"To call Aamir a thriller would be reducing its power and ambition. The film is an eloquent statement on the state of the nation and the Indian Muslim." – Film critic Anupama Chopra
 

Aamir Ali (Rajeev Khandelwal), a non-resident Indian doctor, arrives in Mumbai expecting to be met at the airport by his mother and siblings. When no one shows up he calls home but no one picks up the phone. Suddenly, he is ambushed by strangers who toss him a cellphone. Aamir’s life changes. He is left to follow the instructions of the anonymous caller because, as the video clip on the phone reveals, his family has been held captive. From this time on Aamir is on the run, trying to chase the ‘Mcguffin’ that the anonymous caller sets up in order to save the lives of his family members. To cut a long story short, and consequently disclose the ‘surprise’ ending, Aamir is being trapped and blackmailed by Muslim ‘terrorists’ into planting a bomb in a crowded bus. If he fails, his family will be killed.

The director, Raj Kumar Gupta, describes his protagonist as a "common man" whose life changes with one phone call. Ostensibly inspired by the Filipino film Cavite and carrying resonances of Hollywood films like Falling Down and The Game, the eponymous film Aamir (2008) adopts the Hitchcockian narrative device of implicating an ordinary unsuspecting person in a series of dangerous adventures. Structured like a thriller, the film is remarkable for its gritty art design, energetic camerawork and an excellent performance by Rajeev Khandelwal as the main protagonist.

Cinéastes will be quick to notice that the visual style of the film is strongly influenced by Anurag Kashyap’s films, particularly No Smoking and Black Friday. Raj Kumar Gupta has been a close associate of Anurag Kashyap who has been credited as being the creative producer of the film. Given the film’s genre elements – the clip and rush of action, the visceral quality of paranoia and its strong visual style – it is possible that the film will be discussed primarily in relation to its craft and production values. Yet this thriller actively invites a reading of the backstory without which the central plot would be nothing but incoherent.

The entire film unfolds from the point of view of the central protagonist barring one significant exception. While Aamir never gets to see who the voice over the phone belongs to, the audience does. The anonymous phone caller who holds Aamir and his family to ransom is a dark, bald, clean-shaven mastermind who dresses in white. This shadow figure is an Islamist ideologue who, apart from providing instructions to Aamir, berates him for being oblivious to the plight of the "qaum" (community or nationhood) and leading a privileged life which includes having a Hindu girlfriend.

Operating from an undisclosed inner sanctum of safety, the ruthless manipulator denies Aamir a glass of water while feasting on an elaborate cuisine himself. Aamir only gets to eat after he has satisfactorily followed a set of instructions. The mise en scène within which the caller appears is rich with allusions. In one sequence he folds a prayer mat while speaking to Aamir on the phone. In another sequence his voice is accompanied by close-ups of a small child who sits on his lap wearing an oversized prayer cap. As his voice becomes increasingly intimidating, the child begins to cry and is promptly whisked away by a waiting woman. Ensconced in the safety of his home, this ‘bad Muslim’ is a threat not just to Aamir’s family but also his own. He stands in contrast to Aamir whose love and loyalty to his family drives him to negotiate the hellish netherworld.

For a film that relies heavily on verisimilitude, the film’s premise is strangely random. Why, for instance, is Aamir chosen to execute this particular act of political violence? Why should a militant outfit that is so well networked and resourced waste their energies (and chances of success) on an ideologically opposed man-on-the-street? Why would Aamir’s clean credentials matter in an operation where he is not expected to be caught in the first place? Why would Muslim ‘terrorists’ take sadistic pleasure in persecuting innocent members of their own community at the risk of botching up their own projects? I am not sure the film provides any clear answers.

Aamir’s frenetic journey through the underbelly of Mumbai is designed ostensibly to serve a double purpose. It is supposed to lead him to the site of the bomb blast and educate him about the living conditions of his unfortunate brethren. The working-class landscape, saturated with filth, squalor and congestion, is also a hostile panopticon where his every move is monitored by seen and unseen eyes. He is stalked, pursued and chased. Every man and woman who inhabits this shadowy nether land seems connected to the voice on the phone. The entire ‘qaum’, including a seemingly trustworthy sex worker, has been pressed into the service of ‘terrorism’.

Like the shadowy mastermind, the unmarked terrorist (no longer iconographed by the stereotypical beard and prayer cap) is dangerously anonymous and everywhere. This however does not stop the film from mobilising crude metaphors. Aamir, the hapless lamb-to-the-slaughter, is shown walking down a butcher’s lane filled with hanging carcasses. The tension is heightened with close-ups of meat being minced by cleavers. In another sequence the mastermind manipulates a toy performing monkey as he plays with Aamir’s destiny over the phone.

