Bachchan — 704 & 705 & 706 & 707 (images from the Marathi Sahitya Samelan) & 707 (i) & 708 & 709 & 710 & 711
LINK
“Yes, I have been invited through formal government procedure by the Chief Minister of Gujarat to promote tourism in the State of Gujarat. Yes I have accepted it. And yes I shall go ahead and do it. I am promoting tourism for Gujarat. I am not promoting the politics or the governance of Mr Narendra Modi the Chief Minister, or Mr Narendra Modi the individual. Gujarat does not belong to Mr Modi. It belongs to India and I as a proud citizen of my country have every constitutional right to promote a part of my country. Mr Modi is a democratically elected and constitutionally appointed head of the State, if people have a problem with him, why did you elect him ?”
LINK2
“An audio visual has been prepared with Abhishek where he is seeking a pledge towards preservation of the Earth and requesting people to switch off their lights for an hour. The Chief Minister of Delhi, Mrs Shiela Dixit, and a prominent member of the ruling Congress Party, is attending the moment. A few hours before the show was to start apparently the audio visual featuring Abhishek has been asked to be removed and banner posters bearing his photograph as Ambassador have been stopped from being displayed !!”
LINK3
“The three wheeler rickshaw driver, who I often wonder is homeless because he is perpetually driving and seeking customers, will shake his weary body from the back of the passenger seat, which has become his abode for the night.”
LINK4
“Thank you the people of Pune. Thank you for the love and affection you have shown to my Father and to his works. You have restored my faith in the old practice of ‘kavi sammelans’ that I used to visit with him. You have restored my faith in the discipline that was exhibited by this over 50,000 mass of poetry lovers. You have won over my heart and my soul and my respect. For nothing is this wonderful city called the centre of art and culture. ”
LINK5
“The pictures at the recital in Amanora Park seem poetic and so symbolic. Especially the ones that have me seated in recitation and the large overpowering image of my Father in the background. Apart from the similarity in our appearances because of the glasses, there is a sense of him looking over me, in blessing. His spirit inspiring me to do justice to his words and works ..”
LINK6
“These are the ‘happiest days of our life’ and devoting it at a very early age towards imbibing all we can get is the most crucial aspect of today’s generation.”
LINK7
“One of the greatest joys of life is the thought of bringing a smile on the face of one that you do not know. I experienced such joys this afternoon on meeting an entire school of children, that have come out on a country tour from Bhavnagar in Gujarat. ”
LINK8
“Heard some more scripts today from prospective makers and they all seemed interesting, but still in their formative stages. So I shall wait again for them to formulate a final design before I can give any indication of a commitment.”
LINK9
“Those wonderful days gone by, when letter writing was such a beauteous exercise. Sitting in seclusion, thinking and imagining what and where the receiver would be and in what circumstance. Pages and pages of ink and pen deployed in the most attractive hand writing.”
SATYAMSHOT 
March 27, 2010 at 8:16 AM
Modi leaves SIT office after five hours of questioning
LikeLike
March 27, 2010 at 11:39 PM
[Because of a death in the family and connected events I have not been able to comment as frequently, let alone extensively, as I would have liked to but I have been reading all the posts. This one today is very welcome for all the documentation you’ve provided. On the Abhishek thing there is no mystery. The Congress refuses to behave like a grown up where the name ‘Bachchan’ is concerned! I was actually surprised to see Sheila Dixit appear with Abhishek at another event recently! This is all getting more than a little silly. The congress leaders or their ‘chamchas’ (because the way it works in the congress it is often not the top leadership that directly issues such directives but someone somewhere down the chain of command eager to please the powers that be.. of course they do this because the leaders in question here continue to have a certain attitude towards you) refuse to grow up! On the rest I shall get back to this another time, perhaps tomorrow. Though I could hardly side with the media against you in this or any other matter since some of their criticism on the Gujarat issue overlaps with mine (they might be cynically guided, I console myself I am not but nonetheless the content is similar in some respects) and since you have responded to the overall thrust of the criticism (I know you are too polite to be able to do so with a member here) I would like to perhaps clarify some things I said earlier somewhat differently (though I’m not sure what else I could add to the volumes I’ve already put up here!). Hope the Abhishek issue is resolved though.]
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 3:24 AM
Satyam, sorry to hear about the death in the family. Deepest condolences. May God to give the strength to the family at his hour and always.
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 8:27 AM
thank you Rajesh..
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 4:29 PM
My heartfelt condolences Satyam.
Very sorry to hear it.
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 5:56 PM
thanks much Oldgold..
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 5:31 AM
Satyam, sorry to hear about the death. Deepest condolences.
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 8:27 AM
thanks alex..
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 5:45 AM
Satyam, may God give you strength to recover from this trauma, My deep condolences are with you and family i this need of hour.
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 8:27 AM
thanks much..
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 9:49 AM
satyam please accept my condolence to you and your family
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 9:55 AM
thanks Shakti..
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 11:02 AM
My prayers and thoughts are with you Satyam and your entire family. May God give a good resting place to your family member’s soul.
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 1:55 PM
thanks much Aramak..
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 2:07 PM
Sorry to hear about a demise in your family Satyam. May God give you & your family strength to bear this lose. May the soul rest in peace.
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 2:19 PM
thank you so much..
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 6:08 AM
deep condolences satyam..may god give you nd your family a lot of strength at this unfortune hour!!
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 6:25 AM
thanks Mansi..
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 2:25 PM
After Big B, Abhishek Sidelined in Earth Hour Event?
WWF- India must apologise to Abhishek Bachchan
It is for organisers to answer Amitabh’s query: Congress
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 3:12 PM
When is the Congress going to grow up?
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 3:16 PM
Left the following comment on the Bachchan blog: “The abrupt canceling of Abhishek’s appearance is simply outrageous. It was felt earlier (including by me) that the Sea Link episode with you was a case of lower-level leaders falling over themselves to be holier than the Pope, but this incident, coming so soon after, makes it hard for me to believe that a message isn’t being sent out by the “higher ups” in the party. It is pretty juvenile stuff from a party that celebrates its 125th anniversary later this year; and unworthy of the legacy of the likes of Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi, and Bose.”
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 2:38 PM
satyam do put up sirji reciting his fathers poems in pune,its simply vintage Amitabh
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 6:42 PM
[I do not think you have done anything ‘wrong’ in associating yourself with the state of Gujarat. But there is that in life which is sometimes inappropriate. At least this. It is not wrong to laugh at a funeral in any ethical or moral sense of the term but it might be inappropriate. My own objection in this entire episode centered more around some of the remarks you made with respect to Modi than about the cause you took up though truth be told I do not think that the two can be completely severed. For example we saw in Kerala a ruckus being raised that you could not represent the state for having associated with Modi. I do not agree with the latter criticism but it is certainly an example of how what one does in a public space is never perceived as neutral. Nor should one be naive enough to think it so. Which is why as I’ve also said before when one is a public figure one cannot decide, operating in that very same public ‘field’, that one has engaged in an action that is simply ‘private’ or ‘personal’ and has nothing to do with the realm of politics. When you are at home and there is no public record of what you do or say you can indeed indulge in the purely personal but the moment you step outside that intimate space this privacy is barred to you and to every other public figure. There is something a bit tragic about this price every celebrity pays but nonetheless it is so. And within that public space words uttered, let alone actions, have consequences. You have nothing to do with Modi’s politics or political program. Only the insane or those with agendas to sell would choose to doubt this. However within the public field when you associate with Modi he is not just any CM of Gujarat but one who carries, rightly or wrongly, a potent political charge. Therefore he cannot be compared to other political leaders across the political spectrum. To use my old tired example in a different guise could one have said in 1942 that meeting Hitler or Stalin or Roosevelt or Churchill were all equally neutral political gestures. In other words I am a public figure, I go and meet Hitler, I praise him as a matter of civility (it is incidentally always a little dangerous to carry over such bourgeois orders of ‘politeness’ to the public sphere), I then agree to become part of an ad for Bavaria! The juxtaposition might seem extreme but every one of the positive adjectives and arguments used to describe Modi were also used for Hitler in the 30s. The point isn’t that they’re the same by any means but that they share a fascist genealogy. So Stalin invites me, a public figure, to engage in an ad campaign for Moscow right on the heels of extinguishing more people in the USSR than the entire number of those who died in WWII. What should my response be? That I have nothing to do with Stalin’s politics? A leader does not have to kill more than 20 million to become persona non grate. 20 ought to be enough. Given the dark cloud that hangs over Modi shouldn’t discretion have been the better course in this instance? As a public figure I do not blame you for running into people in a purely social context but this is surely something more? One need not have praised Modi. Again two issues get confused here. You have nothing to do with his politics. But this is not about your beliefs. The media might choose to spin it this way, there I agree with and accept your defense completely. You are also completely right to state that you have done as much or more in this or other contexts for other states and have associated with other leaders in the same fashion. But leaving aside my Hitler/Stalin/FDR/Churchill analogy I do not think, to be brutally honest about it, that even this is perceived as creditable. There is the danger that one comes across as ‘empty’ or not invested in anything. Again this is not what I believe. You have so many scars from so many decades of public life. From your industry to the larger public sphere it is fair to say that you have been much maligned, attacked, criticized, on and on and on. How then could you continue to retain this ‘innocence’ about what being a public figure entails? It is also not my intention to justify every perception that arises about you. Some people are clearly engaging in propaganda in the media, others are simply obtuse. But why not avoid this in the first instance? When you are otherwise extremely careful to avoid the controversial even when it comes to passing judgment on the work of your peers? and it’s not only about the public sphere. we don’t socialize with rapists and murderers and then say that we have nothing to do with their crimes! For Modi to have you by his side legitimizes him in many ways where he otherwise has serious legitimacy problems. So even accepting everything you’ve said your actions were not neutral in their effects. You could have become brand ambassador of Gujarat without a public ceremony with Modi. The latter has twinned himself with his state. It has been a successful campaign of his. I actually loved your statement from the other day when you said ‘Gujarat was there before Modi and will be there after him’. It performed a certain decoupling which might seem obvious except that Modi has been running the reverse logic for many years. You have said many times that you are apolitical. But doesn’t it strike you as odd that from your appearance with Modi at a public event to these petty actions by the Congress at every level, every year so much that you say and do is precisely interpreted in political terms? This is not a mystery. Whatever the history of your relations with Sonia Gandhi or her family the fact is that they cannot stop picking on you, either directly or through their cohorts, because you represent a certain cultural capital. I’ve said this before — your family is India’s ‘first’ in a cultural sense. Therefore the Gandhis cannot simply ignore you. For the same reason people on any given side of the debate cannot just ignore your appearance with Modi and with statements that were somewhat effusive in praising him (the ‘Shahenshah’ exchange of compliments?). So the heart of the debate involves not really your beliefs and your motivations. I am completely persuaded that, and to indulge in a cliche, your heart is in the right place. But some of your public ‘interventions’ are rather questionable for all the reasons I’ve cited. The ‘political’ does not begin only when one engages in formal politics. The politics begins on a blog, in a movie, in a newspaper piece, really anywhere. The moment one has an audience, large or small, one is in the realm of politics. Therefore whatever one says or does has consequences. There is no point thinking one has been ‘wronged’. This might indeed be so but it is beside the point. Those are the ‘wages’ of celebrity. The calculus one has to work with is that given this state of affairs what effects are achieved at what cost? So in this instance is the promotion of the state of Gujarat worth the price of getting your name tarnished in certain quarters on the grounds of right wing politics? I would submit this is not an acceptable trade-off and if you think it so you continue to misunderstand or certainly underrate the impact these interventions have. I do not say this only because I am guarding your name from any potential attacks. I just do not believe this cause is significant enough to merit the risk. If you were to open up or get associated with a foundation which sought to alleviate the pain and misery of victims of the Gujarat pogroms (there is no other word for this) materially or otherwise and if you somehow had to associate with Modi in similar fashion for this I would consider the compromise acceptable. The ends would justify the means. But to be brutally honest promoting tourism in Gujarat or what have you does not seem to be a moral or ethical or political calling for which one should be willing to pay such a price. Even if you disagree with every word that I have said you should at the very least accept that your interventions have had consequences and since you clearly do not like your name being brought up in certain negative connotations you could at the very least have done better to manage this economy of the public with respect to Modi. But again (I’ve said this countless times before as well) I do not doubt your motivations nor your political leanings. I consider this to be an action that you perhaps did not devote enough thought to. I just wish you had. The rest of this response, as before, has simply ‘argued’ with your defense or aspects of it.]
