Author: Mahendra Ved

Jaswant Singh – A Man Of Honour

By Mahendra Ved

Last Sunday’s morning began on a note of grief and nostalgia for many an Indian at the passing away of Jaswant Singh, nine-term lawmaker, a perceptive and an efficient minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government and above all, a good man. All Members of Parliament are supposed to be, and are addressed as, ‘honourable’. Jaswant Singh was “a man of honour.”

That few visited him, or even inquired about him, during the six years he lay in coma after a fall in the bathroom in 2014, shows how cruel the world is, particularly if one is in public life and has fallen out of grace – no matter how graceful a person one has been. And Singh, even to his critics, was a man with old world grace and charm.

He had been expelled from the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) not once, but twice. The first time, because he displayed the courage of conviction of calling Pakistan’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah ‘secular’. He had made the same ‘mistake’ as another veteran: L K Advani. The very idea is anathema to India’s Hindu ‘nationalists’ who believe in undivided India and blame the rival Congress Party, especially first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, for having ‘conceded’ Pakistan. Ironically, Advani brought him back to the BJP.

It is another matter that Jinnah’s ‘secular’ approach while founding Pakistan, cited in his August 1, 1947 radio broadcast, is under scrutiny. Portrayed by Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal and held dear by liberals on both sides of the India-Pakistan divide, it has recently been challenged by another Pakistani scholar Ishtiaq Ahmed. So, there is no last word in history.

Although a BJP founder, Singh had been a misfit since he did not come from the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) stable, as is largely the case with the Narendra Modi Government today. Along with Sushma Swaraj, who had socialist background, Singh had faced stiff resistance from the Sangh.

That he handled key portfolios of Defence, Finance and External Affairs despite these reservations is a tribute to both, Singh and Vajpayee, who also resisted pressures with regard to Brajesh Mishra, making the latter India’s first National Security Advisor.

Like it was when Swaraj and another stalwart, Arun Jaitley died within days last year, Singh’s death has triggered nostalgia for the good, not-so-old times at the turn of the century, when the government talked to the media. Today, it is selective with a few powerful and pliable, while the rest are talked at, or, in this era or tweets and social media, simply ignored.

A soldier who resigned his commission while just 27, Singh was erudite and knowledgeable. He never shed his army background, plus old feudal graces typical of Rajasthan, although he was no Maharajah.

He bore the odium, much longer and long before Shashi Tharoor, whose English speaking has these days impressed many – or has troubled many in the current ruling dispensation and some jealous fellow- Keralites. With his famous baritone, Singh spoke both English and Hindi in measured tones. He may have never shouted except when he was in the Army.

A Cavalry officer, his knowledge came in handy when the Bofors gun signed during the Rajiv Gandhi era became controversial. Perhaps the only lawmaker who understood the gun, he examined it and went on record, despite being in the opposition, to say that it was a good weapon system. Some others, reportedly, only felt the gun, and then resorted to the set party line to praise or pummel it.

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As foreign minister, Singh firmly backed Vajpayee on the 1998 nuclear tests that brought India global sanctions.  He then talked over two years with Strobe Talbott, then United States deputy secretary of state, and paved the way for President Bill Clinton’s India visit in 2000.

Strobe Talbott and Singh got on well.

Ex-soldier Jaswant Singh and ex-journalist Talbott got on well. In his book ‘Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy & the Bomb’, Talbott describes how he and Jaswant Singh met 14 times in seven countries across three continents to lay the groundwork for a new understanding of India. That was the turning point in Indo-US relations, a process that continued under eight years each of George W. Bush Jr. and Barack Obama, not to speak of Donald Trump.

One blot on Singh’s otherwise good reputation and bright political career was escorting three Pakistani militants to Kandahar to rescue the Indian Airlines aircraft and passengers hijacked in 1999. Those were difficult days of public outpourings of panic and anger at the hijack, heightened by the television channels. Some relatives of the passengers stormed the venue of Singh’s press conference. India was at a low ebb.

There is little on record to show how Singh became a scapegoat in a panic-triggered government decision to free the militants as demanded by the Taliban, then ruling Afghanistan. Along with late George Fernandes, then Defence Minister, Singh was in an abject minority in the Cabinet meeting.

But he did the unenviable task of escorting the militants to Kandahar and endured the pain of having to talk to the Taliban, whom India did not recognise. “I had to bring all our citizens back home safely. If that involved talking to the Taliban, I didn’t mind.” He explained in his memoirs that he was executing a decision that was collective. The discipline of a soldier, perhaps?

Singh was a realist. Despite his Rajput roots, he was willing to talk to Pakistan at Vajpayee’s historic Lahore visit. This signalled India’s (under a BJP premier) willingness to acknowledge the 1947 Partition and Pakistan.  And even after the Kargil conflict, he played a key role at the Agra Summit that failed for lack of clear understanding and preparations.

The party hardliners did not forgive Singh’s liberal ways. Even on domestic issues, Singh was an able trouble-shooter whom Vajpayee called his ‘Hanuman’. Like Vajpayee, he was not into Ram temple dispute. After the damage was done, he was encouraged to conduct a conciliatory dialogue with the Muslim community. Vajpayee was, perhaps, nudging his party towards a broader, if not exactly secular, spread. But that was not to be. He lost power in 2004 and retired from public life.

All this seems unthinkable, a far cry today. Ram temple is becoming a reality and so is a mosque a distance away. India’s relations with Pakistan and China are bad and could get worse.

Over 15 years hence, these are but nuggets of nostalgia to cherish.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Know Your Sea, Cadet!

By Mahendra Ved

At the southern tip of Mumbai, a ship, unconventionally built with cement and concrete, sits lonely, wafted by the Arabian Sea waves, anxiously awaiting its officers and cadets kept away by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Named after India’s first prime minister who had laid its keel in 1963, Training Ship Jawahar, as the name indicates, currently trains 2,300 of young boys and girls in seamanship – rowing, kayaking, canoeing and sailing – in naval affairs and rigours of being on the sea. But more than that, it inculcates discipline and prepares them for their future lives as caring, productive citizens.

Not everyone joins the military service or one of the many merchant navy companies. That many trained by Sea Cadet Corps (SCC) do get attracted to wearing uniform and have done well in these professions is, not a rule, but a natural corollary.

The ten-year-olds and teens from all sections of society first make a Promise to wear their uniforms smartly and bring pride to it. Once the cadet spends own money on that uniform, training in above and many more activities that are normally reserved for the rich anywhere else, come for just Rupees 400 annually. No fees for the sense of adventure that comes with it.

This culture of volunteering at the sea was initiated 82 years back in Karachi by a young entrepreneur, late Gokaldas Ahuja. It was appreciated by the Royal Indian Navy and the city’s elite that helped the Sea Scouts to build their landship at Chhina Creek. But that dream ended with the Partition. 

Ahuja and cadets met, symbolically, at the Gateway of India in Mumbai, then Bombay, to revive the movement. The Indian Navy and the citizenry embraced them.

Hard work, when hundreds became thousands of cadets trained in several port towns — and Nehru’s blessings – helped build Jawahar as the National Headquarters.

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Commissioned on February 10, 1966 by then President S. Radhankrishnan, Jawahar, now 54, besides Nehru’s name, carries a halo of its own that is sustained by training imparted to over 40,000 cadets to date.

The SCC’s history is also the veritable history of Bombay and other port cities in the decades that followed the Independence. Not just the prime ministers, governors and chief ministers, but also top Services brass, the business community and the social glitterati attend its Parades and the March-past on Independence Day by its units in many cities.

Girl cadets enrolled as early as 1955. Besides Vishakhapatnam (Vizag), Chennai, Goa and Kochi, SCC imparts training even in less-known Okha, Daman, Paradeep and Porbandar. Besides the Indian Navy, logistic and training support comes from the Indian Coast Guard, Army units and even a school in Ootacamund (Ooty).

Sea Cadet Corps is India’s only auxiliary body which is authorized to fly a Blue Ensign. To enable this, Parliament amended the Merchant Shipping Act.

