Best political satire? Ex-minister, filmmaker, professor pick

It was a kind of a theatre of the absurd set in a city like Mumbai. But it wasn’t restricted to Mumbai. It went far beyond that, across the world, into the realm of corruption, waste and incompetence. And in its sweep, it even made fun of patriotism, the role of the press and how things can be controlled when you have fake media covering them.

I personally think the film had its flaws. But by and large, it was the theatre of the absurd trying to tell us: What is this world that we have inherited? When you see the film today, it still makes sense. Its longevity isn’t restricted to its time. It has endured and therefore it is like an oracle. There is humour, tragedy and absurdity — a dead body floating around, the tales of the Ramayana being tossed in, Akbar entering into the Ramayana. It’s all happening. And in that, it was a masterpiece.

Saeed Mirza is a filmmaker, writer and traveller

Ravi Shankar Prasad on Yes Minister

Yes Minister

Political humour and satire have always been an integral part of the Indian parliamentary tradition. There have been many such moments in my life as a parliamentarian. When (freedom fighter) Mahavir Tyagi was speaking about the areas India had lost after the Chinese debacle in 1962, Jawaharlal Nehru said that not a blade of grass grew in the 17,000 ft high Aksai Chin. Tyagi, who was bald, removed his cap and said, “Not a strand of hair grows on my head. Does it mean that the head has no value?” That was a great one. I also remember Piloo Mody carrying a placard around Parliament saying, “I am a CIA agent,” after the Congress repeatedly accused the Opposition of being CIA agents.

Then, in terms of visual media, there was the BBC serial, Yes, Minister, which was hugely popular. It took humour to the leaders and the workings of government. It had a way of exposing the absurdities of bureaucracy and politics without losing its wit. I remember all Opposition leaders too enjoyed the show. These moments matter because humour enlivens democracy. It brings consensus, provokes introspection, and punctures arrogance. If you try to crush humour through the power of the state, you are ultimately the loser.

Ravi Shankar Prasad is a lawyer and Member of the Lok Sabha

(As told to Vikas Pathak)

Sumangala Damodaran on Kerala’s Chakyar Koothu

Kerala’s Chakyar Koothu

It is difficult to pin down specific favourites, but in India, Abu Abraham, Shankar and RK Laxman’s cartoons were central to our lives. Growing up, we would look at the Laxman cartoon even before reading the headlines in the newspaper. It was natural, then, that the cartoonist was the real commentator and critic.

Internationally, I am fascinated by Zapiro in South Africa, both artistically and for the way he makes fun of the establishment. In cinema, Tomás Alea’s Death of a Bureaucrat, where he mocks bureaucracy to critique the system, is another favourite. When it comes to visual art, the Colombian artist Botero’s massive figures — including people in power — are a fascinating form of satire.

Satyajit Ray’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne is also one of the best examples of critiquing power. I also value traditional forms like Chakyar Koothu in Kerala, where the Chakyar, a commentator, has the licence to make fun of even the king. There is such a strong tradition of laughing at power, where those being critiqued are often sitting in the audience themselves and laughing loudly. That, to me, is the real power of satire.

Sumangala Damodaran is an economics professor, musician and composer

Amal Allana on Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Bertolt Brecht, considered one of the most brilliant of writers/stage directors/ theoreticians of the 20th century, revolutionised the very concept and staging of theatre, film, photography and art, reshaping it into a political entity, capable of engaging with the contemporary reality.

A product of both world wars, one of Brecht’s scathing political satires was based on the rise of Adolf Hitler. Named ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’, I was overcome and jolted as I watched director Manfred Weckworth’s compelling production of it at the Berliner Ensemble. Starkly imprinted in my memory, the production explored the metaphor of the circus on multiple levels. Set in a fictional Chicago of the 1920s, Ui/Hitler and his henchmen were costumed in a cross between Italian mafioso gangsters and circus clowns. Their painted faces exuded viciousness combined with the grotesque and comic. The stage set was suggestive of a dilapidated circus tent, hung across with circus lights that blinked on and off, synchronised with strident popular music of the streets.

Delving deeper into the circus metaphor, each sequence was treated as a circus number but choreographed to transition from the farcical to the violent. The brilliant acting ensemble of over 40 actors, led by Ekkehard Schall in the lead as Ui, combined comedy with deadpan violence, creating a disturbing, unstable fascist world fraught with senseless violence. Extremely relevant today.

Amal Allana is theatre director, teacher, writer and former chairperson, National School of Drama

Namita Gokhale on The Good Soldier Svejk

The Good Soldier Svejk

The story of the simple minded yet resourceful bungler, Svejk, in The Good Soldier Svejk, has entered the everyday vocabulary of the Czech language as well as the English dictionary. The unfinished classic mocks war, the government, the military and the entire apparatus of power. The might of the Austrian-Hungarian empire is shown up as a gigantic joke. The cosmic absurdity of life is on display through this dark comedy, which is somehow redeemed by the misadventures of the cheerful Josef Svejk.

The Czech author Jaroslav Hasek was an anarchist and the book subverts the narratives of blind patriotism through its humour and unblinking irony. The simple-minded Svejk is at some level comparable to Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. Svejk, who had previously been certified as an imbecile is incarcerated in prison for innocent but politically incorrect remarks, something that seems entirely resonant with our times. Later, he is seconded to the alcoholic chaplain Katz, who loses Svejk in a poker game to a Lieutenant Lukas. The good soldier’s absurd and always loyal, obedient and well meaning encounters with an inscrutable and chaotic military authority continues comically, satirically and tragically.

The disarming mask of the idiot is deeply subversive, exposing as it does the absurdity of war and nationalistic fervour. The passive compliance of the wise fool as a survival strategy is a thumbs up to a cruel and oppressive system. It is perhaps appropriate that the story ends abruptly and without resolution, due to the tragic death of the author Jaroslav Hasek.

Namita Gokhale is writer, co-founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival

RAQS Media Collective on Rabin Mondal’s King series

King as Manipulator (Photo credit: DAG)

Satyajit Ray’s 1969 Bengali fantasy-musical film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne seems right for the moment, especially the song of the ghosts is a favourite. Also Bhuter Raja Dilo Bor, for its brilliant choreography.

We are also fans of Rabin Mondal’s paintings, especially his ‘King’ series. There is a sort of distortion. It is a satire because it takes the idea of power and sort of exaggerates it. You can see that it is pulling from the language of modernity that was very prevalent at that time like Picasso and others. But he is able to create this figure – the king – and you don’t know whether to pity it or to laugh. It is all about looking at hubris. What happens to power once it’s completely hollowed out from within? We are experiencing that right now.

Then, there’s the Hans Christian Andersen story, The Emperor’s New Clothes (1837). It’s a great piece of satire. What we saw at Jantar Mantar is something that is there in that story.

Artists Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta are co-founders of RAQS Media Collective