COMMENTARY shuttling back and forth between a pur­ Subverting Our Epics: ported adivasi village and the forest. One need not dwell too long on the authenti­ Mani Ratnam’s Retelling city of the adivasi village or for that mat­ ter the adivasi song and dance. Suffice to of the Ramayana say that these affirm faithfully to a city-­ dweller’s idea of what such villages may look like. Intriguingly the forest is the Amit Basole only substantial (and authentic?) location in the entire movie. No city, town or Mani Ratnam’s film Raavan ani Ratnam’s Raavan, starring ­village is shown long enough to create depicts the contradiction between Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya an impression. the adivasis and the State MRai Bachchan, Vikram, Ravi Thus the feeling is one of placelessness Kishan and Govinda has received gene­ and this perception is complemented by through the framework of the rally bad reviews and is a failure at the the confused accents. Ravi Kishan, the Ramayana. The film, however, box office as well. There seems to be a Bhojpuri movie star who plays one of deviates from the message of consensus that apart from Santosh Sivan’s Beera’s brothers of course does a good job the Ramayana, and raises the cinematography there is not much in the with his Bhojpuri accented Hindi but movie to write home about. It also suffers Bachchan does not. Then again it is not disturbing possibility that our from some common Bollywood flaws such even clear why Bhojpuri should be the rel­ myths of morality and bravery as bad acting and complete lack of atten­ evant local language. Further, the rela­ are someone else’s stories of rape tion to details. Yet, from the social and tionship between Beera’s adivasi village and conquest. The recasting of p­olitical standpoint the film’s grafting of and the town of Lal Mati is never clarified. the Ramayana on the current conflict Confusion of place is compounded in the Raavan as the wronged subaltern b­etween adivasis and the Indian state is second half when Beera’s sister is shown and Ram as the scheming agent well worth thinking about. In this review as getting ready for her wedding in a large of imperialism brings to mind we explore this dimension of the movie. rural dwelling which is certainly not in similar reinterpretations of other the ­adivasi village and the location of Allusions to Maoism? which is not made clear. Instead, most of Hindu legends by Phule, which The opening sets the overall tenor with a the script is occupied in ­developing the re­ completely subvert the orthodox montage showing police parties being lationship between Beera and his captive interpretation. In the context of a­ttacked by adivasis even as Beera, the Ragini. The movie moves to a climax with the ongoing struggle between the adivasi leader (Abhishek Bachchan) cele­ the police getting the better of Beera and brates by playing on the drum. But the gunning him down to the protestations of tribals and the State, one hopes narrative really starts with the abduction Ragini who has begun to see ­Raavan’s side that the movie Raavan might stir of Ragini (Aishwarya) by Beera. Ragini is of the story of the R­amayana. this debate up once again. the wife of Dev Pratap Sharma (Vikram), a police officer who is posted as the super­ A ‘Human’ Raavan intendent of police (SP) to a place called While the movie is mediocre apart from Lal Mati to deal with the notorious adivasi the stunning visuals, the socio-political outlaw, Beera Munda. One assumes that resonances are strong and it is these I will Lal Mati is a district town somewhere in now explore. As is obvious from the title of India, since SPs are not posted to villages, the movie itself the story recasts the hig­hly but the movie is not clear upon this point. politically relevant contradiction between Lal Mati is largely out of police or State the adivasis and the State, as represented control and is run by the writ of Beera, by its police force, into the framework of who is shown to be brutal and violent but the Ramayana. Almost all the main charac­ at the same time to be loved and respected ters of the Ramayana, viz, Ram, Sita, Lax­ by the locals. One can only wonder if man, Hanuman, Vibhishan, Kumbhakarna, Lal Mati (Hindi for Red Soil) is a reference Shurpanakha and of course the eponymous to the fact that the soil is controlled by the Raavan, have their counterparts in the Maoist party. There is no other explicit script. However the essential message of reference to Maoism in the movie. The the Ramayana is turned if not on its head, Amit Basole ([email protected]) is at first half of the movie passes without the then at least sideways. Ram is no longer the department of economics, University of viewers knowing the reason behind maryada purushottam (the ideal man in Massachusetts, Amherst. Ragini’s abduction. Rather there is some complete control of his senses and actions),

Economic & Political Weekly EPW july 17, 2010 vol xlv no 29 25 COMMENTARY nor is Raavan the unreconstructed demo­ review describes Lal Mati as “A town where heartless and cruel. Phule focuses at niacal figure of popular understanding the word of law is not the police but Beera, length on the story of Bali, the king who is burned every Dussehra. Conventionally a tribal who has, over the years, shifted the killed by the priest Vaman, also an avatar Raavan has been humanised by citing his power equation of the place from the rul­ of Vishnu. In Phule’s rendition, Bali is a just devotion to Shiva, his learning of the Vedas ing to the have-nots of the area.” Further, king loved by his subjects, but hated by the or his playing of the veena. Here he is hu­ the reviewer notes that the police seek pri­ dwijas who seek to destroy him. Vaman is man because he has suffered injustice and marily to bring order and not justice. Thus the dwija agent sent to eliminate Bali. oppression at the hands of