Nehru wouldn't allow it: What Narendra Modi’s hurry for a biopic on him says to me about his leadership
Is it right for the RSS to allow such massive personal glorification? Or ethical for a PM to want such a biopic while he's still in office and indeed, facing re-election?
As a child who grew up in a remote village in Telangana, ruled by a Muslim king, who was against films till 1948, I was unaware of the art of cinema in my early life.
The taluq centres of Telangana did not know a cinema hall till the late 1960s. After Andhra Pradesh was formed in 1956, cinema theatres began to show up slowly in Telangana in the district headquarters.
When I first saw a movie in the Narsampet Taluq in 1968, where I was doing high school study, in a thatched theatre, sitting on the dusty floor, only two things struck me — a young man and young woman dancing and singing in a garden, and the hero attacking dozens of men who looked stronger than him.
I do not even remember the name of the movie.
My strong desire was that I must see those two things in real life — a man and woman singing and dancing in a garden and one man defeating dozens of strong men all by himself.
After I joined college in Hanamkonda (Warangal), four of us rented a room to live in, cook and study. At walking distance, there was a garden named Hanamkonda. I went there several times, looking for young educated couples dancing. Never did I find one. To be honest, till date, I have also not seen one man beating up dozens of men anywhere in the world, leave alone in India.
When I heard Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be a hero in a film called PM Narendra Modi, I became curious — what will be its content? Does he dance with a young woman? Does he beat up dozens of villains, perhaps of Pakistani origin?
When I saw an interview with Vivek Oberoi, who plays Modi in the biopic, I found him apparently trying to convey that once the biopic is released, there will be no need for our real soldiers fighting on the borders with Pakistan. Not only that, all the terrorists in the world will disappear.
But there is a moral question before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its mother organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Is it ethical to plan for such a film during the election time on a Prime Minister who still is in office and seeking re-election?
Modi as PM is being compared with Indira Gandhi. His surgical strikes on the Balakot terrorist camps are being compared with the 1971 war with Pakistan under the Indira Gandhi government.
After the war, she was called ‘Durga Indira’ by many Congressmen. She is also known for her imposition of Emergency on India later but no cinema was made on her while she was in office.
Not that during the term of Jawaharlal Nehru, which lasted 17 years, and Indira Gandhi’s tenure of over 10 years, there was no Bollywood or that there were no actors who loved Nehru and Indira Gandhi. But even the film industry must have thought it immoral to do that. It is possible that many must have approached Nehru and Indira Gandhi but they may have refused, considering such a practice unethical.
One does not have to see the Modi film now to know of its moral dimension. The question is not whether the Supreme Court or the Election Commission stopped it or not — the question is how the BJP/RSS allow this kind of immoral aggrandisement.
Today, Modi is allowing this and his ardent admirers in the cinema industry are helping him out. Tomorrow, all other Prime Ministers will also throw morals to the winds. What happens to the nation then?
Till today, there is no major film on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. The two great films on political personalities of India are on Mahatma Gandhi and BR Ambedkar, made a long time after their death.
Modi seems to be in a hurry to get books written and films made about him.
However, a movie is not the way the Prime Minister of a great nation should be judged.
A Prime Minister’s history could not be judged based on a biopic produced when he is still in office. Such a film made or books written on a serving PM negates the good qualities if any in him/her.
Historians, who document quality material on great personalities, do not go by such films or books written in praise when a leader is in office. A person who allows such a film to be made, particularly during election time, is seen by many as a man who is actually below the stature of such an office.
One can’t claim greatness — it is something people have to earn.