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 6:39 AM
Somehow i disagree with most of the points given by stayam…Your analogy to compare Modi with a Hitler or stalin is outrageous…Stalin was not democratically elected nor was Hitler….The very fact that Modi was elected democratically changes the entire narrative…
Yes he might have committed crimes but that is for two set of people to decide…One the electorate and second the judiciary..The people havent decided against him ..Infact if the 2003 election was the referandum then Modi won it…Now when it comes to judicray its doing its job and i am sure whenever the verdicts will come it will be just for everybody…media cant be a judge here because we have seen how biased they are over the period of time when it comes to this kind of issues…..
So i dont agree with the view that bacchan shouldnt be asscociated with Modi..Why not??
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 7:01 AM
actually Hitler was democratically elected.. and if there had been elections in 1936 or 1937 and so on he would have won with massive margins.
of course ‘democracy’ means nothing to me in this context.. I am not quite invested in the fiction that just because people vote they vote for the right person! Or that their motivations are always the right ones.
LikeLike
March 28, 2010 at 7:20 PM
Oops ! ‘loss’ it is ! sorry for Typo.
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 1:13 AM
Satyam,
My deep condolences to you..
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 6:25 AM
thank you..
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 1:16 AM
Agree..It was Vintage Amitabh in that function at Pune where he took on his detractors with the poems of his father..
I am very sad the way Amitabh was treated in that Sealink controversy and more so the way sonia syncophants like ashok chavan,Sheila Dixit and Jairam Ramesh behaved..
It was equally saddening to see the way abhishek was treated in that “Earth Hour”” function…
Our politicians have resorted to pettiness and its a worrying factor…
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 4:00 AM
If SRK says Pakistan is good he is praised by Congress. If Big B says Gujarat is good he is tortured by same Congress. Kalyug
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 5:59 AM
its no surprise rajesh..congress is d master at playing petty politics!! this latest controversy is so silly nd juvenile..it amazes me to see how our politicians can be so ridiculous..
but it has really saddened me wat happened wid abhishek at d earth hour event..its so bizarre..nd d person i m most disappointed wid is sheila dixit..being a delhi-ite i have been a huge fan of hers..i have always thought of her as one of d better leaders nd she has been a good-cm of d capital 4 d past 10 years..she is well educated nd well spoken too!! but she has really LET ME DOWN here!!
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 4:11 AM
Rajesh,
Well BIG B used to be the greatest freind of Mulayam/Amar who are the biggest champions of Pseudo secularism (Read muslim appeasement)
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 6:03 AM
rajeev ..lets leave politics nd personal relationships aside..if u think with a non-biased mind..even u will agree dat wen it comes to mr.bachchan nd mr.khan..the congress behaves differently nd has different policies for both individuals!!
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 6:19 AM
Manasi,
I gave that whole Amitabh example to drive my point home…Yes personal relationships should be kept aside…
My point is Its not that Congress is snubbing Amitabh from the day he went to Modi…Its been a decade bacchans are being snubbed and i dont think it has anything to do with any political agenda on the part of congress..Modi is just an excuse at this momnet…Its since the bofors time the equation beetween the Gandhis and Bacchans been strained…
I am absolutely with the Bacchans in this entire episode and i believe they have handled the issue with dignity …
Secondly i gave that example also to drive home the point that whatvere may be the reasons of Congress support to SRK,congress was right in their approach at that time…Even the BJP and RSS backed SRK…
My argument is instead of making this a SRK VS amitabh war lets eavluate things in prospective and take our stand instead of accusing SRK or Amitabh…
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 6:23 AM
To add to this further,there has been comments from rahul gandhi about the bacchans 2/3 years back as well…During that time Amitabh was close to Mulla Mulayam(The biggest campions of Muslim appeasement in India)…Even at that time Bacchan was snubbed by the Gandhis..
So if anybody thinks its Bacchnas closeness with Modi promting Congress to behave irrationaly is aboslutely wrong here…I sincerely believe Congress as a party do not have any probloem with Bacchan its the high command who have a problem and the syncophants of Gandhi family want to impress the High Command…
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 6:34 AM
i agree with wat u say rajeev..nd i get ur point!! nd ofcourse its not mr.bachchan versus mr.khan..!! but it saddens me how a legendary superstar is humiliated by d ruling party just bcoz he is not on good terms with d high command!! nd d gandhis who behave like big statesmann..,,these type of incidents actually reveal their true mindset!!
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 6:43 AM
manasi,
i agree with you..Its really saddening…Although i never doubted that Gandhis are capable of doublespeak and double standrads…
BJP been consistent in both the issues involving SRK and BIG B….They backed both of them..
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 7:05 AM
yes..with nitin gadkari at d helm now..nd with a surprisingly good spokesperson in nirmala seetharaman..bjp is emerging as a different nd a stronger party now..!! more power 2 dem..we need a strong opposition!!
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 7:36 AM
Manasi,
Right..BJP is getting together under Nitin Gadkari..No two ways about it…Their disintegration been stemed as of now…Even the RSS is formulating new stategies and improvsisng its ideology to appeal to the youth…In coming days you will see RSS will pitch its new modified ideology to the electorate…
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 8:50 AM
yup..dats d need of d hour..improvised ideologies suiting d needs of d youth so dat we can identify with them..nd may i say..they will do themselves a lot of good by bringin in some hot young dishy politicians in d scene bcoz dats wat appeals us d most;).. i know dat sounds hollow..but good lookin politicians would be quite a sight..wat other credentials do u think rahul gandhi has other dan d “good looks”..by which he has taken d nation by storm!!??
p.s. nd a varun gandhi wont do..ha ha!!
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 7:05 AM
Modi calls Big B’s detractors ‘Taliban’
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 7:53 AM
Big B Showers Praise on Marathi, Maharashtra
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 7:54 AM
Delhi BJP Wants Big B as Brand Ambassador of CWG
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 5:38 PM
Munna:
Bachchan-Congress war
The Amitabh Bachchan-Congress war has heated up again and there can be three reasons for it. The controversy was kicked off with the presence of Bachchan on the dais along with Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan at the inaugural of the Bandra-Worli sea link. The CM came under attack from his own partymen for sitting next to the brand ambassador for Narendra Modi’s Gujarat. Chavan, who was slated to share the stage a few days later with Bachchan at a literary function in Pune, cried off and it was extraordinary that the chief minister should change his programme. Then came the ‘blacking out’ of the audio visual of Abhishek Bachchan, who was WWF’s official ambassador for Earth Hour this year.
To say that all this is happening because of the feud between the once close Gandhis and the Bachchans does not offer an explanation which makes political sense, for their feud goes back two decades. There has been curiosity and speculation in the political circles about the reasons for these differences but neither side has spoken about them.
Sonia Gandhi had lived with the Bachchans in the days before she got married to Rajiv. On the other side, Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, had specially flown down to Mumbai to enquire after an ailing Amitabh at the Breach Candy Hospital after he was seriously injured during the shooting of Coolie. Amitabh’s election from Allahabad and his stint in politics was courtesy Rajiv Gandhi.
When Amitabh Bachchan’s father had died, Rahul Gandhi had gone to commiserate with the grieving family. Last week the more outspoken of the Bachchans, Jaya Bachchan, when asked about the differences between the first family of Indian politics and the first family of Indian cinema, had refused to comment saying it was a personal matter.
In fact, she had ticked off a young reporter who posed a query (at the Indian Women’s Press Corp) about the Congress president, referring to her as “Sonia.” Jaya Bachchan told her to be more respectful as she was not only talking about an older person but the head of a party.
Both families have been circumspect and dignified in their differences. Whatever be the Gandhis’ view of the Bachchans today, they have not uttered a word against them publicly. Initially it had seemed — and this could be explanation one — that Amitabh Bachchan became a political football in the intra-Congress and the Congress-NCP tug-of-war in Maharashtra. It was the Mumbai Congress Committee chief Kripa Shankar Singh, known to be unhappy at not having been taken into the State Cabinet — who led the charge against the chief minister for sharing the dais with Bachchan because of his ambassadorship for Narendra Modi’s Gujarat. It seemed that Congressmen, aware of the differences between the Gandhi family and the Bachchans, were trying to curry favour with the first family, whether or not the family wanted such a display of ‘loyalty’.
There are several Congress leaders who would like to embarrass the Maharashtra chief minister, particularly after the way Ashok Chavan handled Rahul Gandhi’s tour through Mumbai in the face of Shiv Sena’s threats. Chavan had also earned brownie points with the party high command by cocking a snook at the Sena and ensuring the successful screening in Mumbai of Shah Rukh Khan’s My Name is Khan.
There was also the NCP angle to the controversy. There are some in the Congress who believe that Bachchan was invited by the NCP minister in order to embarrass the CM. Tension has been brewing between the CM and the NCP on a host of issues, with Chhagan Bhujbal on the one hand and Ajit Pawar on the other. There was reportedly an open exchange between Ashok Chavan and Ajit Pawar in a Cabinet meeting recently, when Chavan had asserted that it was he who was the CM and if the NCP was threatening to quit, they could talk to their leaders.
The controversy involving Amitabh Bachchan was however not limited to Maharashtra and was followed up by the ‘blackout’ of his son Abhishek’s clip, viewed as being too much of a coincidence. Of course, it is possible that Congressmen in Delhi followed the lead given by their Maharashtra counterparts in what could be termed as a bandwagon effect, a bhed chaal, bending over backwards to do something that might go down well with the party leadership. Or to play it safe and not be seen near the Bachchans, lest it create trouble. There was the instance of a Congress minister calling off his TV appearance last week because Bachchan was going to be on the programme and the minister had to think of his renomination to the Rajya Sabha. This could be explanation two.
The third explanation is that though the Gandhi-Bachchan differences are not new, the new element in the picture is Amitabh’s association with Narendra Modi. The Congress may not approve of Modi’s politics, nor large sections of Indians, and an enquiry is going on against the Gujarat Chief Minister.
Would, for instance, the prime minister, if he visits Gujarat, refuse to share the dais with Narendra Modi — Bachchan is one removed from Modi — who will be required to receive him as CM, as part of a federal principle of governance? By that token the prime minister would have to boycott many in the opposition.