In one instance Aamir is told to collect ‘information’ from a filthy public toilet. The ‘information’ is contained in a tiny scrap of paper tucked into a crack in the wall. He manages to retrieve the clue after reaching across stinking human waste. As he emerges from this fetid claustrophobia into yet another squalid wasteland, he vomits uncontrollably. "Have you seen how your community lives?" the voice on the phone asks.

For the audience Aamir is both victim and hero. His heroism lies in becoming a martyr by default as he subverts the terrorist strike by choosing to die and not kill. The end is poignant for many reasons. Not least for suggesting that Aamir’s sacrifice is atonement for the political violence unleashed by his people. I have yet to see a film where Hindus are called upon to atone for the misdeeds of their community

This journey of familiarising belongs to the audience as well. Here the ‘ghetto’ is introduced in all its visceral texture; the supposed "breeding ground" of terrorism. This landscape, straddling conic Muslim neighbourhoods like Dongri and Bhendi Bazaar, embodies a millennial urban nightmare which, according to the representational logic of the film, has been authored by the violence of the Muslims.

Another situation demands that Aamir retrieve information over the phone. As instructed, he dials the number from a local STD booth. As the phone begins to ring, the sequence cuts to the location at the other end of the phone line which turns out to be a well-to-do drawing room in Karachi, Pakistan. A woman picks up the phone and tells the man next to her that it’s a call from Delhi. The man snatches the phone and grimly provides the next clue which turns out to be a hotel address. This banal slice of information needn’t have come all the way from Pakistan but it serves to reiterate the popular ‘metanarrative’ that marks all Muslims as ‘Pakistani agents’. Having made this point, the film never returns to this connection again.

After making the call to Pakistan Aamir is tailed by an ineffectual policeman who is shown to be tipped off. "Did you see how you were chased by a policeman just because you made a call to Pakistan?" asks the shadow voice on the phone. Clearly, this sequence speaks to the popular belief that Muslims have dangerous connections with Pakistan. This ‘myth’ is invoked but not debunked. On the contrary, any scepticism that one might have about such claims is swiftly subverted.

Let us return briefly to the opening sequences of the film. As Aamir lands at Mumbai airport, he encounters a prejudiced immigration officer who harasses him for no good reason except that he bears a Muslim name. Even though nothing is found in his possession, the officer repeatedly checks his bags. In exasperation, Aamir retorts that he is a doctor, not a terrorist. The immigration officer replies that whether or not one is a "terrorist" is not written on the body.

This is a common enough experience for Muslims in India and therefore it would seem perfectly logical to conclude that we are being encouraged to empathise with Aamir’s predicament. But this invitation to empathise with the central protagonist soon lands us in trouble. In an unexpected turnaround the adversaries mutate as the oppressed becomes oppressor. In a troubling, ahistorical twist Aamir becomes a victim of his own beleaguered community. The one ‘good’ Muslim in the film is pitted against a sea of demonic Muslims.

As the film moves towards its climax, the voice on the phone becomes impatient. Aamir’s encounter with his own community seems to have taught him nothing and so he is upbraided for selfishness. "If everyone is invested in self-interest then what will happen to the community?" he asks. Aamir replies that if everyone were to look after their own interests the community would certainly prosper. The irony in the film lies in Aamir’s failure to do precisely that.

After planting the bomb in the bus he is unable to make an escape and reunite with his family. He is unable to kill for the sake of his own happiness. He returns to the bus, grabs the briefcase (which makes the other commuters think he is stealing) and looks frantically to dispose of the bomb without claiming casualties. But there are people everywhere so Aamir embraces the briefcase and detonates with it. The screen is engulfed in flames as TV news reports are heard describing him as a "terrorist" on a suicide mission. The shadowy mastermind collapses on the floor in what could be seen as defeat, frustration or anguish.

For the audience Aamir is both victim and hero. His heroism lies in becoming a martyr by default as he subverts the terrorist strike by choosing to die and not kill. The end is poignant for many reasons. Not least for suggesting that Aamir’s sacrifice is atonement for the political violence unleashed by his people. I have yet to see a film where Hindus are called upon to atone for the misdeeds of their community.

The profound irony of Aamir is that it depicts the innocent Muslim as being terrorised by his own community. If the filmmaker’s intention was to acknowledge "innocent" victims like Dr Mohamed Haneef, who was falsely accused by the Australian government of abetting the Glasgow terror attack, then all that remains is the stench of burnt good intentions. The irony is no less underscored by the fact that the last decade has witnessed the rise of the Hindu Right along with an acceleration in hate crimes, including the horrifying genocide in Gujarat. Aamir’s proposition that Muslims are oppressed by their own community is a complete disavowal of history, circumstance and the testimony of brute fact.

