How’s the Josh (Energy)? High Sir. How’s the Josh? High Sir. How’s the Josh? High Sir. Jai Hind!
This particular dialogue from the movie Uri that released last week has taken social media and political circles by storm. One of the first releases by Bollywood and distributed by Zee Studios in India has garnered attention of the Indian audience and continues to hold full houses at leading theatres and halls. Well, the movie promotions have taken a new turn when colleagues from same fraternity are not only endorsing this movie but even leading politicians are doing the same.
The ‘Incredible India’ is currently encountering a new way of political mobilization. Movies or Motion pictures have become a mouthpiece/ mouth organ of the government to articulate and celebrate their successful stints with arms and ammunition. Apart from such deadly scripts, there are movies that particularly attack the opposition party for their politics and expose their hypocrisy within the bureaucracy and the party respectively. One such example is ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, which is an adaption of the book by Sanjay Baru. On the hindsight, other than aping the mannerisms of the leading politicians such as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Former and Current Congress Party Presidents: Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and others. It doesn’t really offer much other than throwing muck at the opposition party. Clearly, Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has arrived early to the party of political campaigning whereas the rest are relaxing at the lounge!
Having crossed a week into 2019, and this particular year is extremely crucial for India as the General elections is round the corner. The run up to the 17th General Elections will be full of fiery political speeches, accusing each other for failures or misadventures and probable occasions of coalitions with smaller parties to counter the strength of two big national parties that is Congress and BJP. The core of these political debates will revolve around main areas such jobs for youth (employment), farcical nature of make in India campaign, hollow dream of achche dins (good days), resolution for agrarian distress, reduction in corruption, communal tensions with regard to Ayodhya dispute and the list is endless. After every five years, the Indian public is brought to square vis-a-vis such false promises. Most of us are yet to receive the Rs 15 lakhs in our account since 2014. A lot has happened since then such as Demonetization and GST!
Well, the social media handles of prominent politicians will surely justify the work done by the present government time and again. Interestingly, the current Indian Prime Minister social media timelines also endorses similar viewpoints. As a rational human being, one must develop critical points to observe the society and reflect upon the achievements of the government. And certainly give credit where it’s due. If at all!
Although some media reports justify, there have been some at least in terms of urban-rural cleanliness, stop to open defecation, building of highways that connect remotest corners of India, extending the umbrella of electricity outreach and others. Interestingly, so far only one movie has been made that is ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha’ (Toilet: A Love Story), wherein the female protagonist demanded a separate washroom to be built within the house. The film was set up in rural town wherein women went to the fields for defecation. To put a complete ban on such activities, Modi-led government introduced Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission), wherein toilets were constructed in villages to be used for all. However, so far no movie has been made on what type of toilets are constructed, who is using it and other critical aspersions. Well, certainly one cannot draft love story with such critical junctures of popular policies.
One of the very high points of the Modi government has been the emergence of New India, which is resilient, powerful and very patriotic. They best example that justifies the aforementioned adjectives is the Surgical Strike, that occurred during 28-29 September 2016 near Indian Line of Control (LOC). This particular retaliation was an act of revenge for the soldiers’ death in Uri, Baramulla district of Kashmir that happened on 18th September 2016. The media claimed that this particular attack was ‘ one of the deadliest attack on the security forces in Kashmir in the last two decades’. Around 23 soldiers were martyred during the belonging to Dogra and Bihar regiments. The Indian state politics was caught up between the Kashmir unrest and figuring out a counter strategy for security lapses. Then India’s defense Minister Manohar Parikkar and Home Minister Rajnath Singh along with General Army Staff Dalbir Singh and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval demanded the postponement of 19th SAARC summit in Islamabad, Indian retaliation and bilateral boycott. The last two consequences of the Uri attack helped in framing antagonistic attitude towards Pakistan starting banning of cultural artists and revoking sporting ties with the neighboring country. The basic popular voice in such scenario was banning Pakistan artists, ignore them and avoid dialogues. This sentiment was sowed in minds and hearts of India with an overall idea of patriotism, solidarity and nationalism.
