Urban Naxals: The Making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam, by Vivek Agnihotri.

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Urban Naxals: The Making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam 

by Vivek Agnihotri

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"The attempts to cancel our screenings have reached a figure where now I feel there is a conspiracy behind this pattern. Verbal attacks, ridicule, heckling, resistance, sabotage have been the attractions of this journey. A friend from the US called after reading some FB posts on the attack at Kanpur IIT. 

"‘What are they are fighting?’ he asked me. 

"‘A film,’ I replied, to his utter shock."

"Suresh Chukappali, the producer who had abandoned the film midway to die, called me to his house after the release. Not only that, he requested me to send the awards and the trophies to him to be displayed at the reception of his new swanky office. This is the victory of Buddha."

" ... as I start work on my next film, trying to discover yet another political mystery, there is news that has brought the film back in the limelight. Professor G.N. Saibaba of Delhi University has been sentenced to life imprisonment for colluding with the Naxals and working against national security. Along with him, the students whom he brainwashed and mentored to pick up guns and become Naxals were also arrested. The Inspector General of Police of the Nagpur Range, Ravindra Kadam, said that a few students of the university had joined the underground Maoist cadre at the behest of the professor. The students who joined the Naxal movement were members of the Democratic Students’ Union (DSU). It’s the same students’ body whose member Umar Khalid was arrested by the Delhi police, in relation to the Afzal Guru sloganeering case at JNU.

"‘Professor Saibaba had been active with Left-leaning students of both JNU and DU and had been indoctrinating and recruiting them for the Maoist movement. In course of time, Saibaba had prepared and recruited four students as Maoist cadre,’ Kadam said.

"‘Either these people followed your script in real life, or you are a clairvoyant who read their future script. Whatever it is, your effort to show the truth is worthy of a salute,’ anti-Naxal hero Inspector General Kalluri told me. This is the victory of Buddha."

Actually, Agnihotri interpreted his own past experience, correctly. 

"Earlier, in November 2016, a Delhi University professor Nalini Sunder was booked along with other Naxals on charges of murder of an Adivasi villager in the insurgency-hit Sukma district of Chattisgarh. The government has identified hundreds of NGOs who have been working illegally and are suspected of helping anti-national elements. Many ex-Naxal women have reported sexual abuse, rape and oppression of women exactly like the film depicted.

"A few days ago, Naxals shot down twenty-five CRPF soldiers in a dastardly act of violence. In a quick operation, police nabbed some Naxals and some surrendered. One of the surrendered Naxals, Podium Panda, confessed to the police and later in the court that he was the link between Nalini Sunder, activist Bela Bhatia, and the Naxals. He used to drive them on his motorbike to the Naxal bastion.

"It’s been established beyond doubt that some members of academia have been helping Naxals in attaining their objective of toppling the democratic system of India with an armed revolution. Exactly like the film.

"Today, unanimously, the film is recognized as a prophetic film of our times. Even by its opponents. This is the victory of Buddha."

"I was invited for a town hall at Facebook’s headquarter at Menlo park in Silicon Valley and this is where I realized that most of the Indians in the audience have been discussing ‘Urban Naxalism’ after seeing the film. I spent the entire evening with them discussing this red terror and almost all of them felt that they have been victims of Urban Naxalism while in college. One young IT engineer who has just joined Facebook hugged me and held my hand tightly and said, “Sir, your film is my story. I was also influenced by my professors to turn leftist and before I could realize I had started hating India. It’s only after watching our movie I realized how I was brainwashed and now I believe in India and will do anything to build a New India. Thanks for speaking up.” This is the victory of Buddha."

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"An ex-critic of The Hindu, Sudhish Kamath wrote several pieces, tweets on the film, ridiculing it, bashing it, ripping it apart, and raping it, trying to prove that the film is worse than Gunday, a film supposed to be the worst ever. "

By what criteria, it's unclear. It dealt with a good many unexplored issues related to recent history which hindi films never dared explore, even the 1971 war as far as Liberation of East Bengal goes. 

Any sane viewer and critic would opine the preppy-yuppy candyfloss dressed up as films by KJo far below the raw Gunday. 

But perhaps that's merely evidence that the industry is dominated by a jihadist narrative dictated from across border Northwest, perhaps from a city across ocean West that was in India, and 1971 is taboo unless one shows only a small battle West with the heroes of India depicted dead, even though living in reality. 