Cinema is a phantasmic site on which desires, aspirations, fears and anxieties are envisioned. Apart from recreating external worlds cinema can access the dark recesses of our imagination and give shape to repressed phantoms that haunt our inner worlds. It is said that cinema is akin to dreams in that it encompasses our best hopes and worst fears. Films are "cultural dream works" says Ashis Nandy while Ingmar Bergman says that "when film is not a document, it is dream". Aamir is a fascinating document precisely because it is an articulation of a dream; a dream that meditates, albeit unselfconsciously, about communal prejudice. It struggles with what Mahmood Mamdani calls the idea of the ‘Good Muslim’ and the ‘Bad Muslim’. In so doing it invokes amnesia and historical forgetfulness. Therefore Anupama Chopra, whose quote I begin with, is right when she says Aamir is more than a thriller in "power and ambition". I would modify her quote to address the power of ‘unintended ambition’ and suggest that the film is "an eloquent statement on the state of the nation and the mind of the Indian non-Muslim."

 Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2008. Year 15, No.134, Cover Story 1

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Recently, I was invited to speak at a seminar about ‘Media in the Market Place versus Media in the Public Sphere’, which gave me a chance to interrogate the limitations and possibilities of both "public" and "market" in relation to the preposition "versus". While I was thinking through the two words, I received an email from a former student of mine working for a leading television production company. The mail read as follows:

"Dear Shohini,

I am going crazy working in a news channel… not that it’s not good work. But there is a lot of false glamour attached to a job on television. Apparently [Channel X] is the number one channel… I don’t believe the TRP game since the entire thing is lopsided. But anyway, having said that, all the creative, experimental ideas are now being shelved because they fail to generate numbers for the channel. And being [Channel X] there is focus first on profit and then if there is scope for creativity, they’ll give it a go! I did, early in the channel, get an opportunity to do a lot of exciting things but the days of glory are officially over and a lot of saleable things are being solicited. Unfortunately, I know that channels are not meant to be creative, they are mostly commercial. And my expecting something outstanding from a news channel is immature."

This email is typical of the emails that I receive almost every week from former students who have found employment with various television channels jostling to become number one in the TRP (television rating points) race. The email sums up perfectly the compulsions and aspirations of media in the marketplace. But I must clarify at the outset that my critique and reservations about the corporate media never makes me nostalgic for a pre-liberalisation era when the state had monopoly over the airwaves. Doordarshan’s political dishonesty combined with its spectacular lack of imagination is a chapter that needs firmly to be put in the past.

But both Doordarshan and the corporate media have used the term "public" to justify their politics and functioning. Doordarshan’s selective reporting and repressive culture was perpetuated in the name of "public interest" while corporate television claims to cater to "public demands" as testified by TRPs. Both state and corporate media liberally use terms like "public concern", "public issue", "public interest", "public service" and "public morality".

In the last decade, "public interest" has been cited as the guiding principle behind corporate media’s spectacular intrusion into private spaces through "sting operations" using hidden cameras and a range of entrapment strategies. The most high profile sting operation, Operation West End, was conducted by the web portal, Tehelka, where hidden cameras and ‘set-ups’ were used to ‘expose’ corruption in defence deals.

Two journalists posing as agents from a fictitious arms company called West End hawked a non-existent product to the defence ministry and paid money to the president of the (ruling) BJP, bureaucrats and army men in order to push the deal through. All transactions were recorded on spy cams and the footage was released at a press conference. Operation West End created a sensation and came to be reported widely in the print and electronic media.

Tarun Tejpal, editor of the web portal, Tehelka, and mastermind behind Operation West End, justified the use of spy cams by insisting that "extraordinary circumstances demanded extraordinary means" and argued that by exposing corruption in defence deals Tehelka had served "public" and "national interest". Unfortunately, the extraordinary means did not yield extraordinary results as the "entrapped" politicians went largely unpunished and were eventually reinstated in public life. Tehelka, on the contrary, had to provide lengthy explanations to the enquiry commission appointed to investigate the Tehelka exposé until finally the web portal had to be shut down.

