Lage raho munna bhai

Movies can be provocative when they are made well and have a point to convey. A typical bollywood movie does nothing of that sort. One movie that does is “Lage Raho Munna Bhai”.

The plot goes something like this. Munna Bhai is your average gangster. He falls for a radio jockey and in an attempt to get a meeting with her he rounds up a bunch of professors who help him win the contest that gets him the meeting. He ends up visiting an unused library doesn’t stop reading for days. This leaves him with visions of Gandhi-ji who guides him in successfully putting Gandhian methods into practice in numerous situations. At some point in the plot, a good doctor ends up demonstrating to him that his visions of Gandhi-ji are not real by showing him that the Gandhi-ji in his vision can answer only questions that Munna already knows the answers to. Munna accepts the diagnosis, is laughed at and ridiculed by the audience who were his fans a few minutes ago. Munna continues to be a good guy, does more good deeds and gets the girl in the end. Everyone is happy. Millions have watched the movie. Millions have loved the movie. I’m quite certain it will be remembered years from now.

Some points to ponder.

Let’s perform a thought experiment. Change the hero’s name to Munu-swamy. Replace the character Gandhi-ji with say Rama. The plot suddenly becomes impossible. The doctor would be in all likely hood be given a proper trashing by the adoring masses. It would be a miracle if he could get out of that room alive. Munu-swamy and the mass of people that adore him would never accept the diagnosis. Why?

No director dare make such a movie with YouKnowWho in Gandhi-ji’s role. If he did, he would need to take great pains to not show the character on screen. A mistake of that nature could cost the director his life. Why?

There will be protests on the streets across the world in either case. Governments would respond by banning the films. The same fate awaits such content on the internet as well. Why?

Are we making a virtue of tolerating intolerance?

Art is the highest form of human expression. Artists can and do argue both side of a mobius strip. Have we not watched Mani Ratnam portray the human side of a terrorist in Roja?

Freedom of speech and expression are fundamental human rights. Restrictions on those are never reasonable and rarely serve the purpose the restrictions are justified as serving. I do think art and artists need to be exempt from these restrictions even when they appear reasonable to the rest of us.