MOVIES, ORWELL, AND MAHATMAS

Lage Raho Munnabhai is proof of the fact that Bollywood directors can make movies with the typical Hindi storylines and far fetched visuals and themes, which are still intelligent and have important messages in them. Munnabhai may be the most successful such venture in many years.

I truly enjoyed the movie. The comedy is well-crafted, and never cheap. Performances are all respectable. Arshad Warsi and Sanjay Dutt have both done a good job. Dilip Prabhavalkar is very believable as Gandhi.
If movies like Munnabhai bring about a resurgence of interest in many positive Gandhian values, if not the values themselves, we will have a new phenomenon. This paradigm seems to be recently emerging in Bollywood, but I have seldom seen genuine moral values and good philosophy included in a typical Hindu movie, that will first make the audience laugh, but then also scratch their heads. Munnabhai seems to be a good augury for such future attempts. It strikes a remarkable balance between vacuous masala movies and movies that have genuine messages in them. But the great thing about the movie also is that it does not preach this philosophy, but lets it emerge as a part of the situation and the comedy.

Many of Gandhi's ideals and ideas were deep and profound. Whether they would work in each and every situation is a different question, but I have no doubt that they were largely responsible (along with other important factors) for getting us independence. I also always think that non-violence as a general framework is the best possible one for world peace and progress. For me, Gandhi's greatest achievement probably was in realising that armed aggression would not work in the India of those times. That also shows what an insightful politician the man was.

It was a coincidence that I happened to come across George Orwell's very readable essay on Gandhi. Orwell wrote it in 1949, and almost all of it still is valid. What is nice about the essay is that Orwell seems to realise and appreciate Gandhi's essential qualities even though he inherently did not like Gandhi too much. Orwell's honesty is to be appreciated, and the essay is a fine example of the word 'objective'. He does raise questions about Gandhi's philosophy, and does not fail to criticise it, rightly in my opinion. When Gandhi was asked what the Jews of Hitler's Third Reich should have done, Gandhi's reply was that they should have committed mass suicide to alert the world to their fate. The implicit assumption in making this statement is one gleaned from hindsight- that they all were murdered anyway. Any sane person listening to this opinion could be forgiven for thinking it to be the rant of a madman. But Orwell's contention is not that this was correct, but that it was honest. Gandhi's ideals as a universal framework may not be accepted by all, but there is no doubt about the fact that he really stuck with truth as much as anyone else.

I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that it takes great courage to speak the truth, to restrain oneself rather than express your anger, to exercise so much tolerance that your adversary's reserves of anger are exhausted. But the logical question is, are these actions an end in themselves, or should they achieve some end? The problem that Gandhi's critics have pointed out, is that there is no utility of these actions if they do not achieve the short term benefit that is expected, and he seemed to think of them as being ends in themselves. In case of India, these actions were aimed at an immense and long term objective, to persuade the British to let go of their crown jewel, and they succeeded spectacularly. But they may be mere ideals when a quick result is desired, with no forbearance for sacrifice and gradual change. But I think that is precisely the quality in these actions that makes them sane ones for an ultimate plan of peace for the world. World peace is probably the longest term ideal that we can aspire to. If non-violence is the ideal philosophy for this ideal aim, then Gandhi saw further and deeper into the future of humanity than anyone else.

I also find it remarkable that although Gandhi believed in god, his philosophy is refreshingly, at least to a large extent, free of religious underpinnings. That makes his philosophy more universal than any kind of religious parable could become. The other truly commendable thing is that even the British who were not his friends, never questioned his integrity and other positive values, which easily may have been brought under suspicion. As Orwell says, nobody accused him of being ambitious in a vulgar way, or being driven by fear or malice, or being corrupt. The fact that the British could not accuse him of such actions and qualities even when they could have done it with proper propaganda, definitely says something about his inner self.

About Gandhi's adherence to the ascetic ideas of non-attachment, Orwell has a memorable paragraph:

"Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for “non-attachment” is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. But it is not necessary here to argue whether the other-worldly or the humanistic ideal is “higher”. The point is that they are incompatible. One must choose between God and Man, and all “radicals” and “progressives”, from the mildest Liberal to the most extreme Anarchist, have in effect chosen Man."

As for whether he was a great man or not, I agree with Orwell that the very fact that his role in India's independence movement is still fiercely debated, indicates his stature. His influence is undeniable. Social activist Martin Luther King and scientist Linus Pauling are two emblematic and diverse symbols of the purview of his ideas. Non-violence was not an option for the British whose country was being ravaged by The Blitz in World War 2. But non-violence may be the only long-term option for a world, whose character will be ravaged by untold miseries yet to descend upon it.

In any case, the fact that a movie named Lage Raho Munnabhai led me to this digression on non-violence and values, means that you should watch the movie whenever you get a chance.