Long years have seen generations of cadets, coached by volunteer-officers, some of whom have returned to Jawahar on retirement after completing their careers. Cadets have excelled in martial music and tattoo, while participating in regattas and water-sports events in the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.

The Corps has participated in global events and hosted some as part of an international movement of Sea Cadets and International Sea Cadets’ Association (ISCA) forging fraternal ties with 120,000 cadets in 18 countries that stretch from Canada to Hong Kong and Sweden to Britain.

This Indian movement received recognition from the British royalty in the early days. Its Parades were inspected by Queen Elizabeth II (in 1961) Prince Philip (1959) and Prince Charles (198O), besides Lord Louis Mountbatten (1964).  

Its Sail Training Ship Varuna became a model for a float at the Republic Day parade in 1982. And in 1987, Varuna represented India at the Bi-Centennial celebrations marking the founding of Australia.

After Nehru’s invitation, followed up by succeeding prime ministers SCC contingents participated in the Republic Day Parades till 1986, marching on New Delhi’s Rajpath. I was lucky to participate twice.

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Why do I talk about Sea Cadet Corps? Only because I trained with it? Or, because I was among those cadets that placed stones to reclaim the sea where Jawahar stands, and witnessed its rise — a huge super-structure, ship-like gangways, the Captain’s Cabin and portholes for windows?

See a larger picture before dismissing it as a weekend pursuit for the young. Some of the cadets who went on to join the armed forces were martyred during the conflicts in 1965 and 1971. Lt. Suresh Hiranand Kundamal went down with INS Khukri in 1971 and Major Vetri Nathan died in Kargil sector in 1971. Indeed, the road leading to Jawahar is named after Nathan and the one approaching the Gateway of India, after Flying Officer Prem Ramchandani who died during the 1965 conflict.

Air Marshal Adi Rustomji Ghandhi was awarded Vir Chakra in 1965. Flt lt. Cherry Raney led a strike mission over Hussainiwala in 1971 and destroyed an enemy tank.

Take a still larger picture. Besides the National Cadet Corps (NCC)’s Naval Wing, there certainly are sailing clubs along the Indian shores. But none imparts all-round seamanship training to volunteer, by volunteers, as the Sea Cadet Corps does.  

Truth be told, there is little focus on the sea – water in general—in India. View this in the context the fact that only a fourth of our world is land, but also that India has a vast coastline that juts into the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

India also straddles the Indian Ocean. I have often used this well-known fact while arguing to emphasize India’s importance as a seafaring nation with a cheeky question: “Sir, tell me another nation that has an ocean named after it?”

And yet, awareness of the sea is woefully poor in India’s security culture since the invader always came from its northwest. When the ‘enemy’ did come by the sea, as trader, India was colonized for over two centuries.

The Indian Navy remains small considering the nation’s maritime interests and its strategic reach on the high seas stretching from the Gulf of Hormuz to the Malacca Strait. It also remains the ‘silent’ Service, not supposed to seek ships and weapons. At least, not boast about it. Once when I wrote about higher budgetary allocations for the Navy, the Western Naval Command Chief pleaded with my editor to ask me to pipe down!

Take the current talk of India having to prepare to fight on two fronts in its north, without jeopardizing security at the sea. Can this be achieved, in short, medium or long term without creating general awareness and without dedicated and disciplined youth that must be trained, at least in the basics?

Or take the talk of PPP – public-private participation – in making the country self-sufficient in national defence. Shouldn’t the PPP concept be extended to and experimented with an auxiliary body like the Sea Cadet Corps?  Its motto, incidentally, is: “Ready Aye Ready.”

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Bangladesh – The Next Asian Tiger

By Mahendra Ved

Last December, after witnessing Bangladesh’s ‘Bijoy Divas’, the day in 1971 Pakistani military had surrendered to Indian and Bangladeshi joint command, I experienced a sad, solemn moment at the home of its founding father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He was assassinated along with 20 of his family members on August 15, 1975.

On that fateful night of August 14-15, a group of serving and retired Bangladesh Army officers had, in a planned conspiracy, stormed this house located in Dhanmondi Residential Area. After killing other inmates including his wife, three sons, one of them just ten, and two daughters-in-law, one of them pregnant, they confronted Mujib as he came down from the second floor bedroom.

They demanded he resign. When he refused, he was gunned down. Bullet marks bear testimony and rose petals spread where Mujib fell remind of the mayhem. Then posted at Dhaka, I had reported that coup d’etat. As memories came rushing, the passage of almost 45 years couldn’t steel my senses. I cried while signing the Visitors’ Book.

India had played a key role in 1971. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government hosted ten million refugees. On diplomatic front, she could persuade lawmakers like the US’ Edward Kennedy, sections of the international media, artistes like violinist Yehudi Menuhin and philosophers like France’s Andre Malraux. But she could not shake the Western governments driven by Cold War bias.  

Signing the Friendship and Peace Treaty with the then Soviet Union, India, when attacked, responded with full military fury. Its confidence showed at the massive rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan that Indira addressed, with fighter jets providing air cover.

The two-week war ended with surrender of 93,000 Pakistani soldiers. It was the swiftest and most decisive outcome of a war since the World War II. And precisely three months later, the Indian Army left, its departing columns saluting Mujib. There is no precedence.

Viewed in the backdrop of the Cold War, this was a debacle for the West. Bangladesh was not recognized for long by the West and the Islamic world. An unrepentant Henry Kissinger called Mujib “history’s favourite fool.”

That Mujib’s assassination, like Chile’s Salvadore Allende, was a conspiracy is glossed over today, post-Cold war. American journalist Lawrence Lifschultz, in his book ‘Bangladesh: An Unfinished Revolution’, writes that the “CIA station chief in Dhaka, Philip Cherry, was actively involved in the killing of the Father of the Nation—Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.” Cherry, of course, denied this. His boss, the US Ambassador, said he was unaware. But, among the many pointers, one is of Cherry’s woman colleague being friendly to Major Shariful Haq Dalim, one of the “killer majors”, who announced on the radio Mujib’s killing and the success of the coup.

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Final touches to the conspiracy were given during Dhaka visit of the first Pakistani trade delegation barely ten days before it unravelled. It included a retired Pakistan Army major general, a former Intelligence chief. As per official itinerary, the delegation met Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed, then Commerce Minister. Within hours of Mujib’s assassination, Moshtaque became the President.

Moshtaque replaced the national slogan “Joy Bangla” with “Bangladesh Zindabad”. He was removed in November 1975 after he had signed the Indemnity Ordinance that blocked any punishment to the “killer majors”. Two decades later, after Hasina Government took office, the National Assembly repealed it.

In office, Mujib left a mixed record. An astute politician and agitator, his experience of and hold over governance were poor. He fought against heavy odds, even natural calamities like drought and flood during his short tenure that witnessed chaos and food shortages. Bangladesh came to be called an “international basket case.”

Daughters Hasina and Rehana escaped the massacre as they were in Germany. They were hosted for six years at a safe house in New Delhi, protected from hostile governments in Dhaka. This has been a less-known chapter of India helping in the well-being of Bangladesh.

This contemporary history, it seems, is poised to take a full circle. Pakistan and Bangladesh are set to normalize relations, almost half-a-century after they were violently snapped. A thaw is building. Imran Khan last month phoned Hasina to invite her to Islamabad.

This will be epochal for the generation of Indians that suffered while hosting ten million refugees in 1971, paying Refugee Relief Tax. Those who fought and families of those who died in the conflict that year, may find this heart-breaking.

But shorn of Indian sentiments, and that of Bangladesh’s own freedom fighters, this is also inevitable when seen from a larger prism. After all, Vietnam, last century’s most violated nation, has normalized ties with the US.

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Times are a-changing. The US is about to hand over Rashed Chowdhury, one of the “killer majors”, to be hanged by Dhaka, so that the latter doesn’t get too close to Beijing!