The spate of sting operations that followed amply illustrated the lack of consensus in interpreting "public interest". In 2005, India TV conducted a "sting operation" to prove the existence of the ‘casting couch’ in the Bombay film industry. A 21-year-old reporter pretending to be an aspiring starlet solicited the mentorship of Shakti Kapoor (best known for playing the villain in Bombay films) to make a career in films. She pursued the actor, invited him to a room and offered him a drink. Predictably, Shakti Kapoor offered his mentorship in exchange for sexual favours at which point the ‘hidden’ camera crew barged in, claiming to have "exposed" the "casting couch" and the "sexual exploitation" of young women in the film industry.

Even a cursory telling of the story reveals how flawed the ‘rationale’ for such an exercise is. Coercion and violation of consent are central to the definition of harassment, none of which existed in this case. This was a case of two consenting adults agreeing to indulge in unethical business practices of which the exchange of sexual favours was a part. Moreover, corruption, unethical negotiations, the exchange of favours (both material and sexual), are not exclusive to the entertainment industry but rampant in all professions and institutions including supposedly ‘respectable’ professions like law, medicine, education and even journalism! Money, privilege and sexual favours have always been staple ingredients of bribery and corruption. Consequently, the sting operation achieved nothing apart from making invasion of privacy synonymous with the ‘right to know’.

During a recent debate on the ethics of using hidden cameras, Tehelka editor, Tarun Tejpal wrote, "Every responsible journalist believes that stings should not cross into private lives" and that "every sting should be tested on the anvil of public interest". Were we to take stock of the entire gamut of sting operations carried out after Operation West End, we would find them to be poised precariously between private lives and perceived public interest. Where does public interest end and private life begin? For instance, does the planting of spy cams in the homes of public officials constitute public interest or violation of privacy? The line between the two is as slippery as the one that divides pornography from erotica. As the old saying goes, "what I like is erotica and what you like is pornography."

We need to remember that the acceptability of such intrusive strategies in the name of investigative journalism comes from being embedded in a larger culture of surveillance that has become endemic to our urban existence. Security cameras in public and private spaces, wiretapping, citizen journalists brandishing phone cams, information supplied to banks and credit card companies, and legislations like TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act) routinely violate our privacy. Research done by friends at Sarai: the Old and New Media Centre in Delhi reports that the Ministry of Home Affairs has a proposal for a multi-purpose national identity card system that will probably house the largest collection of biometric data the world has seen and will include information on health, medical services, education, lifestyle, economic status and transactions, fingerprints and retinal scans. It will not be long before we hand over to the state an enormous slice of our private lives imagining that we have "nothing to hide". The long shadow of surveillance will soon be cast over the many overlaps between our private lives and public selves.

Most importantly, private spaces are not just for the playing out of personal lives but are integral to the nurturing of political thought and the contemplation of social action. Take, for instance, the attempt to stifle the circulation of Jashn-e-Azadi (How We Celebrate Freedom), Sanjay Kak’s new documentary on the Kashmir crisis. On July 27, 2007 the Mumbai police stopped a preview of the film for an invited audience at the Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan in Prabhadevi.

Notwithstanding irate protests from the audience, the police seized and confiscated copies of the DVD. Next, they issued a notice to Prithvi Theatre where a subsequent preview had been scheduled, warning them of consequences were they to show the film. The justification for this unwarranted intervention arrived in the form of a letter dated July 29 that senior inspector of the Dadar police station, MG Sankhe, wrote to Sanjay Kak. Quoting Section 7 of the Cinematograph Act in defence of the seizure, the letter directs Kak to apply for a censor certificate because "the film contains inflammatory and provocative scenes based on terrorism in Kashmir". It further states that "there are certain scenes that are objectionable and if the said film is shown to public (sic), it may create law and order problem".

Jashn-e-Azadi has had a number of previews across the country and has not caused any "law and order" problems. Made over two years, the 139-minute documentary is a meditation on the political crisis that has gripped the valley for over a decade and is an articulation of the disillusionment and alienation that the Kashmiri people feel at this historical juncture. One may reasonably ask why Sanjay Kak is being difficult and not applying for a censor certificate. The answer is obvious. He will never get one. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) will insist on cuts that would defeat the very purpose of the film. Besides, the granting of a censor certificate would not guarantee safety for either film or filmmaker.

The extra-legal censoring of Deepa Mehta’s Fire despite a censor certificate is one such instance. The "law and order" argument has always functioned as a veiled threat. Paraphrased, it means, "If some individual or group does not agree with your work and puts your life and work in danger, don’t count on us for protection. On the contrary, we may press criminal charges against you for causing such inconvenience." This argument is akin to the ‘tight-sweater excuse’ that sexual harassers resort to when they declare that the victim of harassment "had asked for it". Painter MF Husain and more recently, writer Taslima Nasreen, are victims of this twisted logic.