Is the Congress hype against the Bachchans therefore coming not from the ‘feud’ but from somewhere else? And is it aimed at preventing Amitabh Bachchan from going with the BJP?
The Bachchans’ bonhomie with the Samajwadi Party is ending, with the exit of Amar Singh. In the last days, Amitabh Bachchan has been defending himself personally, something that Amar Singh used to do for him in the past.
SP MP Jaya Bachchan’s Rajya Sabha term also comes to an end in early July. It was Amar Singh who had brought her into active politics. The buzz in the SP circles is that Mulayam Singh Yadav may be wary of repeating Jaya Bachchan in the upper house not only because of her Amar Singh connection but also for fear of sending the wrong signal to the Muslim community, whose support he is desperately trying to retain in UP, given Amitabh’s espousal of Modi’s Gujarat.
On the other hand, the BJP has adopted Bachchan. It has also come to his rescue, with Narendra Modi charging his opponents of being ‘Taliban’, and V K Malhotra speaking up for him. Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray has written in his favour. The Congress may want to prevent this tie-up from taking place.
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 9:04 PM
So AB’s claim being himself ‘apolitical’ is totally absurd !?
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 9:06 PM
I don’t believe so. I think his claim is a sincere one inasmuch as he probably does not consider himself an active agent in/of politics. However the point I have been trying to make is that he is not for that reason free of the economies of political subjectivity, especially so given his status as a unique public figure.
LikeLike
March 29, 2010 at 9:32 PM
I am not sure how you came to this conclusion from the above article.
Amitabh is being treated as a political football but is neither by his choice or design.
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 1:04 AM
The Congress’ attempts to communalize Bachchan and try and tar him with Modi’s taint is sick. It would be low even if this weren’t the party with whose history everyone is sadly familiar.
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 1:29 AM
Congress is doing a steller job of making Modi strong again(If at all he shed some of his strenghth due to familiarity)
By attacking Modi and Amitabh together Congress will only end up making Modi more stronger..Modi thrives on this..Poor Amitabh..he has become a scaopegoat here..
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 12:33 AM
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 9:00 AM
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 9:03 AM
How can Big B decide who is guilty for Gujarat riots: Amar
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 9:04 AM
Cong riot test for Bachchan
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 9:06 AM
Big B as CWG ambassador: Congress slams BJP
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 9:08 AM
Everything Tewari says about Bachchan/Gujarat 2002 can also be applied to the anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984: to paraphrase Tewari himself, he would be stripped of his post as Congress spokesperson if he criticized Rajiv Gandhi’s 1984 utterance about there being a sound when a big tree falls.
That being said, this sort of thing also illustrates why (as Satyam has been saying on Bachchan’s blog for a while now) public figures need to think through the “meaning” of their appearances. Bachchan cannot claim that he is merely apolitical by serving as Gujarat brand ambassador — he has retorted that he also served as U.P. brand ambassador, but that in fact proves the point, as even that stint proved controversial and was successfully politicized by the BSP, which vociferously mocked the “U.P. mein hai dum kyunke yahaan jurm hai kum” campaign. The BSP was obviously motivated to attack him only because his campaign was seen as shoring up the Samajwadi government and not just U.P.; given this recent history, how could Amitabh have expected that his serving as brand ambassador for Gujarat would be regarded neutrally? I strongly condemn the Congress targeting of Amitabh (and, if the reports are true, abhishek as well), but it would be naive to have expected anything different…
[Aside: this also casts a new light on the point made by some that celebs need to stay away from politics; when the stakes are this high and the profile this visible, one is likely to be politicized no matter what one does — figures as diverse as SRK, Amitabh, and Sachin have become embroiled in controversies over the last few years — so rather than try and maintain the naive (and perhaps disingenuous) fiction that one is simply apolitical, one should face the reality, so that any political interventions are measured and deliberate, not haphazard and reactive.]
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 9:20 AM
currently both political parties are trying equally hard to co-opt him..
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 9:25 AM
many others in 707…
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 9:28 AM
[Truly remarkable pictures and a wonderful post from you as well.. in your next post I will have occasion to pick up that older ‘political’ thread once more. As you can obviously see both major political parties are trying very hard to co-opt you by issuing all sorts of statements using your name.]
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 11:39 AM
BJP Defends Bachchan
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 12:12 PM
http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/medium-term/2010/03/30/why-pick-on-amitabh/#more-215
Read the comments following this piece. Good stuff.
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 12:29 PM
good exchange.. thanks for posting..
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 12:32 PM
this exchange from 699:
Sushil Nair says:
March 29, 2010 at 11:55 pm
Dearest Sir,
I was reading Satyam’s comments & loved it. Just my perspective on it & otherwise.
Mr Modi shouldn’t be compared with Hitler in any sense. President Hindenburg had won both rounds of elections. He appointed Hitler as Chancellor on Jan-30,1933 in one of the most chaotic conditions prevailing in Germany even though Hitler’s party held minority of cabinet posts & fewer than 50 percent of the seats in the Reichstag. With death of Hindenburg & premature end of his term, Hitler took over in 1934. Hitler’s party never had majority.
Whereas Modi won elections successively democratically in Gujarat. After 2002 riots he had to submit resignation under pressure from all political parties. In the subsequent election he won 127 seats in the 182-member assembly. If that was the result of polarisation, it becomes very difficult to understand his re-election 5 years later for the second term. If we hold Modi guilty then we should also be ready to term guilty the majority populace of Gujarat who voted for him repeatedly in two terms now & may continue to endorse his actions, past or present.
Yesterday i saw CJI KG Balakrishnan sharing dais with Mr Modi. Should we term him guilty too or consider him as one who is endorsing Mr Modi. We always tell that Law of the land is supreme in India. Let the law take its own course & decide as to who the guilty is. There is no point in terming someone guilty before law has proved thus. 1984 Sikh riots orchestrated by congress led to the death of people thrice the time that of 2002 gujarat riots. Who is guilty there? Who has got punished? Look who is heading the party today, a Sikh himself. Has he forgotten or forgiven the acts of Congress party? He hasn’t but he has moved on for the betterment of Nation seeing the bigger picture rather being stuck in the history.
Just as an another example, Bush Jr was known for illegal occupancy & killing of millions in Iraq & Afghanistan. Inspite of this he got elected for the second term. Also PM Manmohan Singh was never short of praise for him & terming him as the “best friend of India”. Should he not shared dais with him, should he not did the business with him, Should he not signed the historic Nuclear deal with his help?
Here lies the pitfall. The puritan ideology is kept aside for the larger gain of humanity. That’s what our PM saw & that’s what our beloved AB is doing. Seeing the larger good. The good of a state, of a nation. It doesn’t matter with whom you need to associate as the association is transitory, only in passing. The ultimate cause or objective is much bigger than the so-called hurdles on the way. We also heard people saying that AB should have better chosen the cause for upliftment of riot victims than the tourism. One cause of charity shouldn’t be compared with others. 8 year has passed since the riots & there are zillion of so-called NGOs who keep bad-mouthing of Modi & Gujarat. They should have instead concentrate on uplifting, encouragement, healing & bringing them in the midst of communities from the ghettos. AB is after all a human even if he is God to billions of Indians. He can’t keep doing charity for all that people feel for.
Satyam says:
March 30, 2010 at 2:50 am
Sushil, thanks for your comment. Hitler never won a majority, true, but he did win a referendum in 1934 claiming 90% of the vote for his taking over Hindenburg’s position as well after the latter’s death. Also appointing Hitler as the Chancellor wasn’t the oddest decision by Hindenburg (even if he was under pressure to do so) because Hitler in the ‘32 elections came second in the first round, second again in the second round to Hindenburg but had about 37% of the vote at that point.
There can be no direct comparison of course between Weimar elections and those of contemporary India for all sorts of reasons. But my larger point with Hitler was that just because the majority vote for a leader does not exactly give the ‘chosen one’ a clean bill of health in an ethical or moral sense.
Doesn’t your Congress point contradict the Modi one? If the legal system is not able to account for ‘politics’, unable to truly go after the guilty this does not make those who are responsible for violence blameless! So if people have not been punished for the ‘84 violence does this mean that no one was guilty?
I would be the first to criticize Bush 43 on all sorts of issues but comparing him to someone who is responsible for engineering a pogrom is going a bit too far.
As for ignoring all these things for the sake of a larger ‘good’ I’m afraid I cannot subscribe to that idea. First off I find the ‘good’ defined this way to be very nebulous. And as I’ve said earlier in the longer comment I don’t see the ‘good’ here as being so critical that one ought to compromise.
Let’s turn this question around though: what exactly is one willing to do in this world to call out injustice as precisely what it is? What is one willing to do to at least keep away from those who have acted in unjust ways? I am afraid that evading this ‘decision’ and using other ideas of the ‘good’ to balance out what one will not do is a rather too convenient trade-off.
Incidentally Amitji is not in the dock here. I am not judging him. I am just engaged in an argument with him where I am afraid he has not persuaded me (so far). On Modi I will not be waiting for the courts to pronounce a verdict on him much as I am not holding my breath for the same on Thackeray. I think this is merely a legalistic argument and the weakest of moral defenses. That’s like saying half the Mafia leaders of NY are not involved in anything because the ‘courts’ have not been able to prove their guilt.
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 5:36 PM
[As you might have noticed (!) both the Congress and the BJP are currently trying to co-opt you. Each creating or at least exploiting an existing fissure toward different ends. Every day there are five new statements. At the center of it is of course your campaign for Gujarat. Leaving aside the fact that both parties have opportunists of the first order, also leaving aside the puerile and petty politics of the Congress when it comes to you there is nonetheless a larger truth that can be accessed through this entire set of events — just because one chooses not to be an active agent in/of politics does not mean that one has entirely vacated the political field, specially not when one is a public figure of your eminence and stature.To put it in somewhat more theoretical language political subjectivity does not cease when one is ‘formally’ not into politics. Of course this last statement too must be qualified because clearly you have been engaged in ‘formal’ politics in the past from your brief stint as MP to your campaigns for the Samajvadi. Whether you chose to do one to help out Rajeev in the wake of a traumatic event for the nation (in what is a surely a bitter irony it is now his very family that has gone after you in such incredibly petty ways..) or another as a larger gesture for the state of UP it scarcely matters. Because in each case you were part of a political field in a very ‘formal’ sense.
But then there is also the history of your screen parts which too contain an extraordinary set of political messages. Let us define these by way of shorthand as left-oriented. The American critic Marjorie Garber commenting on Shakespearean performance suggests that the reality of the theater is ‘differently’ real which is to say NOT less real than whatever else in life is defined as ‘reality’. In other words it is not only about actors playing characters and being part of an entertaining story, it is about an alternate world being created on stage. This observation is particularly cogent when discussing Shakespeare because so much of the Bard’s work exhibits this foundational tension between the world and his ‘Globe’. So many of his metaphors hearken to this essential trope in his work. There is always commerce between what is represented on stage and what is represented on the stage of the world outside. Which is why in every age, including the Elizabethan one, the authorities and censors have been so attentive or paranoid about what is ’said’ in a work of art or entertainment.
