|
|
|
|
|
Politics
over disaster Agricultural
debt |
|
|
Moon
gets super status
The dark
days of Emergency
Between
East and West
Hundred
years and superstars of Hindi cinema
|
|
Agricultural debt
It
will be amazing if the Punjab Government actually brings in an effective law to check private money lending to farmers — as it has indicated — and also implements it. The reason being it has all along opposed direct payment by procurement agencies to farmers for their produce, and favoured payments through agents, who charge a 2.5 per cent commission. This single tool allows the agents to have a hold over virtually the entire existence of a small farmer. The agent controls the farmer’s income and, therefore, also forces him to buy all agricultural inputs from him, and finally offers loans at high rates against the next crop, binding the farmer in a perpetual cycle of trading and loans. As the loans exist outside any formal structure, it amounts to a huge cache of unaccounted-for money and income. Commission agents — or arhtiyas, as they are called — are an anachronism, and play no role in a grain market that the buyer or the farmer cannot manage on their own. However, their vested interest — owing to the nearly Rs 1,000 crore that goes to them annually in Punjab — has worked as a lobby to stall all agricultural marketing reforms, including foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail. Despite repeated assurances of amendments in the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act — which forces sale of farm produce only through mandis, unless it is to the end-consumer — the government is yet to move in that direction. Assurances given to the High Court regarding direct payment to farmers have also not been implemented practically. The huge liquid assets available with the arhtiyas make them a powerful political influence. Looking to diversify in agriculture, bring in agro-industry and export high-value farm produce, Punjab has to amend the restrictive marketing Act. Large-scale buyers that could come in with FDI would want to deal directly with farmers, and also help them grow the varieties required by international markets. Fair and transparent trading practices are now also a requirement because of the competition arising from other states growing grains in a big way. For all this to happen, what is required is political will.
|
|
|
Moon gets super status
The
biggest and brightest full moon of the year illuminated the polluted sky through the weekend. Our celestial neighbour, when it came closer than usual to the earth, earned a very competitive title of supremacy — the super moon. The super moon appeared almost 13 per cent larger and 30 per cent brighter than its normal self — not in comparison to other celestial bodies. An outcome of a cosmic quirk, on Saturday and Sunday the moon orbited within about 222,000 miles (357,000 kilometres) of the planet earth, dazzling the inhabitants of this planet with its extra size and brightness which did not cost the human eye an extra dime. A difference of about 50,000 kilometres in the oval orbit of the moon causes perigee, the stage when the moon comes closest to the earth once a year and is farthest from the earth. It is then called apogee. Though in both cases it shines the same across the universe. To the dazzled humans, scientists suggest that the extra glowing disc is actually an optical illusion. Even if this is an illusion, it is a beautiful one at that, and this year it came closer than it has been in a little while. The moon is actually 30 times the diameter of the earth away from us humans in its average position. When it swings a little bit closer to the earth, the distance varies. Which still is a huge distance, almost unfathomable for ordinary humans. In fact, it is the sun that can be blamed for all this game of coming closer or going away of the moon from the earth. The strength of the sun's gravity pulls both the moon and the earth towards it slightly, making the moon dip closer to our planet. While scientists must be gazing the super moon’s brilliance from close quarters, poets using metaphor of the moon would wonder if their moon face would become super when seen closely. Or, would it just be more intimate for titles!
