounces an ‘ideology’ of its own.
Friday, August 18, 2006
So George Bush has come and gone. Protests happened across the country and our nuclear programme was compromised. Open and shut case of bending backwards to please the Yanks. The corporate media opened its pages to sing praises of the most reviled mass murderer in history…after the Auschwitz butcher, that is. What he ate and did not eat, where he stayed and did not stay, how his dogs – about 16 of them accompanied Bush – enjoyed the hospitality of ITC Maurya Sheraton was covered by the media in threadbare detail while millions of rupees went into entertaining a guest whom a large part of the country’s population did not welcome at all. Whose money? The taxpayer’s money! Was the man our guest? No most certainly he wasn’t. He was the guest of a banana government, which has been blindfolded to such an extent that any sensible action on their part cannot be expected as far as the United States is concerned. We are slaves now, Mr Prime Minister of a country that is guilty of mass crimes and murder in more than half the world.
Everyone in the government seems to be happy with the deal coming through and Bush calling India a pilgrimage and himself a friend of India. Who cares if four people are killed in communal clashes that erupt right after an anti-Bush protest march in Lucknow turns violent? How does it matter if the country is slowly but steadily getting divided on religious lines because of American action in Iraq and Afghanistan? A cursory glance at any news channel during the Bush visit was enough to give me goosebumps. Messages flooded channels debating whether or not the man was good for India. Notable was the fact that while messages bearing Hindu names were almost wholly supportive of the Bush regime, its actions across the world and also thought that he clown was our real benefactor, messages sent by Muslim Indians spoke of the brutal force occupying several countries of the world, their reluctance to trust the Americans and their foreign policy and derided the Indian government for going out of their way to prostrate ourselves in front of the leader of a pack of mass killers. The difference was stark, real and very, very fearsome. Was a foreign state ruining the social fabric of India which boasts of its secular character though the same is tested everytime a Gujarat occurs?
The immediate answer that comes to my mind is yes; the difference in attitudes is much too distinct to be neglected. The answer, on a more theoretical level, lies in the plethora of writing that backs the actions of the Hindutva lobby. Where does Hindutva fit into all this? Well it does and in no small measure. Here’s how.The militant Hindu movement, which we all know as the Sangh Parivar evolved along the ideology of separation. Furthermore, the ability or rather the reluctance to accept the partition as a travesty of history and move on has created a wide edifice that refuses to close in. this edifice has been broadened and its walls strengthened by political Hindutva riding on the wave of success brought on by the immensely popular Ramjanmabhoomi agitation. On one end of the edifice stood the ‘Us’. The other wall was made up of this monolith called Islam, the religion practiced by more than 14% of Indians, or the Muslims. The gulf lay in between sharpened and deepened by the Parivar and its activities across the country. Sangh Parivar literature offers to guide young Indians to stay away from the Muslims as they are Pakistani –agents, to ruin their businesses because they ostensibly earn for the community and not for the country, to kill and maim them whenever possible as they do not consider India to be their ‘Fatherland’ and pray to a God different from the Hindus– the nationalist, the patriotic and the true sons of the soil.
Fanaticism that runs through these pieces of heinous literature has pervaded the hearts and minds of so many Indians that George Bush’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan seem like the coming true of a childhood fantasy – of Muslims being butchered in large number without us lifting a gun…or shall we say sword!The import of the messages on television is sinister, whether or not we believe that the Sangh Parivar’s indoctrination has worked and the malaise has spread like plague among Hindu youth in India. Every communal conflagration brings with it reports on how the losses to property and lives of the Muslims was far greater than that of the Hindus. Historical statistics hold that more than two-third of the victims of the bloody riots that preceded and followed the Partition were Muslim followed by the Sikhs. Communal divides are all pervasive, Muslims live in ghettos and are denied work in states like Gujarat, something I can vouch for as I have been witness to an interview at a private firm where a Muslim applicant was denied the job solely on the basis of the religious denomination he belonged to. The fact the Sangh Parivar is originally a conglomeration of sundry businessmen and petty banias also serves to explain why a majority of Hindus are keen on the Bushfire in the Muslim world. Some comments made by acquaintances are also illuminating.
Someone I know recently sneered, “Bush is doing the right thing. As long as he is killing Muslims.” No amount of sensitivity towards the cause of building a Hindu rashtra could warrant such statements. Another one stated rather snidely, “ These Leftists are all pro-Muslim. See how they supported the Jamaat rally.” Shocked I was certainly not. This was to be expected from a generation raised on the blood-thirty war-cries of Ek dhakka aur do Babri Masjid tod do!Forget the coming of Bush and the signing of the nuclear treaty, India waits for a generation to awaken to a new mindset which does not recognize the distinction between Us and Them. Perhaps Rang de Basanti style…
Everyone in the government seems to be happy with the deal coming through and Bush calling India a pilgrimage and himself a friend of India. Who cares if four people are killed in communal clashes that erupt right after an anti-Bush protest march in Lucknow turns violent? How does it matter if the country is slowly but steadily getting divided on religious lines because of American action in Iraq and Afghanistan? A cursory glance at any news channel during the Bush visit was enough to give me goosebumps. Messages flooded channels debating whether or not the man was good for India. Notable was the fact that while messages bearing Hindu names were almost wholly supportive of the Bush regime, its actions across the world and also thought that he clown was our real benefactor, messages sent by Muslim Indians spoke of the brutal force occupying several countries of the world, their reluctance to trust the Americans and their foreign policy and derided the Indian government for going out of their way to prostrate ourselves in front of the leader of a pack of mass killers. The difference was stark, real and very, very fearsome. Was a foreign state ruining the social fabric of India which boasts of its secular character though the same is tested everytime a Gujarat occurs?