How much more complex this problem becomes with cinema. The mass art form beyond compare! With its extraordinary ability to even defeat traditional notions of aesthetics by really substituting its reality for the world outside. It isn’t even hyperbolic anymore to state that when we see the world today we are more often than not, if not always, accessing it through a cinematic archive. We look at images that we have already seen in cinema or on TV and so on. To put it yet another way an ‘experience’ of the world in the true sense becomes more and more improbable as images on our screens leave nothing of the world to explore or experience. Wherever we go the image has been before us and we have accessed that image somewhere in a photograph or a moving image. In any case cinema being the exemplary art form in this sense it is also the one that has the greatest importance for any notion of the ‘political’. It would be extremely naive and rather false to state that Vijay was simply a character in a popular film!
Because you represent such a history through your work, because you have been part of this ‘different’ reality those who are formally in politics cannot choose to ignore you. In fact a person like yourself who does not commit completely to a certain kind of politics actually increases the anxiety of those figures, not the reverse. In the South for example most political sympathies are known when it comes to film stars and people accept it as a fact of life. In your case though there is this enormous cultural space you occupy, this astonishing cultural capital you’ve built up over time and yet your position is that you have no intention of utilizing it beyond your films or ads and so on. This creates a terrible anxiety within the political system because in effect you cannot be accounted for. Therefore people then try to co-opt you, speak for you, involve you formally in the political field.
The upshot of all of this is, and as I’ve said multiple times before, you cannot choose to not be in politics. It is impossible! You already are and will be. But rather than deny this truth if you accepted it you might make decisions more consonant with your desires and aims as a public figure. In other words the most risky move is to live life as if whatever you said or did had no political import whatsoever. The wiser course would be to understand that being a public figure every intervention on your part in any matter whatsoever would minimally be considered ‘political’ and hence try to avoid controversy (since that does seem to be your aim.. I wonder why though..) by going down the path of least resistance.
The day you showed up with Modi on a stage I was stunned. Not because I started doubting your politics (I wouldn’t be here on this blog commenting every single day if I thought you had gone over to that side, irrespective of my enormous regard for your work I would have stopped commenting) but because I knew you had not paused to consider the effects of what you were doing. And sure enough from serious voices in the media (leaving aside the slimy elements that go after you at every turn) to this current political scuffle where both sides are trying to make a political football out of you there were consequences.
As I said earlier my own view is that ’selling Gujarat’ is not a noble enough cause, not a crucial enough moral or ethical calling for one to risk a certain set of consequences. But I would still be less disturbed if you thought differently. My very educated guess however here is that you probably did not think that much about this matter. And everything you’ve said since to ‘explain’ this evades (to be very blunt about it) the essential point here. Given that there is this enormous stain on Modi should one simply resort to a very legalistic argument (so one may fraternize with gangsters as long as the courts have nothing on them)? But why this naivete about courts anyway? Is everything that is legal also morally acceptable? Wonder what Gandhi would have made of this idea!
Again you are not wrong. Showing up with Modi does not at all mean that you share his views. But given that there is this cloud hanging over him (which is not just any cloud.. it is not about graft, it is not about rigging elections.. it is about an order of crime and atrocity that should be morally repugnant to any decent person anywhere in the world) should not one have been more careful? Whether you realize it or not Modi assuredly was delighted to have the legitimacy your presence conferred on him because he has been treated as a bit of a pariah in many social and intellectual and even artistic circles even since those awful events unfolded. But what made it worse was that measly tax exemption for Paa which you and I both know does not amount to anything major monetarily (at the point it was granted) and is really more a formal gesture than anything else. But why give anyone the chance to suggest that such a motive was driving you?
And it is not even that this just damages your own reputation. It is not only about you but everything else, every other cause that is dear to you and which you get associated with. If your name is tarnished in any sense it automatically has an effect on all your other interventions.
I am quite confident however that your name has not been tarnished in a political sense here. The reason however also makes me rather sad. Because what prevents anyone from believing that you are an adherent of Modi’s worldview is the notion that you might not completely believe in anything. The charge of ‘hollowness’ is also a rather devastating one. But this saves you. At what cost? Unfortunately when you cataloged all the other CMs and states that you had been associated with you confirmed it. To wit the criticism runs something like this — ‘whether it’s Modi or Thackeray, Jyoti Basu or Karunanidhi it’s all the same to him [meaning you]‘. I must admit to feeling a bit of grief even hearing this. But what other defense is there left? Either you are going over to the right which no one believes or you don’t believe in anything which too is a bit hard to swallow. The final alternative is that there is complete divorce in your mind between your actions and their larger import. Or that having been such a seminal public figure for so many decades you have still not made this elementary link between what you say or do and the larger cultural/political landscape.
I believe neither the first explanation nor the second one. I do not believe that you are ‘empty’. I think that you do inhabit a certain side of the political divide. One is not ‘apolitical’ when is not formally in politics. But yes at a certain point in time you somehow proceeded to convince yourself that you were such an actor doing a job as a mid level officer does in a million enterprises across India and acted accordingly. The result is what we see. Both in film terms and political terms what I would define as errors, even costly errors, arise from this very same well-spring of missing completely what you are and what you represent. It is not about being modest or self-deprecating. Barack Obama can be a very modest fan but if he does not understand what his political phenomenon is about a serious issue arises!
I indulge in all this candor only because of continuing, always deep, always sincere and sincerest concern about your name and your legacy. I just wish (as I have so many times for two decades now) that you were less reckless with what is to my mind (and so many countless others) an incredibly precious legacy. You have not been wrong but unthinking. You lack of ego in many of these matters is deeply admirable, even exemplary but this ultimately has to be married to the larger reality — that you are not just an actor with a name but a singular phenomenon in post-Independence Indian life. If you just kept this in mind each time you acted publicly I think very many of your decisions would be more considered ones. This would not stop anyone from attacking you and so on but one should at least be attacked for the right reasons and not fictions. If I say these things again and again and again despite thinking on so many occasions that I have said far too much and certainly enough to perhaps cross the bounds of propriety (even if to your everlasting credit you allow such a discourse daily on this blog) it is so because of that really deepest kind of devotion to your name and work.]
LikeLike
March 30, 2010 at 8:31 PM
Aah! so its True that AB can’t claim being ‘apolitical’.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 2:12 AM
Arab News.com
An open letter to Sonia Gandhi
May I draw your kind attention to the general notion people hold that communal riots in India are the hallmark of Congress-ruled state administration.
http://arabnews.com/opinion/letters/article36640.ece?comments=all
The Hindu
Your riot was worse than mine
http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/siddharth-varadarajan/article329486.ece?homepage=true
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 2:17 AM
Satyam, my deepest condolences.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 8:46 AM
thanks Aby2000..
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 2:24 AM
The Wall Street Journal
Prime Minister Modi Won’t Fly
Despite heading arguably India’s best run state, Gujarat’s chief minister should shelve his ambition to lead the country.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304561304575153154130915506.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 7:21 AM
I don’t know when happened… but my condolences as well…
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 8:49 AM
thank you Offside..
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 8:49 AM
No more Bachchan bashing: Cong
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 10:15 AM
Glad to hear that…it was a loser of a “campaign” to begin with…
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 8:55 AM
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 9:20 AM
Sharmila says:
March 31, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Satyam you state – “Showing up with Modi does not at all mean that you share his views. But given that there is this cloud hanging over him (which is not just any cloud.. it is not about graft, it is not about rigging elections.. it is about an order of crime and atrocity that should be morally repugnant to any decent person anywhere in the world) should not one have been more careful?”
Satyam, pardon me for getting into your conversation with Mr Bachchan, but I have to add that Modi also shared the stage with Tata, Ambani, Sunil Mittal and also more recently the CJI who is hearing the current case against Modi. Why isnt anybody asking them to be more careful? No one would, because it is an extremely silly expectation. But, when it comes to Mr Bachchan, why should there be this same silly expectation as an exception?The tycoons proclaimed Modi to be the most befitting leader that this country has ever seen. No one raised an eyebrow then.Mr Bachchan in MHO uses his own brand name to create goodwill for the larger good of the community through his work, more so by allowing his name to be associated with Gujrat. He has repeatedly clarified he is promoting tourism and not the politics of the state. If anybody asks where was Gandhi born, do we say he was born in Porbandar that now belongs to Modi’s Gujrat and therefore should we wipe off the Mahatma’s connection with Gujrat and redo his bio data? If Mr Bachchan states he is apolitical, I would respect his statement as such and not wonder if he is political because of the company he keeps or who he campaigns for or the events he wishes to attend as a celebrity which he is most surely bound to. In the same vein, do we now state that the CJI is political because he was invited for the same event as Modi and shared the dias with him? Also, I do not think the tax exemption is measly as you state. To get an entertainment tax exemption in India for any profitable venture is something to be proud of irrespective of what it ultimately translates into monetarily. Tax exemptions are big incentives and promote film making, why should Mr Bachchan not benefit from it? Besides, in India only work of extraordinary merit allows such unusual exemptions given how finicky the tax office is.The problem does not lie with Mr Bachchan’s actions, it lies with the our perception of his actions. If only we were this demanding from the men and women we have put in governance and not with an artist / iconic Indian who is a goodwill ambassador for this country.
Satyam says:
March 31, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Sharmila: I actually hold the Ambanis or the Tatas or whoever to the very same standards. Except that I don’t expect much from them to begin with. I am not at all as confident about their politics or ‘who’ they are as I am with respect to Amitji. There are so many people who for one reason or another, business interests or otherwise, just don’t care what a politician is responsible for. Even if there were absolute proof they wouldn’t care. But also (and this has been my point throughout) those business figures do not represent what Amitji does in terms of ‘meaning’. In terms of standards I don’t think it’s a high one. I wouldn’t say the same for most other politicians even though I might have problems with them on various grounds also. But to be the instigator and engineer of a genocide puts one in a different category. Not too many Indian politicians would fall in this group! It’s not just about Modi. It’s also about the Congress figures who caused the ‘84 pogroms against the Sikhs, it’s also about Thackeray’s own engineered violence in ‘93. As a public figure I understand Amitji cannot avoid coming into contact with everyone. But I am not persuaded that the ’state ambassador’ offer for Gujarat could not have been refused. Or that even if accepted the public appearance with Modi could not have been avoided.
Satyam says:
March 31, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Sharmila: the point at which the tax exemption of Paa would have kicked in which was several weeks after the release of the film it could not have been a very significant amount.
Also I have not said anything about Gujarat through all of this, just Modi. But Amitji became an ambassador for Gujarat via Modi! Had this happened through some other channel there would have been no issue whatsoever.
I don’t honestly see what possible analogy your Gandhi birth example offers here. It’s not about Gujarat but Modi. Of course Modi has so twinned himself with Gujarat that if you attack one people think you’re attacking the other.
But again I get back to my older point — is there any political figure from whom you would consider accepting a tax exemption of the brand ambassador offer unacceptable?
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 10:57 AM
Ha, the Congress bows to the power of Bachchan.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 11:11 AM
It seems a part of the Deal made for Tax Exemption. Its a very common norm that ” I scratch your back you scratch mine” ! Its ‘Give & Take’ Rule.
Paa is not such a movie that could fit in the criteria and earned Tax Exemption. He also used his influences(political,industrial,business etc.) and made this Deal. There could be more into this Deal and if so those aspects are yet Hidden from others. Only Time can tell whether its a Rat or A Cat in there or the Bag is Empty!
