We are the ultimate kiss up – kick down people. What it means is that we do our best to please whom we deem superior and inflict on whom we deem lesser. I guess the class system instilled into us by the Mughal and British rule combined with our own caste system created a perfect storm. This forces us to misbehave with anyone who is remotely different from us.
I sat on a lunch table in Thane where a man who has a PhD proclaimed all north Indians are bastards. He of course is a Marathi. He said that in front of a person who was from the north. That there no fisticuffs or curses exchanged clearly indicated the “non-bastard” like behavior of the north Indian – a point totally lost on Dr. Marathi. I was also in a gathering at a work place in West Bengal where in presence of a person from UP, this Bengali lady (I use the term because I have to) proclaimed that everyone from UP and Bihar are idiots. The man from UP had a degree from one of the original IITs and a degree from an established American University. But that did not deter this Bengali lady who clearly was an intellectual inferior to make her proclamation. People in UP have been known to refer to everyone from south of the Vindhyas as a “Madarasi”. They mock the heavily accented Hindi of South Indians ignoring the fact that their own knowledge of Tamil or Telugu is less than zero. Indians in the south repay this favor in kind to anyone from the north visiting Chennai or Madurai or any of the great tourist or holy destinations.
The aforementioned examples were made to highlight the ugly Indian behavior but all the name calling and put-downs are nothing compared to violent behavior against people from the great Indian North East. In the current economic climate in India it is impossible to hope to stay in your own home state. You go where the opportunities are. We all do it and should expect others to do the same. India belongs to all of us – every inch of it. We should feel safe and protected by the system no matter who we are and where we are. Classifying Indians as Chinkis (“Oriental looking easterners”), “bhaiyyas”, Gujjus, “Mallus”, “Gultis”, “Madrasis” etc. betrays our own insecurities. This behavior is a detriment to the unity of the nation. Our PM goes to the UN and talks about the Hindu ethos and the concept of “Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam” and we can’t follow his advice at home? Indians who go to the west and complain about racism at the drop of the hat continue to misbehave grossly at home. One would think that serving as slaves to the British and paying Jaziya to the Muslims would give us a better understanding of basic human rights. We have learned nothing from the history and that is why we continue to be such kiss up – kick down people.
Xenophobia, the fear of the unknown and skepticism towards the different are part of human behavior. It is in all of us to do what I have talked about so far. We are all capable of racism and casteism. The tribal mentality is part of our genome. However if we really want to be different from the primitive and the animal then we have to teach ourselves to do what is right. What is more important is that we teach our children that such behavior has no place in India. If we want to become a great nation and take our rightful place in the world then we must shun this divisive behavior. Knowing the first name should be enough. Insistence on the last name / surname should be avoided at all cost. India is our tribe. We are Indians first and everything else much much later.
I hope that the Home Ministry would initiate an ad campaign highlighting and talking about the great North East and the problems facing them. We all should know exactly what is going on in those states. More knowledge, increased familiarity will definitely solve a lot of these problems. The criminals who hurt our fellow NE Indians need to be punished to the full extent of the law. But the real solution lies with us. We need to believe in the concept of “Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam” rather than using it as a catch phrase to earn applause in the west.
I have not seen Haidar. I do not plan to see Haidar. Ever! Does that deny me the right to talk about the movie? I am sure you can decide that for yourself.
Moviemakers in general are leftist liberals and anti-establishment (as long as the establishment is conservative). You have leftist luminaries like Vishal Bharadwaj, Anurag Kashyap, Rajkumar Santoshi, Gulzar et. al. from India. There are a whole bunch of them in Hollywood with the most rabid of them all, Oliver Stone leading the pack. The ones in Europe are using their bully pulpits to rail against Israel. So when you hear that a movie is political in nature or the background is that of some kind of political conflict, you can bet your last Rupee that it will be of extreme left in nature. Of course you have directors like Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Sidney Lumet, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Martin Scorsese, who have also broached the topic of social injustice albeit in really sensitive and balanced ways; ways that force you to contemplate and not go on the defensive. But that is not the style practiced by most movie makers, especially Indian moviemakers who are about as subtle as the Kolhapuri or Kathiawadi curries.
Bharadwaj clearly has some talent. He has made some real clunkers but also good ones like Maqbool and Omkara (adaptations of Macbeth and Othello). His latest is an adaptation of Hamlet. Shashi Kapoor adapted Mahabharat in a way that did not ruffle any feathers. Kalyug was a fine and timely adaptation of a religious book. Bharadwaj himself adapted two of the Bard’s works without causing any controversies. Had he adapted Hamlet in the Indian corporate world electoral politics or almost any other social background, I am sure that the movie would have been a fine one like the other two. But the fact that he chose the Kashmiri terrorism at its worst as his palate with Basharat Peer as a co-author betrays his insidious leftist agenda. That the movie is released in the wake of the floods in Jammu and Kashmir where the death toll would have skyrocketed without the Indian Army’s efforts makes the movie downright despicable.
The real answer to such movies is yet another movie where the truth is spoken from all points of view. The plights of J&K Hindus who are refugees in their own country have not been portrayed in any movies. Bravery of our soldiers is either not shown at all or the portrayal becomes a mockery with singing and dancing. In the late 1990’s my wife had met Brigadier Chandpuri at the house of a common friend. The man was an extremely unassuming sort. However, he was portrayed in Border by a hysterical Sunny Deol. Add some song and dance and you have the perfect caricature of a brave son of Mother India. We have a long history of bravery in our country going back centuries. I will give you an example on just one soldier:
The first time the IMSF would see action would be a hazardous operation to blow up the Jaffna jetty. This was a crucial link to the LTTE’s suicide boats that was threatening the IPKF’s naval supply ships as well as the Sri Lankan navy. India’s naval operations decided to use the first batch of the IMSF to put together a team that would take out the jetty.
Naturally, the man they chose to lead the operation was Lt Arvind Singh. In the late hours of a summer night, Singh and his men slipped off an Indian naval ship and began to swim towards their objective a good 10-12 km away. Carrying their weapons and demolitions, the team slipped into the Jaffna harbour and laid their charges. As soon as the jetty blew up, the LTTE immediately detected the IMSF team and began to harass them with withering fire. Singh and his men returned the fire and began their long swim back to their ship. They returned without any casualties and, a year later, Singh would walk up the steps of Rashtrapati Bhawan to receive his Maha Vir Chakra.
Can the Indian moviemakers make movies on men like Arvind Singh or the Kargil operation or Battle of Longewal without making a mockery of these brave souls? No they cannot!! All they can do is spew their venom and spit in the eyes of the Hindu nationalists. These bastards need to pull out their heads from the mud and take in the smell of the burning flesh coming from various Muslim countries including the one next door that they so love.
So what do we do about it? Some people are asking for a ban on the movie. That is not an option. India is a free democracy with right of freedom of speech to all. If JNU leftists want to portray Hindus as cannibals waiting to feast of the flesh of Muslim babies then it is their right. But the Hindus are not without a weapon in the matter. It is vote and money. You vote against anti-national leftists and boycott books, movies and any creative outlets of the leftists or by the leftists. If you boycott Haidar and threaten to boycott anything made by UTV then you will see an immediate change in their attitude. Money talks and leftism walks. Lack of success and eventually funding will shut Bharadwaj and his ilk.
I encourage you to read our post: http://thenethindu.blogspot.com/2011/05/brave-indian-soldiers-cowardly.html
