A Scope for Dissent: Rang De Basanti (Starring Amir Khan, Soha Ali Khan)
A memorable montage from the once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece is a flashback - a young freedom fighter hauled into prison is welcomed by the smiles of his comrades already waiting there.
The dissent of these fighters was directed towards the imperialist British government. This “breaking” of the law, by challenging the order of the regime was not with the intent to harm. It was a challenge to a treacherous colonial rule and to serve the motherland- to bring justice to the Indian people who were being treated as inferior in their homeland. The heroes/antiheroes of ‘Rang De Basanti’ toe this line between unlawfulness and dissent at the intersection of retribution.
In the wake of Indian independence, the State sought to provide its people with a set of rights - where voices of disagreement would no longer be unlawful. Freedom of speech was provided as a fundamental right.
Fast forward to 2020: Umar Khalid is arrested under the UAPA, for a speech disagreeing with our present Government. In the aftermath of the CAA and NRC bills introduced by the current BJP government, Khalid’s speech expressed concerns regarding how these make the position of the Muslim minority in India extremely vulnerable. A very unsettling brownie point, to whoever can spot the similarity between the two regimes from the first the third paragraphs.
Simmba: A blockbuster, or slightly compromised safety?
A Rohit Shetty blockbuster from 2018, Simmba hit the screens and took the nation by storm. It was deemed particularly moving, because of a cop’s decision to bring justice to a rape victim. The cop had decided to reform his corrupt ways and ensure justice is delivered. Simmba deduces that the justice system in India is in stalemate- it takes years for the court to complete the judicial process, and if the guilty are influential, they will always find “contacts” to help them evade prison. Therefore, Simba decides to take the law into his own hands and executes the two brothers in a staged encounter. The halls roar with applause- the feverish clapping for a cop who represents justice.
These killings in police custody are not new in the Indian context. A case that recently gathered mass media coverage, was the custodial killings of father and son, Ponraj and Beniks Jayaraj in Tamil Nadu. These two men were never allowed to reach the courts for a fair trial in the aftermath of their arrest.
In the aftermath of the rape and burning of a twenty-seven-year-old woman(2019), the police in Hyderabad killed the four suspects in an encounter. Encounters are extrajudicial. They do not ensure the protection of life, ensured by judicial proceedings. Encounters are not the solution-for in this procedure, the accused are denied a chance to prove their innocence. The police commissioner went on record, saying “the law has taken its own course”. This quick solution also saves the authorities from examining the root cause of rape-the patriarchal values that enable such assault. The instruction of entitlement-where young boys are taught that their satisfaction is their right, and consent is of secondary importance. This entitlement to rape is left unexamined. What is applauded instead by politicians, is this unlawful, ineffective solution.
This is the objective truth of extrajudicial punishment. This is what happens when cops (eg: Simmba) feel entitled to mete out justice according to their discretion.
Language: Sri Lanka's Unfinished War
A brief Google search will reveal a rudimentary background to Sri Lanka's civil war that went on from 1983 to 2009. In 1956, the passing of the “Sinhala Only” Act by the Sri Lankan prime minister was seen as deliberate discrimination against the Tamil Speaking minorities in Ceylon.
‘Sri Lanka's Unfinished War’ is a closer look at the continued atrocities of the Sri Lankan government towards its Tamil-speaking minority, even in the aftermath of the civil war. It is a 2013 documentary, examining the genocide/crimes against humanity that was meted out to suppress the Sri Lankan Tamils by their government. The documentary is triggering, for it contains visceral descriptions of torture-the accounts of survivors, who claim they were tortured as recently as 2013.
This favour for a particular language isn't too far from the context of India. An increased imposition of Hindi has been observed ever since the BJP-led NDA government came into power in 2014. The current Union home minister, Amit Shah believes in “one nation, one language". However, if Hindi is declared the national language in India, the remaining of the country's 19,569 languages will die a slow death, which might well be the intention of the Hindu supremacists.