It gives me a good laugh the way AB tries to defend himself thinking he can convince others easily showing those documents on his blog or by using certain Analogy like ‘apolitical’. while his entire life he has lived among politicians since his childhood(Nehru Family) and got benefited (his father got a job because of that)out of it(Indira Gandhi wrote a Recommendation for him!), saved by Amar Singh when ABCL went to drain and Jaya his wife is still in politics with whom he is living and sharing his life ! to be Political one doesn’t need to join any party or be active member in my opinion. Everyone is more or less political as politics begins at Home/family. no need to play very innocent ! it is what it is !
Either he is acting very naive or We are The Fools !
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 11:30 AM
Whatever.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 12:15 PM
MonaLisa: I don’t agree with anything you’ve said here. You’ve turned negative on him all of a sudden and now that you have you give everything he does the harshest twist.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 11:35 AM
I dont think Paa had much to gain by the tax exemption.
AB is naive when it comes to these things and does not have a calculated approach. It is both a good and a bad thing. His naivety comes with a certain innocence which is refreshing given the calculated approach displayed by others. But, it also leads to questionable decisions. No one can blame him for acting as Gujarat’s ambassador but he should not have praised Modi. But, then no one is perfect. AB with all his imperfections is a far better role model than most stars.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 12:49 PM
comeon..man.. wats so wrong in praising modi??!! if you keep 2002 aside 4 a moment..(nd i know its tough to do so…)..narendra modi is by far d best chief minister of india..he is an a-grade administrator..nd many in d country ..be it ratan tata,sunil mittal ,or more recently aamir khan nd preity zinta have praised him..so y persecute mr. bachchan?! i think this issue has been blown out of proportion 4 no reason..HE IS JUST PROMOTING STATE TOURISM ND NOT NARENDRA MODI nd as he himself said “GUJARAT DOES NOT BELONG TO MODI..IT WAS THERE BEFORE HIM..ND SHALL REMAIN AFTER HIM”!!
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 1:00 PM
What kind of moral calculus is this where administrative efficiency is kept on one side and pogroms on the other and one is supposed to balance things out?
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 1:17 PM
but then has mr. bachchan ever praised his ideologies or praised his politics or something..?! all i m saying is dat if he has praised modi for his admistrative skills nd wat i can remember of his blog post..he just said dat “modi lives a simple life nd is pro development nd progress”..so wats so wrong in saying dat?! wats d big deal there? how is it equivalent to justifying mr. modi’s politics!!? nd he is d brand ambassador of GUJARAT ..so y r ppl implying dat gujarat nd modi r d same thing?!
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 1:19 PM
I think ‘simple’ life is the word that’s irksome under the circumstances.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 1:17 PM
Off-topic, but why is Modi the best CM in the country? Gujarat was a pretty developed state even before he became CM; if we are not accounting for that then one could just as easily say that Sheila Dixit is the best CM in the country (AND she has no pogrom against her name; why would one in any event need to choose? We want CMs who run the government well AND who are seen as relatively impartial); how is she lesser than Modi on the administrative front? If we account for the difficulties faced by a state, then one would have to say that Bihar’s Nitish Kumar would have to figure very high on the list too; while Andhra was pretty solidly run by the late YSR, IMO Nitish Kumar’s tenure has been the most creditable. I am not saying Modi is a bad/corrupt/inept administrator, but I think a lot of people keep saying he is the best without examining whether or not others compare to him.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 1:22 PM
that’s of course the other debate! I didn’t get into it because as you can see I already have my hands full!
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 3:01 PM
i agree with u here nitish kumar nd sheila dikshit r wonderful cm’s as well but..its not me who says dat mr. modi is d best cm but a lot of surveys in d recent times have stated dat..nd several of my cousins living in gujarat are testimonial to d fact..they have often mentioned dat how gujrat has developed in d past 10 years..so..
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 3:23 PM
If he did not have this issue ( which unfortunately he does) he would be an extremely good candidate for PM. I think there is no question about the kind of administration and governance he has provided.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 3:24 PM
There may be others who are good but what he has done in Gujarat is nothing short of remarkable.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 1:26 PM
Sharmila says:
March 31, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Satyam – Modi has won the mandate of the people of the state, so to endorse the state there is no choice but to connect with the administrator of the state. The state is what is being endorsed and not the administrator, endorsing the state does not again mean the administrator is being endorsed. Administrators come and go, what harm has the state at large done that it does not deserve to be touched by anyone just because it has a leader who is not seen in favorable light? Just because Modi is the administrator, does it mean the centre too disconnects itself from the state and it would stop giving two hoots about it’s development because Modi is at the helm? Does Mr Bachchan now need to stop eating AMUL products because the milk from the unions are controlled by the cooperatives which in turn are controlled by the state federation which is in turn controlled by Modi? There would be no harm in Mr Bachchan endorsing anything from Amul to the Rann of Kutch that belongs to the state or the state by itself for that matter. The point about the tax is not about the amount of tax involved, it is about the status involved that got the exemption in the first place.
Satyam says:
March 31, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Sharmila: My entire argument on this revolves around the symbolic. Having butter and cheese does not belong to such an order. I am a bit amazed that you keep bringing up analogies that to be very frank about it operate with a reductio ad absurdum logic. The central questions are still not being addressed here:
1)Why is it so necessary to represent Gujarat as a brand ambassador? What is the urgent need here that forces one to do this? This is not some obscure part of India that couldn’t somehow survive unless Amitji brought attention to it but one of India’s most prosperous states! If I drew up a list of states needing celebrity endorsement Gujarat would be near the bottom. But Modi has invited Amitji. Many other states did not. It is precisely this invitation that engages Amitji in an order of the symbolic. It is naive to think that Modi is doing so simply for his state. He is doing it at a point when Amitji has been politically embattled from all sides including the Sena and the Congress. Note how the BJP has jumped to his defense. Do you think all of this is coincidental? It is an attempt to co-opt him and make him appear to be more a man of the right! This is the whole game here. Beyond this Modi has some serious legitimacy issues and standing next to Amitji helps him. But it’s not just about accepting the invitation or just about sharing a stage. It is also about returning Modi with the nicest accolades. If he called Amitji a ‘Shahenshah’ there is a screen history here. Why did exactly this compliment have to be returned? Still, and as I’ve pointed out, there are certain causes for which I would be willing to accept this tradeoff. Promoting Gujarat’s tourism does not seem to me a moral calling of that order or one where one is willing to risk any kind of hit to one’s name. I think this whole discussion to begin with has been a little hyperbolic. The issue which is the question of Gujarat and its tourism has been completely exaggerated into the greatest national need around!
2)We keep getting back to the mandate question. So what if people have elected Modi? People on democracies make very poor decisions at times or at least those which are governed by self-interest and no larger considerations of morality. If a politician is good for your community you don’t particularly care what he’s doing otherwise. And what kind of moral calculus is this anyway where we keep administrative efficiency on one side and pogroms on the other and seek to balance these out? Gujarat simply cannot be ‘accessed’ without Modi in this sort of context. If Amitji were doing a million shows for the people of Gujarat, a million private ad campaigns for the state, so on and so forth who could blame him? But there is no such dissociation when one takes up an assignment for the state when the sitting CM is Modi. And the symbolic economy DOES matter. Amitji did a film called Dev. Can you imagine his character in the film taking up Amrish Puri’s call to become brand ambassador?
Satyam says:
March 31, 2010 at 10:52 pm
And as for the rest it’s pretty unfortunate that the Center couldn’t prevent these pogroms much as it couldn’t the ‘93 ones in Bombay much as it couldn’t the ones in ‘84. Modi and Thackeray and the Congress politicians in that instance are criminals of the highest order. It is a failing of the Indian political and judicial systems that they have not been held accountable barring silly cases that crop up from time to time that don’t go anywhere. We must not just measure Indian democracy by the number of multiplexes that sprout up all the time but also by these far more critical human indexes.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 3:28 PM
on d first question..i dont think mr. modi invited mr. bachchan ..infact mr.b volunteered himself 2 be d ambassador of his state wen they were talking abt. d tourism prospects of d state (i think mr. b mentioned dat on his blog)..i really dont see anything wrong in promoting an indian state’s culture nd heritage..even if it is gujarat..so wat??!! lets just look it as another indian state!! too much is being made out of this non issue!!
on d second question..u imply dat ppl made a wrong decision in electing him..i dont think so..if d chief minister is doin d best for his state nd its citizens..y wont d ppl elect him?! as of now..he has not been proven guilty by d supreme court..so y should ppl believe otherwise?! nd i dont think there has been any communal violence in gujarat since 2002..infact ideaunique (who is a gujarat citizen)..mentioned once dat d muslim areas in gujarat are very peaceful areas now..so how do u think ppl will really believe dat he actually propagated d violence in 2002?! ppl have elected him twice with thumping majority..d state has been peaceful now ..without violence,,without terrorist attacks ,,blooming,,prospering,,villages have been developing,,i think gujarat is d only state where they have internet facilities in some of d schools in rural areas as well,,increasing girls’ education..wat makes you think ppl has made a wrong decision..i think majority of ppl in india vote for d issues of development(roads,electricity,water,education,,prices of various goods etc..)nd all..if dat wasnt d case..y did congress win in maharashtra despite d 26/11 attacks..y did sheila dikshit win despite d attacks in delhi nd a major lack of security in d state..!!ppl still vote 4 very basic issues i think..
nd i will tell u one of d strangest things dat i have ever heard..my cousin who stays in surat told me once dat her friend who is an engineering student has a modi wallpaper on her computer nd mobile screens..nd she is not even a gujarati..she is a punjabi..also..i saw an ipl match d other day which was in ahmedabad ..nd saw ppl wearing modi masks..such popularity 4 a cm is unheard of..!!
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 1:48 PM
I don’t think I am being Harsh anyway! probably its my inability to convey the right message satyam! I am not against Him however whatever he does or claims to be might not agreeable to my way of thinking. I rather sympathize with him and pity him in a way and wonder how sometimes he turns & proves to be his own enemy. it really saddens me that why couldn’t he see what we the ppl outside the box can feel and see for him. Anyway! you might not agree with what i believe. mine & your perception could differ on different levels. That doesn’t make me wrong outright. is it!?
Its not only Me who weigh or see things the way i mentioned in my previous post. the number is larger than you think. wish we could rule ppls minds. 🙂
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 3:36 PM
The trivialisation of our public debates
http://news.rediff.com/column/2010/mar/31/the-trivialisation-of-our-public-debates.htm
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 4:05 PM
is it True that AB jioned BJP or someone making mass ‘April fool’?!
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 4:16 PM
he hasn’t done any such thing.