|
|
|
I can live for two months on a good compliment. — Mark Twain
|
The dark days of Emergency INDIA should never forget certain days in its history. One of them is June 25, 1975, when the Emergency was imposed late at night. Lights of personal freedom were switched off and the nation was left to grope in the darkness of dictatorship. The constitution was suspended, the Press gagged and liberty stamped out. The government became an illegal authority to harass, harm, detain and whatever went with it to silence critics. All this happened because the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was unseated from Parliament for a poll offence and disqualified for five years. She could have appealed against what is popularly known as the Allahabad High Court judgment to the Supreme Court. But she preferred to change the system itself and appropriated power to introduce her personal rule. A democratic country embracing dictatorship came as a shock to the liberal world. For the people in India, it was unbelievable after having enjoyed a constitutional polity for almost three decades. One remark by a close associate of Mrs Gandhi was poignant: "I can take care of enemies but what do I tell our friends?" Mrs Gandhi had no explanation to offer except to rule more ruthlessly through her son Sanjay Gandhi, who had become an extra-constitutional authority. The Emergency lasted nearly two years. Fortunately, elections threw out the mother and the son lock, stock and barrel for democracy to return. The atrocities which the two committed were shameful. One glaring thing was to remove thousands of people forcibly from their homes and putting them in the wilderness many miles away. This became a precedent for some extremist organisations like the Shiv Sena which some years later picked up Bangladeshis, the people they didn't like, to push them forcibly to the Bangladesh border. In fact, Mrs Gandhi set many pernicious precedents such as making the civil service servile and the police obedient to the rulers' whims. Today many chief ministers, not necessarily those of the Congress party, use civil servants and the police as part of their retinue to punish critics — just as she did. The Emergency also saw how pliable the mighty judiciary had become. Four out of five Supreme Court judges, including the so-called liberal, P.N. Bhagwati, justified the imposition of the Emergency. The only one who did not toe the line was Justice H.R. Khanna. He was superseded when Mrs Gandhi appointed the Chief Justice of India. If the judiciary still looks battered, it is because it has not yet recovered from the blows it received during those dark days. Mrs Gandhi's father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was entirely different. He opted for the democratic republic after Independence and saw to its growth. Take the example of the judiciary. Once he thought of superseding Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan because of his "views". Nehru had to give in when he found the entire Supreme Court Bench proposing to resign if there was supersession. Indeed, Mahajan was appointed the Chief Justice of India. The most reprehensible thing was the forced family planning. At the instance of Sanjay Gandhi, Mrs Gandhi introduced forced sterilisation. Having a fewer number of children was not something condemnable. But when it came to implementation, the tactics used were no different from those of Stalin or Mao Zedong. Many above the age of 65 were sterilised during the Emergency and even boys who had hardly entered puberty became victims. A policeman could even enter into your sleeping room to check whether family planning instructions had been followed. Detention without trial was the colonial legacy. Mrs Gandhi imprisoned more than 100,000 people without trial. The tragedy today is that the Home Ministry is copying those very methods. The ministry is restricting the democratic space in the name of curbing terrorism. The Unlawful Activities Act can be used to detain people without trial in an open court of law. Such cases have to be okayed by the government-appointed advisory committee and the trial had to be held within the jail itself. Dr Vinayak Sen, the famous doctor-activist, was first detained under this Act. Subsequently, the BJP-ruled Jharkhand government charged him with sedition for having "contacts" with the Maoists. I often wonder why we haven't learnt a lesson from the emergency and why the rulers of different political parties pursue more or less the same path that Mrs Gandhi had taken to derail democracy. I believe the reason is that nobody, found guilty of committing excesses was punished. It is comical that some of those found guilty are today at the helm of affairs in the Central government. The failings of Mrs Gandhi's successor government of the Janata Party brought her back to power in less than two years. As the Prime Minister, she not only shelved cases requiring punishment but also appointed the same tainted officers to ensure that the spirit of the Emergency stayed even if it had not been imposed. The loss of democracy has been more or less forgotten. The youth does not know what the country went through. The elders who recall the period sound too wishy-washy. It was a bad dream which was meant to be forgotten. But when today the steps taken during the Emergency have been adopted in the name of security and peace, there seems little difference between now and then. There has to be accountability without which none in power will be afraid of using authority that he or she likes. The Lokpal Bill, under discussion, is necessary to find out who are guilty and how they can be punished. The government's attitude is uncompromising. If the Lokpal cannot look into the charges against the Prime Minister, the judiciary, or the MPs indulging in corruption even on the floor of the house, what is the use of having such an institution? The control by the government of the CBI makes any action by the agency meaningless. It looks as if we are in for anxious days. Thank God, another emergency cannot be imposed because the very measure requires a two-thirds majority in Parliament and a similar strength in state
assemblies.
