M A I N   N E W S

Special to the tribune
The Bhagat Singh mystique
Bhagat Singh was not trying to become a hero; he was just doing what he thought could bring about a change in the country. We made a hero out of him because he is our need today
Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Director of Rang De Basanti

What kind of conversation would I have with Bhagat Singh, if we met in a coffee shop? What kind of a person would he be if I strip him of the martyr’s halo around him?

I would be talking to a smart kid, who knew how to use the mass media of his times intelligently. Bhagat Singh was writing for the newspapers, using folk theatre, he was a thinker, philosopher, visionary and was concerned about humanity. If he were living in these times, I’m sure he would be making movies to propagate his ideas. He knew the power of poetry and books, tools of communication in the 1920s, and used them shrewdly.

In my conversation with him, I asked why would a person used to the ‘power of the pen’ take to guns? And he replied, he did not use the bomb, he used the blast to get heard. He was not against the ‘goras’ (white men), it was their exploitation that he opposed. He wanted the ‘thought’ to change. Would he have approved of killing in the film? I debated over it. Would he kill his own father, if he came to know how inhuman and corrupt he was? Yes, he would. And, he would own it up too.

We Indians want things to change by mere pointing fingers. But my whole youth passed and nothing changed. Nothing is changing for the youth today. The system is corrupt and rotten. And it does not change by mere criticism. Nothing really changes unless we change. Nothing was changing for them too; for Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan and others. So, they became agents of change.

Bhagat Singh was not trying to become a hero; he was just doing what he thought could bring about a change in the country. We made a hero out of him because he is our need today. Unfortunately, we don’t produce heroes these days. But we need them more now to keep hope alive. We are not fighting a common enemy any longer. So, we are today our own worst enemies. Anyone who can conquer a mind-set is a hero today. It is an intellectual war and has to be conquered at the personal level for a global appeal.
— As told to Vandana Shukla