Political Satire and Indian Movies
‘Bahut Politics Hai’, a line we frequently use in our daily conversation. This could be in reference to situations in office, in a housing colony, in an industry. We, as a country love our politics, but there is a sense of weariness with the politicians. We may love or hate our politicians, but we do not seem to be making enough fun of them
There have been very few movies in India either on the big screen or television, which have tried to satirize the rich and diverse field of Indian politics. The Indian politics and politicians can be a rich source of comic material.
For example, elections, a fascinating display of India’s democracy, each time leads to a lot of comedy. Party hopping, that the politicians engage in, you had a politician in UP who changed his parties thrice in a day, is ready made comedy requiring no effort on the writers part.
Of course, there have been movies which have seriously touched upon the politics, ‘Aandhi’ , ‘Maachis’ , ‘Hu Tu Tu’, ‘Satta’, ‘Gulal’ , Mani Ratnam’s loose trilogy of Indian politics ‘Roja’, ‘Bombay’ and ‘Dil Se’ come to mind. But these movies tackled politics seriously and had something serious to say. Gulal may be classified as tragicomic but was by no means a satire.
Television has thrown some really good examples for political satire, i remember Kakkaji Kahin , in which Om Puri represented the UP-Bihar politicians beautifully much before Laloo Yadav came to limelight as a funny man. ‘Ji Mantriji’ , an official remake of ‘Yes Minister’ was also good. ‘Office Office’ ran successfully for years, though it does not address politics directly, we can all agree that bureaucracy is a close relative of democracy.
Kerala and movies on politics:
Of all the people in India, Keralites and Bengalis are undoubtedly the most political. I cannot talk about Bengalis, but in Kerala it is due to the communists and the high literacy rate. But the primary reason is the number of people who read newspapers. ‘Malayala Manorama’, a daily from Kerala, has the highest circulations for a regional language newspaper.
In the Malayalam film industry, predictably, there have been a lot of movies about politics. They have been like ‘Lal Salaam’, ‘Advaitham’ or ‘Rakhtasazhigal Zindabad’ about the communism and its rise. But the best of the lot have been movies which have been satirical in nature. I would like to present 2 of them,
Panchavati Palam (1983) ( Loose Translation : Bridge on Panchavati River) :
Set in a small village in Kerala, the movie introduces a Panchayat President ( ‘Bharat’ Gopi) who has been ruling for the past 10 years or so, the president is totally hen pecked , wife (Sri Vidya) rules by proxy with the help of a cunning fixer and panchayat member ( Nedumudi Venu). The president wants to leave a lasting legacy to the village that he has ruled for years and is persuaded to build a bridge.
The move goes on to show how the opposition party (led by Thilakan) and the ruling party collude with each other to take the innocent villagers for a ride and make money in the process. The village represents the country in the movie. The politics that the movie shows/ridicules is still practiced.
K.G.George, who is otherwise known for his serious movies, directed this gem of a movie. Well acted and well presented, this movie is one of those forgotten gems which people do not get to see these days.
Sandesham ( 1992) ( Loose Translation : Messages) :
Sreenivasan and Sathayan Anthikad have given some wonderful movies to the Malayalam film audiences. ‘Sandesham’ surely is one of their best offerings, with ‘Nadodikattu’ being the best movie ever.
‘Sandesham’ is a story of a retired station master (Thilakan), his wife ( Kavioor Ponnamma) and their 2 sons (Sreenivasan and Jayaram) . The parents have spent all their lives caring for their children , educating them and even spending time apart so that the kids studies would not be disturbed because of the frequent transfers that entail a government job. The sons grow up to join different political parties , Sreenivasan joining the communists and Jayaram joining the Congress. Both of them are committed activists and are willing to do anything for their respective parties even at the cost of their parents happiness and more importantly money that their parents had saved for their future. The movie remarkably shows the hypocrisy involved in the politics of both the parties and how both the political activists remain immune to the mistakes of the parties until it is too late for both of them.
Along the way, it makes fun of the hard-line ideologies of both the parties, like the intellectuals of the communist parties, how congress does not have any ideology at all.There is a wonderful scene where Sreenivasan and Jayaram argue on the breakfast table, they argue about the happenings in Nicaragua, remember the movie was made in 1992, and US had just propped up another dictator in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra affair had happened. The scene is good because it shows the insularity of the politicians , they do not seem to care about the happenings in the their surroundings but are more concerned about the happenings around the world.
Extra :
Hun Hunshi Hunshilal (1992) ( English Title : Love in the time of Malaria)
I am a mallu born and bought up in Gujarat, with no active/vibrant Gujarati movie industry to speak of, it is remarkable how I remember I a small Gujarati movie which I saw at least 15 years ago which again was a political satire, I remember the name quite clearly. Searching on the net does not yield a whole lot of information other than that it was directed by Sanjiv Shah and starred the wonderful actor-who-died-young Mohan Gokhale and was another in the long line of good but forgotten movies produced by NFDC.
