Gandhigiri

In their latest adventures, Munna and Circuit take to "Gandhigiri" orliving life by the principles of Bapu, as opposed to their habitual dadagiri.Munna’s initiation into "Gandhigiri" begins with his mission to win aradio quiz on Gandhi, which would get him invited to a live show with the girlof his dreams, Jhanvi, a radio jockey. Of course, he wins the quiz, havingkidnapped some professors who supply answers to the questions asked on the radioshow, meets his lady love and suitably impresses her with his curious mix ofGandhi and street lingo. And soon it becomes his mission to set things right forher and her friends, a group of senior citizens, who’ve been cheated out oftheir property by the wily promoter Lucky Singh.  

Trouble starts when he gets invited to give a lecture to her group of friendson Gandhi. Munna now does something he never did all his life—he steps into alibrary, and starts reading up on Gandhi to prepare for the upcoming test oflove. Working non-stop for three days and nights, he starts hallucinating. Hesees the ghost of Gandhi, which will now re-appear whenever Munna is faced witha tough decision to make. The ghost is the conscience Munna never knew he had—it holds up a mirror to the gun-toting Munna and teaches him to win hisbattles with a smile. Inspired by the Gandhi way of telling the truth and takingon your opponents with a smile, Munna becomes the rage of town, with a wholefollowing of young people, who find these simple principles the key to theircomplex lives.

So, was this just a goody goody modern day take on Gandhi, non-violence, noalcohol and the rest? Not on your life—not when Gandhivaad becomes the cheekyGandhigiri of Munna and Circuit. The Gandhi of Lage Raho Munna Bhai isnot the historical figure we have been taught to revere for his unflinchingmoral strength. This Gandhi is like a grandfatherly genie, who appears any timeMunna thinks of him "from the heart", and makes for a sympathetic confidantwho makes tough decisions appear so simple after all. 

It is interesting that in this film Gandhi’s identification is with the20-plus generation, who are most likely to scoff at the Gandhi of theirtextbooks—that great but boring old man who said uh-oh to sex, no to drinkingand seemed totally uncomfortable with any fun in life. The principles thatGandhians have sworn by become, in this film, hip concepts for getting the bestof life. So, a young girl, who calls in to Munna to ask advice on how she shouldjudge a prospective husband selected by her father, is advised by Munna, withGandhi in the background, of course, to check out how he treats people who aresocially inferior. And of course, the boy’s condescending treatment of awaiter in a restaurant seals his fate. Now that was quick and easy, and was itvery far from Gandhi’s philosophy of the social uplift of the underprivileged(which is, of course, a much debated issue)? 

The film works because it strips away the stiff layers of principle fromGandhi and makes available the very basics of his world-view. It acknowledgesthat Gandhi was a great man, who lived by his principles, but that we can’tall be great men like him —and neither do we want to. But what we do need isnot to forget him and some basic truths that were as relevant in his time asthey are today. So sitting in the police lock-up for staging a satyagraha infront of Lucky Singh’s house (when the easier option of just bashing him upwas available) Munna and Circuit bask in their goodness and fantasise about theday when there will be their statues in parks, like Gandhi’s, their pictureson five hundred rupee notes, like Gandhi’s, roads named after them, likeGandhi, but not a dry day on their birthdays like on Gandhi’s.

For those one can already hear screaming at the film because of itscheekiness, its commodification of the great man and what not—let's just saythis: Maybe the Gandhi of Lage Raho has more relevance to us today thanthe Gandhi in the books, whose only relevance seems to be that extra holiday hegets us. If this film makes Gandhi the flavor of the month—if people below theage of 40 have identified with even the very basics of Gandhi, courtesy Munna’sGandhigiri, it can't be such a bad thing after all. 

Even during the nationalist movement, Gandhi was appropriated by people atall levels and in ways that he himself had not bargained for —to the hordes ofpeasants who flocked to see him, he was Gandhi Baba, a sadhu with miracle powerswho had set out to drive away the British. Had Gandhi lived today, he might havefrowned at Lage Raho, or maybe —who knows.—he would have quietlysmiled.

This film comes after a whole bunch of "patriotic" films in recent yearswhere Gandhi figures as some kind of dithering weakling, who could have savedBhagat Singh and his friends from the gallows, but couldn’t, or maybe justdidn’t. This depiction had its own politics—the offshoot of a discourse thatit was Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence that made us weak and ill-equippedto hold our own in the modern world. In fact, Gandhi has pretty much been out offavor with under-40 Indians, because the Gandhi they know seems too good to betrue, too arcane to be of any real use.

Statist discourse has mummified Gandhi making him inaccessible in a fastchanging society. With its cheeky salutation, Lage Raho re-invents Gandhi forus—the Gandhi of 2006 India.