Deconstructing the British stooge: Two sample songs.

In his rather infamous recent posts on popular social media, Retired Supreme Court Judge Markandey Katju has repeatedly called Rabindranath Tagore a 'British Stooge'. As a mark of true grit, he has stood by his opinion, despite opposition, despite debates, despite people pointing out obvious flaws in his views, and despite reason.

As a person who began to form his first thoughts in English, sadly remaining unaware of his 'mother tongue' (the term is arguable) for a long time, and having been recently inducted into the world of Bengali Literature, I felt like going beyond racial accusations on Facebook, to explore the original works of the author, to see how low this British Stooge had stooped in his anti-nation propaganda. 

Tagore's songs are published in a collection called 'Gitabitan'. The songs are categorized into Puja ("Devotion"), Swadesh ("The Motherland"), Prem ("Love"), Prakriti ("Nature") and such other categories. Often there is an overlap due to the double-meanings, but we shall avoid that. Swadesh comprises forty six songs, written about the motherland - songs in admiration of the country, some lamenting the fact that the nation is shackled and needs to be woken up, some propelling the countryman to arise and fight for the cause of his country's freedom! Two of the forty six songs are national anthems of India and Bangladesh. But Tagore was a British stooge, and Katju is an Honourable Judge. (I perhaps am a British stooge too, for so shamelessly borrowing Shakespeare's rhetoric). 

A stooge is defined as a subordinate used by another to do unpleasant routine work. (Source: Google). 

I do not wish to speak about the songs at length, since a blog post hardly does justice to recount how much unpleasant stooge work was done by Tagore! However, two songs are representative, of what Tagore wished to convey to his countrymen (on behalf of the British government, of course!) I shall attempt at translating them here. But I might be an utter failure. Partly because of my incompetence at translating the language, and partly because no language can be fully translated in order to do justice to it. 

Song One:

" Roilo bole rakhle kaare, hukum tomaar pholbey kawbey?

Tomaar taana-taani tikbey na bhai, rawbaar jeta shetaai rawbey.

Jaa-khushi tai korte paaro, Gaayer jorey raakho maaro - 

Jaanr gaaye shob byathaa baaje Tini ja shawn shetaai shobey.

Onek tomaar taka-kodi, onek dawra onek dori,

Onek Ashwo, Onek kori, Onek tomaar aache-bhobe.

Bhaabchho hobey tumi'i ja chaao, JagatTake tumi'i naachao,

Dekhbe hothat noyon khule hoyna jeta, shetao hobey."

Who did you enslave and keep, And when would your dominion bear fruit?

Your dragging and pulling won't succeed, What is to stay shall persevere.

Try as you might, Use brute force to keep and kill,

You wound the Creator, and whatever He endures will only stay.

You have the riches, and you have the rope,

You have horses and men, You have it all in your domain.

And so you fancy your rule shall prevail, and the world will dance to your tune,

You shall wake up suddenly to realize that the unimaginable has happened.

Song Two:

"Bidhir bandhon kaatbe tumi emon shoktimaan -

Tumi ki emni shoktimaan!

Aamader bhaanga-poda tomaar haate emon obhimaan -

Tomaader emni obhimaan.

Chirodin taanbey pichhe, chirodin rakhbe niche -

Eto bol nai re tomaar, shobe na shei taan.

Shashone jotoi ghero, aache bol durbolero,

Haw'o na jotoi bodo, achen Bhogobaan.

Aamder shokti mere toraao bachbi ne re, 

Bojha tor bhari holei dubbey torikhaan."

You try to severe Destiny's bond, Are you that mighty -

That mighty are you!

Our creation and destruction is in your hands, Such is your vanity -

Such is your fallacious vanity!

You shall drag us backwards, you shall subdue us forever, 

Your strength is not so great, your pull is not so strong.

No matter how much you enslave us, even the weak have strength in them,

No matter how high and mighty you are, there is the Almighty.

You shall not survive by trying to crush our strength,

Your vessel shall sink when your load can't be borne any more.

_____

The tunes in the songs have a folk flavour. Just to appeal to the masses for whom they were meant. I realized how difficult it is to translate, and how very impossible for me. And I did not wish to prove anything by translating a sample study of songs. But what irked me was the ignorance, the sheer ignorance of statements made. That from a former judge of the highest judicial body in the country. I wish judicial mind prevails over judges, and not judgemental, opinionated bigotry. Not to say in the least that I hope there are other stooges like Tagore, people who do the 'unpleasant, routine work' of spreading the dream of a truly independent India.

"We are in a cave of ignorance, bound by the shackles of selfishness and stupidity."

- Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Philosophy of India. 

P.S. I almost forgot to write about Tagore's novels, poems, dance-dramas and short stories, concerning the nation's freedom from the British rule, whose stooge he was. 

Aakrosh: To be or not to be

I had chanced upon the story of Aakrosh (1980, Dir: Govind Nihalani) in a book about Bollywood villains. Even as I read a two page discussion about the projection of social events in the late 70s, the story gripped me. Declaration of a bandh by some political party gave me the occasion to watch it today. I remain indebted to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for such endeavours in the name of revolution. 

Firstly, the Plot:

Aakrosh is about a tribal man, Bhiku Lahanya, (Om Puri) charged with the murder of his wife (Smita Patil). He refuses to speak to even his lawyer (Naseeruddin Shah) about the incident, but keeps staring. Shah is initially shown as the timid, wary lawyer, having lost all hope of his first case even surviving. His senior (Amrish Puri), public prosecutor Dushane, convinces Shah of the cast iron case, and Shah is unable to make any headway. The tribal family refuses to cooperate, and the locals force Shah to stop his inquiries. A man, claiming to be organizing the tribals to fight for their rights, observes on. Shah requests him to intercede on his behalf to the tribals. 

