In Bollywood, politics stays out of focus

Politics is to cinema what a mongoose is to a cobra. They don’t get along. In fact, it has to be a truly venturesome sort who treads the verboten terrain.
Take Prakash Jha. He couldn’t attract enough votes, in 2004 as well as 2009, at the Lok Sabha elections to
become a real-life neta. On screen, though, he seeks to rat-a-tat away at venal ministers, corrupt cops and their Rasputin-faced associates.

The director’s home state, Bihar, albeit abstrusely has served as a backdrop for his successful quasi-political thrillers Aparahan, Gangaajal and Raajneeti.
In fact, Raajneeti turned out to be a mega-crowd-pleaser. Vis-à-vis its publicity campaign, Ranbir Kapoor-Katrina Kaif had been assigned extra importance, invoking the wrath of co-star Ajay Devgn. Be that as it may, the hot-seller was more an adaptation of The Godfather than a reflection of realpolitik.
Now, to add to his political film library, Aarakshan (Reservation) is around the corner to grapple with a contentious subject: caste-based reservations in government jobs and educational institutions. Jha ho! So what if the faces of Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone are being highlighted in the print publicity? Glamour and popular young stars sell. Politics? Ho-hum, maybe.
Over, then, to this week’s release Gandhi to Hitler. Quite an oddity, it deals with the two letters which the Mahatma is said to have written to the Fuhrer, urging him to give up the politics of violence. Raghuvir Yadav shows up as Adolf Hitler. Stranger things have happened at the movies.
Like Raavan, Mani Ratnam’s adaptation of Ramayana. It said virtually zilch, except for the display of some slow-motion shots of waterfalls and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Earlier Ratnam’s Guru had detailed a rags-to-riches industrialist’s manipulation of politics and the media, enticing a guessing game. Is that Dhirubhai Ambani? Is that Ramnath Goenka? Compared to Ratnam’s uncompromised work — Iruvar — Guru was fair to middling.
Point is that for popular cinema, politics can be a side dish, never the main course. The memory of the prints of Kissa Kursi Ka being destructed during the mid-1970s still lingers. So why travel that route, anyway?
After all, politics implies a maze of complications, taking a stand and a hyperventilation of duh-or-die convictions. Difficult. There’s no more radical critiquing, no subversion. No M.S. Sathyu’s lament at a divided nation in Garm Hava, no Gulzar masquerading Suchitra Sen as Indira Gandhi in Aandhi, no Saeed Mirza Leftist-inflected Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, no Jabbar Patel’s look at chief ministership ke chukkers as in Simhasan. And no taking off the lid between politicos and media barons, as in Ramesh Sharma’s New Delhi Times.
Ram Gopal Varma’s Sarkar portrayed a political leader, again in the tradition of The Godfather. It alluded to the real-life political leader strictly between the frames. Political frankspeak isn’t acceptable, political correctness is. Because this card ensures patronage by the ruling party and a slew of awards following fierce lobbying with the ministries, fixers — not to forget those seasoned hangers-on in Delhi’s dank offices and Ashok Hotel’s kabab-and-paneer tikka party halls. In the event, the show business movers as well as wannashakers have to do the right thing.
Concurrently, political parties of various hues have drawn star names to pitch in their lot for poll campaigns. Salman Khan has achieved the absurd feat of campaigning for rival parties. And some of yesteryear’s heroines, TV termagants, beauty pageant winners and slumdog kiddies have been drawn to the fold for cash fees, either for a single campaign trip or as a package deal.
Ironically there is little or no danger of the election circus ever becoming a subject for a film script, serious, comedic or both. If an element of politics is essential, it has to be the tried and tested. To date, it’s a tradition to festoon the walls of government and police chowkies depicted in popular cinema, with calendar portraits of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi. A bid to win brownie points from the ruling party? Or just plain old-fashioned art direction?
At one stage, particularly in the 1950s and ’60s, Bollywood films often flashed stock footage of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and for a secular touch Maulana Azad, addressing the nation. Infallibly, the flashes drew goose bumps besides thunderous applause from the front benches as well as the balconies. Predictably, such flashes are no longer used, indicating that the moviegoer is no longer excited by post-Independence fervour. Like it or not, popular cinema has to adopt an apolitical stance, sit on the fence, and go with the current flow. Evidence: the volte-face from the rabble rousing anti-Pakistan movies (Gadar and Hero, for instance) to the brief abracadabra-like honeymoon with the announcements of pro-Pak co-productions.
Mahesh-Mukesh Bhatt took the lead towards cross-bordering by ransacking the sufi-pop music of Pakistan. The Yash Chopra confected Veer-Zaara, an Indo-Pak romance, close in genre to RK Films’ Henna. Very gung-ho with such developments, information and broadcasting minister Ravishankar Prasad had even announced a film on cross-border dosti to be produced by a Pakistani and to be directed by an Indian. It never happened.
Aah, such is politics.