Rang De Basanti: The Voice of the Youth
Rang De Basanti is an awesome movie. Though it carries an age-old theme of “awakening the nationalistic spirit within the youth”, the movie still exhibits a different élan.
The movie revolves around five students of Delhi University, who are selected by a young British filmmaker to act out the revolutionary freedom fighters of India’s freedom movement. The British filmmaker, Sue, being played by a British actress Alice Patten, wants to make this film on the basis of her late grandfather’s memoirs, who was an officer in the British India government. Her efforts are well facilitated by Sonia (Soha Ali Khan), who is determined to help Sue in her filmmaking.
After several unsuccessful auditions of DU students, Sue comes across a group of four boisterous guys – JD, Karan, Aslam, and Sukhi – along with one serious-looking Laxman Pandey, and deems them fit for the roles.
The four brats are quite pessimistic about the future of their country, and are alien to ideas of patriotism and nationalism. All they know is to live one day at a time, and enjoy it to the brim. On the other hand, Laxman Panday is a member of a fanatic group, who lives puritanically by the ideals of his Party, which includes opposing all forms of western influences. The quadruple shares a belligerant relationship with him.
Initially these young brats would not take their part seriously, but gradually, over a period of time as they dig deep into the historic roles they are playing, they start realizing the sacrifices made by the likes of Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, etc; and in a very subtle way start cultivating the sense of being an Indian. This subtle transformation is well pictured in the movie.
The story takes a tragic turn when their friend, Flt Lt Ajay Rathod, is killed is a MIG crash. Besides his death, what fuels their anger is the country's Defense Minister alleging the late pilot of reckless flying, instead of accepting the actual reason of the crash – the use of low quality aircraft parts. This incident makes them realize the futility of the system, and they now start seeing their part in trying to change it.
Helpless against the Establishment, they go on the kill the Defense Minister – their inspiration being the revolutionist of India’s freedom struggle, for they too adhered to violent means for “drawing the attention”. However, the Minister’s death is mourned by the sycophant media, and he is dubbed as a “martyr”.
You got to watch the movie to know what they do to justify their killing the Minister, and in the end how these hedonist youngsters get killed by the Police, before they deliver a nation-wide appeal.
The movie has an impressive star cast. Leading from the front in Aamir Khan, who plays DJ (short for Diljeet), a typical Punjabi guy with a quite natural Delhi-Punjabi accent. DJ wants to make a mark in this world, but is aware of the fact that “achchey achchey DJ piss gayey” (a good number of people like him got screwed in this world). He, like his friend, is uncertain about life and its aspirations. He just goes on with the flow.
Siddharth Suryanarayan plays Karan Singhania: a neglected child of a millionaire father. He is polite, but clueless, and like his friend, is pessimistic about India. He has not qualms about spending his father's money with both hands.
Aslam (being played by Kunaal Kapoor), lives in Old Delhi, speaks Delhi-Urdu (Aaiyo, Jaiyo, Mat Kariyo...), is generally polite, sports a non-religious beard, abstains from alcohol, and is frustrated by the narrow mentality of his orthodox Muslim family. He mix up well with his non-Muslim friends, and his being from a different (and minority) community doesn’t hamper his confidence a wee bit. He does some poetry, but beyond that he, too, is uncertain.
The character of Sukhi is played by Sharman Joshi, who is the comic hero of the gang. Like DJ and Karan, he drinks and get involved in post-drinking escapades. He is afraid of death, but will lot let his friends take on the fatal mission without him. Without his friends, his life is null.
Laxman Pandey is a fanatic; he works for a fanatic political organization, and believes in moral policing. He hates Aslam – wouldn’t sit together and eat. He isn’t the boisterous kind, and takes his time to mix up freely with others, and to befriend Aslam.
Soha Ali Khan plays Sonia: the DU student who facilitates all arrangements for Sue’s film, and is an inevitable member of the group. Sonia is Ajay’s fiancée; she moved around with all her male friends with full dignity and integrity, and commands a lot of love and respect.