I think the movie was set in the future but had some telling comments to make about the present. I don’t know if anybody else has seen the movie or possesses a vcd or dvd of the movie.The synopsis presented in the site ( see references below ) does not ring a bell. But i am sure that is the movie which i remember from my childhood.
References :
Panchavadi Palam:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchavadi_Palam
Sandesham :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0353975/
Hun Hunshi Hunshilal
http://www.geocities.com/curlybraces/movies/hindimovies.htm ( Scroll down to see movies starting with ‘H’)
Image courtesy:
Tags: Political Satire
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Hu Hunshi Hunshilaal was screened as a part of film festival at Ahmedabad recently. When the movie was released, and it went on to win some award, it seemed that Sanjiv Shah would go on to become the next Ketan Mehta. Unfortunately the movie did not generate any post-award hype. Yes, it did star Mohan Gokhale, who by the way has done lot more to Gujarati cinema than the I&B ministry has, but he wasn’t the main lead. The main lead was Dilip Joshi, who plays Jethalaal in Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashma (a terrible adaption of a magazine series that had so much potential to become a true satirical comedy. More some other time)
Gujarati film industry redefines the word dismal. I could go on and on talking about it. Vipul Shah, J D Majithiya, Aatish Kapadia were very bright and promising TV and stage people who were looked upon as artists who could change the scenario of Gujarati Film industry. Unfortunately Vipul Shah chose to make ordinary superhits in Hindi. Imagine if directors like Sanjay Leela Bhanshali, Sanjay Gadhvi, Ketan Mehta, Vipul Shah decided to make at least one film in Gujarati only if to revive the industry. Some day may be that will happen..
Yes, Gujju film industry is truly dismal but to think .. for a state that has such a strong theater movement and has given such wonderful actors to the indian film industry it is sad that they are not able utilise the talent properly.
It is an unfortunate Catch 22 situation. The theater movement works mostly in Mumbai, and the next natural step for progression is seen as Hindi film industry, as the Gujarati entertainment industry took a dip during the 80s.
Now without those artists the industry cannot survive, and those artists would not come back in an already dead industry. Gujarati films still work today, but are targeted to a very limited audience. Another problem is that the Gujarati music does not want to evolve from garba tradition. Unless there is an active inertia from the audience and the artists to change the scenario, it is not going to happen.
yea.. i remember “ji mantri ji”.. used to like it very much.. have been searching for copy of the serial for a long time, but to no avail..can someone help me out with this?
I don’t know about ‘Ji Mantriji’ but you can surely get DVDs of BBC series ‘Yes Minister’ and ‘Yes Prime Minister’ on which they are based .. the 2 series are still to the mark .. it does not seem like the system has changed at all in the last 25 years .. And since we more or less inherited the British system, they are easy to relate to.
- Dhiraj
There have been quite a few serious hindi films dealing with politics.
But political satires are not many in numbers.
We may count few films as political satires.
-I.S Johar’s Nasbandi.
-Amrit Nahta’s Kissa Kursi ka.
-N Rao Dasari’s Aaj Ka MLA Ram Avtar, (Rajesh Khanna gave a good performance in this political comedy).
-Welcome to Sajjanpur also had one portion dealing with the genre of political satire.
…
Though Gulzar Saab’s debut film (as a director) Mere Apne was a serious film but it had a song which can fit into any social and/or political satire.
( Haal chaal theek thaak hai,
B.A. kiya hai, M.A. kiya,
lagata hai vo bhi avanyi kiya
kaam nahin hai varana yahan
aap kee dua se sab theek thaak hai
Ab-o-hawa Ab-o-hawa desh kee bahut saaf hai
kayada hai, kanoon hai, inasaaf hai
allah miyan jaane koi jiye ya mare
Adami ko khoon voon sab maaf hai
gol mol roti ka pahiya chala
peechhe peechhe chandee ka rupaiya chalaa
rotee ko bechari ko cheel le gayee
chandi le ke munh kala kauva chalaa
aur kyaa kahoon maut ka tamasha
chalaa hai betahasha,
jeene kee phurasat nahin hai yahan
aap kee dua se bakee Theek Thaak hai)
@Rk: in the same breath as ‘aaj ka MLA’ we should also mention bigB’s ‘inquilab’ which was a nice movie on politics of those times. an apt song was ‘abhimanyu chakravyuh mei phans gaya hai tu’.
.
’shool’ was another good movie on the political class
Rk,
There was a song sung by Arun Bakshi in a Sanjay Dutt movie Amaanat in 90s. The title goes like ‘Yeh Duniya Kya Chahe Money Money’ and has satirical references to Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam, Bush, Scud missiles and the entire 92 Iraq war. Other such song was recently in Gulaal.
