Five minutes of fame

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On Wednesday, 12 filmmakers returned their National Awards to show solidarity with the students of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and to protest the growing state of intolerance in India. Ten filmmakers - Dibakar Banerjee, Anand Patwardhan, Paresh Kamdar, Nishtha Jain, Kirti Nakhwa, Harshvardhan Kulkarni, Hari Nair, Rakesh Sharma, Indraneel Lahiri and Lipika Singh Darai - addressed a press conference in Mumbai on Wednesday evening and clarified their rationale while two FTII alumni Pratik Vatsa and Vikrant Pawar returned their awards in Pune.

This announcement came at an interesting time. Hours earlier on the same day, FTII students had decided to suspend their 140-day-old strike to protest the appointment of BJP-leader Gajendra Chauhan as the institute’s new chairman whose claim to fame is as Yudhishtir, the eldest Pandava, in the epic serial Mahabharatha.

When authors returned their Sahitya Akademi Awards, BJP leaders and followers had the audacity and cheapness to rubbish their decision as a ploy “to get their five minutes of fame.” Indeed, this list of filmmakers doesn’t include many “popular” names. But hey, we also don’t hear about a lot of politicians and top business honchos till they make the headlines for charges of rape, abetment to suicide, murder, tax evasion, fraud… Isn’t it much better to be famous, even in hindsight, for a credential than a crime? Such five minutes of fame are much more honourable than politicians shooting their mouths off to promote bizarre non-secular ideas on national TV.

Let us familiarise ourselves with some of those who have dared to keep the debate alive. Nishtha Jain made a 2012 documentary Gulabi Gang about a grassroots gender empowerment movement in Bundelkhand that was initiated singlehandedly by a woman called Sampat Pal Devi. Hari Nair had won the Silver Lotus in 1996 in the Best Cinematography category as cameraman for Sham’s Vision. Nair was commended for his “brilliant use of light and shade, to bring to life even inanimate objects in the film.” Anand Patwardhan, filmmaker and activist returned his award for ‘Bombay Our City’ a 1985 film documenting slum dwellers, homelessness and demolition drives.

Dibaker Banerjee’s directorial venture Khosla ka Ghosla won a National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi in 2006. The film starring Anupam Kher and Boman Irani dealt with the aspirations of a middle-class family to own a house and their troubles with land grabbers and construction mafia. Banerjee’s film, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! also won in 2010 as the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. Rakesh Sharma has made a documentary Final Solution (2004) on the right-wing fundamentalist pogrom in Gujarat following the 2002 riots.

Indraneel Lahiri is an alumnus of FTII and has barely enjoyed his national award for six months now. Lahiri won for Best Cinematography for Aamar Katha: Story of Binodini in the 62nd National Awards announced on March 24, 2015. Odia film director Lipika Singh Darai returned her three national awards. She won for the Best Narration/ Voice Over category in 2013 for ‘Kankee O Saapo,’ for Best Sound Recording and Mixing in 2009 for ‘Gaarud’ and for Best Debut Film of a Director in the non-feature film category 2012.

When certain topics refuse to fade away into silence, it is a strong indication that those are worth serious attention. Documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan made it amply clear that a major reason to return his award was to continue a sustained dialogue on the increasingly fascist state of affairs exemplified by the murders of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi, lynching and bullying on the issue of beef-eating and proactive efforts to throttle any voice of dissent.

Systematic trivialisation of important issues, outright dismissal through pungent body language, taunting and cracking jokes has been a key trait of the government and its blind followers in dealing with dissent from media, journalists, and the common man who dares to disagree.

Talking about the common man, while off late the discussion over beef ban is mostly restricted to its political and religious significance in mainstream media, seeing the issue in the light of personal decision-making and free choice of citizens is much more important. Politics and religion are a sure shot way of obfuscating any argument; the common man will only be scared and confused if the issue is constantly discussed on these lines.

It is in near future, if the realisation hasn’t started dawning already, that the common man of India sees through the fickleness of the BJP government’s poetic gimmicks, their flamboyant speeches, high-flying promises and jet-setting adventures. While the common man is unassuming and timid for the most part, they do not like being taken for granted. This faceless entity does not have any medal to return and is usually too busy to indulge in the so-called “five minutes of fame.” But, the common man can shatter the arrogance of power if they so decide. Ruffle the common man, as they are being ruffled now, and they will dip into their collective resources of pent-up indigence, anger, strength and acumen to bring about the downfall of many a macho men and women till now thought to be invincible.