What has history, and events over the last few months, if not years, shown us? Our collective impotence in the face of communal politics
PM Narendra Modi with Indian CEOs, in Davos. Also seen is jewellery designer Nirav Modi (second row, third from left). Pic/PTI
For two weeks I have been hung out in Mumbai, thinking how great it is to be cut off from Delhi. No more anxiety about the polarisation of India, the venality of its ruling class, the banking system's hold-up of the economy, or about the triumph of capitalism over humanity. No. Now, I worry about being cool enough for the 30-somethings who control the creative process of the entertainment sausage machine. Now, I worry why no one is friends with each other, or that I will be torn by petty politics on the sets. I worry about keeping my gaze averted from the vast landscape of mediocrity, and being a "relatable" team player.
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An individual has no choice. You can't do much about the politics because everyone seems to have taken sides and dug their heels in, regardless of the merits or the fake news. Nobody sees the absurdity of being in favour of or against the 2014 messiah: if there's one thing history teaches us, it is that political leadership is futile and failure inevitable.
We are kept collectively impotent by events like the protest march on Friday, in support of a 28-year-old man in Kathua, J&K, who kept and eight-year-old girl hostage, and then raped and killed her. The police have got his confession, but that didn't stop a gang of right-wing baboons from throwing their weight behind him, simply because he is a Hindu and she was not. (Contrast that with Pakistan, where the 24-year-old man who raped and murdered seven-year-old Zainab was given four death sentences, presumably in case one got commuted.)
Worse, the J&K chief minister publicly attacked the protesters, but not over their communal hatred; she chose the safe option of lambasting them for desecrating the national flag. If you're a Muslim in today's India, you need oblique strategies to merely voice your anguish.
What about us mere mortals: if we say anything, a kindred right-wing gang will turn up at your door. The police won't help you because the chief minister is from the BJP; and in any case, the police, on the whole, prefer an authoritarian approach to social management. And the neighbours? Well, our current rulers have facilitated society's sinking to its lowest economic denominator.
The economic lethargy wouldn't matter so much but for the chutzpah of our scamsters. That jeweller Nirav Modi was photographed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unsurprising, for the more things change, the more they remain the same. All one can do is LOL along with the Twitterverse as new memes pop up, including the photoshopped poster of the movie Bade Miyan, Chhote Miyan, with the words modified to, yes, you guessed it.
While driving through Khar, I spotted a hoarding with a beaming Priyanka Chopra, in an ad modelling for Nirav's diamond jewellery. Even she was photographed with the PM in Betlin last summer; perhaps, she really was doing her job as Nirav's global ambassador (regardless of what the catty word in Bollywood may be). You have to hand it to her: as soon as the Punjab National Bank scam broke out, she announced she would sue Nirav for non-payment of dues. To paraphrase an old saying: When the going gets hot, the hot get going.
One Bollywood star I happened to gawk at gave me a class on the power of controversy. He claimed that Padmaavat got R600 crore of free publicity due to the controversy (again, a misplaced one by some right-wing boneheads). No, a financier said, it was R900 crore - and he tallied the number of hours of TV coverage, news space, radio discussions, blogs, etc, to prove his accounting. They agreed that the film was mediocre and that had it been decent, the box office take would have easily doubled. (It was near Rs 250 crore last week.) It is disconcerting to not hear about the anxiety and tension that this controversy produced, but how did that matter in the larger scheme of things? It is fashionable to give gyaan, that lunatic right-wing groups like the Karni Sena and the Hindu Ekta Manch are just Indian manifestations of the global response to the existential crisis caused by the defeat of the individual. But if capitalism has triumphed, then these groups are not helping the individual - they are only sealing her fate.
In a way, it is then a good time to try a different career. If I get crowded out due to my age and lack of ruthless ambition, it just means that all industries are the same. It's worth a try, and it makes sense since entertainment is a recession-proof industry. And it's far more fun to watch the politics on the sets, than to watch it on the national stage.
Aditya Sinha's crime novel, The CEO Who Lost His Head, is available now. He tweets @autumnshade. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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