'Gadar' at Agra

TODAY is summit day. The early unnatural euphoria about the prospects for peace have evaporated. Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf may yet come up with something to show their constituencies that if not now peace is at least possible in the future.

But we forget that the two leaders cannot conjure up bilateral friendship on their own. Prime ministers, presidents and generals can make war, but not peace. The antagonism that has been nurtured for decades by political and military establishments can be undone only by the citizens of the two countries. Unfortunately, this antagonism that borders on hatred has taken such deep root that it is difficult to visualise friendship between India and Pakistan for years to come.

It is unbelievable that Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf will be talking peace even as audiences in Agra and elsewhere in the country will be soaking in the film "Gadar". A more incendiary film about relations between the two countries has probably never been made before in India. A more nauseating film that stokes contempt among Indians for all things Pakistani (and in very thinly veiled terms for all things Islamic as well) has probably never before been screened in India. And this is a huge success at the box office.

As on many occasions in the past, the Islamic groups which have been protesting the film have been doing so for the wrong reasons. It is not objectionable that the girl is called Sakina. It is even less so that Sakina is seen on occasion offering namaz with sindur in her hair. The fundamental problem with "Gadar" is that in this era of flag-waving patriotism the makers of the film have whipped up a fervour of jingoism in which the true Indian is one who is superior to a Pakistani in all respects. There is nothing redeeming about any of the Pakistani characters in the film. All of them, from the shepherd's wife to the army officer, are either deceitful, villainous, oafish or just cowards. In contrast, Tara Singh, the Indian one-man army, from across the border is decent, loyal, and of impeccable character. And he only has to bellow before policemen and army men in Pakistan scatter to the winds. The film is littered with "dialogue stealers" like "Beta baap se nikalta hai. Hindustan Pakistan ka baap hai. (A son is the creation of his father. India is the father of Pakistan".) When Amrish Puri, Mayor of Lahore, falls to his knees and begs forgiveness from our Tara Singh, the subjugation of Pakistan is complete. "Gadar" is not a film of love across religions during the communal bloodbath of 1946-1948, as it professes to be. It is instead a film about using this apology of a love story to show that Indians can bring Pakistanis to their knees if they want to.

The boorishness of "Gadar" matters for three reasons. That a film like this can even be made. That the audiences whistle and cheer at "powerful" scenes which reflect bigotry and jingoism. And that we like it so much that it threatens to become the most successful Hindi film in years. This cannot be a uniquely Indian phenomenon. I would be surprised if "mirrors" of our "Gadars" have not been made in Pakistan with devious, cowardly and weak- kneed Indians vanquished by a single Pakistani. And it is not the films that are made which say so much about our deep-rooted feelings about each other. The Indian foreign policy establishment calls our neighbours "Pakis". They call us "Lalas". And two decades of exchanges of cricket on the field have only made these games more of gladiatorial contests, as Mr. Jaswant Singh so well described them, with the spectators in India, Pakistan and Sharjah more often than not baying for blood on the fields.

Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf will get the Nobel Peace Prize if by some miracle they come up with an Agra accord. But like the Oslo accord that gave Mr. Yasser Arafat, Mr. Yitzhak Rabin and Mr. Shimon Peres the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 but no peace in West Asia and so too like the 1998 Nobel for Mr. David Hume and Mr. John Trimble for the Good Friday accord on Northern Ireland, this one will be a peace without content. Unless the poison that breeds "Gadars" is flushed out from the two societies.

C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY

E-mail the writer at crr100@india.com

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