By Ananya S Guha
In India politicians are both icons and villains. It all depends on where the god head is placed or misplaced People criticize them and laud them according to whims, fancies and crass personal gains. And if they happen to be in close proximity to them they flagrantly boast about it. The very persons, who speak eloquently on corruption, do not have the slightest qualm in moving them for favour, alms or employment. It is the accepted thing. It is the accepted thing to call them venal, dishonest and totally corrupt. Of course the honest ones remain disembodied figures, like characters in a fairy tale, sung but almost with condescension. No one remembers a Promode Charaborty these days, which lived and died in his party office. Nor Harkishen Singh Surjeet; nor Nripen Chakraborty. If politicians are austere, honest and committed then it is almost a travesty of the truth. Corruption and dishonesty are yardsticks on which our political systems work and are measured. So when a politician dies, then there are the usual monosyllabic comments. ” A Great Leader” or ” We will miss him/her”. There are longer eulogies, which very few people read. Very few are able to come out of political differences and see the man as he were. Perhaps Jyoti Basu’s case was an exception, and a few more. But some are not forgotten (or forgiven) even after death, the greatest leveler.
The icons of Indian industries are film makers and actors. Followed of course close on the heels by the cricketers. They even switch roles. The latter takes up acting and reality shows, and the former play cricket on chosen days. Theirs is a shared world. They act together, play the comedian together and generally sometimes make me not laugh, but weep when they are together. Hope their white or black money is carefully assessed. Then of course you have the occasional riposte between actors and politicians. Sometimes friendly, sometimes not so. But they hit it off well generally. Sometimes you hear our Prime Minister praising Amir Khan, or both of them posing coyly for a photo. Then you know that the film world and the political world are at perfect tandem. You heave a sigh of relief don’t you because you want Pakistani actors to be supported? They are, of course, listening to the political will. Hey hey Pakistani actors, we also indulge in idol worship. We have our politicians. But not people like Lal Bahadur Shastri. Not even Gandhi now. Slowly he is losing his charisma. See how they make fun of him on mobiles, because of those two thousand rupee notes. What a shame. And about Subhas Chandra Bose, they have not exactly forgotten him, but archaeologically trying to discover his bones- did he actually die in the crash, or did he live for two more minutes, or even ten minutes? Historians are blushing, his relatives are cantankerous and the government is unearthing files and files. But he is not much of a hero. He is and was simply a Bengali recalcitrant who was opposed to the politics of femininity and crafty bourgeoisie machinations.
Now this was a pretty long background. Against this backdrop we can see how the politico actor survived with aplomb in South India. Acting was and is a passion there. And politicians act, most of them and very well at that. Moreover, you know the South is a bit cut off from the rest of the country. That is why they were one of the first to want to secede. Then the image of the actor blended very well with the politician. Both were hero worshipped in two contexts. One in life, the other in celluloid. And, the two images shuttled to and from, from real to reel and vice versa. So much so that one could not distinguish between the real and the reel. The real became reel and the reel real. But to make the reel real you had to enter the halcyon world of politics. Of course to continue acting would be so much the easier. NTR, MGR did this with felicity. Now with the sad passing away of Jayalalitha we are waiting with bated breath for a one more typical replacement. RIP.