The regional context explains it better. There is definitely a nudge from China that has crossed the Himalayas. It is wooing all of South Asia, once India’s backyard, with its deep pockets and political determination.

For Pakistan, if the Indian enemy’s enemy (China) has been a long-time friend and now a saviour, then the enemy’s friend (Bangladesh) should be more so. It would be is getting back at India.

Arguably, Pakistan under Khan and his mentors, the Army, is trying to cleanse its image as militancy hotbed. Unable to sell its line to the world since India ended Kashmir’s special status, reaching out to Bangladesh serves multiple purposes: a) it can hope to be seen as a conciliator in the western eye and also please the Muslim ummah, b) it can in the long run hope to drive a wedge between Delhi and Dhaka when the latter is already peeved with the Modi Government’s Hindutva agenda and; c) it can tug at the sentiments of those that once lived as part of Pakistan and enjoyed privileges.

Although Khan renewed invitation to Hasina to visit Pakistan, it seems unlikely for now as she prepares to lead Bangladesh into 50th anniversary celebrations, already underway. She wouldn’t like to answer this query: liberation from whom? Would she invite Khan to the celebrations, the way her father had invited Z A Bhutto to Dhaka in 1974?

A rush is unlikely. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abdul Momen asked the Pakistani envoy who met him that Pakistan formally apologize for 1971. Khan can’t sell this to the army, forget his people.

Undoubtedly, it is for Bangladesh to decide how to respond to Pakistan’s overtures. Separation from Pakistan was not only due to political and economic discrimination. Bengalis had shed blood to preserve their language and culture. That ethos sustains among emotion-driven Bangladeshis. It was evident while fighting the Islamist extremists.

One thing is clear. Bangladesh is not Pakistan’s neglected kid brother. Pakistani scholar Pervez Hoodbhoy last year extolled Bangladesh’s strides in numerous areas that have eluded his country.

He sees Bangladesh as the next Asian Tiger. Its population graph has reversed in Pakistan’s comparison. The health indicators are positive. “Bangladesh and Pakistan are different countries today because they perceive their national interest very differently. Bangladesh sees its future in human development and economic growth,” says Hoodbhoy.

“For Pakistan, human development comes a distant second. The bulk of national energies remain focused upon check-mating India. Relations with Afghanistan and Iran are therefore troubled; Pakistan accuses both of being excessively close to India. But the most expensive consequence of the security state mindset was the nurturing of extra state actors in the 1990s. Ultimately they had to be crushed after the APS massacre of Dec 16, 2014.” This, Hoodbhoy points out, “coincidentally, was the day Dhaka had fallen 43 years earlier.”

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Tragic Times For Afghan Sikhs

By Mahendra Ved

Last Sunday’s arrival in New Delhi of 11 Sikhs from Afghanistan marks the beginning of the end of a centuries-old historic process of Hindus and Sikhs moving to and from this India’s extended neighbourhood.

It may be a matter of time – perhaps a few months – before all of them, estimated at between 600 and 1,000, a microscopic minority in an overwhelmingly Islamic nation, may leave Afghanistan for good and seek new lives in India that one of them on arrival gratefully called “our motherland.”

This small but epochal event sadly reduces to a mere debate what is steeped in history. Can an Afghan be a Hindu or a Sikh? History says yes, asserts Inderjeet Singh in his book Afghan Hindus and Sikhs: History of A Thousand Years published in April last year.

There is no reliable information on when Hinduism began in Afghanistan that once had Hindu rulers, and when Buddhism thrived. But historians suggest that the territory south of the Hindu Kush was culturally connected with the Indus Valley Civilization (5500–2000 BC) in ancient times.

As for the Sikh, records show that its founder Guru Nanak Dev had visited Kabul in the early 16th century and laid the faith’s foundation.

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Islam arrived in Afghanistan only in the seventh century. “The Hindu Shahi rulers of Kabulistan were replaced only by the end of the 10th century by the Ghaznavides, who maintained Hindu forces,” Inderjeet Singh asserts in his book.

Contemporary records show that Maharaja Ranjit Singh also ruled parts of Afghanistan. About 250,000 Hindus and Sikhs had thriving trade and lived in relative peace and harmony and travelled to and from British India. Father of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used to trade with Afghanistan, carrying consignments of asafoetida (heeng).

11 Sikhs arrived in New Delhi from Afghanistan on Sunday, July 26, 2020.

Recorded or otherwise, this account must make a grim present-day note of the end of the presence of religious minorities – at least the Hindus and the Sikhs – in Afghanistan. A small minority in an overwhelmingly Islamic nation, they survived the violent civil war conditions that have prevailed since last King Zahir Shah was deposed in 1973. Last 47 years have seen a decade of communist rule backed by the erstwhile Soviet Union, a “jihad” supported by the Western nations, faction-ridden and violent rule by the Mujahideen five years of Taliban and since the US-led “global war against terrorism” that followed 9/11, eighteen years of the present government backed by the United States.

The US is keen to quit its longest war, whether or not President Trump gets re-elected. Its iffy pact with the Taliban is not working and the way is opened for the Taliban, with their sordid record of suppressing women and minorities, backed by Pakistan that has its own sordid record, returning to power. That makes the status of Afghan religious minorities more uncertain than ever. That makes India’s move, with American blessings, timely.

The Afghan minorities have already felt the heat. Twenty-five Sikhs were killed at a Gurdwara in Paktia province in March this year. They were targeted by an Afghan group owing allegiance to the Islamic State (IS). Indeed, the IS’ spread has been the reason for the US, Russia, Iran and China coming on the same page, leaving Pakistan as a key factor and India, an ‘outsider’, yet again. History is repeating itself.

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The 11 Afghan Sikhs have been granted short-term Indian visas. They include Nidan Singh Sachdeva, who was abducted from Paktia’s gurudwara in June. The rest are families of those who were killed in the Kabul Gurudwara terror attack earlier this year. Twenty-five Afghan Sikhs and one Indian Sikh were killed on the March 25 terror attack in Kabul by a heavily armed ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) suicide bomber. The group includes Salmeet Kaur who was reportedly kidnapped in Kabul but later came back.

An emotional reunion upon arrival of Sikh delegation from Afghanistan on July 26

This Sikh group hopes that India would give them long-term visas and eventually grant citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed last year. It gives citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities from three countries –Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan with a cut-off date of 31st December 2014.

While that may happen, for the Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, the decision to come to India poses an agonizing dilemma. In Afghanistan, they have livelihoods — shops and businesses passed down through generations — but spend their days dreading the next attack. Making a new start in India would most likely mean living in poverty, they said, particularly during an economic slump exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Lala Sher Singh, 63, who was attacked in March, told The New York Times that the community had shrunk so much that his thoughts were occupied “day and night” by a fear that “the next assault might not leave enough people who can perform the final rituals for the dead.”

“I may get killed here because of these threats to Hindus and Sikhs, but in India I will die from poverty. I have spent my whole life in Afghanistan. In this neighbourhood close to the temple, if I run out of money and stand in front of a shop and ask for two eggs and some bread, they will give it to me for free. But who will help me in India?”

The New York Times reported that there was no official reaction from the Afghan government to India’s offer. “A senior Afghan official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the news media, said that ‘violence affected all Afghans’,” and that an offer of safety only to Hindus and Sikhs put religious diversity in Afghanistan in doubt.

The Afghan official, ostensibly making no excuse about the poor security available to the religious minorities in his country, attributed the Indian government’s move to being “aimed at a domestic audience in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried to move the country away from its secular, multicultural foundations and give it a more overtly Hindu identity, while projecting itself as a champion of persecuted Hindu minorities elsewhere.” The beleaguered Afghan authorities fighting for their own survival amidst civil war of their own, would likely stay silent and not mind the minorities leaving.