Amaanat was more famous for Daloonga Daloonga song though.
Yes, i remember the song, it still resonates ..
I can’t say i have seen ‘Nasbandi’ or ‘Kissa Kursi Ka’
I thought ‘Kissa Kursi Ka’ only became famous because of the controversies,didn’t think the movie was any good.
- Dhiraj
I have seen HHH on DD in those good old day, somewhere between 1990-1994. I was mesmarised by the theatre like narration of the movie. It was brilliantly crafted and was full of political satire. I still remember the “dialogue” ” aaj se sapna dekhna band”. brilliant movie. Do we find the DVD?
I don’t know if you’ve seen a telugu movie called ‘Yamagola’ starring NTR, Jayaprada, Satyanarayana, Rao Gopala Rao and others. It was released just when the emergency period got over and the oblique references to the political situations in virtually every frame was just to funny and yet evoked some thought. Picture this for eg:
The Hero (NTR) dies and goes to hell where a guy is being is being tried in the court of Yama for having conducted some widow remarriages. The hero butts in and while trying to defend the poor chap asks Yama “You’re trying someone for widow remarriage. What about those who have conducted family planning operations on girls who aren’t even married?” (Obvious ref to the excesses of Emergency). And angry Yama asks “Who is he and Where the hell is he?” to which Chitragupta silently informs him “Prabhu, His tenure is not yet over” (Sanjay Gandhi was still alive then
)
The movie is punctuated with such dialogues throught and references to horse trading, charities by politicians etc make the movie worth watching many times over.
Yes Yamagola was quite a popular movie indeed and if I’m not wrong there was a Hindi remake of it by the same director ( T.Rama Rao ) with Jeetendra called Lok Parlok.
talking abt satire in indian movies and not mentioning Jaane bhi do yaaron is a cardinal sin IMHO. JBDY wasn’t a political satire but it did take a dig at the corruption at different levels. ‘Wahan peene ka paani alag Aur gutter ka paani alag” was priceless.
Jehan- great to know you are getting to be in the thick of action & bring it to our notice as well.I hate to nitpick here but only wish to point out to something you mentioned early on in the post- ” neither did we have film festivals in Delhi” I would disagree with that.My earliest exposure to World Cinema ( of course those days I didnt realise the respect I would have for it later on ) and film festivals happpened in Delhi.Siri Fort Auditorium for me was the best thing about Delhi
please continue sharing your experiences at the fest.
Sorry this was meant to be posted in another post !!!
Happy to read about Panchavadi Palam & Sandesham- truly good political satires.Regarding PP,I still remember the climax scene and the ” Unni Mary” dance sequence
.Does anyone know if the DVD/VCD of PP is available?Sandesham again is a wonderful movie- love the portion when Innocent the North Indian Congress Leader is asking for nariyal paani ( hilarious ).Even I remember watching Hun Hunshi Hunshilal on D.D ages ago, though dont recall much about it.
I did find Panchavadi Palam on the net.Of course illegal download. I checked again at the site, am not able to find but i am sure it is there in that site. If you are interested i can search again.
-Dhiraj
Dhiraj- if you are able to find it just lemme know by mailing me @ sethumadhavan.n@gmail.com
Nice post bro. Talking about political satire, I have to mention the path-breaking Telugu film ‘Akali Rajyam’(Hungry Nation) directed by the veteran K.Balachander. The film starred Kamal Hassan and Sridevi who performed so well. It showed the pathetic situation of unemployed youth in late 70’s. A famous song goes like this….’Sapatu yetu ledu pataina padu brother, rajadhani nagaram lo veedhi veedhi needhey brotherrrrr….’(No food anyways lets sing a song, the roads on Delhi are yours brother….). Great lyrics by the legend Sri Sri garu. A wonderful film too.
I am waiting for Prakash Jha’s ‘Rajneeti’ with bated breath!!!
Ah!Sridhar Akali Rajyam is a wonderful movie But the original is in Tamil- Varumayin Niram Sivappu and the song is Pattu Onnu Paadu Thambi.The movie even had a Hindi version- Zara Si Zindagi.
You caught me in the gully bro
Kissa Kursi Ka was a great movie.Its a pity all its prints were destroyed by the Indira Gandhi government.
I’ve noticed with great pleasure that India is certainly maturing lately, and they are making it evident in their independent movies. Let us hope the trend continues.
Panchavadi Palam one of the best movies from KG George who can be considered along with Bharathan and Padmarajan, 3 great directors from 80’s golden period of Malayalam cinema..
Sandesham -one of best loved political satires among Malayalam films..
The CD for Panchavadi Palam is available with T-Series; bought a copy recently in Palakkad. The clarity is not so great though…
Hey!Pradeep thats a good news.Would have been great if I knew it when I was there recently.I guess I’ll pick it up next time.But I’m surprised to know that T-Series has released it.