This happened in 1989. The opening ceremony of the International Film Festival of India, an event run by the information and broadcasting ministry, was on in New Delhi’s Siri Fort auditorium. Actor Shabana Azmi went up on stage and requested a few minutes from the comperes, which were smilingly granted. But no one was quite prepared for what happened next.
Azmi, confident as always, read out a statement from an organisation condemning the murder of leftist theatre activist Safdar Hashmi in broad daylight by the goons of a political party. Everyone listened. And then followed the unthinkable: the actor named not only the party but, if I remember rightly, also alluded to the politician who the Left believed had puppeteered the attack – the Congress government’s information and broadcasting minister HKL Bhagat, who was right there in the audience.
I still remember an apoplectic Bhagat striding up on stage and angrily denying the party’s connection with the murder while Shabana looked on expressionless. Things cooled down thereafter and it was business as usual – but the protest had made its mark.
Politics and the arts, particularly cinema, often find themselves on a direct collision course all over the world. One of the most notorious instances of this was the McCarthy era – the tenure of rabid anti-leftist Republican senator Joseph McCarthy (1947-1957), during whose time the already nascent practice of investigating Americans suspected of being communist supporters intensified to a frightening degree. Hollywood scripts were put through a scanner to purge any perceived Red tinges, and the infamous ‘Hollywood blacklist’, where technicians, actors and screenwriters were blackballed and thrown out of employment, came into being. The House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) issued subpoena after subpoena, and those who appeared before it were encouraged to name their Left-leaning colleagues if they wished to get off lightly. Many succumbed but several courageous ones held out, among them the ‘Hollywood Ten’, who were even sentenced to prison txerms for their defiance.
The McCarthy witch hunt is both similar to and different from the just-blown-over crisis regarding Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and the issue of Pakistani artistes in Bollywood. Similar because there’s a US-Soviet Cold War parallel in the heightened stress between India and Pakistan and in the warnings to film-makers to purge their productions of these artistes. And different because the activities of the HUAC, however horrendous, were official policy unlike the ‘ban’ on Karan Johar’s film by an extra-constitutional authority, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
The MNS’s ostensibly nationalistic bluster, launched weeks before the release, had refused to take into account that Johar’s film was shot at a time when Uri wasn’t even a gleam in the Pak-
sponsored terrorists’ eyes; or, indeed, that Pakistani actors and musicians had been working in India during the years when worse atrocities were committed by Pak-sponsored terrorists against the Indian army and civilians. Thanks to the party’s threats of violence, single-screen exhibitors in four states pulled out while the MNS rank and file, hugely emboldened by the government’s silence, gave self-important interviews about not letting the film be screened even in multiplexes. All along, I was sure that the politically motivated threats would, like other aggressive admonitions in the past, eventually pan out differently, betraying their true intention. And sure enough, on Saturday a craven compromise was shamefully brokered by the elected chief minister of a state, of which said the less the better.
Since this column is a film one, I’ll steer clear of the politics of the issue. What bothered, and continues to bother, me was the conspiracy of near-silence in Bollywood around the bullying that necessitated an ‘apology’ video from Johar, in which he had to reiterate his patriotic credentials. (Is it my imagination or did anyone else catch the one ambiguous line that somewhat redeemed the abjectness of the whole exercise?) Had Bollywood supported him en masse, perhaps there’d have been no need for the video but Bollywood’s official response was pathetic – watch the interview of the Producers’ Guild president Mukesh Bhatt, which is full of pleas like “The (three) films (with Pakistani artistes) have already been made; this is irreversible; is baar jaane do, aage se hum khayal rakhenge.” Even the few star voices that came out belatedly in support of Johar were timorous and feeble, with no one willing to forcefully call a spade a spade.
It is at times like this that Shabana Azmi’s singularly plucky act that evening in 1989 comes back to me. True, times have changed – hunting down and viciously bullying dissenters is now a cottage industry that can inhibit the boldest, and the investment in films is so mammoth that practitioners are willing to do anything to not lose money. However, courage of conviction still remains central to the issue, and that conviction, which spurs people to speak out on industry and larger issues, is today the exception, not the rule – I can think of only a few recent examples like Javed Akhtar, Vishal Dadlani, Anurag Kashyap and Sonu Nigam, who have not only taken a stand but paid for their outspokenness.
There was a time when film people did stand up for issues, even those not concerning their industry. Dev Anand and a couple of lesser stars are known to have opposed the Emergency while the episode of Kishore Kumar refusing to kowtow to Congress I&B minister Vidya Charan Shukla’s fascism is legendary. Balraj Sahni served a jail term for his Left activism while lyricists like Sahir, Shailendra and Majrooh enhanced film lyrics with their social and political idealism. The shackle that mainstream Bollywood wears around its ankle today comes from its self-serving relationship with politics and dubious politicians of every hue; a cosy nexus that brings in returns ranging from unofficial favours to parliamentary seats to tax breaks for films. Varied political loyalties, which have split the industry down the centre, are now paramount, and inevitably solidarity and principles are unaffordable luxuries when episodes like the Ae Dil Hai Mushkil one occur. As the old saying goes, he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon – but it’s a saying that Bollywood has failed to heed to its own moral detriment.
The author is a freelance editor and writer