Truth be told, the Tibetan refugees took years to settle in India and thousands of Hindus from Pakistan have yet to get their citizenship documents, leave alone facilities and opportunities to settle, earn livelihood and send their children to school. By contrast, those who come in illegally, do manage to get their ration cards, citizenship certificates and even voter’s cards from the grey market on payment. Despite the sentiments of those who support this “ghar wapasi”, this is the harsh reality.

Even if necessary, this is a thankless, unending task. “Mother India” must pay a price for embracing back its sons and daughters troubled in their chosen homes.

Unparalleled Reign Of Mughal-e-Azam

By Mahendra Ved

Mughal-e-Azam, released six decades ago on August 5, 1960, remains a landmark for the Indian cinema. It can also be a mark to measure much that happened then and is happening now.

Twelfth years into the independence, despite problems galore, a poverty-stricken India had proved the Winston Churchills wrong by staying united and ticking. The world was taking note of its global affairs (Korea, Non-Aligned Movement, UN peacekeeping and more) and achievements in art and culture (Ravi Shankar, Raj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray and more). Even critics like Nirad Chowdhury and V S Naipaul couldn’t ignore India. Jawaharlal Nehru was leading a secular democracy, howsoever flawed.   

Six decades hence, the world’s largest democracy and movie-making nation (majority bad ones) does have a global reach. It is economically stronger with a bigger place in a more complex, competitive, world. But its image as a pluralist, inclusive nation that the world has known and come to expect has taken a beating. It is becoming the anti-thesis of what Mughal-e-Azam was and is all about.

The story of Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar (1556-1605 AD) the third Mughal Emperor, his Hindu Queen Jodhabai and their only son Salim, later to become Emperor Jehangir, was and is celebrated for depicting mutual respect and tolerance among the Muslim rulers and their Hindu subjects. History calls Akbar ‘Great’ because rather than fight them, he had consciously struck alliances with the Rajput rulers. The film makes no claims to historical accuracy, though. But the anniversary comes when its ethos is being challenged and history itself is sought to be re-written.

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Rachel Dwyer, author of the book “Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema”, says Mughal-e-Azam highlights religious tolerance between Hindus and Muslims. Her examples include scenes depicting the presence of Queen Jodhabai, a woman and a Hindu, in Akbar’s court. Anarkali, the courtesan Salim loves and to get whom he rebels against the father, sings a Hindu devotional song.  

Celebrating Janmashtami, Akbar is shown pulling a string to rock a swing with Krishna’s idol. Film critic Mukul Kesavan writes that he was unable to recall a single other film about Hindu-Muslim love in which the woman is a Hindu.

One sequence needs citing. Durjan Singh, Salim’s Hindu military aide, is seriously wounded while rescuing Anarkali from prison. On his death, the Hindu priests and doctors let Anarkali pay last respects to her saviour. She spreads on him her dupatta, the ultimate symbol of modesty for a traditional Muslim woman.

The film’s other theme is justice. A vanquished Salim is arraigned before the court and offered a pardon provided he abandons Anarkali. He defies and is sent to gallows. Akbar keeps word given to Anarkali’s mother, the maid who had brought him the news of Salim’s birth. He circumvents his own order to bury Anarkali alive, lets her escape into exile and suffers the odium.

The film was released amidst great fanfare and expectations.  A 12 year-old, I remember seeing the milling crowds before a huge cut-out of Akbar and Salim in full battle gear outside the newly-built Maratha Mandir theatre in Mumbai.  

Ranked as India’s ‘greatest’ by film historians, the film held the record of being, both, the most expensive and also the biggest grosser at the box office for 15 years. India has not seen anything so grand and opulent, before and since. Indeed, everything about it was excessive, surpassing all film-making norms.

It would arguably hold the record of taking the longest to complete if counted from being conceived by a young Karim Asif in 1944 to being shelved during the Partition turmoil, a complete change of the star cast and even a financier, and taking almost nine years to complete. 

Shapoorji Pallonji, a newbie to film financing, agreed to produce and finance solely because of his interest in Akbar. He, too, had doubts when the budget of each department of the film exceeded. He never financed another film.

Dilip Kumar, perhaps the only survivor of the mega project, when he could talk (in his late 90s, he cannot any more), said in a 2010 interview that the long period became of no consequence to those involved as each person was deeply committed.

He played a largely subdued Salim to theatrical Prithviraj Kapoor (Akbar) and Durga Khote (Jodhabai). Dilip had reservations about acting in a period film, but was assured a free hand. “Asif trusted me enough to leave the delineation of Salim completely to me,” Dilip said in his 2010 that interview.  By contrast, Madhubala who was keen on the role, pipped Suraiya to it.

The soundtrack was inspired by Indian classical and folk music and composed by Naushad. Of 20 songs, some had to be left out. Included was a rendering by the legendary Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. He reportedly charged ₹25,000 when Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar took ₹300 per song.

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The theme based on a 1922 play by Imtiaz Ali Taj attracted many, from a ‘silent’ one to a ‘talkie’ by Ardeshir Irani. When Asif’s project was seen as abandoned, one of his writers, also a director, Kamal Amrohi, planned to make a film on the same subject. Asif convinced him to shelve it. The same play prompted Nandlal Jaswantlal’s Anarkali, starring Bina Rai and Pradeep Kumar. With memorable songs, it became the highest grossing Bollywood film of 1953.

Made in black-and-white, Mughal-e-Azam had a seven minute song-and-dance sequence, “pyar kiya toh darna kya”, shot in colour. The set conceived as sheesh mahal (glass palace) was fitted with numerous small mirrors made of Belgian glass. It took two years to build and cost more than ₹1.5 million (valued at about US$314,000 in 1960), more than the cost of an entire film in colour those days.

The mirrors’ excessive glare made filming difficult. Wikipedia records that foreign consultants, including British director David Lean, advised Asif to drop the idea.  But Asif spent days to have wax applied to each mirror to reduce the glare.

Lachhu Maharaj was on board for choreography and Gopi Krishna performed. Among the myriad problems was one of a seriously ailing Madhubala not being able to deliver on intricate Kathak moves when it came to girki (spinning one’s body). A male dancer, Laxmi Narayan, performed that portion. He wore a mask matching her face made by Mumbai craftsman B R Khedekar.  

Besides Amrohi, three of the best film writers of the day, Amanullah Aman, Wajahat Mirza and Ehsan Rizvi were on board. None knows how they collaborated. Their “mastery over Urdu’s poetic idiom and expression is present in every line, giving the film, with its rich plots and intricate characters, the overtones of a Shakespearean drama,” Times of India wrote on the film’s 50th anniversary.

The battle scenes used 2,000 camels, 400 horses, and 8,000 troops, mainly from the Indian Army’s Jaipur Cavalry, 56th Regiment. Bollywood could not better those scenes for several years despite technological advances. 

Many fell sick filming it in Rajasthan’s desert. Armour and weapons were borrowed from the Jaipur royalty. But even the burly Prithviraj found them too heavy. Aluminum replicas were got made.

Each sequence was filmed three times as the film was being produced in Hindi/Urdu with plans for Tamil, and English versions. Dubbed in Tamil and released in 1961 entitled Akbar, it flopped commercially. Asif abandoned the English version for which he had engaged Romesh Thapar and British actors.  

Years later in 2004, Mughal-e-Azam became the first black-and-white Hindi film to be digitally coloured, and the first in any language to be given a theatrical re-release. The colour version was also a commercial success.

Speculation abounds on its cost. It has ranged from cost ₹10.5 million (about US$2.25 million at the time) to ₹15 million (about $3 million). That made Mughal-e-Azam the most expensive Indian film of the period.

There is more to and about the film than the space here can accommodate. As a piece of cinema-art, it is impossible to recreate those conditions. Investors, national and global, are too conservative and calculating to afford and risk such a venture.

There is no Asif, the talented and passionate, but highly erratic man, to rally the best writers, composers, cinematographers and actors. Are audiences ready? 

