[Reader-list] Post Peepli [Live]

[Shailesh Rai]

Hi all,

The Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, a farmers' advocacy group which keeps a
record of farmer suicides in the region, objected to Peepli Live because
they had a similar interpretation. Here's what the head of the group said:

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_vidarbha-farmers-demand-ban-on-peepli-live_1424459

Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti president Kishore Tiwari said: “Farmers are
driven to suicide because of wrong policies by the government. Instead of
focusing on the deep-rooted problems responsible for farmers’ distress, the
film highlights greed. It sends a wrong message to the public on a crucial
issue."

The point being made, as I see it, is that desperation is a more appropriate
justification for suicide than self-interest.

Shailesh

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 4:27 AM, Jeebesh <jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote:

> dear All,
>
> Peepli Live has been talked about in different ways in many forums. Both
> Manmohan Singh and L.K.Advani commented on the film. Advani observed that
> the film maybe mocking the framers families who had to live in the wake of
> these suicides. He claimed a "i have seen them" authenticity to his
> observation. On the other hand Manmohan Singh directly addressed Natha and
> reminded him of "historical necessity" of the unfinished job of capitalism
> in India.
>
> The eloquent silence of Natha in the film will slowly get filled with a
> range of  statements. Advani and Manmohan has produced the pole within which
> this filling up will happen.
>
> Could we read Natha's silence in other ways.?
>
> Here is a quote by Nandy, written in 2000 as an intro to a book, that i
> found extremely illuminating.
>
> "The Indian farmer did not commit suicide the way some businessmen did in
> the 1930s, during the great depression in the United States. Even in their
> desperation, these farmers retained some tenuous grip on life affirmative
> forces. For instance, many of them hoped that the compensation the family
> would get on their death would itself mitigate the suffering of their
> family. Their self-destruction often came packaged in a self-designed,
> calculated, self-sacrifice. To that extent, they remained, even in their
> death, just outside the rim of true despair and the self-destruction that
> comes from the amalgam of utter hopelessness and total meaningless of life.
> Their suicide was not merely a response to the existential question: why
> should we not commit suicide.? It was often a response to a question that
> had a very different philosophical tine to it: are we not more useful to the
> world dead than living?"
> (- Ashis  Nandy, pg xi, in Despair and Modernity, Dehejia, Jha and Hoskote,
> Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 2000.)
>
> Could we read Natha's silence as a deeper philosophical position to the
> world, that we mistake as weakness or muteness or ignorance.?
>
> warmly
> jeebesh
>
>
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