In the last decade, documentary filmmakers have persistently campaigned against censorship, and demanded an urgent review and amendment to the Cinematograph Act under which the CBFC was set up in 1952. The three amendments urgently proposed have a direct bearing on the Jashn-e-Azadi case. The first proposed amendment seeks to make the CBFC an autonomous body free from the stranglehold of the government. The second amendment demands that the CBFC have powers of certification (through ratings and classifications) and not the power to censor. The third and most urgent amendment proposes that non-commercial public screenings be decriminalised.

According to the existing law, screening a film without a censor certificate, even within educational institutions, classrooms, clubs or private gatherings, is a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment (for up to three years) and a minimum fine of one lakh rupees. All three amendments are long overdue and essential for upholding the constitutional right of free expression. Demanding the decriminalisation of non-commercial public screenings will be an important step in creating a strong civil society that is not threatened by cultural experimentation, dissident expression or new and outrageous ideas.

The 21st century confronts us with both utopian and dystopian possibilities around the access and circulation of information. The dystopian impulse of allowing our lives to be subject to increasing censorship and surveillance needs to be resisted by the creation of "new publics" that lie outside state control and corporate interests. These new publics may not reside within concrete venues but may appear anywhere, albeit temporarily, as people and ideas converge.

Take the independent documentary film, for instance. In the absence of television broadcasts and theatrical releases, documentary films are screened in spaces where people and ideas converge and "new publics" are born. These new publics are created, dismantled and endlessly recreated in a multitude of spaces as the documentary film travels from one place to another.

The power and potential of this new public was not lost on those who stopped the screening of Jashn-e-Azadi. Which is all the more reason why we should fight for our right to occupy such spaces. This holds true for all writers, artists and media practitioners whose work may not find circulation through mainstream distribution channels. Every film, media product or artwork should be able to carry with it possibilities of its own exhibition and circulation.

The age of portable new publics has finally arrived.

Archived from Communalism Combat, August-September 2007, Anniversary Issue (14th), Year 14    No.125, India at 60 Free Spaces, Media
 

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No two films in the recent past have elicited as much discussion as Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti (2006) and Rajkumar Hirani’s Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006). Both films meditate on contemporary society and draw inspiration from history. The protagonists of Rang De Basanti take inspiration from revolutionary nationalists and the protagonist of Lage Raho Munna Bhai from Gandhi. This article is a series of reflections on why these two films, inspired by two politically divergent ideologies, may have captured the imagination of the people.

Rang De Basanti is about a group of restless college students who participate in the making of a film on the political activities of militant revolutionaries led by Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh. The filmmaker, Sue (Alice Patten), bases her script on the diary of her grandfather who served as superintendent at a jail where the young rebels were imprisoned. The diary becomes a chronicle and tribute to their political activities. After being refused funding for the film, Sue comes to India determined to complete the project. She is assisted by Sonia (Soha Ali Khan) who offers to work for free. Unable to find a suitable cast through auditions, Sue and Sonia persuade a group of friends to act in the film. Karan Singhania (Siddharth Suryanarayan), disillusioned son of a rich and corrupt father, plays Bhagat Singh, Daljeet or DJ (Aamir Khan), a charming, jobless youth plays Chandrashekhar Azad and their allies are played by Aslam (Karan Kapoor), Sukhi (Sharmaan Joshi) and Laxman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni). Sonia herself is cast as Durga Bhabi, the only woman revolutionary in the group.

The plot takes a turn when air force pilot, Ajay Rathod, a friend of the group and Sonia’s fiancé, dies in a MiG-21 crash. It becomes clear that inferior spare parts and corruption in the services are responsible for the plane crash. The defence minister (Mohan Agashe) denies charges of corruption and blames the crash on Ajay’s ineptitude. The group organises a peaceful protest that is brutally attacked by the Rapid Action Force (RAF), leaving Ajay’s elderly mother severely injured and in a coma. In a replay, as it were, of the political assassination planned by the young revolutionaries, the group plans and executes the assassination of the defence minister. Contrary to what the group had hoped, the defence minister is hailed as a great man and patriot. In order to proclaim the truth as the boys see it, they take over the All India Radio (AIR) building, hijack a live radio show and explain their actions to the public. During the confession it is also revealed that Sukhi has killed his father for being complicit in the corruption scam. State reprisal is brutal. Black Cat commandos storm the building and kill the boys.

