Why I dont like Rang De Basanti that much anymore

The title of this post implies that I once really liked RDB. Not far off the mark. I was impressed by the movie's vision, its technical excellence, its soundtrack and above all, the performances on show. I recommended it to one and all. Most of them concurred with my evaluation of the movie. The storyline implausabilities and other 'minor' issues were pushed on to the backburner. We all sang in one voice 'A once in a lifetime movie.'

A couple of months down the line, I am beginning to have second thoughts. Some of the doubts have crept in because of the current context. The hullaboo over reservations, the striking medicos, the lathi-charges. The Jessica Lall case. Everyone seemed to have the same opinion- on TV, in letters to the editor, via SMS. We are in need of an RDB moment. Somebody has to rise up and overthrow the system. This is the hour for revolution.

And I suddenly realized the biggest flaw with the movie. It is a movie. It was made for a purpose- to entertain and maybe in a smaller way, to make us pause and think. It is NOT a civics lesson. It is not a manual for social action. It is just a movie. With all the flaws a movie can have. Limited scope, emotional manipulation, idealization…Rang De Basanti checks in all those boxes and more.

If I were to summarize all the flaws of the movie in one sentence, it would go something like this. It fuels the middle-class Indian fantasy that the only problem with India is corruption. I saw this line in an Outlook article some time back, and i have lifted it verbatim because it is true. The pilot dies in a defective MiG. The MiG is defective because the parts were substandard. Corrupt (very rich) middlemen bought the defective parts on behalf of the corrupt minister. The widowed and now sonless mother and the friends decide to protest. They are brutally lathi-charged because the minister and his cohorts doesnt want them to rock the applecart, and cut off the cash supply. Somehow inspired by the pre-independence revolutionaries, the friends come to believe that the system is the new Raj. They bump off the minister. The idealist son commits patricide in the interest of the nation. Finally, the 5 heroes take over a radio station at gunpoint to peacefully surrender and spread their message. Of course, the Raj wouldnt have this, so the Black Cats are send in to finsh them off brutally. At the end, the youngsters of the nation decide that the time to get up off their butts and change the system has arrived. The credits roll.

It is a powerful movie. The storyline is tight, excusing for the unreality of it all. Of a large group which went to see it, only one person (my senior at work) seemed to dislike it.

Corruption is a problem in India, as it is in most parts of the world. But so is social injustice, poverty, and racism. The reservation issue is not just about corruption. Do not extrapolate from the movie to form the following hypothesis. Corrupt ministers need to remain in power to make more money. For this, they have to cater to the votebank. So they come up with the new reservation idea. The votebank is dumb. They ll buy the idiotic plan. We are enlightened enough to recognize the true 'facts' of this devious scheme. So we ll protest, for the common good. Which in this case means cutting off medical services and blocking the right of movement. Of course, this will have no effect. In an eerie coincidence with the movie, some students got lathicharged and waterhosed (unlike the movie though, they were breaking the law.) Finally, somebody is going to have to rise up and finish these guys, once and for all.

I do not affirm the reservation policy as it now stands. The lathicharge and suchlike needs to be condemned in the strongest way possible. But the reservation issue is also about social issues we still havent figured out how to tackle (more views on all that in a later post.) The media havent played this up much and most of you havent noticed it, but there are protests by students from the same colleges on the other side of the divide. These are mostly SC/ST/OBC students, who, if the popular theory is correct, have already cornered most of the seats in colleges. Thus, their protests should be atleast as big as the ones we see now,but somehow it isnt. Strange.

To brush off that which is clearly visible, with the big broomstick of corruption is dangerous. There is still a large populace in India who are not as 'lucky' as we are in many aspects. I am honest enough to admit that my education and my current status is largely a result of my being born in the right house. And that goes for my so called merit too.

RDB should not be a reference point for this debate. It is a well made movie. Nothing more. It is at best, misguided in its vision of subverting the democratic process for anarchy, and at worst, socially irresponsible (unlike Mani Ratnam's flawed but still infinitely more workable Yuva.)

That does not impede RDB's cinematic merits. I ll still see it on DVD because it is a genuine specimen of the craft. But I am not throwing out my Social Sciences textbook just yet.