Mughal-e-Azam came in an era when Hollywood too was making films that were grand spectacles. It doesn’t any more. The way Asif made it, warts and all, could itself be the subject for a mega film. But then, India long ago stopped making a film like Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) that, by sheer coincidence, was on the life of a film-maker.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

A Humble Cookie Can Crumble The Virus

By Mahendra Ved

One thing India needs most amidst the persisting Covid-19 pandemic, besides the still-elusive vaccine, and the equipment and health infrastructure, which it has succeeded in producing, is the ubiquitous biscuit.

Making and marketing this humble ready-to-eat item that is also most accessible and affordable, has posed as big a challenge as fighting the pandemic itself.  Both, urban India and the rural poor have over the last three months virtually lived on it.

In initial weeks after the lockdown, one of the world’s strictest, stores in richer neighborhoods of Mumbai, Delhi, and elsewhere, ran out of it. For working-class citizens forced out of the cities for want of work, a glucose-enriched biscuit was the most easily digestible antidote to hunger as they headed home, miles away, many of them on foot.

Luckily, this sector – one of the very few – rose to the challenge. Indeed, it is on a roll. Companies have worked overtime and registered flourishing sales.

The big and small producers all experienced initial setback in April. Production was hit by abrupt lock-down when workers either could not report to work or had left for their villages. Yet, it was mainly the biscuit that the migrant labour walking back home under extremely trying conditions, found handy to carry, to feed self and the children.

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As the world witnessed this heart-rending mass movement, the worst since the 1947 Partition, there were also soothing pictures of biscuit packets being tossed on to the moving trains and buses.

To feed these millions on the move, government agencies, the NGOs, and buyers across the country rushed to get this packaged staple. Biscuit thus fulfilled the original role for which it was conceived: nutritious, easy-to-store, easy-to-carry, and long-lasting food for long journey.

For the pious, their conscience troubled by what was happening around it is also the easiest and the cheapest give-away. The smallest pack of five sells for as little as Rupees two. They prefer the little biscuit packets over perishable sweets for distribution to the poor and the children outside the shrines. Biscuit has become charity-favourite.

For the record, biscuit industry having Rs 12,000 crore annual turn-over is one of the largest food industries in India. It produces 5,000 tons daily. Biscuit is also a job-giver. The industry employs 3,50,000 directly and indirectly, over three million. Forty percent of the manufacture is with the small and medium-scale factories. Growing at 15 per cent pre-Covid-19, the industry as a whole has registered 50 percent higher production during the lockdown.

However, the situation is iffy in that the factory attendance is only around 66 percent, industry association says. This is mainly because companies are currently running on limited staff. It’s still partial production as there are not enough trucks to transport the product.

Covid-19 constraints may impact export and import too. Globally, India is the third largest producer after the US and China. It is also among the top five exporters. It imports biscuit as well to cater to the elite consumer, a growing market what with more and more people emerging with disposable incomes.

The per capita domestic consumption of 2.1 kilogram is, however, low for a simple reason. Indians get a variety of staples, affordable and available round the year. Biscuit goes with tea/coffee, not food.

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To clarify, the focus here is on the humble biscuit with wheat flour, sugar and glucose and claimed nutrients and not on the exotic variety that has nuts, butter, raisins, chocolates, colours and aromas added artificially with use of intelligent technology.

There is a vast market for biscuit in India that is growing in rural areas. Large population base which majorly comprises rural population creates a huge demand for an affordable biscuit. Unsurprisingly, non-premium biscuits dominate the market in the industry’s forecast period 2019-2025.

Premium biscuits were also projected to exhibit the fastest growth rate what with increasing awareness among consumers, widening of distribution channels coupled with advertising campaigns, high visibility and accessibility of biscuits in retail outlets. However, Covid-19 may change the producers’ priorities. So, wishing them luck, this is best left for happier times.   

Why this bonding over biscuit? Why is it so popular? To be sure, it is one of the most universally consumed foods. Across India’s complex and varied culinary landscape where food habits (remember the vegetarian-non-vegetarian divide?) often determine social relationships, biscuit is neutral. It is consumed by people of all class, caste, religion, ethnicity, and income. Wealthier Indians dip them in milky tea/coffee and poorer ones in spiced tea or just water.

Biscuit can be found at luxury hotels, in an urban ghetto as well as in the make-shift wooden kiosks along the farms of rural India. Wax paper packaging gives it long shelf-life and salty or sugary taste is welcome to those engaged in physical labour.

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Biscuit has long history in South Asia having evolved with the Muslim rule. Even today, old parts of Delhi, Hyderabad or Agra cities have the producer/hawker armed with an iron slab on coal-fire making sugary, ghee-rich ‘nankhatai’.

The art of confectioning thrived with Europeans’ arrival, be it British French, Portuguese or the Dutch colonizing different parts of India. Modern-day biscuit first became popular among Muslims when the British introduced it in Sylhet in the present-day Bangladesh. The Hindu elite took a while to emulate. What was elite food once has now been embraced as comfort food by the common man. Think of the sweeper who, having cleaned the road outside, taking the first sip of tea with biscuit.

There are social contexts galore if you use Bollywood down the decades as a yardstick. One of the most telling, perhaps, is Shubh Mangal Savadhan (2017). The young protagonist subtly conveys to the eager heroine of his erectile dysfunction (ED) problem. He dips a biscuit in tea and lets it crumble. Enamoured of him still, the girl, confesses to her best friend: “I will never be able to have biscuit and tea!”

Over three months after Prime Minister Modi’s first announcement, although the pandemic is not, India’s lockdown is beginning to ease. For workers, the village-to-city reverse journey has begun. As they travel back, not on foot this time and with hope in their hearts, biscuit is there on the trains, at railway stations and awaiting them in factory canteens.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Ertuğrul – Solace In Fictional Glory

By Mahendra Ved

How far and deep into the past can a people go, be it history or mythology popularly perceived as history, to rejuvenate their present that is in turmoil and one that portends a bleak immediate future? Answer to this complex question may be found in the heady mix of piety and populism dished out with political support to people locked-in by Coronavirus pandemic.

After the Indian experience of Ramayan and Mahabharat television serials, it is time to see Pakistanis glued to their television sets watching an epic-size Turkish series about 13th century Muslim renaissance. Begun in the holy Ramazan month, it continues to win audiences. 

Dubbed Muslim Game of Throne, Dirilis (meaning Resurrection): Ertugrul has established viewership records with 240 million people watching it on YouTube alone. Said to be the new avatar of a 2002 film on the same subject that was an entry at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in 2002, this 2014 series is a milestone in Turkey’s entertainment world. After five successful seasons, Director Mehmet Bozdag is planning a sequel.

Its main protagonist is Osman I who rallied squabbling tribes of Oghuz Turks, won territories and paved the way for his son to establish the Ottoman Empire. It stretched to parts of Europe, Asia and North Africa and remains an enduring phase of Muslim political, military and cultural supremacy.

The end of this empire, the Caliphate, a century back post-First World War has not impacted its lure. A modern secular state that Kamal Ataturk then created stands rejected by the new political leadership and Turkey continues to reclaim its past glory.

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The Turkish prowess, past and present, attracts Muslims in general, but especially in Pakistan as it explores an identity away from a hostile India. In that quest, it is wary of a Shia Iran and an iffy Afghanistan, although Ghazanvi, Ghori and Abdali are used to remind what remains of India of the past conquests.  

“At its heart, what Ertugrul represents in this scenario is a battle for the soul of the Islamic narrative and for Pakistan’s own self-image,” Imran Khan, a Doha-based journalist writes for Al Jazeera.

He queries: “Does the country have a unique Muslim identity forged via Muslim India, or is it part of the wider history of the Muslim world?”  He concludes: “The answer to that is what informs its current self-image.”

But it is not so easy and simple. Pakistan’s largest benefactor – spiritually (being the home to Islam’s highest shrines), in terms of political influence and even financially – is Saudi Arabia. Born in the aftermath of the end of the Caliphate, it has no reason to take a secondary position to Turkey in Pakistan.