In contrast to Rang De Basanti’s violent finale, Lage Raho Munna Bhai advocates a non-violent approach to settling conflicts. In a sequel to the superhit Munna Bhai MBBS (2003), the now famous duo of taporis (small-time street hoods), Munna Bhai (Sunjay Dutt), and his sidekick, Circuit (Arshad Warsi), return to propagate what the filmmaker perceives to be the message of Mahatma Gandhi. Munna Bhai falls in love with Jhanvi (Vidya Balan), a radio jockey who he would meet in person if he were to win a quiz on Gandhi that she is conducting over the radio. He wins the quiz by kidnapping and arm-twisting some history teachers and is invited to the show for a live interview. He meets her on the show pretending to be a history professor whose mission is to spread ‘Gandhigiri’ among the youth by using tapori lingo. Impressed with Munna Bhai’s dedication to Gandhi, Jhanvi invites him to speak to a bunch of elderly men who, after being abandoned by their own children, live in her house. Left with no option but to study, he immerses himself in the dusty books housed in a dilapidated library devoted to Gandhi’s life and thoughts. After three nights of continuous studying, Gandhi shows up to meet Munna Bhai. The only problem is that no one else can see Gandhi so everyone thinks the poor man is hallucinating.

Subsequently, Gandhi becomes Munna Bhai’s mentor and advisor. With Gandhi’s help, Munna manages to impress the geriatrics thereby consolidating his reputation as a great Gandhian. Thus begins Munna Bhai’s journey of discovering the value of Gandhigiri as he embarks on solving all problems through non-violent means. Therefore, when Lucky Singh (Boman Irani), an unscrupulous contractor, deviously takes over the home of Jhanvi and the elderly inmates, Munna Bhai refuses to react violently. Instead, he stages a peaceful satyagraha in front of Lucky’s house and sends him flowers every day. Through Jhanvi’s radio show, Munna Bhai and Gandhi sort out listeners’ problems by suggesting non-violent means of protest, which seem to work like magic. The final reckoning comes when Gandhi persuades Munna Bhai to reveal his real identity to Jhanvi. However, all ends well with Lucky Singh having a change of heart when Gandhigiri saves his reputation and his daughter from a bad marriage. The house is restored to the elderly and Jhanvi accepts Munna Bhai for what he is. In the very last sequence, Lucky Singh immerses himself in Gandhian thought in the same dusty library only to have the great man materialise out of thin air once again.

Both Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Rang De Basanti have been huge box office hits. Rang De Basanti earned 22.8 crore worldwide within the first four days of its release while Lage Raho Munna Bhai was made tax free by the Delhi government for promoting Gandhian ideals. Both the print and electronic media continue to run stories about how the two films have changed people’s lives and attitudes. Rang De Basanti reportedly inspired the public to protest against the Jessica Lal case verdict while Lage Raho Munna Bhai was credited with having inspired various groups (including students of Lucknow University) to resort to non-violence. The media has also reported on how the film has increased the sales of books and related memorabilia on Gandhi.

One does not have to be a media scholar to appreciate that these are wild exaggerations. The Jessica Lal protests had less to do with Rang De Basanti than a simmering rage about the travesty of justice in what was a murder in full public view. Similarly, peaceful demonstrations have always coexisted with violent ones. Hirani’s film may have temporarily affected the sale of Gandhi related books and memorabilia but is by no means the sole factor. (It would be interesting to see how long the 250-member website advocating Gandhigiri survives). Outlook magazine of September 11, 2006 reported that the number of publishers/authors applying for rights of Gandhi’s works doubled in the last 2-3 years and that 1,000-2,000 new books on Gandhi are published every year. In the opening scenes of Rang De Basanti, the commissioning editor turns down Sue’s proposal on Bhagat Singh while observing that "Gandhi sells". If anybody is responsible for selling Gandhi, it is the Mahatma himself. Gandhi is a compelling and controversial figure who will always elicit interest because of his iconoclasm and political genius.

Both Rang De Basanti and Lage Raho Munna Bhai address contemporary anxieties and suggest remedies that draw inspiration from the past. Rang De Basanti uses a layered and complex narrative that actively invites multiple readings while Lage Raho Munna Bhai has a simpler, more linear narrative structure. Since the film’s release, it is common to find at least one item in the media where someone lauds the fact that Munna Bhai has brought Gandhi back to life. Hirani’s playful engagement with Gandhi is most refreshing. But how exactly does this playful Gandhi relate to his historical counterpart? Even a rudimentary familiarity with Gandhi will reveal that his philosophy and strategies of political resistance were both complex and astute. As Ajit Duara correctly observes (The Hindu, October 1, 2006), Gandhi’s "greatest legacy to India and the world was a form of political agitation known as civil disobedience which frequently did lead to violence but which was so original a philosophy that it worked in certain circumstances and against certain regimes." He argues that an ahistorical application of civil disobedience strategies is unlikely to work and had Gandhi been alive today, he would probably have advocated very different measures to curb corruption than his screen counterpart. In one sequence, for example, a retired pensioner strips down to his underwear to shame the corrupt official into giving him his cheque. "If he came to life today, as he does in the film," writes Duara, "he would approve of a strict enforcement of the law, including the arrest and detention of corrupt officials." In Hirani’s film, Gandhi is an amiable social reformer who preaches non-violence and honesty as a panacea for all ills. Divested of any complexity, Gandhi emerges as a loveable, apolitical pacifist who is unlikely to ruffle anyone’s feathers. But history tells us that Gandhi ruffled feathers to such an extent that he was assassinated by Hindu extremists.

