“Why are you so political bro!?”
My general reaction to the question has always been a smile and a cover up of the actual reasons by saying “I’m from Kerala da!”. But, aren’t we all political beings driven by our morals? Or have we stuck to being individuals driven by dogma’s?
Born into a conservative tamil brahmin community in Palakkad and now stuck with an identity crisis, I was then what I would consider now to be an ignorant, privileged, selfish individual who was unaware of plight of the real world. Books didn’t matter to me, art didn’t make sense to me, poetry was just rhyming lines, cinema was just entertainment… because ‘I wasn’t looking around’. It was by absolute chance and backed by my privilege that I started gaining interest in photography and rock music. For a kid who was always told to not go beyond the three lanes of the village or else a dark skinned man will take me away in his coir sack (Well… that’s how subtle casteism is!), I was somehow motivated to travel. In the initial months after my dad bought me a camera, I was addicted to taking fancy and pretty pictures. Ya… ofcourse… DPs for my friends too…
But, what completely turned my life upside down was this genius of a man named A.F.Mathew, walking around staring at the guys in the class on the first day of his workshop in the middle of my 1st semester at DJ Academy of Design, back in 2014. He went on to ask the boys if they felt uncomfortable and oh, boy didn’t they react. He went on to say that he is here to make the disturbed comfortable and the comfortable disturbed (later pointing out to the issue of male gaze and gender inequality). What was supposed to be a film appreciation workshop according to the management turned out to be a workshop on the sociological breakdown of the arts and it’s correlation to the society in itself. I wish I had quoted all that he said back then. But, I’m glad that a vast set of students have documented a lot about this man (Psst… Google!).
Further, as I progressed to my 2nd semester, we were taken to Sithamalli, a village in Tamilnadu as a part of our ‘Living with People’ workshop. The kids of the village took us around as we made sketches and they restricted us from going to selected areas. I took a stroll alone a week later to know why they were referring to these areas as ‘areas we should avoid’ although they also pointed out that there were no gundas there when asked. I ended up speaking to the people there rather than engaging myself in sketching (which I was terrible at.). It was then it dawned on to me how hard hitting casteism was. The ghost of my ignorance started to haunt me from there. It was a slow and a self-doubting metamorphosis.
Books and articles mattered to me now, art became life’s essence, poetry became a cry to world, cinema became a reflection of life. For now, not did I only look around and take photographs that I wanted to present to the world. I was also travelling not to take pretty pictures anymore, but to patiently experience a moment revealing itself to me. I was talking to people who wanted to be heard and trying to rise above my ignorance. But, a lot of things disturb me now.
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“Profit over people”
Neo-liberalism (words like these which no one wants to google) brought forward the economic liberation policies which increased the role of the private sector in the economy and the society. But, with the rise of privatisation we also have gradually seen the issue of ‘profit over people’. These are times when employees are expected to comply to work for lower wages and consumer products are sold for inflated unaffordable prices. These are also the times when education is turning out to be a ‘commodity’ available to the middle and upper classes to sustain their economic status and viz a viz get qualified enough to serve the needs of the market.
The market is okay with freedom but not democratic freedom. They seek to have a system of control in which individuals take their freedom to submit themselves under a very well structured system which clearly works on advertisements and makes people believe that they live for material comfort rather than a sense of dignity and purpose in life. People aren’t informed because the markets don’t want them to be. What is propagated is consent, over ‘thought’. As in, authorities (governments and the individuals who control the market) want things to fall in place for them with the consent of the people. Hence, they educate the public accordingly to comply with their measures using all sorts of media. Critical thought or thinking through one’s own means (which is basically ‘thought’) is a no no.
Our democracies abided by their constitution, seek to have rights and equality. But under the shade of the elites of the market in rapport with the governments, people of the post-modern world now work under a more waged slavery system backed by advertisements which create a sense for material comfort and manufacture consent. These advertisements need not be rational and informing. I am not talking about those pamphlets, hoardings, jerseys or the content that plays as the TV shows fill the gap between them. I’m talking about the TV shows, the newspapers, the news channels, etc. We are told or made to believe that we are rationally informed. These are the advertisements that come in all forms of visuals, ideas and ideals.
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“The staging and manufacturing process”
Deceptions of scientific or academic reportage, rhetoric, unethical and selective media delivery, control over education, etc., are some of the tools that the oligarchs in the thirst for power may use. Using the banner of freedom, the process of commercialisation and privatisation get carried out as in the case of educational autonomy where UGC is being reformed into HECI. But, true educational autonomy in the age of the non-existent Jio Institute securing a eminence award puts many of us in a state of awe in the modern world of ever-lying fact-defying politicians and elites. We have submitted ourselves to the system so much that we don’t think it’s our duty as responsible citizens to critically analyse what’s happening in the socio-economic and socio-political sphere. We consider ourselves to be caught up and busy under the turmoil of our daily jobs or educational system. We leave it to the well branded organisations to address the injustice in the society and not ourselves, even for our own concerns. Activism or in simple words ‘caring’, is a professional job for us all in this post-modern world. We also resort to the ever spiritual idea of ‘that’s how the world is…’ when nothing seems to benefit us.
