There was a Mahatma before Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was given that honorific by Ravindranath Tagore in 1915. Jyotirao Phule, also known as Jyotiba Phule, was bestowed with that at a public meeting in Pune in 1888 and is a revered icon of Maharashtra. While Gandhi led a relentless fight for freedom, Phule fought the orthodoxy that riddled society, which deprived girls of education and women of their dignity.
A Mahatma before Mahatma
Now, a biopic of that worthy person, titled ‘Phule’ co-written and directed by Anant Mahadevan, which was due to be released on April 11, has been put off by at least two weeks to cool a controversy centered around two things: one, some changes that the film certification board sought and two, Brahmin Mahasangh’s fears the movie may be loaded against the small community. Their fears were caused by merely watching a trailer. A trailer may not give the full picture but only tickle curiosity.
Mahadevan does not say that the movie was asked to drop anything but only modify certain words with which he complied with. Some sentences were changed or modified. The director only wanted the movie to be given a U rating that is for universal viewing, not a U/A rating because the movie should be seen even by the young. The subject and content of the motion picture was educational, especially for the young.
Brahmins are upset
A Marathi newspaper, Lokmat, has quoted the Brahmin Mahasangh’s president, Anand Dave, as saying that some Brahmins had objected to Mahatma Phule, but there are also some other Brahmins who have supported Phule’s cause, donated premises, money, and even students to attend his schools. The Mahasangh’s worry was whether the positive aspects were a part of the movie or not. They discussed these with him.
The controversy arose when the official trailer of Phule showed a boy wearing the Brahminical sacred thread – or janevu – with a tuft on his otherwise shaved head, hurling a ball of cow dung at Jyotiba’s wife, Savirtibai. She is as much revered in history as her husband was; she learned to read and write from her husband and later went on to teach in schools the duo founded in Pune. At that time, it was a rude shock to the orthodoxy.
While Mahadevan’s Phule is said to have been made on authentic lines, for Phule has been written about much in the 20th century itself, another movie, ‘Chhava’, was the subject of much criticism to turn into a controversy. In Chhava, it was all about a dance in which the protagonist, Chhatrapati Sambhaji, the son and successor of Chhatrapati Shivaji, is shown vigorously shaking his leg much in the tradition popularised by Bollywood.
Repeating the story of Phule
If one looks at the two movies, Phule yet to be released, there are two issues of significance. Mahadevan has made a biopic which is said to be an authentic portrayal of Phule, his wife, their times, the issues, and their struggles. If he had not needed to fight the orthodox and the obscurantists, Phule would have been a social reformer. His fight makes him greater and iconic. If Chhava showed the dance, it was cinematic license. Yet it had to be dropped.
What then is acceptable? The democratic stance of letting moviemakers come out with their interpretation of a historic figure or a nuanced analysis of an equally historic event but not watch it if the output went against one’s grain is much required but does not exist as it should in an evolved society. Or should individuals move courts and seek ban or even worse, threaten an agitation till it is shut down?
A Maharashtra minister who raised the issue of the dance had to announce that the controversy had ended when the producers consented to drop the scene. The problem is that communities and their spokespersons, probably even self-appointed, tend to object based on the ‘hurt sentiments’ by a portrayal of an eminent character in a production or in a piece of writing. It happened too when ‘Ghasiram Kotwal’, a play written by the much-acclaimed Vijay Tendulkar. It was not about authenticity but dislike.
Ghasiram Kotwal
The portrayal of Phadanavis in the production was disliked by the Brahmin community. Phadanavis was a prominent person in the Peshwa period, shrewd, Machiavellian; Ghasiram, the key character, was an exploiter of women. Kotwal was stoned to death for his deeds – or misdeeds. That stage production had even been banned for a while till better sense prevailed. Shows had been halted by mobs surrounding the playhouses.
There have been many instances in Maharashtra where bans or threats of violence have taken stuff off the horizon, not just Ghasiram Kotwal. B. R. Ambedkar’s Riddles in Hinduism, where he asked if Hinduism was a religion at all, was to be published by the Maharashtra government itself, but was not because there was objection to it by Hindus in the 1990s. There is a strong refusal to take anything critical or creative.
| 