And another taboo, apart from victory of the whole war and of war in Eastern theatre, is the issue of illegal immigrants from across border, long after refugees fleeing a fascistmilitary regime out to conduct ethnic cleansing via genocide is abated. 

Gunday dealt with illegal immigrants issue, however sympathetically. Hence the condemnation? Dictated via a phone call? 

" ... This came from a man who has himself made a film. Ironically, these people take pride in calling themselves reformists, liberals, progressive. So far, they had opposition only from vernacular, sanskari people in kurta pyjamas, who they could label as regressive or Hindu fundamentalist. For the first time, one of them was exposing them in their own idiom, style, and manner. Nobody from their own community had called them ‘Urban Naxals’. I did."

"They started debating if my shoulder was actually broken or not. How could I hold the mike if it was broken? One journalist even wondered how I was alive without the backing of the ruling party. Not all, but some of them wanted me dead. Some wondered why my dad didn’t use a condom, besides hurling abuses at my mother, wife, and daughter. They sent me life threatening messages. I still sometimes revisit some messages from a pimp of a large corporation asking me to withdraw my film from the release. ‘You don’t know our power,’ he had threatened. By this time, a filmmaker should have chickened out. But I didn’t and this made them angrier and they employed all their weaponry to destroy me."

"On May 13th, when the movie released, it found two distinct responses. One from Mumbai and Delhi-based critics and another from the rest of the world. The Mumbai/Delhi critics club was led by Raja Sen of Rediff and Suprateek Chaterjee of Huffington Post. If you were to read the reviews from Rediff to Huffington Post to Scroll.in, the movie is ‘a propaganda film’. Scroll.in’s Nadini Ramnath says ‘warnings about the “red menace” sound like direct quotes from the speeches of Baba Ramdev and Mohan Bhagwat.’

"Suprateek Chaterjee called it a ‘right-wing propaganda piece’, Raja Sen said Buddha in a Traffic Jam made him ‘feel sorry for Indian right-wingers’ because it was apparently not good enough propaganda. Sarit Ray, writing in Hindustan Times, called it ‘propaganda disguised as cinema’. It was a mere coincidence that all of them are Bengalis and they wrote exactly the same reviews as if out of a pre-decided template. Be it tweets, FB posts, reviews or blogs, all the paragraphs were in the same order with the same content with the word ‘propaganda’ spread out evenly.

"I had always believed that Huffington Post was a responsible publication and would never entertain personal grudges to become part of its editorial. Raja Sen refused to give the film any star. This was the first time in my memory when I saw a critic refusing to give any star to a film. How bad can a film be which won so many awards and was selected by MAMI under Shyam Benegal’s chairmanship as one of India’s best five films?

"These people didn’t write reviews. They wrote hate pieces. In some time, it came out that most of them had written those hate pieces without even watching the film."

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"Slowly, other reviews started coming from other, non-agenda parts of India and abroad where genuine critics, who saw the film in the theatre, and not just wrote reviews but essays on the politics of Naxalism and the points the film made. Those who live outside competitive and ambitious Mumbai and Delhi are more socially and politically conscious. While metro critics start with finding negatives, the non-metro and rooted critics try to find positives. One critic, Mayuresh, wrote:

"‘To truly appreciate the scale of the attack on Freedom of Expression (FoE) that the Jadavpur incident represents, you have to see Buddha in a Traffic Jam. I think most of the social media discourse about the movie is misleading as it refers the movie as anti-Naxal or anti-left, and hence the battle for its screening as a battle between red and saffron in a manner of speaking. Actually, the movie is neither of these. It is a microscopic, almost anthropological, look at how the poorest people of India are hard done to by evil corporates on one side and the militants on the other. As the movie cuts back and forth between the metro where college professors talk revolution, and the harsh, arid landscapes of rural India, we realize there are no heroes, only victims. That, argues Vivek, is the true tragedy of this conflict.

"‘The first strike against Vivek is, of course, his refusal to drink the Leftist concoction of ‘intolerance’ and ‘award wapsi’. Vivek was always going to be a target after that. Buddha shows the poor people in nothing but sympathetic light, it is the gun-toting maniacs that Vivek has problems with. The Jadavpur gang does not care for the poor people, or they would have allowed a movie proposing a solution for the poor to be screened. In this dispute, the Jadavpur gang is acting as bouncers of the armed militants. They are the bullies, trying to crush Vivek’s voice so that the armed militants can continue exploiting some of the poorest people on the earth."