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 4:18 PM
[In a well known anecdote quoted by multiple authors Nehru once, at the height of post-Partition violence in Delhi, chased some rioters with a stick and as the story goes rescued a couple of children somewhere. In India today, a country that still owes a great deal to this greatest of its post-Independence leaders the Nehruvian dream has become a ghost. We take Nehru’s victories in shaping the fabric of this nation for granted and in other ways we blindly grope in this toxic mix of consumerism and fascism and imagine we are ‘correcting’ him. Ghosts are nonetheless potent beings, often more powerful than the living. They can act upon us in less conspicuous ways. That Nehruvian wager has not yet been defeated though it has been under severe assault for a while. And Narendra Modi represents the other end of this spectrum. His success offers damning commentary on the body politic even as it is very symptomatic of this age. The bourgeois perception of politics always grants too much credit to the administrative model. The political leader in such an impoverished imagining of affairs becomes simply a competent bureaucrat. If he (or she) can then combine this with a ‘winning’ television personality everyone’s happy. We hear paeans of praise about Modi all the time. Evidently the violence that he actively abetted in his role as CM does not bother too many people. They either think this can be balanced out by his ‘dynamism’ (indeed he was very dynamic even in unleashing the powers of the state to ‘manage’ the violence!) or pretend to be still awaiting legal judgments. Perhaps those who’ve had the luxury of not losing loved ones to the most barbaric violence in Delhi ‘84, Bombay ‘93 or Gujarat ‘02 can afford such naivete or disingenuousness. Perhaps these folks can also join hands with all their forebears in so many parts of the world who found it very easy and even convenient to come to terms with fascist violence using the very same arguments.
Many have argued with me about this here and elsewhere. They think I am being unfair on you. I have written volumes on this so I do not understand how I could be misunderstood on this. I have however thought you naive, careless, unable to gauge the import of your actions. All of this because I have never been in doubt about your own sympathies and so forth. But should not a person of your standing who has spent four decades in public life and who has been at the receiving end in so many ways have thought better? Ultimately it comes down to this. I do not accuse you of anything but not thinking more and thinking ‘better’. This is true for your film decisions and it is true for this current argument I have with you.
Perhaps one should also question one’s commitment to the ‘nationalistic’. What does being loyal to one’s nation entail? Can anything be justified in the name of the nation? Most people in the world are nationalistic but they are so about different nations and in turn about a different set of values that their nations represent. So nationalism could not be a ‘good’ in itself. Otherwise everyone would be nationalistic in the very same way. But people believe in very different things in the pursuance of whatever their notion of nationalism is. There are human values that transcend any such label. You have often talked about this very subject on this blog when you have been so appreciative about other cultures and so on. The nation-state is an ‘accident’ we find ourselves in much like our religion and our ethnicity and everything else that defines our identity. There are very good reasons to be attached to one’s heritage in every sense, to all the elements of one’s identity from one’s religion to the land of one’s birth. But why should all of this be equated with a very political and almost militant definition of nationalism? The nation is not just about preserving borders but also a set of values. If we lose the latter the former doesn’t mean very much.
I put up a piece on AAA yesterday. I am perhaps hopelessly archaic in these matters but I continue to take my cues from that other Gujarati, Manmohan Desai. This current one is not to my taste. We live in times where Narendra Modi is ranked higher by many people than Jawaharlal Nehru. One can only mourn for this tragic obtuseness..]
LikeLike
March 31, 2010 at 4:21 PM
[Thanks for putting up these pictures.. I was also moved by some of your words..]
LikeLike
April 1, 2010 at 5:04 PM
[If I remember an Indian saying correctly it goes something like this — an enemy tells you things by making you laugh, a friend tells you stuff by hurting you a bit. I hope I have been the latter here. I certainly consider myself one but I cannot pretend that everything I say here is equally welcome. Or even if it is perhaps one does abuses one’s privileges a bit too much! As always I appreciate the freedom you provide for any and every discussion on this blog and I think I could challenge anyone to produce another blog by another public figure of similar or even lesser standing who’s willing to accept such extraordinary candor and criticism as you do.
Ultimately we all have different perspectives on life and our own actions. So it is entirely possible that you disagree with most of what I say or that you find my worry a bit hyperbolic in this regard. I am unsure whether you’re referring to the media here or everyone in general but for the record I certainly don’t mean to be harsh with the criticism. So once again apologies are in order if anything I’ve said has wounded you. My excuse once again as always is that it comes from the deepest reserves of sincerity and emotion. I do not like to see you fail but what I dislike far more is to see you branded in unfortunate ways.]
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 10:06 AM
Sharmila
Satyam – Irrespective of whether my arguements in post No 708, comment # 280 and # 414 operates or not in reductio ad absurdum logic, it is my logic and I shall stick to it. Responding to your comment # 419 and it may amaze you yet again, it does not matter which state on your list requires more or less endorsement, all states need a form of endorsement. Will Reliance mobile stop advertising it’s products just because it has already grabbed the largest market share in India? Then why should Gujrat stop promoting itself in a manner that it sees befitting? And coming to the mandate question, democracies make a choice that holds good irrespective of whether it is a poor choice or a fair choice and Gujrat’s current choice is Modi as it’s administrator. There is a SIT which is currently judging the morality of Modi. The Chief Justice of India who shared the stage with Modi recently is also judging Modi on his morality right now and never thought it to be immoral to be sharing the stage with Modi.I fail to understand the logic of comparing Mr Bachchan’s reel life in Dev ( Why not Sarkar also?) to his real life.
Satyam says:
April 1, 2010 at 10:17 am
Sharmila: How many times has any politician in the history of post-Independence India been jailed for causing riots or pogroms? so I will not be waiting with baited breath for what decision is taken on Modi!
On the relation between reel and ‘real’ life I have said very much on this before.
I don’t understand why you won’t meet the criticism squarely.. it is not about endorsing Gujarat, nor about simply being in the same space as Modi. I think you know what transpired. You can disagree with me but let’s not make it the the most unremarkable event imaginable.
I will quote these words that I have once before also ‘nyay mar gaya, log zinda hain’. The author of these words will recognize them as well as the occasion on which these were uttered.
Finally I don’t actually believe in the tyranny of democracy. Which is to say one should have the courage to call out democracy when it is problematic and not celebrate it no matter what. I have never called Modi an illegitimate CM. Of course he was elected. But that hardly makes a difference for the kind of moral and ethical questioning I am engaging in. Judging by the logic of ‘hey the people elected him’ no elected leader in the world should be questioned for anything. Election does not mean infallibility. When leaders commit crimes they should be held accountable, it is a failing of democracy when they don’t. And we’ve had tons and tons of such failures in Indian history. As conscientious citizens however we should not take a vacation from certain kind of interrogation. The legal argument is frankly a very weak one in a system where you and I both know that the guilty often go unpunished when they are in positions of power.
As for what others do I don’t particularly care. I have an opinion on it but I am not invested in those folks the way I am in Amitji. I am offering opinions here on a certain blog. I am not on Ambani’s blog. But yes I do have an opinion on people who are willing to overlook anything for the sake of personal advancement. This however is not my debate with Amitji. It is of a completely different nature because I have no doubts about his motivations here. I just find his intervention in all of this inappropriate and ‘careless’. On Gujarat wanting to sell itself more well by all means! but Amitji didn’t have to accept the offer! That’s my opinion.
Sharmila says:
April 1, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Satyam – We do not expect our political leaders to be running amuck without being questioned. I think we are going a bit off the rails with the responsibilty point. Nevertheless,I did not refer to “irresponsibility” in any sense in my comment at # 157, I was merely stating that the choice of Modi was made by the people, it does not mean he skips responsibility. It also does not mean that the SIT which is questioning Modi and the CJI who shared the dias with Modi are also not partaking in their responsibilities. All these people need to get a job done for which they are appointed to. It remains to be seen how they complete it rather than being cynical about the outcome.
Every state for that matter is home to numerous criminals in a politicans garb, some crimes may never even see the light of day. So, does it then mean that Mr Bachchan does not engage with such states at any level? Lets take the 1984 Sikh riots, which was the result of events that led to the assasination and post assasination ( events) of Indira Gandhi and as you said in your comment #421 yesterday “And as for the rest it’s pretty unfortunate that the Center couldn’t prevent these pogroms much as it couldn’t the ‘93 ones in Bombay much as it couldn’t the ones in ‘84. Modi and Thackeray and the Congress politicians in that instance are criminals of the highest order”. In this context, do we now say that it is wrong on Mr Singh’s part being a Sikh to not only belong to the Congress party but also represent the same family which should take moral responsibility for the genocide in 84? Mr Singh is probably one of the most respected economists in the world who despite his “soft” voice is responsible for India’s much improved economic status today and I am glad he did not entertain such thoughts and he has put the progress of the nation ahead of everything else. When he chose to join Congress or support the Gandhi’s, it has been a choice of his and makes little sense to question it. Same with Mr Bachchan’s endorsement of Gujrat, a fundamental right of his to join / endorse / promote any one / event / state he wishes to.
In your comment # 157, you state “it is not about endorsing Gujarat, nor about simply being in the same space as Modi. I think you know what transpired. You can disagree with me but let’s not make it the the most unremarkable event imaginable”. I mho, it is the most unremarkable event imaginable which has led to the imagination of this country running wild. Nobody is in the literal sense wishing for opinions to be written on the blogs of the Ambanis or the Tatas or even the CJI for that matter. Even if the Amabis or the Tatas have personal motives in endorsing Gujrat, there is no denying the fact that the economics of Gujrat is better off and it’s people are better off. What personal motive would the CJI have in sharing the stage with Modi? If at all he did, then our concentration should be on the CJI and not on Mr Bachchan’s good intentions.
I am catching a flight shortly, if this debate continues I shall respond after I reach Bangalore else I will miss my flight! Thank You.
Satyam says:
April 1, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Sharmila: You’re once again conflating the two. Amitji can do anything for any state without going through the formal ‘brand ambassador’ bit. So yes I would not have him associate with Thackeray or those Congress figures. Because there are lots of ways one can do important things for Gujarat and Maharashtra without becoming brand ambassador. Again my views might seem extreme here but I prefer not waiting for the legal system to act because it can sometimes take an eternity, it’s record of holding politicians responsible is not the best one, and in the meantime I’d rather not be giving the likes of Modi the benefit of the doubt. Every one of the arguments you’ve brought forth here would enable one to hobnob with a Hitler as well. Because he was ‘elected’, he was ‘popular’, and everything he did was ‘legal’ (actually far more legal than everything Modi does because the Nazis were very careful about having laws for everything they did).
Sharmila:
I have been debating with our dedicated EF Satyam on this space over the last two days. The debate is probably very important as it has revealed two diverse spectrums that each of us strongly believe in. I rarely indulge in butting into other respondent’s conversations on the blog as I have believed that they address you and expect to hear answers from you and do aplogize for getting in Satyam’s way.I would like to state I am not indulging in any form of sycophancy or flattery, I am taking a view which I believe in. If I differ in my opinion I am quite vocal about it as I have in the past.Our country continues to waste time on the most “insignificant” issues and continues to convert a non issue into an issue. I am still amazed as to how your endorsement of Gujrat, a benign event to say the least has converted itself into a malignant one!
Sharmila says:
April 2, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Satyam – In response to your comment yeterday. Brand ambassadorship is the right accorded to an individual to endorse something in a recognized capacity. There is always more that can be done when one is accorded a designation rather than doing things in sometimes an unorganized manner. The reach is always a lot wider when the designated portfolio is official.It is extremely prestigious for the country to portray to the outside world and even within India that Mr Bachchan is a brand ambassador for Gujrat. In a way akin to conferring a knighthood on an individual for his contributions in a certain field irrespective of whether we would well and truly use the salutation of “Sir”. I am sure Mr Bachchan with all his contributions for the country is not carried away by the ambasadorship status,but it is the recognition from the state which is flattering and he wishes to honor the recognition.One must recall where he turned down the Doctorate from QU in Australia. A remarkable gesture where he well and truly believed that being honored with a Doctorate in Australia was not appropriate given the treatment towards Indians in Australia. It is obvious with his actions that his priority is India and Indians irrespective of which state we belong to. Mr Bachchan can do a lot MORE being an Ambassador.