Ahmer Naqvi, a freelance cultural writer, sees Ertugrul as part of a wider agenda. “There is definitely an element of the Pakistani state pushing a certain idea of Islamic history, that focuses on conquest and expansionism and that has a long history of being used as propaganda,” he writes.

“This push has come at the expense of even acknowledging the history of what is now settled Pakistan. So, you would know about Muslim general Salahuddin but not about Chanakya, who lived in settled (present day) Pakistan, so yes, there is valid concern that the state is pushing a wider history and not its own,” Naqvi says.

Naqvi’s viewpoint is debatable, but there is no escaping Prime Minister Imran Khan’s push for Ertugrul. He watches it regularly and has even promoted it in an interview for its “Islamic values”. He thinks they are in contrast to the ‘vulgarity’ that Hollywood and Bollywood dish out to the entertainment-starved Pakistanis.  

With such popularity, political flutter is but natural. Parallels are being drawn in domestic arena. Supporters of the prime minister see in him qualities of Ertugrul – the larger-than life saviour/conquorer. Not to be left behind, the opposition Pakistan Muslim League sees such virtues in Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the imprisoned daughter and political heir of Pakistan’s three-time premier. The young and handsome Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, it seems, is yet to make the grade.         

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The Pakistani lure of a relatively more prosperous Turkey is immense. Former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, posted there as a soldier, used to be a great Turkey fan. But his being seen with his pet dog in the initial phase of his rule caused anger. Dog is a no-no for Pakistan’s Muslims.

This is only one of the reservations Pakistanis nurse about Turkish entertainment fare, going by reports of how Ertugrul is being received. The more serious one, perhaps, is the way women consorts of mighty Turkish characters live in real lives. Many viewers explore the social media for ‘more’.  The veil-less Instagram images of these actors put them off. They have taken to criticising and even counselling the female players, particularly the lead character, Esra Bilgic, on how they should dress and behave in public. It should be befitting a Muslim woman, they insist.

Pakistani feminist writer Aimun Faisal says: “If you are a Pakistani man, here’s why this Turkish woman has you simultaneously exasperated and enchanted.” She writes: “Ever spurred on by their commitment to religiosity and piety, Muslim men from Pakistan who had looked up a Turkish actress on a photo and video sharing platform, felt it their spiritual duty to educate her, or advice her, or berate her – depending on their self-confidence – on the ethics of being a pious Muslim woman.”

Faisal sees this as an act born out of misogyny. To the Pakistanis, a Turkish woman, almost-Westernized, “is desirable, but not achievable” unlike their brown-skinned compatriot who can be dumped-down into domestic social/moral milieu, but then, she becomes less ‘desirable’.

Truth be told, such conflicts have also bedevilled Indian audiences – at least they did in the past. Many were angry with Anita Guha, last century’s actor who usually played mythological characters and was Sita in Sampoorna Ramayan (1961) because she dressed and drank like any Bollywood socialite. Saira Bano and Sharmila Tagore, wives to famous, liberal Muslims, continued to act in films long after marriage, to the chagrin of their traditional audiences/admirers. They would volunteer to “protect the honour” of the bhabhi (sister-in-law) by destroying film posters depicting them fashionably clad.

Sadly, that body-shaming is now becoming rampant on the social media, also some mainstream one, as the conservatives who seek to dictate dress code for women get stronger.

Come to think of it, is it the return of “Victorian values” in the 21st century? Then, blame the British! Faisal approvingly quotes a study by Frantz Fanon and Partha Chatterjee about how “the encounter of men of colour with colonialism impacted gender ties in the colony.”

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

No Lockdown For Liquor

By Mahendra Ved

One change the Coronavirus pandemic has unleashed in India’s private and public lives that was unimaginable only a few weeks ago, is of the state conducting home deliveries of alcohol.

It is dictated by stampedes at many places across the country when the liquor vends re-opened after 40 days’ lockdown, burying physical distancing in the dust. They got even the Supreme Court to nudge state governments to consider online sales and home delivery.

This is a radical departure in a tradition-bound country with a diverse population that practices faiths many of which, per se, disapprove of alcohol consumption.

Add to this, the cultural mores. Although history is replete with evidence of soma, sure and shiraz and mythological narratives talk of ancient Indians drinking, there is no reference to it in Ramayan and Mahabharat, two of the mythology-backed TV serials currently being re-run to keep the Corona-hit locked-in people entertained and home. 

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Whether drink-at-doorstep is progress or if Indians have turned ‘modern’ is debatable. The age-old squeamishness about alcohol consumption has been given a go-bye for the greed to generate revenue, by even adding a hefty “Corona Cess”.  Necessity has become the virtue for central and all state governments except Gujarat, Bihar and Nagaland and the Lakshadweep union territory. It’s supposedly temporary, but one can’t be too sure of the future.

Two very apt lines have gone viral on the social media: “When a drunken man falls, nobody lifts him. But when the economy falls, all the drinking men gather to lift it.”   

Significantly, there is no objection from the politico-cultural czars who dictate what people should wear, eat and drink. They don’t seem to mind their governments profiting from selling liquor. Eschewing beef and bovine urine talk and dress diktats for now, they have shut their eyes to the ill-clad families of daily-wage workers, left hungry and unpaid by their contractors, walking back, shoe-less, from big cities to their villages hundreds of kilometer away.

This tragically contrasts with opening of the liquor vends, especially when the same Supreme Court says it “can’t stop them from walking.”

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This modern-day Marie Antoinettes’ culture is omnipresent. With Gandhi and those who worked with the Mahatma long gone, the original ‘nashabandi’ adherents, now down-and-on-the-political- periphery, are also silent. They never took Prohibition seriously when they ruled and made money, conveniently ignoring Article 47 of India’s Constitution. Also a Directive Principle of State Policy, it prescribes: “….the State shall endeavor to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health”.

All are guilty of shedding principle for practical reasons. Truth be told, Prohibition does not win votes and drains the exchequer. The law, whenever and wherever applied, has been impossible to enforce given the porous international and inter-state borders. Past experiments that failed were by C. Rajagopalachari (old Madras State) and N T Ramarao (old Andhra Pradesh).

Nitish Kumar’s Bihar is the current example. Prohibition is non-debatable in Gujarat, although liquor flows in from nearby states. Erstwhile Bombay state developed ‘bevda’ (double-distilled hooch) culture till as Maharashtra, influenced by its powerful sugar lobby, it gradually went wet.

Alcohol has definitely ruined millions of families. Men resort to domestic violence, incur debt and take to crime. In segments of society where women, too, drink, damage is compounded, without giving women any social or economic advantage.  

Besides some committed NGOs, women where organized in groups, perhaps, remain the sole Prohibition supporters. Liquor bans have often spared them from penury and domestic violence. Sadly, Coronavirus has weakened these womenfolk, seemingly ending the debate if Prohibition delivers medically, socially and/or morally.

The ground has been laid over long years by going easy on collective conscience. Late Jayalalithaa financed her ‘Amma’ welfare schemes for the poor from excise revenue. Things were not different earlier, and not just in Tamil Nadu. They gain momentum before each election when freebies are distributed to the electorate.

If alcohol quenches thirst or kills, it also sanitizes. Thus sanitizers, direly needed to combat Caronavirus has alcoholic content, were consumes by many in Karnataka as a substitute to alcohol. Taking the cue as it were, some liquor manufacturers have used their expertise to make satinizers and donate them. Surely, they also serve who rinse their hands with sanitizer – before lifting the peg.

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Money remains the mantra. Alcohol sale delivered over 15 percent of tax revenues for 21 states in 2018-19. Earnings range from Punjab (Rs 5,000 crores) to Tamil Nadu (Rs 30,000 crores). Going by the booze-boom, the 2020-21 fiscal should witness a whopping rise for all.

These official figures, however, conceal inter-state smuggling and hooch produced and sold through the unorganized sector, statistics for which are seldom available.

India consumed 2.4 litres of alcohol per capita in 2005, which increased to 4.3 litres in 2010 and scaled up to 5.7 litres in 2016, a doubling in 11 years, as per a WHO report. Hence, the estimate to reach about 6.5 billion liters by the end of this year may be upwardly revised.  

