Bande main tha dam
I was going to write this blog much before watching Munnabhai; but never came about to doing it, thanks to the grueling final year studies. But after watching it (plus a comment from Shaun), I knew I had to write this.
I, like most of the youth, have a pretty anti-convention anti-establishment personality. So, when throughout school and college, Gandhiji’s ‘mahatma’ness was hammered down our heads, I obviously started viewing him and all his policies with jaundiced eyes. Not that I held him in contempt or anything; I respected him a lot. But whenever any debate used to occur amongst us friends, you can guess which side I argued for. And armed with a lot of facts taught by one of my history teachers Sir Neville (who was pretty blatantly anti-Gandhi) and having read excerpts from Godse’s book on 101 reasons for killing Gandhi, I did argue pretty well too.
But now I have realized that whenever you look at a person with prejudice, you always unconsciously tend to magnify his flaws and downplay his great deeds. You see, over a period of time, his ideals and practices become so much a part of daily life and affairs that you tend to take them for granted and do not realize the epoch-making achievement they represent. And that’s what happened to me vis-à-vis Gandhi.
Its all thanks to YFE that I have finally realized this (and many other fundas). Indeed, we call YFE the second struggle for freedom, this time from casteism and divisiveness. And it owes as much to Gandhian principles and ideology as the first one did. Only after all the lathi-charges and rasta rokos and candle protests and human chains did it strike me how this man revolutionized the very concept of protest. Just look at history. Each and every struggle has been so bloody and violent. Only a mahaan atma could have thought of such a novel and conscientious way of protesting injustice. Indeed, one of the chief reasons of the success and respect our struggle got was due to our adherence to non-violence. You just have to look at the extremely violent and derogatory Mandal I protests to realize why we have been much more successful.
Gandhiji was no doubt a mahatma. Only an extremely noble soul could have conceptualized satyagraha and stuck to it throughout while leading the entire nation to freedom using this most potent weapon, without ever falling prey to the very enticing path of a violent revolt (he could have later on easily thrown out the Britishers using violence; he had the entire nation at your beck and call).
And his ideals still hold good. In fact with all the media around, they are a much stronger force than ever before (no reference to the lathi-charge!). And Munnabhai puts it across in a very sweet subtle way. Look at the way the pensioner tackled the bribing issue. I just hope something like this will happen soon in actuality (women will have to find other means though). Unfortunately, the one flaw with the film is that it ultimately remains mainly a feel-good film with a subtle message (which might incite people like me who have just experienced the power of satyagraha themselves), and not the RDB style of hammering the message in, which stirs the public to introspect and act. But hopefully, the generation is awakening and a revolution is about to begin!!
I, like most of the youth, have a pretty anti-convention anti-establishment personality. So, when throughout school and college, Gandhiji’s ‘mahatma’ness was hammered down our heads, I obviously started viewing him and all his policies with jaundiced eyes. Not that I held him in contempt or anything; I respected him a lot. But whenever any debate used to occur amongst us friends, you can guess which side I argued for. And armed with a lot of facts taught by one of my history teachers Sir Neville (who was pretty blatantly anti-Gandhi) and having read excerpts from Godse’s book on 101 reasons for killing Gandhi, I did argue pretty well too.
But now I have realized that whenever you look at a person with prejudice, you always unconsciously tend to magnify his flaws and downplay his great deeds. You see, over a period of time, his ideals and practices become so much a part of daily life and affairs that you tend to take them for granted and do not realize the epoch-making achievement they represent. And that’s what happened to me vis-à-vis Gandhi.
Its all thanks to YFE that I have finally realized this (and many other fundas). Indeed, we call YFE the second struggle for freedom, this time from casteism and divisiveness. And it owes as much to Gandhian principles and ideology as the first one did. Only after all the lathi-charges and rasta rokos and candle protests and human chains did it strike me how this man revolutionized the very concept of protest. Just look at history. Each and every struggle has been so bloody and violent. Only a mahaan atma could have thought of such a novel and conscientious way of protesting injustice. Indeed, one of the chief reasons of the success and respect our struggle got was due to our adherence to non-violence. You just have to look at the extremely violent and derogatory Mandal I protests to realize why we have been much more successful.
Gandhiji was no doubt a mahatma. Only an extremely noble soul could have conceptualized satyagraha and stuck to it throughout while leading the entire nation to freedom using this most potent weapon, without ever falling prey to the very enticing path of a violent revolt (he could have later on easily thrown out the Britishers using violence; he had the entire nation at your beck and call).
And his ideals still hold good. In fact with all the media around, they are a much stronger force than ever before (no reference to the lathi-charge!). And Munnabhai puts it across in a very sweet subtle way. Look at the way the pensioner tackled the bribing issue. I just hope something like this will happen soon in actuality (women will have to find other means though). Unfortunately, the one flaw with the film is that it ultimately remains mainly a feel-good film with a subtle message (which might incite people like me who have just experienced the power of satyagraha themselves), and not the RDB style of hammering the message in, which stirs the public to introspect and act. But hopefully, the generation is awakening and a revolution is about to begin!!
posted by Akshay at 1:28 PM
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