I should add here that all filmmakers have a right to interpret public figures in the manner they choose as long as they do not present factual inaccuracies. Nor is there such a thing as ‘the’ true interpretation. Therefore, I am not so interested in interrogating the ‘truth’ of such an interpretation as trying to understand why certain interpretations become popular at certain moments in history. It is my suggestion that in Lage Raho Munna Bhai, Gandhi represents not a historical figure so much as an idea embodying contemporary society’s deep desire for redemption. In an anxious society ridden by caste, class, ethnic and communal conflicts, the film visualises a utopian world where the perpetrators of violence and corruption are magically transformed by the power of love. The desire for moral redemption (‘hriday parivartan’, as Circuit calls it) drives the narrative of the film. It is uncertain whether the Gandhi of later years, having failed to prevent the partition of India or the communal madness that claimed hundreds of lives on both sides, would have shared such a utopian vision of transforming the world.

But the film is by no means just a compendium of pious homilies. The humour in the film emerges from both remembering and forgetting Gandhi. When the satyagraha in front of Lucky Singh’s house lands Munna and Circuit in jail, they fantasise about the benefits accruing from walking the Gandhian path. They fantasise about their statues being erected in parks, their faces appearing on 500 rupee notes and their birthdays being declared a national holiday so long as it was not a dry day! The film is non-judgemental about those who have forgotten Gandhi because, the film seems to suggest, it is never too late to remember.

If Lage Raho Munna Bhai embodies a utopian desire for redemption, Rang De Basanti, despite its laughter, frivolity and bonhomie, is a dystopian parable about the impossibility of it. In a multiply layered narrative, historical reconstructions of the past punctuate narratives of the present. The boys who act as revolutionaries in the film embody the disillusion and cynicism of our times. In one of the early sequences, a group of Hindu activists led by Laxman Pandey attacks a party where DJ and his friends are dancing. Laxman accuses the revellers of corrupting Indian culture with western ideas. In the altercation that follows, Laxman calls Aslam a "Pakistani" thereby provoking DJ into a fight. When the police arrive, DJ settles the matter with a bribe. Earlier in the scene, Sukhi generously loans money to a friend and remarks that his father had money enough to rot. This one scene lays out the different registers of conflict that beset the lives of even the privileged classes in India. Unlike Munna Bhai who, despite being a gangster, has unbridled faith in the goodness of human beings, the boys in Rang De Basanti are sceptics. The actions that lead to the dark finale of the film are inspired not only by their deep empathy for the historical figures whose roles they portray but precipitated equally by a hopeless disillusion with the present. As DJ says, "Ik pair future mein te ik pair past mein rakh kar aaj par moot rahe (With one foot in the past and the other in the future, we are peeing on the present)."

Just as Lage Raho Munna Bhai’s popularity has been accompanied by stories about the film popularising Gandhian values, Rang De Basanti has been blamed for legitimising vendetta through violence. "The film’s basic political prescription is scary," writes Kanti Bajpai, academic and principal of Doon School, in Outlook (February 20, 2006), "Young people are encouraged to mete out vigilante justice and then seek atonement through populist slogans and maverick explanations." Similarly, in an edit page article in the Hindustan Times (September 1, 2006), journalist Sagarika Ghosh writes, "Rang De Basanti is a cult film for today’s youth. A film that preaches disrespect, hedonism and historical forgetfulness while valorising murder is seen as the great protest film of our time." This allegation is not new and films with violent content frequently evoke this response.

Film studies in the last two decades, especially in the 1990s, revised and re-oriented the critical frameworks and categories under which film violence has been traditionally studied and understood. Research and scholarly work have dispelled the myth that films, however violent, can cause violence except in stray individuals who are already predisposed towards it. On the contrary, an interrogation of film violence can provide useful insights into the workings of contemporary society.

