A vociferous activist, a reluctant subject
While accepting the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Mumbai International Film Festival, documentary-maker Anand Patwardhan gave a bittersweet speech. “I have mixed feelings as I accept this award,” he said. “My films are nothing without the causes they speak about and the people they champion. Today if I ask myself whether these films really made a difference to the people and the causes they are about, I would have to admit that the difference is marginal.”
He went on to talk about the several films and causes that he has aligned himself with and actively campaigned for in the last 40 years — and the present, dismal state of all those issues, from political prisoners in Indian jails to the Narmada dam to the imminent revival of ideological politics at the Centre. It is hard not to be struck by the over-arching dismay he exhibits, even on a memorable occasion like this — as by the fact that here is a filmmaker who embodies his art completely.
Documentary filmmaker R.V. Ramani’s latest film, Hindustan Hamara, recently screened for the first time at the Persistence Resistance film festival, does absolutely nothing to dispel this sense — whether this is desirable or not depends on what the viewer is looking for. Conceptualised as a series of ongoing conversations between two filmmakers, in this case Patwardhan and Ramani himself, the film is a 100-minute long capsule of a six year journey — one in which our auteur follows his subject across cities and countries, from one film screening to another, all in an attempt to understand Patwardhan better.
“In 2003, I saw Jung aur Aman (War and Peace) at MIFF and felt immensely disturbed afterwards. While chatting with him later, I put forth the proposition that I’d like to make a film on him. He refused — repeatedly. Then, in 2008, he told me about a retrospective of his films being held in Madurai. I attended the screenings, camera in hand. I told Patwardhan I’d be filming him, and this time he didn’t say anything. But he kept inviting/informing me about his screenings thereafter,” reminisces Ramani.
Because most of his films are self- funded, Ramani is a one man crew. With his camera slung around his waist, he trails Patwardhan and presents us with frames dense with activity and layered with meaning. We see him, through a shaky lens, often barely in the frame, putting his reel into the projector, setting it up for screening (most often, this is his latest film Jai Bhim Comrade, but there are older ones too), introducing the subject and then discussing the film with his audience. It is evident that he is conscious of the camera trained on him, not only from his expressions but also from the stunted quality of the conversation he has with the camera.
There is, however, one long sequence in the second half, when the two of them are sitting in the back seat of a car, on their way to Trichur, Tamil Nadu. By dint of fate, the driver takes a wrong turn and their time with each other is prolonged. Only in this time does Patwardhan open up about his craft and, more surprisingly, about his family. “I really like Anand as a person, even though I am quite critical of his films. But this film is more about trying to see him at his most vulnerable, and to go beyond the posture of an activist that he constantly puts up.
Conceptualised as a series of ongoing conversations between two filmmakers, the film is a 100-minute long capsule of a six year journey, and is an attempt to understand Anand Patwardhan better.
I wanted to go into the nuances of the person behind the public figure,” says Ramani.
But a second look at the film shows us not just a reluctant subject, but Ramani’s own unwillingness to frame him. If Patwardhan avoids looking into the camera, the lens itself is often behind him, capturing him only in shadows. There is a constant tension playing out between subject and gaze, which perhaps forms the crux of this film. “Throughout the journey of filming, I did not feel like talking to him. The whole process of filmmaking is about breaking masks and postures for me. So this film is as much about my struggle to engage with him and his work. It is also to allow a broader debate on the practice itself,” notes Ramani.
Patwardhan is, undeniably, a public institution in his own right. His special brand of activism-fuelled cinema is explosive enough to bring it censorship and international acclaim at the same time. “He is central in the documentary circuit. He presents himself as a hero; he even fights for that space. But he repeatedly told me during the process of shooting that he doesn’t want to be the centre of anything,” says Ramani.
He adds that when he showed Patwardhan the final product, he was asked to never show it. Ramani also mentions that he held up the screening of the film for six months, on Patwardhan’s request — his Defence Committee for the Kabir Kala Manch, the subject of Jai Bhim Comrade, had run into some trouble with Dalit political groups, who were also beginning to question Patwardhan’s motives.
The only ( marginal) resolution in this biopic that isn’t one, perhaps comes about between Patwardhan’s private and public personae since, with every passing frame, we are further convinced of Patwardhan’s deep dedication to the causes he chooses to fight for.