Final Solution: Fascism on the ground
This 2004 documentary by Rajesh Sharma deals with the 2002 Godhra riots of Gujarat. The religious tension burst forth with deadly vigour after a train compartment of the Sabarmati Expres carrying 59 Hindu pilgrims and Karsevaks was set on fire near Godhra station. The blame of arson was shifted almost immediately onto the Muslim community in Gujarat. The cause of the fire, however, is yet to be proven as trials and investigation have been tampered with, to the extent of putting then IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt in jail. Bhatt revealed Modi’s instruction of allowing the majority community to vent their anger towards the Muslim minority in his 2011 affidavit. He was eventually granted in bail in October of 2011.
The content of this movie depicts several features of the carnage carried out against the Muslim community that prove to be almost a direct application of the principles of fascism. This “cleansing” of the Muslim community, was carried by first this violence of the cadres- with a total of 790 Muslims being killed in the riots, with another 223 missing Muslims.
The carnage described in this documentary repeated itself in the country’s capital in February 2020 in the aftermath of protests against the CAA and NRC Acts by the government. Residential areas primarily housing the Muslim community, as well as educational institutions and architecture of Islamic origin, were physically attacked by Hindu mobs. Before 2020, in December 2019, there was an attack on the unarmed students of the Jamia Milia Islamia University by the Delhi Police. This attack was retaliation to a peaceful protest carried out against the CAA and NRC bills by the students of this university of Islamic origin.
Only One Voice: Doordarshan’s Five-Part Series on the 1975 Emergency in India
These programmes deal with the period of twenty-one months between 1975 and 1977 when the then Indira Gandhi government had declared a state of Emergency in India. “What happened during this period from 1975 to 1977 constituted an eclipse of Democracy”. It is very important to recall how the Constitution was wrecked from within. Thousands of political leaders were jailed, and journalists were harassed”, an official from Doordarshan was cited as saying. Said the official, “The effort is to show people, the consequences of the derailment of democracy, and to reinforce our commitment to democratic values”, as the reasoning behind the conception of this broadcast.
Under the Emergency, the police were given Constitutional powers. They were instructed to not allow press vehicles carrying the next day’s newspapers to leave the office.
The Doordarshan official’s vision of a greater commitment to democratic principles seems particularly important now for history seems to be repeating itself in India.
Far from the Truth: Jojo Rabbit
The closing years of the Second World War, Nazi Germany is in its final stretch of trying to establish Hitler's supremacy. There is the disturbing depiction of the junior section of the Hitler youth. Jojo is a part of this wing, and when at camp for training with the same, he routinely spends time with those who confidently speak in terms of hatred, and of course, officials who have unquestioned faith in Hitler's regime. Jojo, in spending time with the trainers of this junior section, is also made privy to several falsehoods about the Jewish community- falsehoods and superstitions that these trainers both believe, and preach to be true.
The peddling of superstition as fact- giving it recognition, as if it were a fact, is no stranger to the Indian context. The most recent stint was carried out by both the Hindu Mahasabha and a representative of the BJP, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Swami Chakrapani Maharaj held a “gaumutra” party, after the arrival of the virus in India Gaumutra, literally translates to cow urine. T. The Maharaj’s suggestion, not only led people to drink cow urine as a completely unverified antidote to the virus, but also created a mass gathering, which helped the spread of the virus. A BJP MLA from Assam wasn’t far removed from the logic of this representative of the Hindu Mahasabha. This MLA, Suman Haripriya, suggested that cow dung and cow urine could serve as a viable antidote for those infected by the virus.
Ram Ke Naam: the quest for supremacy
A 1992 documentary by the Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan explored the Right-wing campaign carried out by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to establish a temple for the Hindu God Ram at the site of the erstwhile Babri Masjid in India.
The organisation of the Rath Yatra by L. K Advani was to put one particular religious community— the Muslims— at a disadvantage. L. K Advani addressed almost six rallies per day during the course of this “yatra" to further this agenda. There was a huge outpour of both religious and militant sentiment from the Hindu community directed towards their Muslim counterparts.
Fast forward to September 2020- in a special court in Lucknow declares all thirty-two who were charged with being guilty in the case of the demolition of the Babri Masjid innocent.
