Why are we afraid of the idealism and bravery of Ae Watan, Mere Watan?
As the general elections near, the pattern of 2019 is being repeated, this time on a larger scale: a spate of crude political films aimed directly at mobilising the majoritarian vote during the campaign have been released by Bollywood, with more to come in the weeks ahead.
We have already had Article 370, Bastar, and soon to come JNU and even Godhra. Not all of them have been or will be commercially successful, but that such films are even being made now tells us something about the world of Hindi cinema at least. They play their part in keeping the base of bigotry energised and strengthening old prejudices. Some even receive official endorsement, as Article 370 did from the Prime Minister no less.
In the midst of such ugly cinema, it is refreshing to see idealism, camaraderie and valour as portrayed in Ae Watan, Mere Watan (on Amazon Prime), inspired by the story of 22-year-old Usha Mehta and her friends who ran an underground radio in Bombay in 1942 during the Quit India movement.
This film should be inspiring us in these times as we seek to halt the march of hate.
The story is of what came to be known as ‘Congress Radio’ that was illegally operated by a small group of young friends, who were later joined by Ram Manohar Lohia of the Congress Socialist Party, the one national leader, who briefly escaped arrest during the Quit India Movement. This has long been part of folklore, but surprisingly it has never been brought to the screen, though this tale of bravery among youth for a higher cause was waiting to be cinematised.
The screenplay operates in different circles and at different levels, speaking as much to that time as to the present.
At home, Usha, who comes from a middle/upper-middle family and barely out of her teens, is a studious college-goer prepared to immerse herself in the national movement. She struggles to align her political zeal with a deep love for her father who worships the British, and whose heart she must break with false promises of not being involved with the Congress Party movement. If there is a struggle at home, there is another struggle too as Usha breaks another heart: this time when she chooses celibacy in response to a call from Gandhi, leaving an adoring Kaushik feeling abandoned. Among Usha’s friends, after initial enthusiasm, some of them baulk at getting deeper when it comes to placing their freedom on the line. Then there is Fahad, who competes with Usha in his willingness to die for freedom, and who hero-worships Lohia and has no time for either Jinnah or the Muslim League. And, of course, Lohia is befriending and shepherding these young men and women, even responding to their Gandhian worries about the use of violence.
A story such as this, of multiple characters, multiple relationships and multiple tensions is yet direct in its portrayal of commitment and bravery. It is much more than a breadth of fresh air amidst the pollution of films like Kashmir Files, Kerala Story and Article 370.
The strange thing in the reception to the film is that the critics have by and large panned it, dissing the acting of Sara Ali Khan and among other things calling it “neither consistently riveting, nor memorably rousing”, or “school play with hammy script”. They have refused for the most part to see the message in the story or examine the film in counter-opposition to the hate-filled cinema that now peppers the screen.
It would be hard to claim that any Hindi political cinema has ever been cinematically brilliant. From Mother India to Do Bigha Zamin or the direct political cinema of the New Wave of the 1970s and 1980s, the strength of all of them was the themes that they dared grapple with and the messages that they sent out.
Is it fear or cynicism that now makes us look away, at the most, at the stream of bigotry that is flocking the screen, so very obviously aimed at voter mobilisation of a certain kind? And at the same time mock a fictional representation of a true-life story of idealism, courage and sacrifice Perhaps it is a bit of both. We, or those of us uncomfortable with the New India, do not realise that we have become afraid of thinking that a different and better world is possible. We are also cynical that nothing will change for a long while, so why think of tangling with what may not happen soon? It is not Ae Watan, Mere Watan that is on the line; it is we who are and do not see it.
(Disclosure: The author is a close friend of Kannan Iyer, the director of Ae Watan, Mere Watan)
C. Rammanohar Reddy is an economist who has been writing on economic policy since the late 1980s. He is the editor of The India Forum.