Reminds one of the recent mobbing of Delhi by so-called farmers, in reality paid mobs agitating in interest of not farmers but middlemen, supported by all opposition until bills allowing freedom to farmers were scrapped and middlemen won. Lynching, rapes and more by the said mob were supported by the opposition in the process, in name of farmers, name used fraudulently. 

"‘The second strike is his balanced portrayal of the problem at the root of the Naxal terrorism, and his temerity to suggest that technology and trade may be the answer to the problem. For people who are used to terming modern business and modern technology as the villains of the episode, Vivek’s solution is damn near blasphemous.’"

And that exposes the true character nature of left, those supposedly striving for people, but in reality no different from fascists, only totally fraudulent. 

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"I am on the last leg of the campaign. The film is releasing in one week. The last week has been extremely hectic. We have been to so many institutes that I have lost count. After Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mumbai and many other universities, I am in Pune, before I fly the entire night to be in Kolkata tomorrow for a screening at Jadavpur University (JU). I have some time before the screening and I want to visit FTII. I always do so whenever I am in Pune, as it never fails to give me a new perspective. The film was supposed to be screened at FTII but as expected, Leftist groups did not allow it.

"The last few months have kept India engaged in ruthless campus politics in institutes like IIT Madras, JNU, Osmania University, JU, DU, Bhagalpur University, HCU, and FTII. The fire was ignited at FTII and it led to all the other agitations. These agitations were centred around an argument that the new government is crushing the constitutional rights of free speech and dissent. In reality, no constitutional right was ever curbed or can ever be curbed. But the losers of the 2014 elections created a fact-less story, amplified by the media. The political masters, in order to embarrass Modi, made these students mouth anti-India slogans. This left the entire world wondering ‘What went wrong with these institutes that they have started churning out anti-national students?’"

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" ... After an hour or so, I see a tall, lanky boy in a kurta and jeans with unkempt hair and uneven beard, walking towards the auditorium. I call him to ask where to find tea. 

"‘Thanks. In case, you are going to see the film, you are already late by an hour,’ I tell him. 

"‘I don’t want to see the film,’ he replies. There is contempt in his body language. It intrigues me. 

"‘Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. I am the director of the film – Viv...’ 

"‘I know you are Vivek Agnihotri,’ he says with a cold look. 

"‘Great. May I ask why you don’t want to see the film?’ 

"‘Because I have already seen it.’ 

"‘Where?’ ‘On the net.’ 

"‘That’s impossible.’ 

"‘Everything is possible on the net.’ 

"‘You mean the full film?’ 

"‘Yeah, we have seen the full film. Not just once, but several times. Last we saw it this morning.’ 

"‘And what did you think?’ 

"‘That we will tell you in the Q&A.’ 

"I have never met anyone who can look into your eyes and offend you with his honesty. 

"‘Since there is an hour for the Q&A to begin, why don’t we sit down and chat? You tell me what doesn’t work for you and if I can make you understand my reasons, maybe we can discover another truth.’ 

"We sit on one of the concrete benches, overlooking the lush green garden. 

"‘It’s not about liking or disliking the film; this film is dangerous.’ 

"I find him interesting. I want to indulge him. After all, that is the purpose of this journey, to debate and learn from a new perspective. 

"‘The intention behind this film is to begin a debate,’ I try to set the tone. 

"‘You are not starting a debate; you are creating a narrative. And that’s dangerous.’ 

"‘You sound like a logical young lawyer. Why would you say it’s dangerous? It’s just a film.’ 

"‘That’s why. As a film, it will create a new narrative.’ 

"‘What’s wrong with a new narrative? It’s based on facts.’ 

"‘I don’t care about your facts. We just don’t need another narrative.’ 

"‘You hate the film so much?’ 

"‘I don’t hate the film. In fact, the film is really good. Perhaps, one of the best. We just don’t want the film to be released.’ 

"‘How can you even say that?’ 

"‘That’s true. We have seen it several times and we have decided that we will rip it apart and ensure that it’s not released.’ 

"‘We? Who are we?’ 

"‘We are everywhere. You will meet some of them in the Q&A. Today is going to be your worst day.’ 