The movie has emotion-stirring dialogues. I particularly liked the one by DJ, which he delivers with a good Punjabi tilt: “Jindagii jine ke do hi tarikkey hote hain, ek – jo ho raha hain use hone do, ya phir use badalne ki koshish karo”. The music is good, too, especially the Rang De Basanti… and Pathshala number. I particularly liked the Rang De Basanti… song with the imagery of rustic Punjab.
RDB has a clear message for the youth – try and change the system if you think it’s not perfect. It’s your country, and you are responsible for everything good and bad in it.
Point well taken, Sir!
posted by Manzoor Khan at 1:59 AM
5 Comments:
"Ek paav past mein, Ek paav future mein, Isi liye hum apne present par moot raha hai" (one leg is on the past, one on future, that's why we are pissing on our present).
Graffiti by Aslam..
1.Nights are dark, Days are darker!
2.Go slow someone is WETting for U!
well done mansoor, i think this was a very good blogging site i visited, and shall keep on visiting.
please keep it up
real
Nice review, Manzoor.
Khoon Jo ab bhi na Khaula, Woh Khoon nahi hai, Pani hai;
Jo desh ke kaam na aaye, wo bekar jawani hai.
The movie has a powerful message and is must-see for all young folks of the country.
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The grip of the Majlis-e-ittehadul Muslimeen on the community remains strong, despite minor dents.
WITH A Member representing Hyderabad in the Lok Sabha, five members in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, 40 corporators in Hyderabad and 95-plus members elected to various municipal bodies in Andhra Pradesh, the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen is one of the foremost representatives of the city's Muslims and the most powerful Muslim party in India and one can see the partys strenghth if it goes to Hyderabads Old city everywhere u look u can see MIM written on walls ,lightpoles and buildings leaving aside flags and posters of its Leadership. The Majlis has brought lot of development to the Old part of the city even after it is said it hasnt done anything by its opponents who are mostly Ex Majlis workers.
The Majlis was formed in 1927 "for educational and social uplift of Muslims". But it articulated the position that "the ruler and throne (Nizam) are symbols of the political and cultural rights of the Muslim community... (and) this status must continue forever".
The Majlis pitted itself against the Andhra Mahasabha and the communists who questioned the feudal order that sustained the Nizam's rule. It also bitterly opposed the Arya Samaj, which gave social and cultural expression to the aspirations of the urban Hindu population in the Hyderabad State of those days.
By the mid-1940s, the Majlis had come to represent a remarkably aggressive and violent face of Muslim communal politics as it organised the razakars (volunteers) to defend the "independence" of this "Muslim" State from merger with the Indian Union.
According to historians, over 1,50,000 such `volunteers' were organised by the Majlis for the Nizam State's defence but they are remembered for unleashing unparalleled violence against Hindu populations, the communists and all those who opposed the Nizam's "go it alone" policy. It is estimated that during the height of the razakar `agitation', over 30,000 people had taken shelter in the Secunderabad cantonment alone to protect themselves from these `volunteers'.
But the razakars could do little against the Indian Army and did not even put up a fight. Kasim Rizvi, the Majlis leader, was imprisoned and the organisation banned in 1948. Rizvi was released in 1957 on the undertaking that he would leave for Pakistan in 48 hours. Before he left though, Rizvi met some of the erstwhile activists of the Majlis and passed on the presidentship to Abdul Wahed Owaisi, a famous lawyer and an Islamic scholar who also was jailed for nearly 10 months after he took over the Majlis leadership as the then govt wanted to abolish the Majlis party but Owaisi refused to do so and was seen as a person who had financially supported the party when it was a bankrupt and weak one after the Police Action in Hyderabad State.
Owaisi is credited with having "re-written" the Majlis constitution according to the provisions of the Indian Constitution and "the realities of Muslim minority in independent India", according to a former journalist, Chander Srivastava. For the first decade-and-a-half after this "reinvention", the Majlis remained, at best, a marginal player in Hyderabad politics and even though every election saw a rise in its vote share, it could not win more than one Assembly seat.
