Five political lessons from Baahubali

The breathtaking spectacle of SS Rajamouli's Baahubali - The Beginning and the lavish attention on scale and special effects notwithstanding, there was something that caught my eyes somewhere in the middle of this great unfolding saga. Its eclectic universe, freely borrowing from Hollywood blockbusters, Judeo-Christian and Hindu mythologies, great fantasy fictions (literary and on celluloid), gargantuan ambition and every other aspect that has drawn in critical and popular applaud alike, is nevertheless, laced with a deep ethical yearning, a justice-tinted lens not unlike that was seen in James Cameron's Avatar.

Unlike a Christopher Nolan epic, such as Interstellar or Inception, which according to me are great feats of intellectual calisthenics but somewhere, despite the British director's ubiquitous paean to space-time altering "love", are somewhat cold (perhaps because the subject matter leaves little scope for the heart to have any say in something so aggressively "brainy") Baahubali retains a prelapsarian innocence. It is almost naïve. There are no grown up grays: just black and white of evil and good. It's childlike and perhaps, philosophically speaking, even boring. Moreover, there are the blatant racism, casual sexism and other staples that myths are made of.  

But the devil, as well as the atheist's god, lies in the detail. I submit five such instances that tell me Baahubali has a lesson or two for our deracinated and utterly cynical political class.

1. Having a heart is never passé

Yes, we all know that the god-child hero with a golden heart always gets the girl, and if he happens to be a prince, the kingdom too. This mythic feudal imaginarium of Baahubali is of course propelled by such binaries. Yet, we love it. We are warmed by its sweetness of touch, by the fact that the hero, and whoever the story wants us to feel for, are often driven by their emotions rather than steely calculation. Self-preservation is left way, way behind the instinct of doing what is actually good - whether it be scaling a sky-high waterfall, or giving a hand to the weakest, often imperiling oneself. The 56-inch chest should not only be in service of bull fights, but also feature the heart within, with a nimbleness of touch and a floating sense of wonder.

Isn't that something our political and thinking classes have consigned to the trash bin of real politick? Infested with a malaise that has corrupted our body and soul, we allow the most brazen of crimes to go unaddressed, purely out of self-interest. War crimes, financial frauds impoverishing entire countries, mass-scale disenfranchisement are allowed to go on because that's "how the real world functions". It's complex. It's pegged on chaos. It's ruthless and amoral. Power is heartless. But must it be?

2. Politics of inclusion, not elimination

A fantasy tale of blue-bloodlust and primogeniture disguised as meritocracy is the last place to look for saplings of a proto-egalitarian sentiment. Yet, Baahubali is profoundly sympathetic to the have-nots, the "weak", the ordinary and unnamed. The hero "saves" many a nameless soul from the jaws of death, but he does that naturally, not as a second thought. It is ingrained in his moral order to include others in his achievements, even though he often goes solo where the stakes are highest. He bites the bullet, as it were, instead of dodging it. Moreover, he asks for less, gives back more. Amarendra Baahubali, the slain and rightful king, does not demand the best of arsenal or even the crown, but proves his mettle again and again. The fascist, pseudo-scientific hankering and dependence on technology and muscle power alone is trumped by quick and elegant thinking. The villain Bhallal Dev, on the other hand, lets his chariot with the Ben Hur-like spiral-cleaver in front slice apart hapless commoners who are used as baits by the enemy camp.       

One may see parallels with Congress-led UPA's "mai-baap" sarkar of patronage that the present Modi government has so thoroughly disavowed, seemingly ushering in an equal opportunity digitally enhanced podium for all. However, this "smart" India leaves behind the 800 million in rural agricultural heartlands, who according to latest census data, are still in abject poverty. The faux democracy of the present dispensation wants to gloss over this truth and take away even the thinnest of safety nets provided to them after decades of neglect.   

3. Perils of megalomania

Was it tongue-in-cheek or brazenly in-your-face? But who couldn't see the parallels between self-obsessed statue-erecting usurper Bhallal Dev and some of our top political brass who would rather let selfies and gigantic stone or iron idols speak instead of actual work? Moreover, in the scene where Bhallal Dev's father (have a huge problem with our age-old myths' and their spin-offs' tendency to externalise the evil as a visible handicap: very crude indeed) remarks (and I paraphrase), "What are 200-odd ordinary lives before a 50-foot golden statue of the king?", the similarity does not go unnoticed. The proposed 597-foot (182-metre) tall Statue of Unity, supposedly a tribute to the unsung hero of our freedom struggle and post-independence years, Sardar Patel, from the present government, has disenfranchised many on the banks of Narmada River.

Past misappropriated and endless self-mirroring are being inserted within public discourse not just in lieu of, but remorselessly enough, as governance. Megalomania is touted as pride. It's the national mood. Hateful jingoism and uncritical arrogance, as well as a ruthless lust for power, are being flaunted by the ruling regime brazenly. Only difference is that it caters to a noveaeu riche, self-serving business class instead of the decaying Lutyens' aristocracy. How long until it implodes?    

4. Don't believe in official propaganda    

Somewhere in the first half, when the camera pans through the city capital of Maahismati, with its citadels and royal palaces, as well as conurbations and markets, we see men, tied to poles, being flogged in public exactly as, what sounded like eulogies in Sanskrit (in the Hindi-dubbed version), were being sung to the king by an off-screen chorus. An oft-repeated trope in literary and mythological tales, but that study in contrast - how official-speak of "all-is-well-God-bless-the-supreme-leader" is a lie - is a forgotten aspect of our modern times.

We readily believe what we are told are gospel truths, straight from the Twitter account of the one and only. We take shouting marathons as opinionating; grisly sensationalism as news. We do not contradict, or ask questions, which unsettle the dear leader. The ones that do, like the guerilla tribe trying to free the incarcerated queen in the film, are hounded out, and summarily dismissed through increasingly draconian means.    

5. Look beyond the beautiful curtain

Much like the humongous, sublime, ethereal waterfall in Baahubali, beyond which lies the hero's destiny, and calling, we, too, must look beyond the splendor and glamour of an imposing half-truth. The seemingly insurmountable barrier that is the majestic cataract is dangerous but alluring. Its aqueous veil, however, conceals an ugly reality. What attracted Shiva/Baahubali is a sense of curiosity, a dauntless investigative spirit to know more. Not greed or self-serving intellectual acquisition, but a thirst for knowing the self. The self as individual, the self as citizen, the self as woman, the self as artist.

Karl Marx had said, "Ideology is false consciousness". The magnificent waterfall in Baahubali is that false consciousness that hides many injustices. But do we have the strength to lift the beautiful curtain euphemistically termed "development" and see the environmental and human cost of that chimera?