What they who stage and manufacture need is the absolute acceptance and submission. Not critical thinking, debates, RTI’s asking questions and students/employee’s approaching administrative bodies. Unless we aren’t disturbed by dwelling amidst our privilege and staged comforts. Until we truly seek to contribute to the society than just setting apart our time being lavish (slaves of consumerism) apolitical beings; we aren’t truly free as individuals, minus the layer of class and caste oppression, racism and all those factors which wonderfully divide us enough to get enraged by reserved seats and excited enough to play a game of cricket under the shades of the commonwealth (google why we play the very much appropriately called ‘commonwealth’).
The day we settle down to have conversations about social/humanitarian topics or discuss after cross reading multiple newspapers on some wooden benches of tea shops selling tea and coffee for rates minus the rate for the ambience (unlike them ‘cafés’). Until the day we ‘read, think and research’ instead of ‘speed reading’ and until the day we debate instead of arguing. We are a part of this system of being that most of us hate and are trying to overcome.
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“Consent over thought”
Under the mirage of various freedoms we are guaranteed by our constitution, our governments have always made us believe that we enjoy absolute freedom of press and thought. The exceptions that come along with the freedoms or acts passed to maintain law and order are at times being used to repress the very freedom of press and thought that we have. The freedoms we have need not be absolute. But, we are and should be in a continuous struggle to at least make them democratic.
We rely on the media for our daily dose of information. Rhetoric ideals are shoved down over throats every day. For every point addressed there’s always an enemy, either as a distraction or to dehumanise them. The Natzi had the Jews, the Americans have the myths about socialism, ‘the war on drugs’ and ‘the war on Islamic terror’. While, here in India, our media has some stone pelters going against armed men and some college students trying to bring down a whole nation by hosting events and debates; you know… The kind of discussions where you let other parties talk. Well… Immigrants/the idea of outsiders/anti-nationals and urban naxals being the words they use to address these groups as potential enemies. It is rather amusing to see how consent is gradually developed under the ambiguity of the issues.
What we need to propagate is critical thinking and not just blind obedience to state sponsored propaganda and internet/media driven advertisements. What we need to conserve is ethical journalism and socio-political thought. What we need is ‘Resistance’ in the age of staged democracies and manufactured consent.
In 2015, I heard about agriculture and media based courses funded by UGC. I enrolled myself into the B.Voc. filmmaking course at St. Joseph’s college and then… Modiji started saying Bhaiyo Aur Behno and things just weren’t ever the same again. My situation was like the lead (Pb) in Maggi.
In solidarity with ‘all that was happening’ in the country or outside the obvious set of motivations a small group of us from college ended up being a part of organising screenings and debates in college. Not everything was and is directly correlated to the political. But, everything around us is certainly political. In the process, our student-run Rushes film club in college started organising monthly events and weekly screenings. There was certainly much friction about screening entertaining movies. We tried to stick with ‘to make the disturbed comfortable and the comfortable disturbed’, but executing the idea was hard because not all of us thought of cinema the same way.
My thought was if people can’t sit and read or listen to a talk/debate at least they will show some kind of motivation to watch movies. It was amusing how people even walked out of ‘Black swan’. It is okay to walk out and the events were free to enter and exit at any point of time unlike some college fests…ahem…But, it’s not okay to remain ignorant. The need was to make people think about things they don’t want to think about. Why? Because it matters, it was and is very much the need to be engaged in life than to be distracted from it. People matter, their stories matter.
In between all this hungama, I received a notification on Facebook saying Rushes is collaboration with TSO in organising a film screening of ‘In the shade of fallen chinar’, a film which was disallowed by the IB ministry to be screened at the IDSFFK along with two more films. ‘None of us’ at rushes knew about the event. The wonderful way in which the management had organised our department and the institution facilitated this confusion. I found the Facebook post culprit and ended up meeting the wonderful people at The Students’ Outpost, a collective of students from various colleges and streams at their first ever event. Oh… the odds. It was definitely to my eyes, a students uprising for social justice and sensitisation of the ones that sit by us.
Suddenly, students in Bangalore where not all about competing for seats in so called ‘student unions’ for conducting fests. We had as a whole of our thoughts and experiences become much more; The Students’ Outpost.
Now, there was hope for humanity in my eyes.
*blink blink*