The Elections and All That

Another round of state elections have officially ended today, providing yet another glimpse of the inner workings of our 'great' democracy. You can read all the synopsis on any news site….or switch on one of the numerous TV channels to hear one of those droning analysts who get plucked out of the ether whenever the polls come around.

Now most of you know that I am a Mallu (for those who dont, now you do.) Kerala politics particularly intrigue me. You see, democracy is meant to be a volatile exercise, where nothing can be predicted with sure certainity. Sure, in this age of opinion polls, exit polls, and other such statistical shenanigans, we can presume to know the winner. And mostly they hold true…except when they completely turn out to be wrong as in the last general elections, when all those pollsters got egg on their faces and spent two months trying to explain why they were wrong.

But in May 2001, when the outgoing UDF government came to power, every Keralite knew that the LDF would win in 2006. Why? Because we believe in giving everyone a chance…one after the other. For the last three decades, we vote in one government and kick them out after 5 years. This would in most cases be considered idiotic and suicidal, especially with regard to the development and welfare of the state. Thats why all politicians harp about a stable mandate, political capital and so on.

I put this question forward to my grandfather during one of my vacations from college. What could possibly be the logic in such a pattern? Now, my grandfather, like many of his peers (retired and not engaged in any strenuous work), has become a full-blown and erudite political analyst. He is also a lifetime Congressman, being a Christian from central Kerala (dont ask why.) He hates the Marxists with a vengeance. His types are balanced out by those in 'Red' districts like Kannur, who think that Karunakaran and his ilk are an abomination unto our society. Of course, the Marxists and the Congress are bedfellows in neighbouring TN and at the Centre. That is another story.

There is a small percentage of swing voters in between these two camps. They ultimately make or break a government's fate at the hustings. And for 33 years, they choose to go with the other side. Dont read too much into the number of seats won by the LDF. The margins in almost all these seats are 1 to 2 percentage points.

So would Kerala be ideally served if a majority from this camp decided to take up with more certainity with one or the other front? Yes, I would have said. No, said my appachan, suprisingly. His logic was simple. By switching sides every 5 years, these people ensured that the policy of the government in power remained consistent with that of the previous one.

The big question is how…Simple enough. 5 years is too little a time to enact radical changes. You would then need to develop a political consensus across the spectrum if you were to. In Kerala, where every policy undergoes trial by media and by every Tom, Dick and Harry at the corner teashop, political consensus inevitably means acceptance by the majority of the people themselves. Once a policy has been so constructed by the previous government, a new government will risk hell and more if they scuttle it. Of course, they would have made a hue and cry about it while sitting in the Opposition. The Left were till now virulently anti-private education and supposedly, against IT development. The first private colleges were started in their previous tenure, as were the Technoparks in Trivandrum and Kochi. Now that they are back in power, expect a toning down of the rhetoric and more of the same.

This is not emotional politics. No one in Kerala worships their leaders. No manifesto promises free kilos of rice and colour TVs. This is cold blooded practicality. The government is always subservient to the will of the people. Ultimately, democracy works best when governments are guardians of the laity's decisions rather than the policy makers/executioners/benefactors all rolled into one. Maybe, just maybe, Kerala has developed an approximation of this model.

This is not perfect obviously. We might have developed faster had this paradigm been different and we allowed some strong handed leader to come to the fore. We could have rivalled Karnataka and TN as an IT powerhouse. But nobody is complaining about it that much. If they want these things to really happen, it will. Eventually..and the way they want it to happen.

Back home, grandpa is a bit sad about the UDF losing. It was inevitable and he saw it coming, but he's still sad. He is a sworn Congressman after all…and he cant stand the sight of Achuthanandan, the Marxist supremo. But he'll get over it. After all, there is 2011 to look forward to. Anybody wanna bet Rs 500 on the results of those elections..you know where to reach me.

‘Saint’ Medha

With all the recent fuss about the Narmada dam and the 'sacrificial' antics of Medha Patkar and her celeb cohorts, the NBA is squarely in the public eye…and quite the darling of it too. It is anti-government, pro-poor and gives every armchair activist and TV channel a cause celebre.

Now that a bit of the dust from all the hype settles down, it may be time for some perspective view of Medha's and the NBA's real achievements- or lack of it. A good article in Outlook, very critical, nuanced and somehow impartial inspite of it. Check it out here.