Secondly, I do not think I am in the least flirting towards Hitler or his philosophies.The specific example I had cited yesterday was Mr Manmohan Singh.In your comment #421 Day 708 “And as for the rest it’s pretty unfortunate that the Center couldn’t prevent these pogroms much as it couldn’t the ‘93 ones in Bombay much as it couldn’t the ones in ‘84. Modi and Thackeray and the Congress politicians in that instance are criminals of the highest order”. In this context, do we now say that it is wrong on Mr Singh’s part being a Sikh to not only belong to the Congress party but also represent the same family which should take moral responsibility for the genocide in 84? Mr Singh is probably one of the most respected economists in the world who despite his “soft” voice is responsible for India’s much improved economic status today and I am glad he did not entertain such thoughts and he has put the progress of the nation ahead of everything else. When he chose to join Congress or support the Gandhi’s, it has been a choice of his and makes little sense to question it. Same with Mr Bachchan’s endorsement of Gujrat, a fundamental right of his to join / endorse / promote any one / event / state he wishes to.
Satyam says:
April 2, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Sharmila: You have not been ‘butting’ into anything. The debate is a most healthy one. I think you’re also saving Amitji a lot of trouble here! He doesn’t have to respond. Ha!
I don’t quite agree with your ‘84 analogy. Indira Gandhi was of course dead and Rajiv wasn’t really in charge. Manmohan Singh is not responsible for the violence. Now should Congress leaders have done more to weed out those responsible for the violence? Absolutely! It is a stain on the party that they did not do so. But there is still a difference between tolerating certain elements in a huge party and being personally responsible for a series of events. If there were elements of the BJP responsible for the Gujarat pogroms but Modi himself had his hands clean I would have a very different view of all this. But the opposite is true. Modi is as personally responsible for engineering this violence as Hitler was. And as many other other fascist leaders have been through modern history. Irrespective of the difference in scale. So my question to you is this: every argument that you’ve brought forth if accepted would also oblige Amitji to become brand ambassador for a state under Hitler! This seems like a hyperbolic comparison but this is where such a logic leads us to. Where do we stop? People who are responsible for a 100 deaths? A 1000? A million? I am not at all eliding the distinctions between different kinds of fascists and certainly not between Hitler and Modi but there is a common genealogy. What has unfortunately happened is that Hitler has been converted into a supreme example of evil by the West and he functions as a unique example. Everyone else can have a good conscience when compared with Hitler! But in the Germany of the 30s he was precisely the Narendra Modi of his world.
So it seems to me that either you do not accept that Modi is responsible for anything and you more or less believe the ’spontaneous riots’ idea. In which case there is no issue here. But if you do hold him responsible for the violence, an active engineer of it, your logic then leads straight to the Hitlers of history. However the decoupling that you perform also has other consequences. One could take up any position in a tyrannical regime and consider it work for one’s native land and not the leader!
Now I hasten to add that I am arguing with you here and not with Amitji who has of course not advanced many of the points you have. But I think this ‘decoupling’ is not as innocuous as it sounds. It has consequences. And in politics there is a symbolic order to things. Think about this pragmatically — Amitji becomes brand ambassador of Gujarat. Suddenly the Congress starts asking him what his views are on the 2002 violence, Modi starts defending him by calling the other side ‘Taliban’ (a statement that he has since retracted somewhat). The Bombay causeway was what triggered all of this of course. We all know all cynically and even disgustingly the Congress goes after Amitji. But the terms of the criticism are important. They found it easy to say some of this because the BJP was defending him, equally cynically on the other side and they in turn were doing so because they are trying rather hard to ‘appropriate’ Amitji for their side or ‘co-opt’ him. And his initial action of accepting the brand ambassadorship or sharing a stage with Modi or exchanging compliments with him triggered this. Is a lot of this unfair to Amitji? Of course. WHICH IS WHY I HAVE BEEN ARGUING HERE! I do not wish for him to be unfairly accused this way. BUT THIS IS THE PRAGMATIC POINT! This is what happens in politics! This is what happens when you’re AMITABH BACHCHAN! Everything that you say or do has consequences. These as I said before are the wages of celebrity. And Amitji is not just any public figure. No one would attack Fardeen Khan if he showed up with Modi! So even if one disagreed with everything I’ve suggested on the symbolic order here one could at least agree with me on pragmatic grounds. However if one feels that taking up the brand ambassadorship of Gujarat is worth this sort of political ruckus one can keep engaging in this sort of action. I have already said that I do not feel the ’cause’ here proportionate to the ‘risk’. So it’s not just that people in India get all worked up over silly things. In any society of the world there is such silly season in politics. However sometimes what seems superficial reveals a deeper truth. And here the latter is the fact that Amitji showing up with Modi on a stage caused a certain tremor. Candidly it was painful for me to witness this as well.
There is a symbolic order in play here because Amitji represents a certain side of the equation through his life and through his work. He was campaigning for the Samajvadi in UP not so long ago. Not for the BJP. Many did not like his association with the former but it was still left of center politics. To wit you can go from the Congress to the Samajvadi but not the BJP. Even leaving this aside every public utterance of his puts him at odds with the Modis of the world. Despite all this when you then show up with Modi on a stage you confer a bit of your prestige on him and he desperately needs it. Despite his enormous popularity in GUjarat, despite the sense of admiration that he sometimes evokes outside Gujarat the fact is that in many important circles of Indian life he is considered persona non grata. Precisely because he is considered to have engineered the Gujarat violence. Amitji inserted himself into this ‘political field’ without I think adequately considering the consequences. I doubt he thought it through and then decided to do it anyway. I think there was a certain lack of pragmatism here. This at the very least. But leaving this aside it is not just the ‘pragmatic’ that is at issue here. I do think there is a genuine objection that can be raised here.
So if you’re saying ‘why are people creating this fuss?’ I would submit that you are not adequately appreciating the stakes involved here, that the matter is not as minor as it might seem, that in the political field nothing is minor, certainly not when Amitji is involved, that such interventions will always be considered ‘political’, that one must understand all of this and navigate accordingly. One might then find the cost acceptable but it is even worse to not even be aware that there might be a cost!
I wish Amitji had not accepted this ‘honor’ as you call it for reasons that I have laid out. But if he chose I wish he had better navigated these political mine-fields or left himself less vulnerable to some of the charges. In Kerala a ruckus was created because certain left parties did not wish him to be appointed brand ambassador of that state. They felt that no one associated with Modi could ’sell’ Kerala. Again another consequence. It’s not about who is in the right here. Clearly the notion of politics that some in kerala have makes Amitji unacceptable for them. So he gets the Gujarat honor but the Kerala honor is perhaps withdrawn (it was initially offered and then these problems erupted). Right here an opposition is created. So there are stakes in politics. And certainly if you an extraordinary public figure you cannot just engage in neutral gestures. You might think that but you are being very naive. and no one ever said that naivete does not have a cost in politics. Amitji should know this better than anyone else having gone through the Bofors mess.
so I have been (ironically) defending him all along. Trying to inoculate him all along. I am certain as to his integrity and beliefs. I just wish he hadn’t made himself vulnerable on account of something that with all due respect to him and yourself is simply not a ’cause’ great enough.
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 10:07 AM
[Beautiful post here.. I myself have great affection for that earlier age of letter-writing. Perhaps if you have time you should dip into one of the great epistolary novels of the English tradition. If you have lots and lots and lots of time Richardson’s massive, very massive Clarissa might prove worthwhile! But the letter in one’s hand-writing carries an intimacy that nothing typed ever can. On that note you should check out Jane Campion’s recent Bright Star, a superb film on the romance between Keats and Fanny Brawne. It’s a moving tale in any case but deals with letter-writing as well (as you of course know Keats wrote beautiful letters). I have not been a fan of this director and I am also sometimes wary of these period pieces because they tend to be all about costume and sets and little else but this is truly a remarkable film. Perhaps Keats came across as a bit more sullen than I would have imagined him to be but that’s a minor cavil here.]
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 11:32 AM
[Priyanka Gandhi in an interview last year admiring your father’s poetry:
http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/priyanka_gandhi_on_her_life_and_politics.php
I’ve long wished that Priyanka could din some sense into her mother that the nation faces causes more worthwhile than hounding a Bachchan. Once upon a time Sonia Gandhi stayed in the Bachchan household. How unfortunate to forget such hospitality. Not to mention all the other ‘ties’. No sense of history even here. One just stumbles through life somehow staging out one’s vendettas and far more important things fall by the wayside. Can’t recall who it was who said recently that Sonia has some of her mother-in-law’s worst qualities but none of her good ones. With power also comes the dark side and one often becomes imprisoned by the latter.]
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 11:37 AM
That’s very interesting from Priyanka Gandhi’s interview — I recall seeing excerpts from that interview, but had not come across the Teji Bachchan bits at the very end of the transcript…
Re: Sonia/mother-in-law: that sounds like Ramchandra Guha…
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 11:38 AM
yes it is Guha.. recall reading a recent piece by him..
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 11:41 AM
and here’s the Guha piece:
http://www.caravanmagazine.in/Story.aspx?Storyid=163&StoryStyle=FullStory
LikeLike
April 3, 2010 at 11:03 AM
the link gives an unexplained error and is not working.
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 11:41 AM
BTW Satyam, let’s hope Jaya Bachchan isn’t around to read your references to “Sonia” (she got mad at a reporter recently for that) 🙂
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 11:44 AM
yeah! perhaps if she’s called Sonia ‘ji’ a bit more her husband might have been harassed less. God save us from these subcontinental bourgeois values!
LikeLike
April 3, 2010 at 11:05 AM
This is a great interview, thank for posting. Priyanka comes accross as a very grounded person. will watch the whole thing later.
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 2:45 PM
Sharmila:
Satyam – Thank you for your graciousness and allowing this debate to remain healthy. As I stated to Devkishanji, I am NOT a supporter of Modi , I am NOT a supporter of any politician in India, I have immense issues with most of them. I have a soft spot for Maneka Gandhi independent of her politics because she remains the biggest animal rights activist of the country and yes I would support Rajnikanth if he entered politics!
Having said this, I remain a supporter of Mr Bachchan’s actions in Gujrat and I have cited my reasons over the last two days about it. With reference to Manmohan SIngh, I was not trying to state that Singh was responsible for the 84 violence in the least! My comparison has been misunderstood.I was comparing Singh to a brand ambassador who has accepted a position of responsibility for the betterment of the country despite the moral responsibilty issues with the Gandhis in the 84 riots.
Whether it is the perpetrators in Congress or Modi or Hitler or the Hutu clan of Rwanda, I do not obviously support any form of breach in humane behavior. IYou say that “if” Modi had his hands clean whilst elements in the BJP were responsible you would have had a very different view on all this, you are clearly isolating the party from the man. I isolate the state and the people of Gujrat from Modi exactly like the way you isolate the party from Modi and say there is nothing wrong in Mr Bachchan endorsing the state.