"‘Why are you telling me all this? You could have just attacked me directly in the Q&A.’ 

"‘True. But when I met you, I wanted to hurt you. I want you to suffer.’ 

"‘Just because I have a point of view?’ 

"‘For the revolution to come, we must destroy any narrative which is against Naxalism. Including your film.’ 

"‘Why are you doing this?’ 

"‘Because we want an India which is free of Brahmins like you.’"

Agnihotri goes on here to equivovate, either not realising or not daring to point out, that the anti-Brahmin agenda was vital to Macaulay policy to destroy India - and its a colonial slave mindset that accepts as gospel truth the completely fraudulent blames and accusations heaped against Brahmins, which in reality were copied from realities of church, but untrue of Brahmins. 

Regardless of the source of this hatred, whether Abrahamic-II or Abrahamic-III or Abrahamic-IV, Macaulay policy it is they follow, forever the crystallised form of hatred for India from outsider, lesser cultures of barbaric invaders. 

" ... These vulnerable students are then brainwashed with a false argument against Brahminism and gut-wrenching stories of oppression and class struggle. In a few months, they are trained to hate everything about Brahmins, upper class, the rich and successful, and money. All this anger is consolidated in one enemy: RSS. Since RSS’ agenda is to create a Hindu nation, these young people end up hating everything related to Hinduism, including Hindus."

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"Pritam told me that it happens to them all the time, therefore this time they decided to not give up and go ahead with the screening even if it had to be done in a hostel room. There was genuineness in his voice. With anguish, he told me that there is a systematic ‘institutional minoritization’ of their voice.  Simply put, nobody hears them. They are labeled ‘Sanghi’ and aren’t considered intellectual because they speak against Naxalism. BTW, he is a research scholar in Physics. Yet, he is ‘The Inferior’."

That, right there, is reason why Calcutta university, once respected, is and has now been a dump for decades - mindless parroting of a text, coupled with violence against dissent, is revered as intellectual, while a research scholar in physics who thinks for a living, lifelong, is labeled with a tag that isn't derogatory, but is artificially branded so. 

Church did that to words like 'grotesque', which foes not mean ugly or hideous but only means alike grotto; once grottoes contained images or statues of worshipped Gods and Goddesses. 

Congress and left have done it to words like sanghi, bhakta, etc, neither words nor what they refer to bring negative, but branded do by congress and left, relentlessly over decades. 

Imagine if Hindus did this, branding -say -'foreigner' to mean dirty, unwashed, etc; and then proceed to label urban naxals as 'foreigner-type'. 

It might be merely factual, at that. 

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Anyone caring about India, skip to chapter 38, then return to the beginning. From forward on.

Anyone who cares about human civilisation, skip to IIT Madras chapter. It's not just India in danger. 

Anyone anti-India, skip the book. 

"I am watching a viral WhatsApp video where a group of students is screaming these slogans. I think it’s some students in Pakistan displaying their extreme hatred for India. But they don’t look like Pakistanis. Their accent is also different. Is it Kashmir? As the video progresses, I realize it’s neither Pakistan nor Kashmir. In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have ever imagined that these are the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), shouting anti-national slogans, inside the campus, right in the heart of India’s capital. Fifteen kilometers from the Parliament, the temple of democracy."

" ... It was beyond my understanding that the students whom I hold in such high esteem are passionately seeking the breakup of my motherland, my karmbhoomi, my love – India. How can they celebrate a dreaded terrorist who attacked our Parliament?"

Reminds anyone else of the children wielding guns, shooting the teacher? 

"A couple of days ago, on the cold night of February 9, 2016, an official cultural event had turned into a political rally. The event was against the hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri terrorist convicted for the attack on Parliament on 13 December 2001 and hanged on 13 February 2013. The event was led by the president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Student’s Union (JNUSU), Kanhaiya Kumar, Kashmiri students Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid and other student leaders of Leftist parties that are sympathetic to the Naxal movement. Kanhaiya Kumar and his fellow students shouted anti-India slogans including the prayers for India’s break-up and eventual devastation.

"Kanhaiya Kumar and his gang get arrested on February 11th on charges of sedition. A ‘war of narratives’ begins in India. Rohith Vemula, a PhD student at the University of Hyderabad, had committed suicide a few weeks ago, leading to widespread Leftist protests around the country, because he was supposedly Dalit – the insinuation was that he had been driven to his death by caste oppression. Anybody who saw these protests in isolation is politically naive because it was just a scene in a screenplay.

