It was heartening to learn of a filmmaker’s attempts to document the recent culture of hatred and violence in Gujarat. Such work reminds us that films can be used for a social purpose very effectively — something we seem to have forgotten.In the eighties, I remember, a group of us, all writers, had just arrived in a particular city to participate in a literary event. The vice-chancellor of the local university entertained us to lunch and we were walking along a shaded promenade towards the venue for the event. The man who was escorting us was none other than the mayor of the city.As we walked, we came across an urchin hanging on to the rear of a horse-drawn carriage. ‘‘Get off, you naughty little imp,’’ shouted the mayor. The boy giggled and ran away. The mayor then passed some pensive comments on the conduct of children bereft of education and we shared his concern in a casual way. A little further ahead, we spotted the urchin again. Now he was hurling pebbles at a colorful film poster showing the hero and the heroine in a steamy sequence.‘‘What are you doing, you little rascal!’’ screamed the mayor in a rage, and the boy just ran away and disappeared in the byways of a nearby slum. ‘‘Do you mark the filth that produces these creatures? What do you think they will do to society when they grow up?’’ the mayor asked angrily.Unfortunately, I was in a mood to talk. I held up a magazine which carried a poster warning the world about the shape of things to come if the unremitting growth in atmospheric pollution went unchecked. Entitled ‘Infant of the Future’, it showed a newborn babe with an oxygen mask clamped on its face. I showed the picture to the mayor and said, ‘‘Sir, is this infant responsible for the condition in which it finds itself? You detect filth in that urchin and call him a rascal. But who was the fellow who produced this film? Who directed it? Who was the chap who decided that it was this scene that should be displayed on the poster? Don’t you smell an abundance of filth in them? They are people like us and they are the real rascals.’’I didn’t wait for the mayor’s reaction since we had reached our destination by then. But the bolt from the blue arrived the moment I took seat. A professor, who had been quietly following us, whispered in my ear,‘‘Manoj, what a faux pas you made!’’ The mayor, it transpired, was the producer of the film, the poster of which we had just seen.Both the mayor and I took care to avoid each other for the rest of my time spent there, but I wondered whether he was being a hypocrite. Was his anguish about misled children all bluff? No, his pain seemed genuine enough. He really worried about the future generation but he had instinctively blotted himself out of the total picture — he was like a member of that proverbial group of seven out on a drinking spree; each one counted six, while excluding himself, and wondered what happened to the seventh.To say that it is time to speak the truth almost amounts to mouthing a cliche. In fact, it is too late to speak the truth. And the irresponsible manner in which the film medium has been handled throughout the world is responsible for this tragedy. Those who control the medium have ruthlessly exploited the human weakness for sex and violence, often blatantly, sometimes cleverly. They tell themselves that they are only giving people what they want, although they know full well that they are out only to serve their own interests.Numerous surveys have demonstrated the awful effect that sex and violence have on society. In India, in particular, something worse has happened. A researcher was evaluating the effect of so-called avant-garde films on rural audiences. He discovered that it was not the bizarre and the ugly that disturbed rural folk as much as the fact that those, who could stoop so low as to be photographed in the nude or dance in a vulgar fashion, could be valorised as celebrities.It’s time, I think, for filmmakers to stand back a little and introspect on the role they are playing in society.