The 1970s saw an upswing in Majlis' political fortunes. In 1969, it won back its party headquarters, Dar-us-Salaam — a sprawling 4.5-acre compound in the heart of the New City. It also won compensation which was used to set up an ITI on the premises and a women's degree college in Nizamabad town. In 1976, Salahuddin Owaisi took over the presidentship of the Majlis after his father's demise.
This started an important phase in the history of the Majlis as it continued expanding its educational institutions,Hospitals,Banks, including the first Muslim minority Engineering College and Medical College. Courses in MBA, MCA ,Nursing, Pharmacy and other professional degrees followed and now a daily newspaper known as Etemaad Daily. The 1970s were also a watershed in Majlis' history as after a long period of 31 years, Hyderabad witnessed large-scale communal rioting in 1979. The Majlis came to the forefront in "defending" Muslim life and property Majlis workers could be seen at these moments defending the properties of Muslims in the wake of riots and these workers were very hard even for the police to control them even now it is a known fact that there are nearly about 2500 units of strong members who only act if there is a seirous threat to the Owaisi family and these members are under the direct orders of the Owaisi family which leads the Majlis party leaving aside thousands of workers and informers throughout the State and even outside the country far away till America and the Gulf countries.
Salahuddin Owaisi, also known as "Salar-e-Millat" (commander of the community), has repeatedly alleged in his speeches that the Indian state has "abandoned" the Muslims to their fate. Therefore, "Muslims should stand on their own feet, rather than look to the State for help'', he argues.
This policy has been an unambiguous success in leveraging the Majlis today to its position of being practically the "sole spokesman" of the Muslims in Hyderabad and its environs.
Voting figures show this clearly. From 58,000 votes in the 1962 Lok Sabha elections for the Hyderabad seat, Majlis votes rose to 1,12,000 in 1980. The clear articulation of this "stand on one's feet" policy in education and `protection' during riots doubled its vote-share by 1984. Salahuddin Owaisi won the seat for the first time, polling 2.22 lakh votes. This vote-share doubled in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections to over four lakhs.
The Majlis has since continued its hold on the Hyderabad seat winning about five-and-a-half lakh votes each time.
Despite remarkable economic prosperity and negligible communal violence in the past decade, the hold of the Majlis on the Muslims of Hyderabad remains, despite minor dents. And despite widespread allegations of Majlis leaders having "made money", most ordinary Muslims continue to support them because, as one bank executive put it "they represent our issues clearly and unambiguously''. An old Historian Bakhtiyar khan says the Owaisi family was a rich family even before entering Politics and he says he had seen the late Majlis leader Abdul Wahed Owaisi in an American Buick car at a time when rarely cars were seen on Hyderabad Roads and the family had strong relations with the ersthwhile Nizams of Hyderabad and the Paighs even now the family is considered to be one of the richest familes in Hyderabad.
A university teacher says that the Majlis helped Muslims live with dignity and security at a time when they were under attack and even took the fear out of them after the Police action and adds that he has seen Majlis leaders in the front at times confronting with the Police and the Govt.
Asaduddin Owaisi, the articulate UK educated barrister son of Salahuddin Owaisi and Former leader of the Majlis' Legislature party and now an MP himself who has travelled across the globe meeting world leaders and organizatons and even in war zones compares the Majlis to the Black Power movement of America.
The Majlis that emerged after 1957 is a completely different entity from its pre-independence edition, he says adding that comparisons with that bloody past are "misleading and mischievous". "That Majlis was fighting for state power, while we have no such ambitions or illusions".
He stoutly defends the need for "an independent political voice" for the minorities, which is willing to defend them and project their issues "firmly".
"How can an independent articulation of minority interests and aspirations be termed communal," he asks and contests any definition of democracy which questions the loyalty of minorities if they assert their independent political identity. "We are a threat not only to the BJP and Hindu communalism, but also to Muslim extremism," Asaduddin claims. "By providing a legitimate political vent for Muslims to voice their aspirations and fears, we are preventing the rise of political extremism and religious obscurantism when the community is under unprecedented attack from Hindu communalists and the state''. He can be seen in his speeches speaking against terrorism in the Country and says if the time arises Majlis will stand side by side in defending the Nation.
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