|
||||||||
Between East and West Many
years ago I approached the office of a senior colleague with a proposal for starting a course in Commonwealth literature. There was no way I could know that he was going to reject it outright. With one sweep of his hand, he flicked the proposal rudely back at me saying, “Let’s stick to the established Western literary tradition.” I could see we were still tied to the English canon; the foetal cord was intact and we would have to suffer the overdose of English literature. William Shakespeare was here to stay along with the Classists and the Victorians. The objection to my proposal was coeval with Cambridge professor F. R. Leavis who writes in The Great Tradition: “The great English novelists are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad… and they are the best.” As if Third World literature was of no consequence. The predominance of the canon, therefore, came under some risk of being displaced by my proposal. My interest in dissident movements that have a clear origin in the decanonisation of Western texts began with this confrontation. I might have not thought of the relationship of literature with acts of resistance. I began to see how easy it is to take up canonical texts and analyse them in conventional terms while the choice of the non-canonical burdens the critic to not only justify what he says on the text, but also to establish its significance. Cultural imperialism has always been fundamental to international politics reflecting the existing systems of value, and the ways the West looks for power structures they can promote; if they do not find one, they create one. Their hegemonic discourse had to be deconstructed within the academia as part of a revisionist project especially in the post- nationalism era. The question before many of us was to see if only the study of Hemingway, Nabokov, Rabelais or Cervantes could explore how literary adventures structure our experience of the world. It was clear that an inquiry into global perspectives necessitated the reading of Rushdie, Marquez, Castellanos, Mahfouz or Pamukh among many others outside the canon. The need of the hour was to revitalise and restore academic freedom and activism, opening our ears to encounter the unforeseen, the unexpected and the impossible. Let us for a moment look at the Victorian travelogue that conceived of the East as “a grand harem” with endless possibilities for pleasure and perversion, thereby suggesting its “moral inferiority” and “dog-headedness”. Owing to this feature, the East was ready for colonisation. Various anthropological texts became the agents of the “superior” civilisation imposing its own self-perpetuating literary culture through poems like “The Daffodils” and “Ode to the West Wind”. To take another example, the East for Mark Antony stood for gratification of the senses seen in the image of Cleopatra, whereas Rome stood for the edifice of trust and respectability. The natives, therefore, were regarded slothful and sensual. I could see the English teacher complicit in the strategies of cultural imperialism. Waging a continuous fight against such dominance became the tenor of English departments all over the world. The deposing of all that our colonised ancestors admired in the poems of Keats and Wordsworth was around the corner. My senior colleague had to go and so did the overemphasis on the Union Jack. Students, research scholars and teachers en masse switched loyalties to “Third World Literatures”, much to the mortification of the traditionalists who belittle the “new-fangled” interest, terming it a bandwagon or a fiefdom. Victims of the overriding Western ideology, they are accountable for pushing the non-canonical into oblivion for so many years, a sign of imperial networking in education and culture. Is it not true that Shakespeare’s world-wide position as a genius was Britain’s attempt to bestow cultural leadership on her empire? If he had died at birth they would have found someone else and Will would have been no great
shakes.