"It connects now with the Kanhaiya episode. The screenplay started with the Film and Television Institute (FTII), where a section of the students went on strike over the appointment of a new Director; then the IIT Madras row over the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (IIT Madras had de-recognised the students’ association after a complaint that it was creating hatred against Hindus. The ban was later lifted.); then Vemula; and now it looks like it is culminating at the citadel of Urban Naxalism – JNU.

"Looking at the modus operandi, I can very easily see that Kanhaiya Kumar and the gang is just the front organization for the Naxals. Kanhaiya is being used by the faculty as an ‘intellectual terrorist’ to wage war against the State. They assume that the Modi government is new and not settled as yet, and therefore it’s the right time to strike. In no time, the usual suspects like Barkha Dutt, Arundhati Roy, and all other Naxal sympathizers come out openly in support of Kanhaiya. A civil war-like situation is being created, the government is attacked for suppression of dissent, curbing freedom of expression and for being anti-Dalit. It’s a full-fledged war between the Leftist forces and the State. All front organizations and supporters have come out of the closet. JNU is the battlefield and Kanhaiya their puppet.

"In the chaos of the Kanhaiya episode, the media keeps a vital development in the Red Corridor hidden from us. In the last quarter, security forces have achieved greater success than ever in tackling left-wing extremism and there was over a thirty per cent decline in violence perpetrated by Naxals this year.

"Seventy-six Naxal cadres were killed in the first few months of this year in comparison to fifteen in the same period last year. According to the Home Ministry, as many as six hundred and sixty-five Naxals were arrested and almost the same number surrendered as compared to just above hundred last year in the same period.

"Almost at the same time, the Home Ministry cracked down on a number of NGOs which got foreign funding in the past couple of years. In the second half of 2015, the Indian government cancelled registrations of more than ten thousand NGOs across the country, including Greenpeace. With the increasing fatalities, arrests, and surrenders of the cadre, the tightening grip of the security forces, decrease in funding through NGOs, the Naxals have been feeling the heat, hence FTII, Vemula, and Kanhaiya seem obvious and logical tactics."

Anyone anti-India, skip the book. 

"Another reason I do not subscribe to the Communism of Kanhaiya is that Communists practice violence. Tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed in Naxal-infested areas and millions remain poor and oppressed. Your comrades do not allow TV in tribal areas as it can instill greed in the Adivasis. They would want to make money and the only antidote to your poison is money. Communism is not an ideology, it’s an economic system, but the mentors of Kanhaiya fool people by projecting it as an ideology. Liberalism and even Fascism are ideologies but Communism is not. That’s why I don’t subscribe to this erroneous politics.

"Communism is really good only as textbook material. In practice, it destroys societies and their spirit. Look around the world and you will find that wherever Communism reached, people lost their freedom. Their voice. Their lives. First, it makes you angry, then hapless and then a victim. It does not allow dissent or debate. Communism’s only contribution is that it has encouraged poverty, mediocrity and violence. I shun such hypocrisy."

One has to question that beginning of the last paragraph. There are a great deal too many platitudes that are accepted as ideals and truths because of words strung together for sounding good, but they are false all the same. 

Such platitudes, fed India especially since Gandhi, include "all religions are same", or about equality of people. In reality any religion that seeks to convert usually promises heaven and hell exclusively to its own adherents and others, respectively. 

As for equality, few believe that a slum dweller is no different from pope, else there would be archbishop cleaning slums; but most people are only too willing to believe that every woman is lesser than every male, with an unspoken reasoning that can be applied with equal validity to a male buffalo being superior to a human male. 

There are a great deal too many platitudes that are accepted as ideals and truths because of words strung together for sounding good, but they are false all the same. 

Communism is mostly that, and cannot work without violence in any society setup that isn't an ashram of ancient Hindu tradition, with a strongly rooted spirituality of India's ancient traditions. 

"The Dalai Lama is a living example of how much azadi Communism allows. He has been living in free India as a refugee, away from his motherland, because of Communism. West Bengal is another living example of how Communist ideology destroyed the entire region. Today, Kolkata is a monument of poverty and failure. I can bet you will never meet anyone who has been benefited by Communism or terrorism. In modern India, Communists have acted as intellectual terrorists.

