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| Jollygood Bollywood | | Munnabhai rescues Mahatma | | Shastri Ramachandaran
MOHANDAS Karamchand Gandhi, dead as he is, was dying to be saved. It was convenient to consecrate him. That way he could be deified and desecrated at the same time. Neither those who swore by his legacy nor those who swore against him feared his spectral return. Yet, that is precisely what has happened, thanks to Lage Raho Munnabhai (LRM). Director Rajkumar Hirani’s delightful entertainer with Sanjay Dutt in the lead role has accomplished more to undo our induced amnesia of the Mahatma’s words and deeds than anything done by India’s political class in the last 58 years.
True, there have been memorable films on Mahatma Gandhi by distinguished directors, namely Richard Attenborough and Shyam Benegal; one offering a respectful cinematic acquaintance and the other being didactic but inspiring. For all their earnestness, neither film stirred the popular imagination like LRM has done now. For generations born after Gandhi’s assassination, Munnabhai, the eponymous hero of the film, has rendered “Gandhism” passé and “Gandhian” arcane. The new buzzword is “Gandhigiri”, a value, and valuable, addition to the lexicon of a culture suffused with every abominable kind of “Dadagiri” and “Goondagiri”.
Munnabhai, as GenNow would put it, is a cool dude; a street-smart tough who gets his way and walks over those who get in his way. In a four-letter word, he is a Dada. He gets to stay on top of any situation because of his Dadagiri. Cool, until he lands in hot water with a fib he tosses at the sassy anchor of a radio chat show. Smitten by her voice, which has got him hooked to the channel, Munnabhai picks up a few facts on Gandhi to survive the radio quiz. Soon after, he is called upon to lecture — on Gandhi’s life and thoughts — to the inmates of a home for the elderly, for which occasion he dons the spurious mantle of Professor Murli Prasad.
There begins the transformation of the good-hearted don, who remains the essential Robin Hood except that he has changed his way of working: instead of dadagiri, which comes naturally to him and his mates, Munnabhai resorts to Gandhigiri and prevails to equal, if not better, effect. At first, when the ghost of Gandhi appears in the library where he has gone to cram up on the Mahatma, Munnabhai is alarmed. Gradually, he gets used to the ghost who walks (with him) and doles out sage, but very practical, advice to deal with the dilemmas that call for dadagiri.
Gandhigiri is shown to be the alternative that can be no less effective in settling issues, be it on the street or in a corrupt government office. In a society where corruption, money, muscle and competing forces of lawlessness and violence rule the roost, there is a deep yearning for means of resolving disputes and conflicts through ethical and honest means. The pensioner can neither fight nor refuse the demanded bribe if he has to get his due. Dadagiri would have meant Munnabhai stomping in and flexing his muscles. Gandhigiri ensures that the pensioner gets his money by shaming the clerk in a highly dramatic manner.
The film’s dramatisation of Gandhigiri — manifest as a potent and morally superior power — makes it preferable to brute force. There is no dearth of dramatised sequences showing that there is a way to win; the weak don’t have to let themselves be walked over nor do they have to seek protection from dadas to defend their interests. The main drama is centred round what would now be called a senior citizens’ home, where the elderly who have been abandoned by their less-caring offspring bravely face the odds of life.
The site of the old age home is the site of multiple contests: between the personas of Gandhi. One all-too-familiar persona is the mummified image, where memory of the man is manifest in statues and the roads and places named after him; almost as if he is a relic of the “Stone Age” or “Bronze Age”. The metaphorical remnants of this extinct Gandhi are the elderly homeless who are confined to the home for the aged, which is being coveted by a builder as dowry for his daughter. These elders, already evicted from their homes by their children are now to be evicted from this refuge too. Much like society’s impatience in wanting to get rid of any lingering traces of the old man.
The other persona of Gandhi is his principles and values, which Munnabhai brings to life as the medium giving expression to Gandhigiri, prompted by the ever-present spirit of the Mahatma. His concern and resolve — shown by his passive resistance — to ensure that the inmates of the home for the aged are restored to their rightful place shows his rejection of the fossilised Gandhi; and his striving to secure for them the deserved respect and support represents his effort to revive the values that have been abandoned today.
In an increasingly unfeeling and uncaring society seething with violence, corruption and oppression of the weak, where the dadagiri of a benevolent goonda is often the only refuge for the deprived and the dispossessed, Munnabhai proposes Gandhigiri as a practicable panacea. Doubtless, this is simplistic and, perhaps, romantic, too, in the filmi tradition of heroes who single-handedly achieve a revolutionary breakthrough as if foundational rot and structural inequalities can be remedied by individual intervention alone. But such a line of criticism and deconstruction, for all its validity, would be to deny both the logic and effect of Lage Raho Munnabhai, which is a bold and beautiful effort even if Gandhigiri is a PUF-packed pulp rendering of what is truly Gandhian.
The film demystifies Gandhism, strips it of philosophical and ideological overload to its bare essential of how satyagraha can be invested with meaning and result in everyday life. This has given Gandhigiri and the film a cult-like status, making it a rage among the younger generation. Predictably, Gandhi is becoming good business, and may even grow to be an industry with all this renewed popular interest in the forgotten Father of the Nation.
Of course, all good things have multiple uses and, more often than not, it is the less desirable ones that are capitalised upon for political and commercial profit. Gandhigiri, as it catches on in popularity, cannot escape being hijacked by those with a craving for power but the political skill to camouflage it as a passion for public good. That is a price Gandhigiri, too, like Gandhi’s legacy, will have to pay in the long run. In the short term, the film is having a good run and everyone comes away feeling good. Chances are that some good will come out of it.
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