Driven by Idealogy Stuck in mythology

Most of us have seen Anniyan. If we forget the ridiculous heroism and stunts, the heart of the issue the movie addresses is Apathy that is ubiquitous in our society. Apathy is probably the one common thing amongst us Indians. We are not even surprised, let alone outraged, any more about anything. Incompetence is ok. Corruption is the name of the game. Social injustice is a fact of life. If our's is any less apathetic, it wouldn't be so unequal. Is this a cultural thing? Does our society not let us fight back against these injustices?

When i tried to look back at what ideas our society has offered to address these issues, it is usually with an avatar coming to the rescue. Though, at some level, its comforting to know (do we really know?) there is a higher power waiting to come to our rescue during hardtimes, it shouldn't absolve anyone from doing their duty to fight against it. That is where i think the concept of Karma, and doing your duty without thinking about the rewards come into the picture. When put together these ideas provide a frame work for Indian thought. As with most of things from our heritage, we have all forgotten about the real meaning and we hold on to strands of ideas and fail to remember that these were parts of a whole.


Our mythologies, which started as a way to store and pass on ideas to generations ahead morphed into glorification and deification of personalities. Repeating the theme i discussed here, Is Gita important because of the profound ideas in it, or just because it was (supposedly) spelt out by Lord Krishna? Is Krishna important or the idea (Gita) he stood for? This practice of deification instantly kills any inspiration to an average citizen to fight back any real and perceived injustices. Take the case of Gandhiji. He was not perfect, not even close. But he always tried to be a man of conviction and of principles. This is something every human should be aspiring to be, and perhaps most of us can be. However, by tagging him with the Mahatma title, he suddenly becomes something more than human. It gives an incentive to an average person to throw up his arms and claim,'i am not a Mahatma'. How many times we have heard that, 'I am not Mahatma', to justify everything. This tendency for us to absolve ourselves of any responsibility claiming that one has to be larger than life, a Mahatma to do anything and wait for a (false) savior (e.g., MGR, NTR, now chiranjeevi, maybe Rajini. This is not to say North Indian states are beyond these, but rather i am not well versed with their politics) to redeem the citizenary from their misfortune is to me the single biggest reason for most of the ills in our society.






I reasonably believe that the above picture captures the interlink between our thought and the culture we live in. This has led me to question whether our mythological history, instead of goading us to fight against injustices, is one of the main reasons for our apathy that has seeped deep into our psyche. Just to see how popular cinema, the only medium which most of us Indians have access to, handles such issues in contemporary world, i compared Shankar's movies (right from Gentleman to Anniyan) and Mani Ratnam's Ayutha Ezhuthu (yuva). Everytime Shankar takes up a social issue to address, he goes back to the mythological playbook and creates a modern day avatar who is all powerful and all knowing who changes the system all by himself. He has never ever tried an alternative theme or a new solution. I don't know if its subconscious or deliberate. All those movies were superhits. On the other hand, Mani Ratnam offers a solution that eventhough is difficult, is atleast possible and the only one that is sustainable in the long run (i.e., pushing the locals to take charge of their own destiny). Though he also had to make his protoganist a very smart idealist, he only uses that role to push the citizens to understand their own rights. To my dismay, this movie didn't do that well in the box office. I understand that i cannot read too much into this to jump to a conclusion. But does it not atleast say something about us? Just wondering....