"So, people who are excited and want to portray Kanhaiya as a hero or a youth icon aren’t in love with Communist ideology. They have nothing to do with JNU. They don’t want any azadi. They are supporting him because they don’t want Modi to grow. Because Modi means azadi from corruption, sycophancy, and middlemen. Public relations czarina Niira Radia’s phone conversations with senior journalists became public knowledge in 2010 and showed how compromised our media persons are. But even she will vouch that most of our media men and women don’t want this azadi. 

"Hence, Arvind Kejriwal. 

"Kejriwal fails. 

"Hence, Kanhaiya. 

"It’s as simple as that.

"Kanhaiya represents aspirations of just a few thousand students of JNU. Even they will flip once they have to earn their bread and butter. India is too big and has millions of real students who actually want Azadi from such negativity, pseudo-intellectualism, and broker-ship. Students who want to be proud of their nationality, their Constitution, their government, their people, and their culture – Kanhaiya does not represent their aspirations. He is not a genuine youth icon. He is a trained, well-funded student leader on hire. By calling him a youth icon, you are insulting millions of Indian youth/students who at this very moment are studying hard and getting prepared to create wealth and repay their motherland by getting her Azadi from poverty and ‘traders of poverty’.

"I feel as if someone has taken the script of Buddha and is playing it in real life. The only difference is that in the end, unlike Kanhaiya Kumar, my hero Vikram Pundit, instead of destruction of India, professes the idea of reconstruction of India."

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"Media czars have lost their access to the corridors of power and to people’s hearts. It’s the overclass’ space that has been taken over by the underclass. Their discomfort is with the new order where the others are also heard. Hence, the feeling of shrinking space. They are intolerant of this new phenomenon – the emergence of the underclass. They try to devalue this new, empowered underclass by associating it with Modi and, therefore, Hindutva, and that’s a grave mistake. The universe that was full of their voice has expanded to accommodate this new voice. This is what they call an attack on FoE and growing intolerance.

" ... Social justice, if it has to come, will come only from a free and fair market. Why didn’t our liberals tell us this simple truth? When agendas, vote banks, and self-delusion take over, reasoning and sympathy are needed to keep up a common conversation. Without it, there is aggression, deafness, and an obsession with purification; hence the divisive politics of Boutique Liberalism. Boutique Liberalism is an Indian tragedy and a very damaging detour into the quicksand of communalism. Indian Liberalism has come to mean the colour opposite of saffron. That’s their failure. In a desperate attempt, their new mantra is – ‘We don’t care if you are a murderer, we want to know whether you are a liberal or a Sanghi murderer?’ 

"This is where the real intolerance lies."

No, it far more sinister. 

It's fraudulent accusations against innocent Hindus to prove that Islamic terrorists are cuddly teddy bears. It's torture of innocent Hindus arrested fraudulently by cops not shy of physically and mentally torturing them, threatening rapes of females - and of female relatives- by dozens of them, and forcing fraudulent confessions via these and worse tortures, at instructions from "high up" during the UPA regime. 

It's a bill almost passed in parliament to the effect that any Hindu, if accused by someone non-Hindu, loses all civil rights including habeas corpus. 

It's public statement of denial of Hindu Deities and assertion of non-existence thereof, by the said regime. 

Worse, it's constant fraudulent accusation against a state CM as one responsible, while witnesses to Delhi riots who knew role of  congress henchmen in 1984, were living in fear, if living. 

Worst of all, it's never asking if the Gujarat riots were an Islamic jihadi agenda from johafists who considered their victory against USSR led to another in Kashmir enforcing Hindu exodus, and were therefore encouraged to conducting an ethnic cleansing of yet another border state, a prosperous one. 

A UPA minister conducted an inquiry about the pilgrims burnt alive by muslims in Godhra, designed to conclude that the pilgrims dud it to themselves  so the attackers were pronounced not guilty. Victims included even, children and old. 

This whole onslaught is an attempt to return to the era when Hindus were slaves to invading barbarians, never equal. 

And they didn't ask, is paki design to conquer behind this flurry of attacks against Hindus, and against PM Modi? Perhaps they knew it was, and were silent because they were paid. 

