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Drake Stutesman Anand Patwardhan: An Interview Author(s): Robert Crusz, Priyath Liyanage and Anand Patwardhan Source: Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, No. 38/39 (1992), pp. 118-132 Published by: Drake Stutesman; Wayne State University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44111697 Accessed: 03-01-2019 08:58 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Drake Stutesman, Wayne State University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Anand Patwardhan: An Interview* Robert Crusz and Priyath Liyanage It has been five years since Bombay Our City, Anand Patwardhan's internation- ally acclaimed and award-winning documentary on the displaced and deprived underclass of Bombay's slums. His new film, In Memory of Friends, is a documentary about violence and terror in the Punjab - a land torn apart by religious fundamentalism and a repressive government. After providing a historical context, the film follows a group of Sikhs and Hindus, who at great personal risk are engaged in an attempt to recover the tolerance and communal harmony that existed in Punjab only a decade ago. The group are a part of a small Left movement in the Punjab who never suc- cumbed to religious blind faith or to the false secularism of a corrupt State. They are influenced by the life and writings of Bhagat Singh, a self-educated socialist and revolutionary who was hanged at the age of 23 by the British in 193 1 . Bhagat Singh advocated class struggle as an antidote to the communal hatred which was beginning to divide India. His writings were suppressed by the British and are still relatively unknown, but his courage became legendary. He is now a folk hero. The State eulogizes him as a patriot, while the Khalistani separatists portray him as a Sikh militant. Both conveniently forget that Bhagat Singh's dream had neither religious nor national boundaries. In the last months of his life he wrote a book entitled: Why lam an Atheist . The film follows the group as they travel from village to village commemorat- ing the anniversary of Bhagat Singh's death. As the government and the fundamentalists prepare their own versions of homage to the hero, this group reminds the people of his true legacy of communal harmony and class solidarity. The group have become the target of terrorist attacks. Already many members, both Hindus and Sikhs, have been killed. One of them, Jaimal Singh Padda, who appears in the film, had sung In Memory of Friends, a song he'd composed dedicated to the Bhagat Singhs of today. Framework: Could you expand on what this alternative Left movement is offering the people of the Punjab. The film portrays a kind of moral , humanistic socialist alternative but what does that mean within This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms the wider context of the Punjab in particular and India in general? Anand Patwardhan: The film tries to capture the essence of what the Left is saying in Punjab today and what I perceive the Punjab question to be. I don't subscribe to the theory that the Punjab problem is primarily caused by a genuinely nationalist demand. The demand for a separate national identity and a separate state to go with it is very recent - it is hardly 12 years old. This is not to say that the Sikhs do not have a separate identity. They certainly have. But there never was a consensus within the Sikh community which wanted a separate state and I don't believe there is one now. What we have is a small minority with guns. Also there is a genuine perception amongst the people that the central government is repressive. This creates a feeling amongst the people that since there is so much repression against us , a retreat to nationalism is understandable. The Punjab problem is basically a creation of the State. In the late 1 970s the Congress Party was in opposition. It tried to cause divisions in the Punjab and thus exploit the problems created in order to regain power. The moderate Akali Party in Punjab was ruling in coalition with the Janata Party at the centre. Congress supported a fundamentalist Sikh leader Bhindranwale. In those days he was a small village priest. Congress built him up, gave him money and it is alleged, supplied him with arms. They created this force which later got too big for them to handle. When Congress did get back into power they couldn't control Bindranwale and his followers. Thus began the terror and counter-terror between the State and the fundamentalists and has resulted in what exists today. This is not to say that there are no genuine demands from the Sikh community. These could have been dealt with within the framework of the constitution and through direct negotiations. For instance, the demand that Chandigarh be a part of the Punjab, and the demand for the sharing of river waters are mainly demands of the rich peasantry in the Punjab. Another way of analysing it is that the green revolution in the Punjab made a certain class of farmer much better off but they couldn't translate this economic power into political power. The Punjab is not industrialised very much. It is mainly This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Anand Patwardhan an agricultural economy. So in a sense the demand for a separate state came out of this need to translate economic power into political power. FW: Is there a socialist or marxist strand to the demand for political power and/ or separate statehood outside of the group that your film concentrates on? AP: This is one factor which the film does not go into. After the crushing of the Naxalite movement in the early seventies, some breakaway elements from the surviving Left groups joined the Bhindranwale forces and their armed struggle. This was initially with the understanding that they had a common enemy - the State. This was a small tendency in one section of the Left which I feel opportunistically joined a religious group saying well, they are fighting with arms against the State and so are we. Bombay Our City. Dir: Anand Patwardhan This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms But this group is largely