the State and “Dev knows that the key to bringing order Phule and later the farmer’s movement in has decided to fight back. His sister, an adi­ to any place is to vanquish the big fish; in Maharashtra have made King Bali an icon vasi woman who dares to love and seeks to this case – Beera.” At the end of the review, of the shudra liberation movement. As Gail marry a brahmin boy is apprehended in a in describing the nature of the fight be­ Omvedt notes in her writings on the farm­ raid conducted by Ram even as she is get­ tween Beera and the SP, the reviewer says er’s movement (in her book Reinventing ting married. She is later gang raped inside it is a “fight between good and evil” with Revolution), even today ida pida jaavo, a police station. Laxman (also called Lax­ good being represented by the SP. The re­ ­Baliraja che raajya yevo (may suffering be man in the movie), a cop, assists in this view of the movie’s Tamil version1 does ad­ gone, may the rule of King Bali come) is a “cutting off of Shurpanakha’s nose”. She mit that the lines between good and evil common saying in rural Maharashtra. The subsequently commits suicide. Raavan get blurred. That part was left out in the writers of the “Balijan Cultural Movement (Beera) who is already a force to reckon newspaper review. Thus wittingly or un­ Manifesto” who see themselves in Phule’s with in his community, a king for all practi­ wittingly the reviewer has captured per­ tradition note that Phule “attempted to cal purposes, seeks to avenge this act and fectly the dissonance that such a reinter­ write an alter­native history of India from abducts Sita. Independent of this particu­ pretation creates. The fight between Ram the people’s perspective, which was utterly lar aggravation at the hands of the police, and Raavan must of course be a fight be­ dismissive and derisive of the brahmanical Raavan is a rising threat to the State which tween good and evil, but it also cannot be version of India’s past and present”. They Ram represents. Beera the adivasi is open­ denied that Raavan has made the have- ask of the fable of Bali and Vaman: “Was ly challenging the authority of the police in nots stronger. The message is clear: it is the fable concocted to mask the fraudulent his neighbourhood. The brahmin, Dev evil to defend the poor and good to defend and v­iolent means through which the Pratap Sharma, has been sent to quell this the rich and the ruling class. ­Aryan brahmans destroyed the ancestors adivasi who is a Munda, the same tribe of the dalit-bahujans?” that claims the famous Birsa among its Alternative Histories/Perceptions Phule’s historical vision which com­ members. The symbolism is thus simply This is of course not the first time that pletely subverts the orthodox interpreta­ crammed into the script. timeless tales have been retold from the tion is even today politically powerful and opposite viewpoint. In reinterpreting his­ one hopes that the movie Raavan might Good for One, Evil for Another tory from the rakshasa point of view Mani stir this debate up once again. Of course to Despite, or perhaps because of its blunt­ Ratnam is in the august company of ask the same question of the Ramayana ness, the movie challenges some deeply M­ahatma Jyotirao Phule, the anti-caste seems a more formidable task given its held beliefs on the nature of good and evil thinker and activist of the 19th century. A moral authority and immense popularity in Hindu culture. Our epics, and in partic­ retelling of the Ramayana which casts across the social spectrum. But this is ular the Ramayana still occupy a place of R­aavan as the wronged subaltern and Ram ­essentially a political question, not a his­ prominence as fables of morality. The as the scheming agent of imperialism torical one and when the moment has Ramayana in its popular version is free brings to mind similar reinterpretations of ­arrived many such questions will be even of the moral ambiguities to be found other Hindu legends by Phule. In his book raised to be settled in the political and not in the Mahabharata. Raavan raises, in G­ulamgiri (Slavery) Phule takes the stories the historical/scholarly domain. Every very clear terms, the disturbing possibility told around the various avatars of Vishnu, fight going on today in the jungles of that our myths of morality and bravery matsya (fish), kurma (tortoise), varah ­Bastar, between a police officer and a tribal are someone else’s stories of rape and (boar), narasimha (man-lion), and vaman who picks up arms is a retelling of the ­conquest. Our heroes are villains in ­stories and reinterprets them from the shudra Ramayana, ­raising the inevitable ques­ told in other places, not in faraway coun­ point of view. The “avatars” become schem­ tion, as Phule did so many years ago: Were tries, but in our own heartland. And our ing leaders of the dwijas (twice borns) who, the Hindu god-­avatars, Ram, Vaman, villains might just have been good people in most instances successfully, defeat their merely en­forcing the will of the imperial whose only fault lay in not submitting to shudra counterparts through d­eception state against its hapless victims? Were the our rule. and lies rather than open battle. Phule ­demons, rakshasas defenders of indige­ The confusion that we are thrown into minces no words in making his historical nous life and liberty? as a result of this reversal of viewpoint is (or mythical) inversions. For example, clearly (and amusingly) on display in a ­narasimha, the man-lion avatar of ­Vishnu Note brief review of the movie I read in the who features in the story of Prahlad is de­ 1 This is available on, http://movies.sulekha.com/ tamil/ravan/default.htm, from which the Banar- ­Banaras Times last week. The author of the scribed as duplicitous, greedy, treacherous, as Times, seems to have taken its piece.

26 july 17, 2010 vol xlv no 29 EPW Economic & Political Weekly