Opinion Mahabharata,without the Gita

In her acclaimed 1969 essay The Personal is Political,feminist Carol Hanische argued: “One of the first things we discover in these groups [of women is that personal problems are political problems.” Raajneeti’s message turns that idea on its head: all politics is only personal. Women marry for political expedience,men make love and death for it,aspiring female politicians sell themselves for tickets,then denounce their violators for more tickets. As the film bumbles from one revenge attack to the next reprisal,it becomes apparent that Raajneeti — both the film as well as its wider practice — is less about governance and representation,more about a power-addict’s craving for the next “high”. This is Mahabharata alright,but without the Bhagawat Gita — there is no moral core that confers meaning on the quest for power.

The Mahabharata’s dilemmas between ethics and loyalty,right and wrong,are best captured in Karna. Abandoned by his mother and brought up in a charioteer’s house,Karna’s downfall lies in choosing loyalty to political expediency,generosity to calculation. In his book on the Mahabharata,The Difficulty of Being Good,author Gurucharan Das finds in Karna the most complex and fascinating of characters. Other Mahabharata adaptations,such as the Tamil film Thalapathi,have as their protagonist the anti-hero Karna,crippled by loyalty and circumstance. Raajneeti’s Karna,Sooraj Kumar,is abandoned by a mother who subsequently marries into the ruling Pratap family. Sooraj is brought up by a Dalit driver to that very family. The dilemmas of Karna are suited to the dark,brooding Ajay Devgn whose quandary between honesty and loyalty play out in the wide-angled focus on his eyes.

Where Raajneeti’s Karna differs from others is in its references to Dalit politics. Sooraj declines his mother’s later request to come back to his true home because: “in every breathe of mine there is a Dalit”. Sooraj also rebels against the stranglehold the “national party” has over his basti,dissing a party candidate “as being from our caste,but not from our area”. These tensions have historically played out in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Dalits in both states,long seen as reliable Congress voters,now gravitate towards regional Dalit parties. It is possibly a coincidence that one such party,Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP,gave Prakash Jha a Lok Sabha ticket in the 2009 general elections.

Surinder Jodhka,a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University who works on Dalit politics,says that explicitly Dalit characters are rare in Bollywood. “Even the socially relevant films of the ’60s and ’70s focused on class not caste” he says. Jodhka points to a few films such as Lakshya and Delhi 6,which portrayed Dalit characters. “But I can’t think of a single film where Dalit politics was the focus,” he adds. This is a crucial distinction. In Lagaan for instance,the acceptance of the sweeper Kachra by the village cricket team has more to do with the demands of national integration than the aggressive political mobilisation of Ajay Devgn’s “Dalit samrat” character Sooraj Kumar.

But like others in the film,Sooraj Kumar is ultimately drawn to the blood-letting that winning power involves,blinded by loyalty to his political patron,rather than fidelity to his caste. It is “victory at all cost”,as the film’s trailer declares. Perhaps the only innocent in the entire film is its audience.

Universal adult franchise,in a country as poor and unequal as India,was premised on ideals,not people. The Constitution of India was penned,not just by the dominant Congress party,but by people of varied ideological,religious and sectarian hues. Its chief draftsman,B.R. Ambedkar,warned against the adulation and “bhakti” to which he felt the Indian public was susceptible. To further the separation of politics from personalities,the first Union Cabinet had a law minister (Ambedkar) and an industry minister who were opposed to the Congress. That spirit of accommodation was meant to convey a ruling elite grander than a solitary individual,family,ideology or party. We have since carried on with free and fair elections. But our politics is now the domain of the families,rivalries and machinations that

Raajneeti so ruthlessly captures. As we ape the rituals of democracy but ignore its rigour,have we,like the soul-less cast of Raajneeti,copied the Mahabharata but cast aside its core text?

express@expressindia.com