discredited today. They justified their alliance in terms of the nationality question. They said that the demand for a separate state was part of the genuine aspiration of the people for the protection of their cultural and religious identity which was in danger of being swallowed up by the majority. But there are several fallacies in this. Firstly, the Sikh community in India and anywhere else in the world has never been economically oppressed. They are not like the Muslim community in India who experience economic oppression. The Sikhs are a hard working people who have managed to do well in socio-economic terms. Secondly, the Sikhs make up about 53% of the Punjab population. There is a large Hindu minority of over 40%. So the question of a separate Sikh state would mean dividing the Punjab because that is the only way to deal with such a large minority. There is also the fact that the Sikh community is not a homogeneous one. The so-called terrorists or militants or freedom fighters, or however you want to describe them, belong to the upper castes among the Sikhs, the Jats. The Mazhab: Sikhs, Dalits - the people who were harijans and became Sikhs are by and large not with the separatist movement. So there is a casļe and class division in existence. FW: Where does the Communist Party of India fit into all this? AP: There has always been a Left tradition in the Punjab. Bhagat Singh was one of its earliest socialists. The Indian Communist Party was formed after Bhagat Singh's time. The Party had a strong hold in the Punjab. It later split into the CPI and the CPM. The CPI continued with its strong presence. The CPM also developed a base. When the Naxalite movement started in the late sixties and early seventies many young Sikh and non-Sikh Punjabis joined them. By and large most of the various Left groupings have consistently opposed the Khalistani/separatist movement. The main difference is, however, that the CPI and the CPM did not openly criticize the State. In their analysis the separatist movement was part of an imperialist plot - the USA trying to destabilize the pro-Soviet Indian government. The communists refrained from opposing the Blue Star Operation This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Anand Patwardhan in the Golden Temple and they didn't overtly criticize State repression in the Punjab. Their main support base was the workers but they couldn't become very popular because people could perceive the State repression. In the people's eyes it was not good enough to openly criticize the Khalistani movement and the religious militants and not be critical of the State. The section of the ML - the supporters of Bhagat Singh - that you see in the film are people who recognize the two aspects of terror in the Punjab - the State terror and the religious fundamentalist terror. F W : Who exactly are the ML? AP: The ML are the Marxist-Leninists - they are basically Maoists. The group in the film are the Inquilabi Ekta Kendra - The Revolutionary Unity Centre. It's essentially a coalition of left groups. The ML has consistently opposed the State as well as the Khalistani movement, but there is a section of the ML that was sympathetic to nationalism and was therefore indirectly supporting the Bhindranwale forces. FW: From what you have said so far the role of the Left in the Punjab seems to be a very complex one. There are various shades of complicity with and opposition to the various opposing factions. For me this has not been analysed adequately in the film. AP: I have not gone into this question in depth in the film on purpose. It is not an anthropological or sociological film in that sense. I wanted to make a film about the essence of the struggle between a broadly pro-socialist humanist framework of thinking and a framework of thinking which in my view was religious, or talked about a much narrower cultural identification. So in a sense I use archetypal concepts and images in the film. I haven't tried to subdivide the Left into various components. I treat the Red Flag as THE RED FLAG - the symbol of 100 years of socialist thought. FW : Would it be fair to say that one of the archetypal oppositions you concentrate on in the film is the one between the theist and the atheist ? This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms AP: At one level, yes, because I have used Singh's work "Why I am an Atheist". But I am not making the point that you have to be an atheist to fight religious cruelty or fundamentalism or murder. I do not believe that. There are people who are not communists who are opposed to religious fundamentalism, and there are people who are religious who are opposed to murder and violence. I talk about this in the early part of the film. For instance, the Golden Temple has no gates. It welcomes Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Christians - all are welcome. The Sikh Holy Book has texts from the Muslim and Hindu religions. Sikhism has communal harmony built into its teachings. The religion grew almost like a peace committee in order to make peace between the warring Hindus and Muslims. Later on the religion got militarized because of the oppression it faced. So what we see now, in terms of terrorism on behalf of a religious identity, is a distortion of the essence of Sikh thought. So again I am not trying to say that you have to be an atheist in order not to be violent. Bhagat Singh is somebody whom everyone respects in India - because of his heroic sacrifice, dying for his country at the age of 23. But he was an atheist and a socialist - these are little known facts in India except amongst some sections of the Left. It was very important for me in the film to reassert these facts because then people can transfer the respect they had for Bhagat Singh to respect for someone who is an atheist. The very act of respecting an atheist undermines the selfrighteousness of religious fanatics - you cannot kill for your religion if you respect someone who is an atheist. This has tremendous anti-communal potential. FW : Do you think the fact that he was an atheist has contributed to both sides claiming him as a hero? AP: There aren't only two sides