It was the Surgical Strike by the Indian army that brought attention of the public towards the idea of a New India. A country, which is unstoppable and kills the enemy while it is sleeping and also has complete ignorance to the concept of nation’s sovereignty. Well, this was the bedrock of the arguments churned out during televised debates. And continues to be! Only the press conferences followed by media reports claimed that such a brave act took place in the wee hours of late September 2016. So far no photos have been published on the net, although there have been some verbatim comments justifying such act took place with reference to taking away of the bodies, sounds of firing and others. At least in this case, bridge between fiction and non-fiction often appears to be a sordid one!
This became a plot for the moviemakers in Bollywood to release a film that captures the essence of Surgical Strike. It’s ironical that when there are no classified images available of such a courageous act, Indian cinema has gone ahead and released a motion picture on the same. The star cast of the movie has actors who had previously adorned military officer roles in their movies and are members of a political party. The dialogues and screenplay are very much reflective of plastic patriotism that has been sewed in the minds of the public. And in the coming year, the every award show will surely ‘gift’ a couple of awards or felicitate the movie director for the script and actor for acting. One is definitely coming down their way in terms of Sci-Fi!
Moreover, the shooting of the movie took place in the countryside of Siberia with grueling schedules of thrilling action display; lose delivery of dialogues and definitely not-so-compelling acting skills. Moreover recreating some of the action scenes appears to be outcomes from video games (just like PUBG). Generally speaking, people have become so violent, intolerant and offensive at the same time; that these kinds of movies are minting15 crores in box office within week. Whereas artistic movies like Manto, Neel Bate Sanata and others often fail to cross the much-needed benchmark. Moreover, after completing the hectic schedules of shooting, a movie takes about 2 years before it hits the screen. The moment when the plot lines of the movies have to do with patriotism, nationalism, Hindu identity and others; it seems like the roadblocks are a distant memory. Incidentally, even Good & Services Tax gets slashed or Entertainment Tax is removed and others. No wonder why the film director and distributor was so hell bent in releasing the movie within the first week of January 2019. One can totally understand the urge to release such movies before the 17th General Elections. Kudos to BJP and their supporters!
The critics, movie aficionados, the public and even the politicians have given a big thumps up to the movie that currently fuels immense patriotism in our hearts. The social media is filled with positive reviews of the movie, image posts of the stars recommending people to watch the movie as soon as possible; young children are beating their heart out with Jai Hind!
Nationalism and Patriotism, which once served, as important flashpoints to unite a country and defeat the colonial forces, back in 1947. But at present are words that serve nothing but plastic sentiments. They are hyperbole adulations that determine whether one is patriotic or not? It has become an important vantage point to critically examine one’s love for the country, or for that matter armed force of India. Similarly, just like the movie Uri, another movie Accidental Prime Minister is performing decently well at the box office. Likewise, movie promotions for Accidental Prime Minister have been done and dusted. But then the Indian audience prefers vengeance to political vendetta. What’s shocking is that the notion of ‘Aman Ki Asha’ (Hope for Peace), a joint peace project by the media houses in India and Pakistan has taken a backseat. And surgical strikes and revenge for soldiers’ death is on everyone’s mind. At this juncture, one needs to understand the true meaning of patriotism, that is distinctive from hyperbole or media infused steroids.
We definitely must respect the armed forces in the country, and any threat to our forces is basically a threat to our life and nation’s sovereignity. Colluding the two together makes it an extremely convoluted task for Indian public to decipher between patriotism, nationalism and solidarity. Using films or artistic expressions for vested interests is a prime example of how desperate the government is to return back to power. Every citizen has a right to exercise rationally his/her political right based on the choices (political parties). But if the political parties use media as their beck and call, then we are definitely losing an important pillar of democracy, which is supposed neutral, unbiased, non-partisan and being truly fair!
Very impressive.True reflections of present politics and society is discussed.Want to read more on different debating issues.