|
||||||||
Hundred years and superstars of Hindi cinema In
today's no-time-for-complexities era, when audiences want no more from their films than "entertainment, entertainment, entertainment" (to quote from “The Dirty Picture”), the only measure of success is the film hitting a Rs 100- crore benchmark over the opening weekend. Any star—male or females are still seen as second-class citizens in Bollywood. Those who can manage that magical figure come into the superstar bracket, and the latest to enter this hallowed circle is Ranbir Kapoor, with "Barfi" and "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani" hitting that elusive number. When this kind of success is matched with acting ability it is sone pe suhaga, an added advantage. After his unfortunate debut "Saawariya", Ranbir Kapoor has shown an unerring ability to pick films that gave him a chance to perform a variety of roles. He didn't seem to care for success, but once he earned himself a young fan-following, success of the 100-crore variety followed him effortlessly. Many stars manage hits, many more are media darlings, but there is that extra something that makes a superstar, and Ranbir has that 'It' factor, which, in his case is talent and insouciance. But it's not easy to figure out what exactly it is that makes him bigger and better than his contemporaries. Hrithik Roshan and John Abraham are better looking, Imraan Khan and Emran Hashmi are also popular, but Ranbir Kapoor makes a superstar. Birth of the superstar Films and film stars have always been adored and worshipped in our cinema-crazy country, but the term superstar was coined for Rajesh Khanna. There were stars before him, notably the triumvirate of Dillp Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand, but what happened to him was not ordinary stardom, he triggered fandom on a loony scale…ordinary Jatin from a downmarket locality of Mumbai, the man so many producers turned down saying he looked like a Gurkha; a short, pimply guy who must have never seen the inside of a gym. He didn't need to take his shirt off or dance like a gypsy to get audiences to love him; in any case, he had the kind of body that needed to be covered up with bell bottoms and buttoned to the neck guru kurtas. All he needed to build up that massive fan base was his crinkly-eyed smile, do his one hand-waving dance step, and sing those RD Burman compositions in Kishore Kumar's voice. He had women flinging themselves in front of his car (an Impala, it was reported then) and men copy his somewhat weird hairstyle. It also helped that so many of the roles he did, had him play a really nice, gallant guy and in "Anand," "Safar" and "Andaz" he also died tragically young. His rise also coincided with a boom in film magazines- fanzines as they were called. Earlier, there were major stars adored by film-loving millions, but their lives (and loves) were not up there for public consumption. The media of that period had a lot to do in putting Rajesh Khanna on to a pedestal, also because his blinding charisma was unprecedented. Since then, the media has gone nuts over Bollywood, which is proved by the mild to severe hysteria when a star has a birthday, wedding or, sadly, funeral. Before the Rajesh Khanna age film coverage in the mainstream media was minimal, so the fanzines fuelled star worship. His sudden wedding to the young and gorgeous Dimple was the stuff of legends. Because he wasn't tall, strapping and muscular, obviously the films made for him were romantic dramas-"Aradhana", "Kati Patang", "Amar Prem", "Dushman"-of marvellous stories, that era ended with him. It didn't last too long, but while it did, the Rajesh Khanna craze was unprecedented. Then, the Amitabh Bachchan juggernaut came and flattened everything in its path. The one and only If current standards of success and devoted fan following are applied, then Kundal Lal Saigal was probably the first superstar of Hindi cinema-the only male singing star. Now all it takes to get into the movies is a family connection, but in the early days, an interesting back story helped in the building up of a legend. A railway timekeeper and typewriter salesman, and a very ordinary looker became a star on the strength of his singing. Indian cinema had discovered the magic of sound only in 1931, and so films with many songs were the way to go. How many stars could sing their own songs, and how many as well as KL Saigal could. In his time, costume dramas were still popular and films about saint, kings and singers gave him the opportunity to sing. So it was inevitable that his first hit in 1933, be "Puran Bhagat", followed by "Yahudi Ki Ladki", "Chandidas," "Street Singer", "Bhakt Surdas", "Tansen," "Shahjehan" and, of course, the classic "Devdas." After Saigal, no other singer reached those heights of stardom. Three legends If the Golden Era of Hindi cinema is the fifties, then the three who reigned then were Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand. It was possible then, for three great stars to work without any outward signs of rivalry, undercutting or jealousy. They may not have been great friends, but were always cordial and gracious in public. As the son of the legendary Prithviraj Kapoor, Raj Kapoor had the advantage of pedigree, though not an easy entry into cinema, as his father refused to launch him. Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand were outsiders, with middle class backgrounds and a passion for the movies. None of them was heart-breakingly handsome, but had dazzling charm, intelligence and screen presence that reached out of the screen and grabbed an adoring audience. All three made a place for themselves—Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand also got into filmmaking and established their own banners, RK and Navketan. Whenever a tragic hero was needed, Dilip Kumar was the man to cast, Raj Kapoor played the Chaplinesque, common man, and Dev Anand the flamboyant romantic hero. Such was their influence that young men copied their hairstyles, their clothes and their manner of speech. No film star before these three had so much influence, because audiences almost identified with the characters they played. Their stories of love, family, friendship, social awakening, betrayal, disappointment and tragedy could have been the story of any man of the post-Independence era, making allowances, of course, for cinematic exaggeration. It was Shammi Kapoor 'Yahoo' that changed the rules once again. The dancing rebel When the rebel star burst on to the scene, he broke the mould of the upright, soft-spoken gentlemanly hero. The dancing, leaping, whooping, teasing, romantic hero that Shammi Kapoor portrayed, changed the idea of romance forever. His 'yahoo!' exuberance and mischief made romance look like fun and carried away the suffering, brooding Dilip Kumar style. Hindi cinema had done away with the intense post-Independence period. Modernisation was knocking, urban centres were booming and the young generation of the sixties was looking for a change of pace. The light musical romance that had come to be associated with Nasir Hussain, found the perfect face in the form of the dashingly handsome Shammi Kapoor. His strapping frame was made for exuding energy. When he danced, every limb, every muscle danced along with his light, seductive eyes. Films like "Dil Deke Dekho", "Tumsa Nahin Dekha," "Kashmir Ki Kali", made a canny PR man come up with the label 'Rebel Star' and it stuck. A long as he played leading man, Shammi Kapoor never stopped dancing and hell-raising. The man who would B If a star just came in and redefined the term Stardom, and continues to do so, it was Amitabh Bachchan. He has completed 44 years in films — having started his charmed career in 1969 with K.A.Abbas's "Saat Hindustani." And it has been a career of immense talent, remarkable risks, thrilling highs and enviable longevity at the top. No star has held on to his superstar position for so many years, and he continues to play lead roles in films that are specially written for him. His energy, discipline, modesty and punctuality are legendary. He has worked with every new generation of filmmaker from the seventies onwards, and it is the dream of every director to work with him. The man with the mesmerizing voice has played a mind-boggling array of roles, from God to gangster, chef to cop, revolutionary to rebel… to a 13-year-old child in "Paa." He is an inspiration for every actor and filmmaker, and has been the subject of innumerable books and academic theses, yet remains down to earth and approachable. With a success record so consistent, over a period of time Amitabh Bachchan has come to symbolise the Indian film industry to viewers in the country and abroad. A name that is recognized and admired the world over, even where Hindi films are not regularly released. He vociferously opposes the use of the word Bollywood to describe Indian films, but has become the face of Bollywood globally. But when he hit big success after a row of flops, with "Zanjeer," he became the ‘Angry Young Man’ of that generation. And in the seventies, India had a lot to be angry about — the rise of organised crime, corruption and the Emergency. With films like "Trishul", "Deewar," "Laawaris," "Khoon Pasina," he ushered in the era of action films, and swept aside everything that stood for the past. And the King Khans Like the triumvirate of the fifties, the current Bollywood Badshahs are Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan. Even with Ranbir Kapoor shaking their throne, they are still the 100-crore superstars, with a global following and enviable six-pack abs well into their late forties. It took a bit of trial and error on the part of all three to create the image that would last-all started with romantic films, did a bit of action and now have a distinct style. Shah Rukh Khan is the romantic hero, Aamir Khan is the idealist and Salman Khan the chest-baring, shirt-ripping mass entertainer. When a list of the top grosser of all time is complied, the films of these three will figure in the list - "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge," "Three Idiots," "Dabangg" are representative of the cinema each of them stands for, and will continue to do so, now that their superstardom is unshakeable. — The writer heads the Theatre and Film department of the NCPA, Mumbai, and has authored "The Prithviwallahs" (co-authored with Shashi Kapoor), and biographies of Shah Rukh Khan and Shammi Kapoor
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