Sharmila says:
April 2, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Satyam – To continue the debate, it is not only Sonia or the Congress who are after Mr Bachchan, there are a few more. But, Mr Bachchan will not and must not tailor his actions to suit the needs of those around him. My respect for Mr Bachchan also stems from the fact that he is a man who does what he feels is well and truly right, again for the larger good of this community and driven by his self belief. This I believe is the hallmark of a great man. It is not exactly his naivety as you call it, it is his magnanimity. His magnanimity must be lauded and not criticized. Sadly, in this process he has faced brickbats but this never deters him. Even if there are a million critics for Mr Bachchan, his conscience is his own best critic and right now his conscience is his softest pillow.
If people in Kerala or the commonwealth games do not want Mr Bachchan to be their brand ambassador, it is their biggest loss. An iconic Indian never cowers to the unreasonable demands made by silly netas and their tribe or wellwishers who wish him not to take “risks”. And what is the deal about taking risks? If you call Mr Bachchan’s actions as risky, then for someone who has spent the last forty years beating risk at it’s own game, then it is game, set and match yet again to Mr Bachchan!
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 2:46 PM
[Sharmila: I am not doubting that Amitji does things in good conscience. The debate rather is whether there ought not to be mixture of pragmatism to this. The debate also is whether one’s conscience ought to be the only test one relies on. I therefore argue against this most romantic of notions. Doing what we think is right is often not enough. Obviously we can never have perfect knowledge of our actions and their consequent impact but perhaps looking at the larger picture for a bit, expanding one’s view a bit one might arrive at a wiser course of action. Amitji has acted in good conscience and he has acted for the state of Gujarat, not for Modi or anyone else, this much is clear. But whether he understood that his name might be called into question for this and decided to go ahead anyway is what I doubt a bit. But leaving this aside what if Amitji thinks that a larger good is served here even if it comes at the cost of some damage to his name when in fact he might serve many more ‘larger’ goods the more his name remained free of such blemishes?
Great men and women, no matter how great still operate within history. Victories can often be had at very steep costs. I am not persuaded that many of Amitji’s victories these past two decades whether in film terms or otherwise needed to come at such a high cost. I am rather persuaded that in both these fields he could have been even greater than he is. The cost to him, both in terms of his person and his career, have been tremendous. I don’t think he’d disagree. Where we differ is that I insist there was an alternative and he perhaps does not see it this way and at this stage in his life and career is perhaps too tired to care very much.
As you know from my past comments there is no one more devoted to the Bachchan signature, its import and its legacy as I am. Which is why I have always been acutely aware of the gulf that separates his heights from his twilight period. This is not because I am foolish and I never expect ‘time’ to happen to a star. It is because the charge of that legacy, that screen history, that body of work is so potent, so revolutionary, so seminal and transcendent in every sense of the word that one cannot but reject much in the presence to remain true to it. Again I am saying nothing new here. I have said as much from the very beginning. To remain truest to ‘Amitabh Bachchan’ one must reject certain aspects of Amitabh Bachchan! I do not judge him as a person here, if anything my admiration and respect for his integrity has only increased over time. But his professional body of work is far too precious, far too dear to not be given the right respect and attention. And this has sadly not been the case very often. I won’t repeat what I’ve said many times in the past on this score except to audaciously announce once more that even Amitji will not defeat ‘Vijay’ for me and if forced to choose I will always choose the latter. I think this is the truest fidelity to his accomplishment, the truest loyalty one can show to him. One would not have wished to see a mediocre play from Shakespeare. Similarly I find it very hard to live with mediocre choices from Amitji whether in films or in life. But he is of course human. I am not expecting him to be infallible. But this post-peak or twilight moment could assuredly have been better navigated. Perspective made Amitji a greater human being but sadly diminished his capacity to adequately comprehend his place in history.
I do confess that I live in Amitji’s 70s work and his early 80s work the way a fish lives in water. If truth be told his work in this period has the status of a religious text for me that I constantly dive into and that always enriches me in some form or fashion. It is a ‘book of life’ for me to forever turn to in all sorts of moments. Perhaps ‘the’ book of life. In any case this oeuvre is for me always present, always current, always vital. I am therefore acutely aware of where things start going wrong. I won’t get into this entire history. The fact is that even with all his errors as I see them he is still a giant among pygmies. But I regret the failures not for box office reasons but far more profound ones. And yet I console myself with the fact that this too shall pass. What has endured, what will continue to endure is the charge of that great work..]
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 2:57 PM
I’ll be honest – I haven’t really tracked the debate between you and Sharmila here but the last two paragraphs of your latest comment (beginning with “As you know from my past comments there is no one more devoted to the Bachchan signature, its import and its legacy as I am…”) are, to say the least, stirring. Whether or not there is a greater fan of Bachchan somewhere out there (that would be a hard sell!) there surely isn’t one to match you when it comes to articulating that fandom with this level of passion and, at times, poetry.
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 3:04 PM
thanks very much GF.. the disagreement basically revolves around whether Bachchan should have accepted Modi’s offer to become Gujarat’s brand ambassador and beyond this whether he should have shared a stage with the latter where they both called each other ‘Shahenshah’. And the rest of course is my disagreement with many on his film choices where I am not as sanguine as many.
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 3:06 PM
Re: Whether or not there is a greater fan of Bachchan somewhere out there
Are you trying to insult me???
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 3:09 PM
C’mon Rajen, you need to prove you case….let’s see what you’ve got…LOL
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 3:10 PM
Just ask Satyam.
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 3:12 PM
Satyam, what do you say man? 🙂
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 5:08 PM
I agree.. I’m not a greater fan than Rajen is.. I mean it sincerely..
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 3:13 PM
Am just kiddin.
Even tho I am a passionate fan, Satyam is on a different level and brings morethan just passion to the table.
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 3:17 PM
ahh Rajen, didn’t expect this from you! You could’ve atleast waited for Satyam to reply and let this fun last a little more….
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 3:19 PM
Naah. It wouldnt be fun. Being the generous and the gracious guy he is, Satyam wouldd have just conceded.
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 6:47 PM
In this debate, for once I don’t agree with Satyam.
True, Amitji praising of Modi as not gone too well with many here. But in India I guess it as become a kind of protocol when the speaker in the podium praises you, you always return a compliment. So Amitiji might have just returned the compliment in the spur of moment. I believe we should not take that too seriously and create a opinion on this. I’am sorry for bringing up SRK in this discussion. I did not want to, but since I see the situation is similar to what happened recently I bring up here. SRK said we have a good neighbor and etc etc. The media completely forgot that part and SRK on his end changed the stand and thanks to the Congress leaders. Here is where the Double standards from Govt, ‘If SRK says Pakistan is good he is praised by Congress. If Big B says Gujarat is good he is tortured by same Congress.’.Anyways Media as forgotten what SRK as forgotten about Pak and also I haven’t read anywhere either from the media bashing about Amitji praising for Modi as Shenshah. But Satyam seems to holding on to it. Also comparing Modi to Hitler is totally unfair.
In the recent survey which was posted here, didn’t we have Tata, Ambani ahead of Amitji in India’s trusted public figures? These leaders have invested and shared the dias with Modi more than often. If they were not targeted by the Govt or the people in large, then why is Amitji facing the heat for his Gujarat Tourism stance? We want AB to have his own position. It is one thing to have an opinion but unfair to impose expectations.
Satyam is one the greatest fan of AB. His knack of analysis each character Amitji as portrayed and narrative style is unmatched. Satyam as a own fan following here and in Amitjii’ blog. I have seen numerous comments in Amitji blog where people have stated that after reading the Amitji post next thigh they do is look for Satyam’s comment. Me included.
That being said, Satyam as the ability to polarize a debate based on analysis and commentary. As Satyam feels, Amitji actions have impact on the society at large he being a icon and revered public figure, I personally feel so does Satyam’s comment in the blog is looked upon by many and drive their opinion.
LikeLike
April 2, 2010 at 7:06 PM
Thanks for this very detailed comment Rajesh. I value your thoughts very much. The crux of the matter here is Narendra Modi though. If you do not consider him a monster then my criticism seems overwrought and rightly so. But I do consider him a monster and therefore it pained me to see Bachchan return the compliment specially since the ‘Shahenshah’ reference which was apt for Bachchan for obvious reasons need not have been returned in exactly the same fashion. Was it just a case of pleasantries being exchanged? On Bachchan’s side yes but I think a public figure ought to be more responsible in his remarks specially since he is very careful in his film interviews! But leaving this aside the basic point still revolves around Modi. I refuse to cut him the slightest slack and I wouldn’t even if he were the greatest CM in Indian history. Because once someone is responsible for a pogrom (and there isn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that he is) I am simply not interested in anything else. If he were living in an older century I might grant him some excuse based on the contexts. But not in contemporary times. The amazing thing though is that the right that cannot forgive Akbar his Chittor massacres finds it easy to either be skeptical about Modi’s complicity and indeed ‘authorship’ using disingenuous legalistic arguments or else finds those actions to be proper ‘recompense’ for excesses by the minority (of course in rather hypocritical fashion everyone’s sure about Godhra! In all the impartial investigations that have been performed on both episodes the conclusions have been precisely the opposite).
LikeLike
April 3, 2010 at 9:12 AM
[Ramanathan: Liked your long note. Just to clarify. Though I might prefer ‘Vijay’ to Amitabh Bachchan (!) or Anthony to the same this is not as uncomplimentary as it sounds. It is a bit like being God (or Shakespeare!). The characters one creates are so remarkable, so supreme as creations that they completely transcend the boundaries of fiction (in any case I don’t find fiction less ‘real’). But also remember that even ‘real’ people appear as ‘characters’ in life, especially those we know at a bit of a remove. This too is but standard Shakespeare. And to repeat the same point in a different sense even if much more were known about Shakespeare than currently is it would be hard to prefer him to so many of his astonishing characters!
But I meant the comment above in a somewhat different sense as well and perhaps this is the more defining one for the current debate. To privilege ‘Vijay’ is to prefer a body of Amitji’s work (conveniently summarized by this signature) which always carries the charge of a certain politics but is also a pinnacle of performance. As long as Amitji operates within this event he unleashed all those years ago I continue to worship him. But when he makes decisions (human as these might be, comprehensible as these might be at other levels) that to my mind ‘betray’, or if this is too strong a word at least do not do justice to, the ‘truth’ of that event I find it necessary to part ways with him. Wordsworth in the second half of his life wrote mediocre poetry. This does not cast a shadow on his earlier work as long as one acknowledges the distinction. If however one acted as if it was all the same just because the author was Wordsworth in each instance it would be a betrayal of his greatest poetry. So with Amitji’s work again the 70s and the early 80s and represent a glittering monument to his craft and the films in question are often among the most interesting ones of Hindi or Indian cinema. This is all I seek to preserve. This does not prevent me from appreciating Amitji’s work whenever it has been extraordinary beyond this period. So many films really. But there has also been much that is let’s say regrettable.
For all this my loyalty to his person remains, despite my claims, constant.]
LikeLike
April 3, 2010 at 11:01 AM
Sorry to hear about your loss Satyam. May the soul of the departed family member rest in peace.
LikeLike
April 3, 2010 at 11:10 AM
thanks Rocky..
LikeLike
April 7, 2010 at 7:44 PM
Asset Or Liability?
Glad Modi is facing some heat finally..
LikeLike
April 7, 2010 at 10:08 PM
From Sba Naqwi? Really??
LikeLike
April 7, 2010 at 11:27 PM
meant some of the stuff mentioned in the piece!
LikeLike