My daughter is a dancer and the highlight of her annual calendar is the school’s Inter-House Dance Competition. This year’s challenge was to put together a 12-minute presentation to the theme ‘Heroes and Villains’, from conception to showtime, in just a week. It was delightful to see here in her element - choreographing, organising, rehearsing, and ultimately, leading her team to sweet success! I suspect their win had something to do with their line-up, comprising of choreographies built around complex characters and themes: the toxic love of Harley Quinn and Joker, the intense jealousy of 'Moulin Rouge’s ‘El Tango de Roxanne’, Maleficent as the villain with redeeming qualities, for example. Heroes were not just good and honourable, they were also flawed and conflicted. Villains were not pure evil, they also craved redemption.
I suspect it is not just love for fantasy that draws us to complex fictional characters. Maybe we feel a sense of familiarity with them because, like them, the people we know also contain multitudes, flaws, contradictions? It is heartening that, as a society, we seem to value vulnerability even as we pedestalise perfection.
Sadly, our emotional barometer is less finely calibrated when it comes to politics. Here, our choices have become painfully partisan. This was evident last week, when Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lower House of the Indian Parliament, accused the country’s Election Commission of vote theft. His allegations were backed by data published by the Commission. But instead of fuelling a robust debate about the sanctity of franchise, something that goes to the heart of the idea of electoral democracy itself, his expose has landed us in the midst of a shrill war of words. Far from seeking nuance, most of us have ended up subscribing to a strictly binary register where we are either ridiculing Gandhi or supporting him. Worse, we find ourselves embracing tribalism and administering loyalty tests that sift people into us and them: Did you support Operation Sindoor? Is it patriotic to question Constitutional processes and institutions?
I suppose there is something seductive about this simple - nay, simplistic - world, where friends of friends are friends, and friends of foes are sworn enemies. But it doesn’t quite add up, does it? While we seem to appreciate artistic creativity in the films we watch, we desperately cling to the safe and mundane in our civic and political life. Where we are eager to derive hope from the most dubious character in fiction, in reality, we do not believe someone like Rahul Gandhi - cast by his detractors as morally bereft and intrinsically incapable - can be an anti-hero worthy of genuine consideration.
Reluctant to upset the status quo, we refrain from questioning those in power even when they take positions we know to be utterly unfounded. At about the time that Gandhi made his dramatic accusations, a senior Minister informed Parliament that there are no civic issues, save water logging, in Gurgaon. This is a preposterous claim about a city drowning in garbage and plagued by crumbling infrastructure, whose utter failure at civic management is the one and only issue the rich and the poor, the leftist crusaders and the right-wing RWAs agree on! We would rather allow our elected representatives to gaslight us than admit that, like in the movies, it is possible for those in the limelight to be simultaneously self-serving and honourable.
How is it that we, who are intelligent enough to absorb the nuances of the world around us, who appreciate the complex storytelling in film and theatre, who successfully navigate the incredibly complicated problems we face in our professional and personal lives; how is it that we allow ourselves to be so taken in by simplistic binaries and polarised positions about political issues that impact the very fabric of our lives: dignity, community, freedom….
As India’s 79th Independence Day draws near, its perhaps worth asking if we are ok with remaining stuck in this strange liminal space between curiosity and delusion, aspiration and despair, intelligence and indoctrination. Or do we, as Joplin crooned decades ago, have nothing left to lose?
Very well written indeed, Mukta! So amny 'if onlys' come to mind.
The article is a great reminder of the essence and spirit of our democracy and constitution. The responsibility is on us, the citizens of India, to safeguard the rights of being different and co-existing with respect and dignity. Praying that such voices do not get feeble this Independence Day!