The spectator’s engagement with film texts or any other cultural form is complex and unpredictable. An engagement with the realm of representation does not, except in exceptional situations, translate directly into actions in the ‘real’ world. Take the last sequence of Prakash Jha’s pro-feminist film, Mrityudand, (1997) where the female protagonist (Madhuri Dixit) shoots the villain through the head as a large collective of women gather to bear witness and suppress evidence. Anyone remotely familiar with the plight of women in rural India will know that such a resolution is more likely to be imagined than lived. But for many spectators this ‘representational’ remedy may be empowering precisely because it is impossible to achieve in real life.

Kanti Bajpai also laments the film’s suggestion that "Indian Society is portrayed as perfectly good while the state is made to look hopelessly bad." It may be useful to recall that Rang De Basanti is by no means the first film to articulate disenchantment with the state. In fact, more than any other popular cultural form, Bombay films have consistently critiqued the decline of state machinery and the failure to deliver social justice. Whether or not such representations are desirable depends on one’s expectations about the role and purpose of cinema and on which side of privilege one stands. Let us take a quick look at Rang De Basanti’s architectural ancestors.

The post-1974 films of Amitabh Bachchan are articulations about the crises of the state. The rise of the angry young man coincided with, even anticipated, the declaration of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, independent India’s most oppressive experience of state repression. Not only does the state retreat from its promise of delivering justice and democratic rights, it unleashes terror on its citizens. From the mid-’70s onward, innumerable films have depicted how the judiciary fails to deliver justice, protecting instead those it ought to punish.

The films of the late ’80s and ’90s become more categorical about the failure of the state and its machinery. Representatives of the rule of law are shown to be directly complicit with corruption and criminality. With lawlessness spilling over into increasingly chaotic public spaces, notions of justice and revenge begin to collide. As state institutions crumble, vigilante figures, or those I call urban warriors, begin to function as surrogate law keepers.

In films such as Arjun (Rahul Rawail, 1985), Parinda (Vidhu Vinod Chopra, 1989), Ghayal (Raj Kumar Santoshi, 1990), Narasimha (N. Chandra, 1991), Yeshwant (Anil Matto, 1997), Satya (Ram Gopal Verma, 1998), Ghulam (Vikram Bhatt, 1998), Shool (E. Niwas, 1999), Vaastav (Mahesh Manjrekar, 1999), Takshak, (Govind Nihalani, 2000), Kurukshetra (Mahesh Manjrekar, 2000), Garv (Punit Issar, 2004) and Sehar (Kabir Kaushik, 2005), the urban experience is shown to evoke terror, insecurity and even madness.

In the 1990s the representational collapse of state institutions and the imploding of boundaries between law and lawlessness is complete. This ‘collapse’ becomes articulated particularly in the mid-’90s around the emergence of the mafia or gangster films that lay bare the intersections and overlaps between law keepers and lawbreakers, state and society, order and chaos. In the landscape of Bombay films, state and society cannot be separated. Perhaps for this reason, Rang De Basanti’s finale provides two assassinations each representing the state and civil society.

Cinema is a phantasmic site on which desires, aspirations, fears and anxieties can be played out. Within the cinematic space, imagination is paramount. Both Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Rang De Basanti address contemporary desires and anxieties, which accounts for their popular appeal. Neither however can be held responsible for either aggravating or diminishing violent acts. The complexities of spectatorial engagement becomes evident if we consider that there are many who have strongly identified with both films regardless of their seemingly divergent ideologies.

Notwithstanding the politics of violence or non-violence, both films envision certain ways of living and being. Both Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Rang De Basanti are texts primarily driven by men and male friendship. Munna Bhai is in love with Jhanvi but his primary companion is Circuit. In a world of collapsing certitudes and increasing uncertainty, the constancy of love and friendship between Munna and Circuit is no less attractive than Gandhigiri. Rang De Basanti has two significant female protagonists who initiate the film-within-the-film project that, in turn, acknowledges the historic role of Durga Bhabi. The narrative, however, belongs to the boys around whom the climax of the film is structured. To this end, the very last image of the film is significant. The boys are resurrected, as it were, in the vast and colourful expanse of the mustard fields. They watch approvingly as a young boy called Bhagat Singh plants a sapling so that a thousand mangoes may grow. We last see them drifting lyrically across the yellow flowers. Even death, it appears, cannot part them. The parable of love and loyalty explored through male bonding provides a poignant counterfoil to the darkness of the film’s theme of violence and vendetta. In both films a sense of community and reconciliation, fast declining in the anarchy and uncertainty of a rapidly globalising world, is found in the constancy of friendship. n

Archived from Communalism Combat, October 2006 Year 13    No.119, Cover Story

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