Rajneeti Or Politics?

There is a revealing observation at the end of the film Rajneeti by Prakash Jha. Samar, the character played by Ranbir Kapoor, when asked by his sister-in-law why he will not stay in politics in India rather than return to a quieter academic life in the US, replies that politics unleashes the demons inside him, demons that he prefers not to show. That line, to my mind sums up much about Jha’s take on politics - it is not about ordinary people, the Indian state is absent except to anoint new leaders and social movements are easily hijacked. Ultimately it is an overwrought soap opera about an Indian family in politics. The title Rajneeti is therefore entirely apt.

Let me explain what I mean. The word rajneeti is composed of two words: raj (exercise of government, administration, rule, sway, sovereignty) and neeti (moral philosophy, ethics). Thus rajneeti is a composite that indicates the notion of rule of law to govern a polity. The word Raj also has imperial connotations, whether in the mythological past (e.g. Ram Raj) or in the historical past (e.g. British Raj). It continues to have currency in contemporary democratic India, never losing its regal or elite inflections. Thus terms such as Zamindar Raj or Congress Raj are used colloquially to describe the activities of ‘high’ leadership, the dominance of a single party or simply the dominance of power through sheer force of tradition or charisma. The actors in this arena of rajneeti traditionally belong to the elites, the real world descendants of the Kauravas and Pandavas. In the film Rajneeti, the main characters are elites such as these. That the film is set in a small town in central India rather than in New Delhi should not be seen as obscuring the depiction of high politics. For the themes of political succession and inheritance, sibling love, cousin rivalry, overseas education, foreign girlfriends, and wily king makers are present here as much as they are in the capital. They aspire to capture power, whether the naked power of money and donations or more democratic institutions of party leadership, tickets to contest elections and ministerial portfolios. Their political activity therefore requires wealth, strategy, wily machinations and a complex triangulation of means, ends and the use of violence. Krishna’s advice to Arjuna on the battlefield is in fact a philosophical meditation on this topic. Ultimately as he notes, and as Brij Gopal (Patekar) recounts in the film: there are no good or bad decisions in politics, there are only correct ones that help you achieve the desired end.

In contemporary democratic India thus, the word rajneeti is used in common parlance to refer to such elite politics; rajneeti is what remote, privileged and powerful people in immaculate white kurtas do. These privileged worlds intersect with those of ordinary voters spectacularly during elections when people delight in the levelling effect of campaigns. Laundered clothes are sullied by dusty road journeys, heads are bent entering huts, and hands have to be folded in their plea for votes.

But in contrast to rajneeti, there is another vast domain of politics that is distinct and complementary to it and the word used to describe this sort of activity is simply: politics. This loan word from English has now been thoroughly assimilated into the Indian lexicon and is used alongside other such appropriations: party, leader, public, vote and so on. Politics is an umbrella term to describe a range of popular activities such as agitation, mobilisation and struggle including student politics, ecological movements, land rights agitations, the women’s movement and so on. When people say something is political they mean it might be tricky, involve negotiation with power or powerful actors and requires some careful balancing of interests. The leaders in this arena of politics tend to be a bit more weather-beaten, darker skinned and drawn from among the less privileged sections of society. Thanks to the democratic upsurge in the past couple of decades we have seen actors from this domain enter the contrasting domain of rajneeti. But as they become part of institutionalised power, they are viewed as increasingly compromised by the norms of this realm. As one rice farmer explained to me many years ago, a thought that has been repeated on countless occasions in many different languages, up and down the country since: jey jaaye Lonka shey hoi Rabon i.e. One who goes to Hell becomes the Demon. The domain of rajneeti is thus widely viewed by the average voter in India as corrupting, ruthless, violent and hellish.

Yet, we need to note, despite this widespread popular understanding of rajneeti as demonic, instead of voter apathy (as is the case in the world’s older democracies) voter turnout figures in India are consistently high. In the 2009 elections, voters in small towns (such as that featured in Rajneeti) were among the most enthusiastic voters, compared to rural and metropolitan voters. The reason for this commitment to electoral participation are various but show that the Indian electorate chooses not to throw the baby out with the bath water; that is to say that while the electorate recognises that politicians and rajneeti are venal, voters still see their own role in politics as pure. By turning up to vote, by queuing patiently at polling stations, by punishing arrogance and complacency in their choice of leader, they consider themselves as participating in the most basic act of the politics of democracy which enshrines political equality and popular sovereignty, when each person is counted to equal as anyone else – i.e. on election day, they can live out the ideal of ek din ka sultan. Elections in India are therefore not only celebrated, they are sacred and it is this that keeps India’s democracy alive, not the shenanigans of rajneeti.

