The new villain

The neta has become the anti-hero, mirroring a larger loss of faith in politics

narrative to share a similarity with Indira Gandhi shows how tarnished real-life politics had become.

Cinematically, the 1960s was when the abject loss of faith in the system was on full display with “dacoit films”, and later, in the 1970s, with the Angry Young Man. In both, men and women were forced to take on political evils within or outside the purview of the law. Had the system been more effective — or, had the post-independence political class not become so self-serving — would the individual be forced to take such drastic measures?

By the 1980s, this format transformed into vendetta films, citizens fending for themselves while politicians got away with murder. The decade featured films like Arjun and Bhrashtachar ;in Arjun, neta Shiv Kumar Chowgule (Anupam Kher) couldn’t hurt a fly in public but in private, used the aimlessness of unemployed, educated young men like Arjun (Sunny Deol) to get dirty work done. In Bhrashtachar, violence intensified; the villain-neta didn’t even bat an eyelid before killing or raping someone.

The 1980s also saw two critically acclaimed films that were the first, post-leader, to highlight a strengthened political-mafia nexus. New Delhi Times followed Vikas Pande, a journalist (played by Shashi Kapoor) who moves to Delhi and uncovers a political assassination. Main Azaad Hoon, a remake of the 1941 Frank Capra film Meet John Doe, had a journalist, Subhashini (Shabana Azmi), “creating” a conscientious man, Azaad (Amitabh Bachchan) through her newspaper writing. Azaad then gets used for political advantage by the paper’s ambitious owner.

By the 1990s-2000s, be it university elections in Haasil, where the caste of two student leaders impacts everyone around them, or Raajneeti, where certain dialogues were too close to real life, such as “Le jayegi vidhwa support samet ke” (the widow will sway the electorate; “vidhwa” or widow was changed by the censors to “beti” or daughter), Shool, where an MLA kills a colleague given a ticket over him, or Mr Azaad, where a man wins an election even while serving time, reel politics has become as bizarre as the real stuff.

Right from Mere Apne to 2017’s Raees, the neta uses every trick in the book to stay a step ahead of the aam aadmi. If in Mere Apne, the warring students led by Vinod Khanna and Shatrughan Sinha become collateral damage while the leaders who employ them go scot-free, in Raees, netas shake hands across party lines to teach the common man a harsh lesson — even if the common man is Raees (an edgy Shah Rukh Khan), a powerful criminal who openly threatens them.

When netas are increasingly vile reel villains, deteriorating from the rivalryturned-friendship of Shri Anokhelal (Mehmood) and Biloki Prasad (Asit Sen) in Mere Apne to the brutal cynicism of the political leaders in Raees, in real life — heroes notwithstanding — often, the ordinary citizen ends up losing.

The writer is the author of ‘Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna’ and ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak —The Film That Revived Hindi Cinema’