“The big picture is that this is the right approach even if Covid were not wreaking havoc,” declares a Times of India editorial in support of home delivery. It seeks to draw a global picture of Covid-driven liquor policies adopted by different countries, confidently adding that “none have reported a conversion to teetotalerism.”

A “non-prohibition” U.S. has seen $2 billion more spent on alcohol in stores since the start of March than last year. Mexico has kept its citizens dry but also kept tequila production going and tequila exports have soared. Sri Lankans have taken to home brewing in the face of their government’s ban on booze.”

Historically, Prohibition is a failed notion the world over. The idea of restrictions on the use and trade of alcohol has punctuated known human history; the earliest can be traced to the Code of Hammurabi, the Babylonian law of 1754 BC Mesopotamia. In the early 20th century, Protestants tried prohibition in North America, the Russians between 1914 and 1925, and the US between 1920 and 1933.

Having presented both sides of the picture within this space, as a social drinker, I must confess to tilting towards ending Prohibition, but with caveats and controls that should come from within. Drinking, after all, is a personal choice that should have family consent and of course, economic and medical ability.   

But one thing is sure: Coronavirus compulsions are unlikely to end this to-drink-or-not-to-drink debate.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Bollywood In Red Zone

By Mahendra Ved

The loss in a single day last week of two Bollywood stalwarts, Irrfan and Rishi Kapoor, compels us to worry about the health and well-being of those on whom billions ride.

Equally important, and more urgent, is the need to see the potential impact of Coronavirus, or Covid-19 that is the new game-changer. Will India’s cinema/entertainment industry, especially Bollywood, dependent on crowds, survive and rise to entertain again with the same verve even as it suffers from stars dying, cinemas closed and filming stopped?

The worldwide pandemic is unlikely to leave soon. Having humbled societies and wrecked economies, it has imposed conditions that have already begun to influence our – including those who entertain us — behaviour, individually and collectively.   

My own perceptions are limited and the space here, even more so. But I am not alone when I ask how world’s largest cinematography, making 2000-plus feature films annually, that is estimated to have touched $3.7 billion this month, can respond to this mix of complex circumstances.   

Not all of India’s film-making centres follow the Bollywood model and not all have money-spinning stars. But all of them depend upon viewers in cinema theatres, on television and now, increasingly through streaming.

Covid-19 is only the latest health-scare. None asked “Was it Corona” about the two stars. It was well known they were cancer survivors back after being treated in the United States. Bollywood’s list of cancer patients/survivors currently includes Manisha Koirala 49, who has returned to the screen.

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Precisely two years ago, Vinod Khanna had succumbed. With Rajesh Khanna, Bollywood’s “first superstar” who too died of cancer in 2012, Vinod strode the Bollywood scene in the 1970s.

Cancer is a killer. One of Rajesh Khanna’s most memorable roles was in and as ‘Anand’ (1971). Smiling his winsome smile he hid his agony instead of being overwhelmed by cancer, poking fun at “lymphosecoma of the intestine”. The last line was an ode to life amidst pain: “Anand maraa nahin; Anand martey nahin” (Anand is not dead – Anands do not die.) This was a significant departure from the suffering protagonist, staggering with eyes half-closed, do-gooding till the end, winning audience sympathy.

A social media post in the wake of Irrfan/Rishi deaths lists so many marquee names suffering from one complication or the other and offers a thought. Well-off, these stars hit the gym even before they debut, eat special diet and work hard to maintain their physique. They live well. They go abroad to relax and get the best treatment money can buy. What they can get is not available to the common man. Yet, they suffer like any ordinary being and go when their time comes, leaving their fans in tears. Disease and pain are great levelers.

Covid-19 has made everyone feel more vulnerable than ever. Bollywood appears to have responded well and fast, surprisingly, without waiting for a political diktat. All cinema theatres are closed. All indoor and outdoor shootings are off. Paparazzi are out-of-job since the stars are strictly indoors. Very few attended the two funerals.   Some Award Nites are cancelled. There’s no way Bollywood can shoot crowd scenes, anywhere.  Lockdown is complete and like other film-making centres, Mumbai remains in Covid-19’s “red zone.”

All this means losses in man/days, gate-money revenue, ad earnings and services worth billions. With the overall economy in doldrums and production jeopardized, the impact on entertainment business, public’s ability and inclination to spend on it and perhaps, the utility of the stars we adore remains uncertain.

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The stars seem to realize their own vulnerability. They use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to stay in public eye every single day. Their unease is discernible the way some of them called cameramen to film their doing “jharoo-ponchha”, doing yoga and for a change, cooking their own frugal but healthy meals. This may have killed some of their glamour and closed the enormous gulf they maintain, both physically and in their lifestyle, from the public.     

Everyone fears that not all jobs lost may return. Covid-19 is changing basic norms that may stay substantially, if not fully. It has already forced us to work from home, to go digital in business and banking, to keep fit without gym and outdoor sports and to shop and be entertained without visiting malls.

The irony of empty roads that can’t be traversed and clear skies but no flying cannot be lost. How much of the present can be retained and how much of the past shall remain relevant is uncertain.

But I remain optimist about Bollywood’s ability to adapt. Hence, on a different note altogether, I am tempted to explore the past and wonder: can Bollywood make a disaster film on Covid-19? 

Frankly, there is not much to go by. Of man-made disasters, Burning Train (1980) showed journey of a brake-failed passenger train. Kaala Patthar (1979) sought to reenact mining disaster at Chasnala Colliery. Multi-starrers, they were essentially entertainers, with some serious moments.

In Aman (1980), a rare health-related disaster film, the mandatory entertainment quotient was high with love songs. It highlighted perils of a nuclear disaster Japan has suffered. But that came only in the second half. Even then, alas, the focus shifted from nuclear radiation to the dead hero’s journey back home. 

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To be fair, the hero saving fishermen caught in a nuclear zone was not about disaster, but about suffering that radiation victims endure and long-term damage caused by atomic weapons. This anti-war film featured a rare cameo by Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell. To its credit, Aman did not treat disaster as an amoral affliction.

Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani (1946) took political/ideological route while India was still under the British rule. It was about an Indian doctor’s role in Chinese resistance to Japanese invasion during the World War II. It was filmed immediately after that war.

Producing, directing and playing the doctor, V Shantaram enacted a real-life story of Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis who responds to appeal by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Bose to join the medical mission. While other Indians return sick, Kotnis, married to Chinese assistant, continues and eventually dies of epilepsy.

Kotnis’ sacrifice and Shantaram’s film have been India’s strongest bridge to Sino-Indian relations, winning praise from Mao Dzedong to Hu Jintao. Till she died in 2005, Guo Qinglan, the real Mrs Kotnis, was unique to the cultural ties between the two distrusting neighbours. The glow endured despite the numerous fluctuations, including the 1962 conflict. Alas, old memories are fading.

Wuhan figured in Kotnis’ journey — the same Wuhan where Modi met President Xi Jinping in 2018 — the same that is supposed to be the cradle of Covid-19. Described as heavenly then, the world now calls it hell. 

After 9/11 happened spiking Islam-phobia, Bollywood produced My Name is Khan. Does it really need a disaster like Covid-19 to make its presence felt? It will rise again in its full glory from this ashes as it has done many times before because it knows how to. Its creativity is its resilience.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Devdas, The Show Isn’t Over Yet

By Mahendra Ved

As Hindu epics-based television serials Ramayan and Mahabharat gather encore from Indian audiences locked-in by Caronavirus, I wondered what could come next in reach, frequency and impact. My search ended with films based on the Bengali novel, Devdas, by Sharat Chandra Chatterjee. However, they are distant second by millions of miles, understandably, because Devdas is not an epic, nor does it preach any faith, ideology or philosophy.