In the film there is only a slight hint of this tension between the notions of rajneeti and politics, and ultimately the film is only about the former. The world of politics is evoked only fleetingly although there were chances for more. Recall the opening sequences of the film in which the politics of the elites is powerfully challenged by the charismatic ideologue (Naseeruddin Shah). But he retires from the battleground at the height of his powers in the first few minutes, consumed by guilt for having transgressed social boundaries in a moment of passion for a younger woman. The message is clear: guilt has no place in a politician. But politics makes an appearance again in the nukkad meetings in the Dalit neighbourhood in which people discuss that they would like to be represented by one of their own in the coming elections i.e. the local kabbaddi champion Sooraj (Devgn) rather than a member of the elite with a foreign degree who has been parachuted in. This issue of representation has been a significant factor in Indian democracy in recent decades and Jha raises this important issue but only to show that it can easily be hijacked by the elites. One masterstroke by the king-maker Brij Gopal puts an end to their agitation as he nominates the father of the young Dalit rebel, thereby taking the wind out of the sails of the youngsters. This move by Gopal is akin to Dronacharya in the Mahabharata, demanding the thumb of the ace archer Eklavya, as guru dakshina (tribute) to remove any trace of competition to Arjuna. That the father, a chauffeur for the elites, holds on to old-fashioned values of loyalty and affection towards his employers pits the generations against each other and divides the Dalit community. Further, the young Dalit leader is himself then co-opted by Gopal’s rivals and soon is absorbed into the diabolical world of rajneeti. By presenting the Karna figure as a Dalit leader, Jha is able to conflate a number of issues at once. Ultimately the message is that on the landscape of rajneeti talented low-caste players remain potent, though easily vanquished, challenges to the status quo. Muslims too are dismissed as a herd, always delivering a ‘block vote’.

The masses from this point in the film feature simply as that. They are seen at political rallies, at royal birthdays, on roadsides, in traffic jams, and as consumers of stories that the media who love the drama present to them. These people and their politics provide a vast, heaving, and indistinguishable mass backdrop to throw the rajneeti of the elites in sharper relief. But ultimately, even this backdrop is blown away like dust by the helicopters in which the leaders arrive on the scene. The last hour of the film focuses almost entirely on the playing out of the demons of rajneeti that Samar seeks to flee. Popular voices of those not in power are rarely heard in this film. Instead, violence, lies, abuse, patriarchal strangleholds, and paranoia of rajneeti spiral out of control. The women who belong to this elite world provide some alternative voices, but they too are silenced. The mother makes a pathetic attempt at brokering peace but ends up reinforcing the status quo, the girlfriend (Thompson) holds up a mirror to Samar, the wife (Kaif) appeals to the humanism in her audience. But ultimately they are attributed little agency or influence.

Ordinary people and their politics feature again only at the end of the film, when the newest entrant into rajneeti, the young widow, addresses a rally and shames the thousands into voting for her. But we don’t hear much in the way of what the audience makes of her (except to predict her foregone victory, lines delivered by Jha himself in a Hitchcock-esque cameo role), no questions are asked about her halting speech devoid of policy ideas, no dissenting voices question her lack of political experience. In the election at the film’s climax, the only role attributed to the voters is to deliver the (predictable) verdict that confirms the fate of the new rajneeti princess.

Jha adds a further disturbing layer– i.e. the effect that mass politics and elite rajneeti have on each other. The character of Samar’s older brother (Rampal) encompasses this contradiction perfectly. While he is an affectionate older brother, hapless groom, obedient son and sensitive husband in his private life, his political persona when dealing with party workers, political rivals and subordinates is marked by rudeness, a touchy ego, uncontrolled passion, and a seemingly insatiable appetite for blood and gore. One of the memorable lines about the nature of rajneeti in the film is delivered by him: “everyone thinks that rajneeti is a public bus, you can just hop on and demand a ticket”. That he delivers this line furiously as he molests the young woman aspiring to stand for elections, makes the message even more chilling. The violence of his actions and his words tell us something profound about those in power: they will do anything to keep those who are not in power, out, even if it means literally decimating them. In a democratic society, where politics constantly throws up new aspirants to power, keeping them out is indeed a challenge and as Jha’s film shows requires brutal and literal violence to do so. Those in rajneeti frequently rise to this challenge, wrecking havoc on ordinary people’s lives and also brutalising and depraving themselves in the process. Thus very few of those in power have an untainted reputation. Similarly, in Sooraj’s story we see again the corrupting nature of rajneeti when he literally falls ill with a high fever after master minding a particularly brutal operation for his new elite patrons. It is almost as if the two worlds of rajneeti and politics while complementary need to be kept separate, as contact between them is explosive. The presence of people and their politics is a constant and uncomfortable reminder to the elites that, for all their self-assurance, in a democracy one cannot be a leader without the periodic backing of the masses. And it is this realisation perhaps that so frustrates the elites and causes them to lash out in violence against voters and one another.

Thus Prakash Jha’s film is a meditation on the demonic in politics, the domain of rajneeti. And he does this well. While most of us found the violence implausible, we probably need to note that the implausibility lies in the portrayal of the elite conducting the violence themselves, rather than in existence of the violence itself. Violence is an essential aspect of the demonic in politics. But we also need to remember that not all politics is demonic. In democratic India, much of what people consider to be political is about change, opportunity and gaining self-respect. In this realm of politics, politics is a means to an end. In rajneeti and Rajneeti politics is an end in itself.