[Reader-list] A Peepli Live Independence Day

[Zulfiya Hamzaki]

*A Peepli Live Independence Day*
 Vidya Subrahmaniam
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article576806.ece?homepage=true

India's “fantastic” growth story and the concerns and struggles of the
ordinary people increasingly seem like parallel tracks.

Up until India's entry into the high growth era, Independence Day was a
calendar event telecast faithfully by Doordarshan. Once the growth story
started to break, private television companies robustly joined in the
freedom celebrations. As India graduated from poverty and pestilence to
“cool and happening,” a procession of celebrities, big and small, turned up
on various TV channels on August 15 to applaud the country's arrival on the
world stage.

This year the voices were more mixed, less gushy. Ironically, the party
pooper was a rebel from the Bollywood stable. *Peepli Live*, a biting satire
on farm suicides and agrarian distress from Aamir Khan productions, not only
dared to invade the theatres on the sacred Independence-Day weekend, it
proceeded to shine the torch on the gung-ho brigade lining up to sing
hosannas to the unstoppable future of this country. The slice of India the
film exposed was as close to the ground as the world of celebrity
endorsement was far from it. Though *Peepli*'s hard-hitting core was wrapped
in disarming humour, its dark, disturbing message cut deep and close: Would
those within the charmed growth circle please step out and see life as
others lived it?

Perhaps thanks to the *Peepli *effect, this August 15 saw a subdued Kareena
Kapoor go on TV to speak of the unfulfilled dreams of the teeming millions.
Amitabh Bachchan agonised that India was still being called a developing,
third world country. The sombre mood seemed to have infected the programming
too. A television actor interrupted a boisterous song-and dance
*azadi*(independence) extravaganza organised by an entertainment
channel to
announce pessimistically that he saw no reason to celebrate: “Our women get
assaulted, crime, poverty and corruption are growing. Is there anything to
celebrate?”

Of course, there was a reality check, lest it should seem that the entire
jet-set had been hit by an attack of conscience. This was courtesy the
anchor of the show who decided to show footage from interviews he had done
with young people from Mumbai. The poll was on the meaning of *azadi*, but
barring one, none could name the country's incumbent Prime Minister and not
even one could tell the year of India's independence. One young man thought
“Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” was a slogan coined by yesteryear actor Manoj Kumar.

As India welcomed its 64th year of freedom, the country seemed to be
straddling two diametrically opposite spaces. One, depressingly poor, bereft
— and very angry. The other unhealthily prosperous yet frighteningly
detached from the country's history, heritage and constitutional vision. But
the tragi-comedy of this August 15 was far from over. The tricolour was
still being unfurled and the singing of the national anthem was under way at
many venues when the poor, shut-out space hit back. *Peepli Live* truly went
live. News came in that farmers in western Uttar Pradesh were on the rampage
over a police firing that had killed some of their brethren. The farmers had
been protesting pitifully inadequate compensation for land acquired for the
construction of the glitzy Yamuna expressway that would connect Delhi and
Agra. Reports suggested that land bought for a song from the farmers had
been resold at exorbitant prices.

The dark comedy turned darker in Srinagar where a suspended policeman cut
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the middle of flag hoisting to aim a shoe at
him. The harried Mr. Abdullah thanked the policeman saying at least this was
a break from the trend of Kashmiris pelting stones. And, finally, in
Chhattisgarh naxal power struck again — this time in the form of the
beheaded body of a Central Reserve Police Force policeman. Three different
incidents, each in its own way symbolising the widening gulf between the
state and the vast majority of its people. The so-called stakeholders in
India's growth and prosperity could not have chosen a worse day to show
their disenchantment with the way project India was shaping up.

So it was with dulled senses that one saw Prime Minister Manmohan Singh take
his place behind the bullet-proof enclosure at Red Fort for the seventh time
in a row. This was a landmark occasion. Dr. Singh is only the third Prime
Minister to have reached the seventh year in office. More significantly, he
is the first non-Gandhi-Nehru Congress Prime Minister to have achieved this
distinction. Yet it was difficult to share his enthusiasm as he rejoiced in
the return of the high growth trajectory after the recession of the past
year: “Today India stands among the fastest growing economies of the world.
As the world's largest democracy, we have become an example for many other
countries to emulate … Our country is viewed with respect all over the
world. Our views command attention in international fora …” Further, “We are
building a new India in which every citizen would have a stake, an India
which would be prosperous and in which all citizens would be able to live a
life of honour and dignity ...”

The Prime Minister had sent out a similar message of hope the previous
August 15. Somehow that speech had not seemed so formulaic or so
ritualistic. Two months earlier, the United Progressive Alliance government
had returned with a renewed mandate after a fairly productive stint in
office. The Congress's own tally had breached the 200-mark suggesting the
broadening of its appeal among voters; or at the minimum the support bases
of its rivals had shrunk to give it more seats. Either way, it was a vote
for the Congress. In north India, which felt the positive effect of the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the waiver of farm loans, Dr.
Singh's leadership came in for much praise. UPA-I had its share of problems,
but redeemingly, its overall vision was strongly inclusive. The Prime
Minister appeared to make sense when he emphasised high growth as necessary
to fund his government's social sector programmes.

One year on, the vision seems to have got blurred with the *aam
aadmi*pushed further to the periphery. Rather than build on the
successes of the
NREGS and the Right to Information Act, the government wants them diluted.
Universal food security seems an increasingly difficult goal. The historic
Right to Education Act is facing dissent over its too stringent provisions.
But what disturbs more than all this is the growing sense of alienation
among the common people. India's fantastic growth story and the daily
concerns and struggles of its people suddenly seem like two parallel tracks
that can never converge.

Queen Elizabeth II famously described the year 1992 as *annus
horribilis*(horrible year) for her family and for the United Kingdom.
This year could
turn into India's *annus horribilis* if the government does not act quickly
to douse the fires raging in different pockets. Kashmir, which saw two
peaceful elections and seemed to have retreated, even if very slowly, from
the anger and anarchy of the past, is again precipitously close to the
brink. The circle of violence in Chhattisgarh has become worse for the
government's inept and insensitive intervention. People have been left numb
by the spiralling price graph, and even more so by the insensitivity of a
government that suggests that inflation is a price to pay for growth.

The UPA-I's biggest asset was its leadership. Dr. Singh and Sonia Gandhi
stood for decency in public life — a fact that did not go unnoticed in the
2009 general election. Their reputations are still intact but a discomfiting
odour has come to surround the government and the party they run. And there
is a cocky arrogance about both. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the
way the Congress and the government have brazened out allegations of
corruption in the Commonwealth Games.

When initially, Mani Shankar Aiyar lamented the wasted expenditure on the
CWG, many thought he was letting the side down. But watching India's Capital
turn into a nightmare city of waste and rubble, the same people might today
want to applaud him. It does not matter whether the allegations of
corruption around the CWG are true or not. It is there for every Delhi
citizen to see. It is there in the excavations of sidewalks that were laid
out only six months ago. It is there in the manic, last-minute
beautification efforts that must include banishing the hawkers from their
zones and hiding the poor out of sight. The Prime Minister has intervened at
a time when it is common knowledge that thousands of crores have already
gone into the bottomless CWG pit.

At a press conference a year ago, Dr. Singh admitted that he would have
resigned if the civil nuclear deal with the United States had not gone
through. There are areas of India that are crying out for the same zeal and
commitment to be shown to them.