The immediate answer that comes to my mind is yes; the difference in attitudes is much too distinct to be neglected. The answer, on a more theoretical level, lies in the plethora of writing that backs the actions of the Hindutva lobby. Where does Hindutva fit into all this? Well it does and in no small measure. Here’s how.The militant Hindu movement, which we all know as the Sangh Parivar evolved along the ideology of separation. Furthermore, the ability or rather the reluctance to accept the partition as a travesty of history and move on has created a wide edifice that refuses to close in. this edifice has been broadened and its walls strengthened by political Hindutva riding on the wave of success brought on by the immensely popular Ramjanmabhoomi agitation. On one end of the edifice stood the ‘Us’. The other wall was made up of this monolith called Islam, the religion practiced by more than 14% of Indians, or the Muslims. The gulf lay in between sharpened and deepened by the Parivar and its activities across the country. Sangh Parivar literature offers to guide young Indians to stay away from the Muslims as they are Pakistani –agents, to ruin their businesses because they ostensibly earn for the community and not for the country, to kill and maim them whenever possible as they do not consider India to be their ‘Fatherland’ and pray to a God different from the Hindus– the nationalist, the patriotic and the true sons of the soil.
Fanaticism that runs through these pieces of heinous literature has pervaded the hearts and minds of so many Indians that George Bush’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan seem like the coming true of a childhood fantasy – of Muslims being butchered in large number without us lifting a gun…or shall we say sword!The import of the messages on television is sinister, whether or not we believe that the Sangh Parivar’s indoctrination has worked and the malaise has spread like plague among Hindu youth in India. Every communal conflagration brings with it reports on how the losses to property and lives of the Muslims was far greater than that of the Hindus. Historical statistics hold that more than two-third of the victims of the bloody riots that preceded and followed the Partition were Muslim followed by the Sikhs. Communal divides are all pervasive, Muslims live in ghettos and are denied work in states like Gujarat, something I can vouch for as I have been witness to an interview at a private firm where a Muslim applicant was denied the job solely on the basis of the religious denomination he belonged to. The fact the Sangh Parivar is originally a conglomeration of sundry businessmen and petty banias also serves to explain why a majority of Hindus are keen on the Bushfire in the Muslim world. Some comments made by acquaintances are also illuminating.
Someone I know recently sneered, “Bush is doing the right thing. As long as he is killing Muslims.” No amount of sensitivity towards the cause of building a Hindu rashtra could warrant such statements. Another one stated rather snidely, “ These Leftists are all pro-Muslim. See how they supported the Jamaat rally.” Shocked I was certainly not. This was to be expected from a generation raised on the blood-thirty war-cries of Ek dhakka aur do Babri Masjid tod do!Forget the coming of Bush and the signing of the nuclear treaty, India waits for a generation to awaken to a new mindset which does not recognize the distinction between Us and Them. Perhaps Rang de Basanti style…
Why do people study the media? Not because they love Marshall McLuhan. Not because the smartass Israelis have started what can only be described as a debased, outlandish, outright demonic, defying all semblance of reason or rhyme war with Lebanon on the pretext of going for the Hezbollah. Who cares if hundreds of Lebanese civilians (official estimates and one can only believe these figures at one’s own risk) have already been killed and a thousand others wounded? How does it matter if Israel has broken all rules, entered Lebanon and has laid it bare for rape and plunder? Is it alarming if the US is sitting pretty, basking in the glory of having restored democracy and freedom to the people of Iraq? The invitation to Syria to join the war following which it too will be mercilessly pounded by American jets spewing all varieties of ominous biological, chemical, and what have you weapons, is open enough. But no one seems to notice. At least not the media, for sure. Instead, the rather fastidious and stupid act of a bunch of sozzled youngsters grabbed eyeballs, shutterbugs, and airtime for more than two days. The we also got to know the intimate career secrets of the former air hostesses and how they were grounded because of a grizzly disciplinary record. The parents muttering inanities on how their children were being harassed were interviewed on prime time. Thankfully we were spared innocuous kid pictures and long discussions on how perfectly normal youth behave in an irrational fashion given a certain circumstance. Just a little before this TV went on a benevolent rescue mission to bring Prince out – alive – of the 60-foot pit into which he had mistakenly fallen. As reporters scrambled for space to get their camera persons a good long shot, members of parliament, the Haryana Chief Minister, the UPA chairperson, and even the Prime Minister bowed their heads in prayer for the bewildered Prince in the pit. The coverage, some might argue was not being given to a rich Casanova or a murdered politician but to a farmer’s son; a sign of changing times….the media after all is becoming conscientious and responsible towards it’s primary duty. But there are ways to showcase care and responsibility and this was certainly not it. What about the close to 800 farmer suicides in Vidarbha and other parts of Maharashtra? Is anyone bothered? It is only after 19 days of relentless fighting and bombing that the Indian media rises to the occasion and starts covering Lebanon. Ajay Shukla of NDTV showed us the blood and the gore (whatever is permitted according to broadcast rules) perched comfortably on the heaped rubble of a bombed out building while Lebanese men who have lost their all pledged devotion to Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah. But, the news that comes to us, comes filtered. Filtered through the watchful eyes of the Big Boy up there in Washington just like filtered, half-baked, biased news is sampled by the Americans and the rest of the world. Is there someone whom we can trust?
31 July 2006
31 July 2006
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