It could work for Congress

Then there was applause when divinity sent rain down as an omen to a singing and dancing Somayajhulu as he finishes rendering the song Shankaraaa, naadashareerapara… But the loudest applause came when the young boy takes up the song of an ageing Somayajhulu as his voice fails him. In that young voice was the redemption of Somayajhulu, whose life in the movie was devoted to popularising classical music against the onslaught of Western culture.

These responses of the audience can be related to an innate feudal instinctual adherence to tradition and continuity. Melodramatic? Indeed yes, but before the fact of intellectual logic always comes melodrama, as real and as relevant as life and deathare to the human psyche.

In sharp contrast comes the acclaim of Sholay. Amjad Khan became the icon of villainy overnight. Not to be castigated, spat at, ridiculed and exorcised — but as an icon to idolate, revel in and even imitate. The refrain Maine aapka namak khaaya hai, sarkar, followed by the startling Ab goli kha is immortal and modern because the phenomenal success of the dialogue exemplifies the total breakdown of traditional and moral values when it comes to practically living one’s life out.

The resulting contradiction is extraordinary. If Hum Aapke Hain Kaun freaked out at the box office owing to its adherence to feudalistic tradition of marriage values, the success of the Tamil film Nayakan (in Hindi to a lesser degree Dayawaan) is equally telling because the film espouses the Godfather syndrome. The latter underlines emphatically that, whether in urban or rural conglomerates, citizens, by and large, prefer the safety of the Don’s cult rather than that of the Law, because they believe these godfathers are the real dispensers of justice in the Establishment.

Thus we have the feudal adherence to tradition and continuity and the stability associated with the concept against the willing, if helpless, obeisance paid by them to the rural and urban godfathers. Contradicting propositions co-existing harmoniously in the miscellaneous Indian psyche. Call it the neo-feudal Indian syndrome. Most of those who made possible the success of Sholay, Shankarabharanam, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Nayakan will go to cast their votes to determine who rules the country tomorrow with their logic coloured by this syndrome.

And this is precisely why Bofors may not prove to be the smoking gun to halt Rajiv Gandhi’s widow, Sonia. The propaganda that she is a “foreigner” may not work either. At least, not with Priyanka standing beside her and waving to the crowds. The neo-feudal syndrome haunting India could well ensure the perpetuation of the dynasty myth – and with it the revival of Congress when most have given it up as a dead loss.