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Journalism of Courage
How wonderfully well etched out is the character played by Nana Patekar in Apaharan! His chilling gaze, his smooth laughter, the aplomb with which he faces the toughest situations, Tabrez Alam will remain in people8217;s consciousness for a long time as the ultimate villain who enjoyed the government8217;s backing, a government headed by a Laloo Prasad Yadav obviously, for where else would a Brahmin8217;s meritorious son have no chance of a government job? And what an unmitigated scoundrel is this Alam! Using religion to justify the most heinous deeds. Offering namaz just after killing his most trusted aide8217;s son. Building madrasas from his ill-gotten gains. Shamelessly making demands as a minority leader. It feels so good when the chief minister rebuffs him, 8220;But you8217;re not running the country.8221;
Indeed, Muslims are not running the country. Perhaps that8217;s why even filmmakers who depict social reality find it easier to depict Muslims as criminals, rather than Hindus. It8217;s not as if Hindus aren8217;t depicted as villains; indeed, 80 per cent of Hindi film villains are addressed as Seth, not Bhai. But there8217;s a fundamental difference between movies such as Apaharan, Bombay, Maqbool and the run-of-the-mill potboiler. The former bear the stamp of authenticity. They are taken seriously because they are seen as depicting a slice of life, unlike the others which portray neither a real world, nor flesh-and-blood characters.
How effete in comparison is the film8217;s obligatory good Muslim, how poorly drawn out. But for one scene, when he gives it back to his one-time patron, how totally ineffective. His dilemma of being a Muslim police officer is conveyed only once, and then through trite dialogue.
Tabrez Alam obviously has a real life counterpart8212;maybe more than one, as Laloo8217;s patronage of Muslim dons has been only too well reported. Such evil men who are allowed to rule by terror need to be depicted. But when will a Hindi film depict those evil men in all their menace, who rule over not just entire states including post-Laloo Bihar, but did so not so long ago over the entire country? Those who use the religion of the majority not just to make money through crime, but to pour venom and instigate violence against the followers of other minority religions, and by so doing, to get to power?