Of the 20 odd films, one or two can arguably be called classics. Again, together they are no match to cinema, theatre, art and literature springing from the epics and other scriptures. Cinema and Devdas are but a century-old. None compares to, say, Hollywood’s Ten Commandments. But that would be digressing.

The novel or the films have not attained mass popularity because they end tragically. Readers/viewers find that depressing. Chatterjee who wrote this semi-autobiography in 1900 did not publish till 1917. He was embarrassed, as per his son, having written under alcohol’s influence. He thought it lacked maturity, although it remains his most famous work.

Devdas is a tragic triangle. Temperamental and timid by turns, the protagonist baulks when childhood love Parvati (Paro), entering his bedroom at night, proposes marriage. Blaming himself, but also her, for the ‘mistake,’ he takes to booze and to Chandramukhi, a courtesan. She loves him hopelessly but he, unable to forget an unattainable Paro, dislikes her, even as he depends upon her.

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Devdas dominates child-Paro, even strikes her on the eve of her marriage. Class and caste divides of the 19th century Bengal determine his parents’ rejection of the alliance and hers retaliate by finding someone higher and richer, even if old.

This story of viraha (separation) and self-destruction ends with a nomadic and sick Devdas, keeping the promise made to Parvati of “one last meeting”, dies at her doorsteps. There is no reunion.

Devdas’ 20 odd film versions cover the Indian Cinema’s evolution. The first by Naresh Mitra, released in 1927, was ‘silent’.  In 1935, four years after Indian cinema went ‘talkie’, its director P C Barua also enacted the lead. The very next year, he directed K L Saigal and Jamuna, captivating imagination of the pre-Partition India’s cine-goers with their acting and haunting songs. Barua was not done: the Assamese version came in 1937.

In 1953, Vedantam Raghaviah made Tamil and Telugu versions. Both had Akkineni Nageswara Rao and Savithri playhing Devdas and Parvati.  Two decades later, Vijaya Nirmala directed and played Parvati in another Tamil version (1974).   

In southern India, Akkineni’s depiction of Devdasu is considered the ultimate. Stories have it that for Bimal Roy’s Hindi version (1955), Dilip Kumar repeatedly watched the Telugu film.  Purists think no actor can surpass their performances.  

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Devdas inspired passion and continuity. Roy was Barua’s cinematographer. That it triggered several re-makes over a long period is remarkable. It laid the most significant milestones in careers of all concerned. 

It’s difficult, also unfair perhaps, to compare different versions made in different times with varying literary, technological, artistic, even financial inputs. I venture to say – and I am not alone – that Roy, by now working in what became Bollywood, getting Dilip Kumar – reportedly for Rs one lakh, a ‘princely’ sum in those times — to pair with Bengal’s Suchitra Sen, and with Vyjayantimala playing Chandramukhi, Kamal Bose’ photography and S D Burman’s music, is the most significant version.   

Devdas, following Jogan (1950), Deedar (1951) and others where Dilip Kumar played melancholic characters, sealed his reputation as the “tragedy king”. It caused him psychological imbalance. But it also inspired many a young aspirant to flock to Mumbai to act in films.

Translating a literary work on celluloid is never easy. Capturing Bengal’s countryside, providing the right musical notes from Baul to Mujhra, and of course, writing, played their respective roles. Roy, it would seem, got the combination right.  

In one of this film’s iconic scenes, Chandramukhi pleads with Devdas that he has drunk excessively and more would harm him. Surrounded by bottles, he retorts in utter despair: “Kaun kambakht hai jo bardasht karne ke liye peeta hai… main to peeta hun ke bas saans le sakun.”

I am unable to translate these lines by Rajinder Singh Bedi. But they were more or less repeated 47 years later in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2002 version.

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Unintended perhaps, there is continuity in the way Shahrukh Khan interpreted Devdas for Bhansali. Whether or not Kumar ‘learnt’ from Akkineni, Khan certainly emulated Kumar with whom he shares not only looks, but also ethnic/cultural roots. Think of the two Pathans hailing from Peshawar, interpreting a Bengali ‘bhadralok’!   

This ‘flexibility’ explains Devdas’ larger South Asian literary/cinematic reach, unaffected by India’s Partition. It has been filmed twice each in Pakistan (in Urdu 1965 and 2010) and Bangladesh (in Bengali in 1982 and 2013).  But it remains essentially Indian, with versions in Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu and Assamese.  Most “non-Bengali” versions have been made post-Partition.

Generations have embraced Devdas. My father loved Saigal’s portrayal. Post-independence generations go gaga over Dilip’s. But my son prefers SRK’s colourful bonanza. One of the most lavishly mounted Bollywood venture, it was the first Indian film to be premiered at Cannes Film Festival.    

Sadly, I have seen only a few clips of Saigal. A Dilip admirer, I must confess to SRK’s interpretation growing on me as it were, on more viewings.

Film-makers by and large stuck faithfully to Chatterjee’s Devdas. But with the turn of the century, the current lot is taking artistic liberties. ‘Original’ Devdas went to Kolkata (then Calcutta) for studies. But Bhansali sent him to England, returning as a smoker, donning Western coat and hat. He lapses into dhoti-Panjabi ensemble when life gets tough and tragic. Incensed West Bengal lawmakers had demanded the film’s ban for its many ‘distortions’.

Among major actors of their times, besides Barua, Saigal and Akkineni, Kamal Haasan and SoumitraChaterjee played Devdas.    Parvati and Chandramukhi have been interpreted by Pakistan’s Shamim Ara and Banglaesh’s Kabori Chowdhur/Sarwar, Vijaya Nirmala (also its producer), Vyjayantimala, Supriya Chowdhury, Sridvi, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dikshit.

Vyjayantimala was known to have rejected the Best Supporting Actor nomination, insisting that her Chandramukhi, and not Paro, is the real heroine. Her view can be compared to Ramayan being viewed from Ravan’s standpoint, not always Ram’s.

On Suchitra Sen’s passing away in 2014, however, she admitted to being acknowledged at the national level and by critics after she played alongside Suchitra.

Ironically, save a brief frame, the two did not share a single sequence. While Vyjayantimala shot in Bombay, Sen’s part was filmed in Bengal.

For Madhuri who played Bhansali’s Chandramukhi with great aplomb, it was vindication. Clutching her Filmfare Award, she chided her critics who had written her off as a fading star after her marriage and migration to the United States.

Of Devdas’ five modern-day takes, in Anurag Kashyap’s “Dev D” all three protagonists are into booze and sex. The setting is Punjabi. His Chandramukhi is a hippy-like call-girl painting Delhi red. 

In “Daas Dev” (2018) Sudhir Mishra borrows not just from Chatterjee’s novel but also from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to capture the dynamics of India’s dynastic politics.

In a sense, Devdas is India’s answer to Hamlet. Both have survived generations. Life does oscillate between hope and despair.  Many would question their relevance today, though, especially their failure to rebel against prevailing norms.

The only known survivor of the 1955 saga besides Vyjayantimala, Dilip once stated that his aim was “to convey the sense of hopelessness that pervades the relationship between Devdas and the two women and others who are a part of his doomed life without leading ardent viewers to cynicism and despondence.”

The mystique continues. Gulzar’s 1980s attempt, with Dharmendra (who had reportedly financed the venture), Sharmila Tagore as Parvati and Hema Malini as Chandramukhi was aborted, nobody knows why. The National Film Archives of India (NFAI) is searching the two reels Gulzar completed, but are missing.

In early 1960s, India lost its treasure of old films, including Devdas, in a fire in a Mumbai godown. The NFAI engaged in protracted talks with its Bangladeshi counterpart to retrieve the only surviving copy of the 1936 version found with a Chittagong film distributor. It was exchanged for Satyajit Ray’s Apu Triology.

The recovery of Devdas, film analyst Gautam Kaul recalls, was aptly celebrated with a ‘premier’ held at Nandan theatre in Kolkata.   

Great story-telling on cinema may elude in this era when a film-maker must stay commercially viable. Yet, last word may not have been said on Devdas.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com