This organiser is the cause of much chagrin among the townsfolk playing bridge at the local club, barring Dushane (who hails from a tribal background). This includes the DSP, a doctor, a Corporator and his henchman, and a contractor. Shah perceives a threat to his life, and is appalled when others see it as paranoia. Nevertheless, he receives police protection.

Bhiku remains stoic as ever; in fact he hardly ever blinks, as he stares on at people giving evidence to corroborate the fact that he in fact murdered his wife whose body he would trade to pay off his debts. He reveals nothing to his lawyer Bhaskar Kulkarni (Shah) even as the latter tries to gather some evidence; any evidence would do.

Finally the organizer brings in the news to Bhaskar one night, telling him that Bhiku's wife had been raped and murdered by the Corporator, the henchman, the contractor and the doctor. They had done it to prove a point to the tribal who was proving to be a rebel. Bhiku had gone to save his wife, but had been unsuccessful, and roped in. There is no evidence. 

This organizer is taken care of by the culprits, and Bhaskar is on his own. He survives an attack on him, and is fighting tooth and nail when Bhiku's father dies, leaving behind a daughter and Bhiku's baby. The prayer for Bhiku being allowed to attend his father's cremation is granted by the Court.

Bhiku stares on at his sister and his baby during the cremation. A fellow tribal woman takes the baby from the sister's hands and little does anybody guess before Bhiku runs in and kills his sister with an axe. Before the guards can reach, the girl has been slain. Bhiku's cries are unstoppable. As the guards hold him back, Bhiku bursts out with the screech that has all the force of his silence over the months of sleepless nights in the jail. 

The last scene shows Bhaskar asking Dushane to help, which meets with Dushane's pragmatic reply that such things happen, and especially with women, more especially with tribal women. They are nothing but accidents in the eye of law, unless otherwise proved. "He did what he did, because otherwise there would be another rape, another murder, which would be hushed up as an accident. I would take up the second case for Bhiku too. It is possible that they kill me. Would you treat that as an accident too?" Dushane is forced to give in, and admits so. Bhaskar thanks him and leaves.

Samaapt.

Analysing the sub-plot:

Aakrosh brings to light a number of issues. The society, the law, the marginalized sections. People have drawn parallels from Russian movies I haven't seen. But the film does remind one of the dark realism in Rabindranath Tagore's Shasti (Punishment), where the wife is sent to the gallows because of her husband's evidence for a murder she hasn't committed. The wife in Tagore's story is so dumbstruck that she offers no defence; she has the look of hopelessness from human society in her eyes. 

The ending resounds the screech of the madman in Saadat Hasan Manto's Toba Tek Singh, when he is asked to shift to India after partition. The film is a depiction of Honore de Balzac about the law being like a spider's web through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught. To a young lawyer like your writer, it does pose questions he has faced and will continue to face: What is justice and who is it for? Does the law have to see more than a transparent truth? Do we step back in the face of threat? Is the law created by humans, humane? 

The proceedings in the court, and Bhiku's silent observations might have been inspired from Albert Camus' The Stranger, where the man accused of murder is held guilty based on evidence that he is heartless not to have cried at his mother's funeral. He silently wonders which crime he's being punished for. 

The organizer speaks of revolution, and how the social systems prejudge and prejudice, and how there ought to be a revolution. The uncooperative attitude of the tribals and the lack of faith in the system is similar to the idea put forward in Bunuel's Viridiana - leave our society alone. But can it be left alone? Is the tribal society not engulfed (and I daresay, endangered) by civilization?

The tribals in the last scene have their heads bowed, not out of shame but out of fear. But no one is ready to protest or stand up for the rights. This leaves Bhiku to take the drastic step that he does. But is this subdued attitude for eternity?

"O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,

How will the future reckon with this Man?

How answer his brute question in that hour

When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?

How will it be with kingdoms and with kings -

With those who shaped him to the thing he is - 

When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,

After the silence of the centuries?"

- Edwin Markham, The Man with the Hoe

The acting and the direction:

Aakrosh is one of those Indian movies that would make the world stand up and take notice. I guess this review is thirty years too late, and I don't know if the world has known it enough. But then, the director didn't perhaps make it to be marketed. As the song plays in the background in the small hotel, "Jalaa do isey phook daalo yeh duniya...". The song is, Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya ho? from the film Pyaasa (1958). What if you attain recognition in a pretentious world?

The color brown attains significance. The multicolored 70s were making way for a darker era, and that was evident in the clothes too. The 80s would be defined by darker colors in clothes and society.

Amidst the third rate court room scenes that most Bollywood movies project, Aakrosh is a welcome exception. It is so true, so accurate, so believable. The research is so detailed that even a perfectly legal argument on hearsay evidence is proposed in a scene. The court is not projected as either the temple of justice or a forum for hypocrisy, but just an institution that is the offshoot of society.

I have not seen a lot of examples of method acting, but Aakrosh definitely is one. Be it Naseeruddin Shah, mastering the journey of the young lawyer from one of timid hopelessness to that of intrepidity, or Om Puri as the tribal. Amrish Puri is extremely measured in his nuances. 

To conclude a review written out of sheer awe, I sincerely believe most people should watch Aakrosh. If not to change society, then just to know it.