On 5th August 2020, there was the inauguration of a Ram temple in Ayodhya by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The PM was present at an event marking the “victory” of a community who had removed a shrine belonging to their religious counterparts completely ignoring the Secular instruction of the Constitution.
Distraction: Republic TV
A news channel under the editorial discretion of Arnab Goswami who is infamous for exercising no decorum over his debate floor, for crass interference of ongoing speeches, and in general, being loud.
Republic TV recently once again thrust itself into the limelight through its usual cacophonous debates with regard to the suicide of late actor, Sushant Singh Rajput. Rajput was allegedly struggling with depression, which eventually led him to take his life. One would expect responsible journalism to use this opportunity to at least mention that he was suffering from depression. Not only did the participants of this laughable debate completely ignore the issue of mental health, but they shifted the entirety of the blame onto Rajput’s girlfriend.
Secondly, Republic TV is guilty of broadcasting subpar content (ergo, this media trial), the same time the country was witnessing a most momentous protest of the farmers, protesting the new Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce Ordinance, 2020. A nationwide protest, captured by other news outlets through chilling photographs such as a farmer carrying the skulls of his friends the farmers we’ve lost to suicide.
Republic TV has, on several occasions, been accused of broadcast news in favour of the currently ruling party, of showcasing favour for propaganda generated by BJP. It is a fair perception to view this media house as a vehicle of the State to push the latter's agenda. It only broadcasts distraction, it does not document a fair debate of opinion between the State and its people.
Ghost Stories: An Angry Crowd
Dibakar Banerjee’s short, from the anthology series, “Ghost Stories"— the story of the larger town Sau-garah which started to house cannibals who had begun to devour their fellow humans belonging to the smaller town of Bees-garah. This turning from human to cannibal had taken the form of an epidemic, leaving only two children behind as visible survivors. This cannibalism was inaugurated by the councilman of Sau-ghara- one who had decided on impulse, that it was okay to “eat" a teacher belonging to the smaller community of Bees-ghara. Literally, to eliminate this member from the smaller community by eating every last morsel of their body.
The scene bears an eerie similarity to the last picture that was taken of Mohammed Naeem, the last picture of him while he was still alive, a resident of the Ghatsila area in the East Singhbhum district. Naeem was simply passing through the Sobhapur village, in Jharkhand, when he was in a fashion, similar to a freak accident, roped into a rumour involving the abduction of a child.
His identification as a stranger in the village and then as a Muslim, was enough for the residents of Sobhapur to take matters into their own hands. They meted out a punishment of lynching where Naeem was beaten to death by the villagers. The crowd of “cannibals” from the larger community of Saughara in Banerjee’s short, bears a similarity with the Hindu mobs that the Muslims of Sobhapur are afraid of, in terms of the violence both these groups are seen to exercise.
The sheer power, the literal dominance as exercised by this majority finds further proof in the inaction of the police, with regard to this particular lynching. The Union Cabinet and BJP leaders conveyed covertly, how they were in favour of these lynchings. The politicians essentially conveyed how they too, in their contempt for Muslims, would prefer to not break bread with them.
Paatal Lok: A meal, a murder
The seventh episode. A father opens a tiffin box, and a woman sitting on the opposite berth, begins to retch. A disgust, for this revealed meal. The disgust soon escalates into a bigger host-a saffron mob, waiting at the train station. Cut to the man pleading with the mob, that the meat that was revealed, is chicken, and not beef. His older son is then presumably impaled by a sword.
This presence of Cow Vigilante groups has surged in India since 2015(via the Human Rights watch; ever since the NDA govt. was formed in 2014). These collectives believe they're upholding the Indian ban on cow slaughter. New members are inducted at a young age-after being shown videos of animal slaughter by senior vigilantes. In the 2015 Dadri lynching, Mohammad Akhlaq was accused of slaughtering a calf, and his fridge was raided for meat. Akhlaq kept insisting, that the meat present was mutton, but the crowd beat him with bricks, killing him. The police were called but arrived an hour later.
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