Cinema has never been without politics: Sadanand Menon

Interview with Art critic

Art critic Sadanand Menon tells Vikram Gopal in a telephonic interview that dissent is part of the DNA of Indian artistes. Edited excerpts:

In light of the recent accusations that film makers and actors have been indulging in "politics", historically, has there been a time when cinema was not considered political?

Cinema is a 20th-century medium that arose in the midst of cataclysmic world events. In Europe and America, great forces had been unleashed by the advent of modernism that led to immediate changes in cognition, visual sensibility and language - rapid industrialisation and the growth of capital accumulation, the rise of the working class, new disciplines like psychology and anthropology, and new movements in literature and the visual arts. It was also an era of great violence, as the World Wars engulfed one half of humanity and the anti-imperial, anti-colonial struggle engulfed the other half.

In India, cinema arose in the second decade of the 20th century, along with the quickening of the struggle for national liberation. And it inherited its basic political impulses from the already politicised field of theatre. Writers and theatre artistes were very much involved in taking an anti-imperialist stand. D L Roy's Siraj-ud-daula and K P Khadilkar's Kichaka Vadha used historical and mythological allegories depicting the British Raj as the villain and pushed the envelope against the draconian 1876 censorship laws of the Dramatic Performances (Prevention) Act. Thus, the first films by Dadasaheb Phalke, too, were similar mythological allegories with political undertones. This was part of the genetic code - the DNA - inherited by Indian cinema.

After the Quit India movement, the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) was formed, amplifying the platform for progressive and Left-oriented arts. Anyone who was anyone in the world of arts in India in those days was part of the movement.

How were overtly political films like Pyaasa by Guru Dutt and Namak Haraam by Hrishikesh Mukherjee viewed in their time?

The reaction of Guru Dutt and other directors of the time was, maybe, slightly defeatist and nihilist, like the lines in the song "Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye toh kya hai" in Pyaasa: Jala do isey, phoonk daalo yeh duniya (burn it, destroy this world). This was a defeatist attitude ushered in by a sense of loss of direction, subsequent to the exposures of Soviet atrocities in the Stalin era.

By the mid-sixties, one could see a change in the mood, with the Left re-asserting itself and the trade unions growing stronger. Those who were part of the erstwhile IPTA rediscovered their voice in cinema and theatre.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee had also been part of IPTA. And Namak Haraam is a movie of those times. Cinema began to speak up on behalf of the underdog, in an illusory way, of course.

I remember when Namak Haraam was released in 1973, there were huge debates in Mumbai, with trade union groups distributing questionnaires, asking if what the film proposed was a political or magical solution. They were incredulous - that a capitalist thug became pro-working class because of "a change of heart". Even some student groups I was part of were clear that change comes not from altruism and a "change of heart" but from a change in material conditions.

Many criticised Mukherjee for taking the soft option. The soft option continued, for example, with Shyam Benegal's 1974 film Ankur. The film ends with a boy throwing a stone at the landlord's house. If a film maker is only able to show this as the sign of protest after nearly 40 years of Independence and 60 years of labour movements in India, it can only be seen as regression.

Historically speaking, when do you think the conscious dissociation of mainstream film makers from politics took place?

All art forms are inherently political. Either it is open and visible or it is lurking in the background. I don't think there has been a time when cinema has been without politics. Take the films of M G Ramachandran (former chief minister of Tamil Nadu). He acted as a poor person in most of his films - as a peasant, a cowherd, a fisherman or a cycle-rickshaw puller. He represented the subaltern, their aspirations and the fights on their behalf. Often the route for this was through marrying a rich or upper-class woman - the rich girl's father has a change of heart in the end and agrees to share his wealth with the poor. That is a completely ridiculous conclusion and proposal.

Have there been any right-wing film makers in Indian cinema?

Historically, the right wing has used visual media mainly for propaganda. The Indian right wing has had an inherent suspicion of cinema, because it has viewed cinema as being "immoral" and the cause for the break-up of the "ideal" Indian family, with its patriarchal order.

But many conservative ideas are embedded in mainstream cinema. It has helped spread the mystical contagion in film after film. The idea of religion and religiosity controlling an individual's life, mystified to the level of gross superstition, is a special contribution of Indian cinema in all languages. This right wing's agenda could already be seen in 90 per cent of Indian cinema.

The other thing is the cult of the hero. The entire film industry is built around that trope of the single individual who brings salvation to the many. This is, of course, rabidly anti-democratic. And today, we can see this as the stepping stone for the emergence of an autocratic figure like our present prime minister. The emergence of the majoritarian hero is the take-away from some eight decades of Indian cinema. Ramachandran was that kind of a manifestation. Today, we are witness to a similar phenomenon.