now. The film is slightly dated in that recently the B JP - the fanatical Hindu nationalist party - have started claiming him as a great nationalist hero as well. So it is important to recover the real Bhagat Singh out of all this distortion. Bhagat Singh, if anything, belongs to a militant secular tradition. I do not mean militant in the sense of guns and bombs, quite the contrary. But I feel that the same passion This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Anand Patwardhan that goes into religious fanaticism has to be put into secularism. You have to feel militant and passionate about your secularism and stand for it in everything you do. FW: You think secularism has a chance in a country like India? AP: Absolutely. I think it is deep-rooted in India. The religious fundamentalists, whether they be Hindu, Muslim or Sikh cannot be a long-term force in India. I have travelled widely and talked to people from the working class and in the countryside. It may sound romantic to say this but there is something like an ancient wisdom that still exists amongst these people. There is an abhorrence for the kind of cruelties that have been practised in the name of religion. It is common to all people from the different religions. They never justify killings.... This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms FW: I asked the question more in the context of the core messages of salvation that one finds in the major Indian religions. Can socialism and secularism compete with them in India? AP: We must not confuse secularism with atheism. You do not have to be atheist to be secular. Bhagat Singh was in the small minority who become atheists. But even his atheism that is discussed in the film is not the kind that denounces religious faith and belief. He asks "What is God doing? Is he enjoying the woes of the human race? Down with such a God!" What he means is that if this misery and suffering and exploitation goes on in the name of God, we don't want any part of it. So it's really a humanist critique of religion. People do not see it as a threat to their religious beliefs. What it points out is that their religion has been distorted and misused. It is not difficult, when you talk to someone who is religious, to bring out the fact that humanism is at the core of their belief. The essence of any religion is humanism. In every religion there are the two broad streams - the hierarchical, exploitative, institutionalised stream; and the nonhierarchical, grassroots stream which is anti-hierarchy and anti-ritual - i.e. the people who say we do not need the church or the temple to intervene on our behalf with God. This is very much the scenario in modern India. It is not going to be easy for the fanatical Hindu B JP to convince the majority of ordinary Hindus that their gods reside in one temple or in one brick. People have a more universal concept of their beliefs than that. So I think that this is where there is real hope for a country like India. FW : Fm sure you've been asked these questions before , but given the kind of political work you are involved in, the kinds of issues and concerns you concentrate on, why use the craft of film in general and why documentary film rather than any other kind of film genre? AP: Documentaries are a way of documenting! Which is you just record events and you analyse them. You present these in an argument - as a way of interpreting history. This leads to discussions within the groups that the films are being shown to. There might be disagreements but these lead to further questions. I don't think that in a one-hour film one can cover This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Anand Patwardhan all the issues - especially in a film about the Punjab. There are many issues that are not dealt with in my film. There are other ways of seeing the Punjab which have not been represented. But usually all these points are touched upon in discussions; so the film acts as the initial stimulant. My filmmaking is a form of intervention and is my contribution in any given situation. I'm not really making the film for the outside world to analyse what's happening. I'm more directly interested in the film being a contribution to the given situation. I've put subtitles on it for the people outside India to understand, but that's about as far as I will go. The film is also being circulated outside the Punjab in India because it is meant to be used in the context of countering the growing racism against the Sikh community. The images of secular Sikhs who are opposed to religious fundamentalism as well as State repression - this is very important for the rest of India to see - it undermines the stereotyping of the Sikh as a terrorist. It is also important to show that it is possible and essential to do both at the same time - to oppose the State as well as the fundamentalists - and that it is wrong to do them separately. The reason I work with documenatry and not with fiction is partly personal and partly political. I'm not very interested in fiction. I'm more excited by documentaries, in found material rather than in material I create myself. I do not trust my ability to imagine situations and get actors to perform them. I'm happier in finding images and moments in time which I feel are important and highlighting them. Documentaries do many things that fiction cannot do. They can become a dialogue between people who would otherwise not have a dialogue in real life. In the Punjab now it is difficult for Hindus and Sikhs to speak openly about the problems. In the film you have Sikh fundamentalists saying something. You then have Hindu fanatics saying something. They are seen side by side and you can evaluate what they say. In a sense they undermine each other. You have the third force which is the secular movement and the secular tradition. They have a chance to speak. You have people in society who aren't given a voice - workers, peasants - given the chance to speak in the film and to be seen and heard. This content downloaded from 111.93.136.226 on Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:58:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms