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“Sarkar Raj” released with a message -RamGopal Verma is back…. nice opening and great reviews makes it a watchable sequel. But what type of film it is..Is it a political film (every second scene has to do something with politics). Is it a good hearted mafia film (sarkar is shaher ka sabse bada gunda hai) or is it a family film(I somewhere read Ramu was speaking about his first part that if you remove some of the scenes from the film it could be almost Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. But this sequel is more political than the first but what type of politics is this ? Neverthless,the Plot is more rooted. This seqel has no achaar no new dress of Tanisha and very few family moments (ya… think bomb blast is more attack on sarkar’s family than a family moment….wht’s the chemistry between Abhishek and Tanisha ? ) . Shankar is also not a mafia or gunda. In fact he is an intelligent sarkar(coz he don’t touch the feet of Rao sahib whole heartedly?) and a well wisher of the state he lives. It’s another thing that he has a lot of tensions so he never smiles and always looks for an opportunity to deliver two more dialogues. Though the plot of the film is politics but always looks like a mafia film. The Villains have been designed as caricatures. This is the same Govind Namdev who was so brilliant as Bhau in “Satya” and the same Shiyaji Shinde looked so cruel in Shool but here they treated as they are not Villains but as comedians (nowadays we don’t have special comedians in our films) Guyz beware definition of Villain is changing. Remember Darshan Jariwala’s character in “Halla Bol”. “Gabbar singh in “ramgopal Verma ke sholay”. They are not Mafia’s nor political leaders but they are the political backbone of Maharashtra Politics. Oh yes there is a CM also who never have choices in Ramu’s film. anyway the film rolls and junior sarkar killedsenior Sarkar takes the driving seat and brings an end to all the villains. end of all the politics proving once again that the politics is not above sarkar because sarkar ek soch hai aur soch se upar kuchh nahi. What type of politics Mr. Verma is showing to us. Is it a politics or a father’s love towards his son.(Rao sahib resembles me of Dhritrashtra of Mahabharat). This is the most crucial time for Maharashtra Politics. Split in shiv sena…conflict between marathi and North Indians. naxalite problems in Vidarbha with the series of farmer suicides. The filmmaker has moved via bypass without touching any of these issues but still kept a political plot. The issue of development has been raised and that too lost it’s path in the midway. the film starts with a power plant which subsequently disappears from the film and personal rivalry takes positions. Is this the current political scenario of Maharashtra? I don’t remember any film which shows the real political conflict of Maharashtra.
When we deal with the politics of a particular state we should not loose our insight. A good example is “New Delhi times”. The film is set in hinterland and it’s a better insight of the region. The deep rooted nexus between Politics and mafia is explored sincerely in the film. Similarly Tigmanshu Dhulia’s “Haasil” is very close to the region where it based on.“Haasil” is a better understanding of Indian politics. In India the primary fuel for the politics are religion and caste. This difference is well established into the universities in India. This could be understood by a scene of the film where one of the students knocks the doors of the hostel. They first identify the rooms of Brahmin students and then knock their doors. They have a plate of “arti” in their hands. When a Brahmin student opens his room, the student with plates in his hands says,” Brahmin ho…. janeu ki kasam khao Badri shankar ko hi vote doge”. In another scene Ashutosh Rana tells Irfan Khan “ aaj ke baad university me pichhdo ka jhanda uthaaya to kam kar diye jaaoge” Clearly it indicates how the caste dynamics rules in Indian politics. One of the characters in a scene of the film says ” wahan paisa do nahi to goli maar denge..yahan kursi do nahi to maar denge…abe wo chhoti industry hai ..hum desh chalaate hain….” There is a film called “Aghaat” by Govind Nihalani and written by late Vijay tendulkar. It’s a story of an idealistic union leader (Ompuri) who has a great hold on the workers of the factory. An accident takes place in the factory and a worker (pankaj kapoor) losses his legs. The opponent leader (Naseerruddin Shah) takes advantage of the situation and ask chhotelal’s brother to support their union and they can provide him larger compensation than his Union Ompuri tries everything to stop this but all his idealism (whatever he had learnt from his mentor Amrish puri) falls flat and violence occurs and corruption rules. This film is a great insight of the politics of trade unions. But unfortunately winning the film fare critics award for the best film of 1986 this film is neglected and went unnoticed. There is a trend in Hindi Cinema of using the backdrops of communal riots and terrorism like ”Bombay” “Dil se” and “roza”. There is so much happening around us in the political front (including recent gurjar’s violent protests) but we never try to use political conflicts. We in India we don’t have any film like Oscar winning german film “ The lives of others” which uses it’s political conflict and yet so human. “lives of others” reminds us that we too can make film like that since we indians have witnessed the chapter of Emergency. But for that we have to look beyond our commercial and masala aspects The thing is that our film industry believes that terrorism can be sold…..communal riots can be sold……mafia nexus can also be sold but social and political conflicts cannot be sold or the people from the industry are in the category of “no politics please” or “I hate politics”. In this perspective two films are going to be very important in the coming months and they are Prakash Jha’s “Rajneeti” and Anurag Kashyap’s “Gulaal”
Jha has earlier explored Bihar’s socio political conflicts in his films “Mrityudand” depicts the social conflict whereas “Gangajal” is an attempt to understand the society and the system together. “Apharan” has also a political backdrop. I m looking forward towards “Gulaal” because it’s subject is very very political and relevant. It has some great songs penned down by Piyush Mishra like “jab shaher humara sota hai ”