Was 2002 a paki attack, foiled, and therefore the maligning of the then CM?

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As one reads, one is reminded of some of one's own contacts of younger days who would talk leftist, praise Mao, etc. They were seemingly earnest, if one did not examine their personal conduct. 

They wouldn't have agreed with a sensible objection to their pose from someone who had feet on ground, namely, if you care about poor, why is so large a part of your precious scholarship spent on audio cassettes? 

Those days, each cost over 50 bucks, and weren't exactly guaranteed quality, India still being strict about imports; our scholarship was 400 for junior, 600 for senior, and 1,000 for staff of the exclusive, prestigious research institute. 

Eateries in Mumbai cost 2 rupees for a limited fixed meal. Institute canteen was cheaper and far superior. 

So why were leftists, rather than feeding slum kids, spending on personal collections of music? Shouldn't they have done opposite if they were not poseurs?

Of the several one knew, two went on, soon, to be settled in US, one with a born and brought up Ohio wife, probably of German descent since that's the local population. 

Another, who used to also do street theater while in JNU, in addition to professing leftism in privacy, went on to become a US citizen and live in India on a US income. 

Yet another professes in a cosmopolitan metropolitan university in India, having divorced a first spouse who went on to settle in US. He'd replied, when asked about that marriage, that it was based on harmony of political opinions. 

Did any really care about the poor, anywhere? Or were they swayed by the fashionable stream of thought seeking to sound different, as young do when not satisfied with their social status? 

That they'd never reflected seriously, one then had no doubt. 

"There was a time when I was at the threshold of joining the Naxal movement. Today, it reads like a film script."

Hence the eagerness to establish atheism and otherwise secular credentials via God glimpsed in sunrise seen reflected in Taj dome? 

Wonder what Agnihotri thinks of films of Abhishek Kapoor. 

"I start flipping pages and try to read quickly. This file is an assortment of the professor’s essays, plays, poems, and ideas. Ideas for the revolution. He is deeply affected by the caste system. His writings reek of hatred for the Brahmins. ... "

Wonder if they realized this is exactly as per Macaulay policy, who designed it with aim of breaking up India? Elsewhere, rebellion would be against kings, rich, landlords and title holders, aristocracy. 

In India, whoever heard of rebellion, or even a stray slogan, against a rich dynasty, whether Nawaz of Hyderabad or society circles of Lutyens Delhi? 

Brahmins, merely convenient targets, after over a millennium during which barbaric invaders targeted the priests and teachers of a culture that invaders sought to destroy, for the very reason they set fire to libraries at Nalanda and other universities, and institutions of learning, monasteries and temples, and killed scholars. 

Brahmins were always poor, even in ancient tales of India. Abrahamic-IV attacks against them far more than against priests of Abrahamic-II and Abrahamic-III reek, not of leftism, but of colonial mindset. 

"I don’t know much about the current ragging scenario but anyone who has survived the ragging of the 70s and 80s can survive any hardship. For the next six months, we were ragged every single time we came across the seniors. Our movements were restricted. We couldn’t go out to the open ground, the lakeside, the main hall, the two-wheeler stands or the canteen, as all these spots were crowded with the seniors. Bus stand, canteen, and two-wheeler stands were their favourite spots. The reason was that there were few girls in our college, at the most ten or fifteen, who would invent new ways to avoid this bunch of ogling seniors. But using the canteen in free periods, pulling out their two-wheeler from the stand or to take a bus from the bus stand, was something they just couldn’t escape. The moment the girls would go to the canteen, it would get filled with the seniors. Hundreds of eyes would stare at them. Penetrate them. Analyze their anatomy, making their own short, mental blue films. The worst part was that the girls knew they were being filmed by these staring eyes but they were not in a position to stop their visual rape. 

"Yes, a visual gang rape. Some boys would even pretend to be lost in thought while walking and collide with the girl or brush their hand lightly on their breasts. Sometimes, while girls were returning home, after their evening tuition classes, seniors would find them in dark patches of the streets and grope them."

In Delhi, dark was unnecessary - a public bus crowded with commuters, mostly middle aged males going to work, did just as well for the said college boys groping girls who could only cry in shame and fury. 

When one slapped the grocery, he slapped her back, and the respectable umcles who were government employees criticised her, because they were too cowardly to reprimand the guy, fearing he'd hit them and then their respectability would crumble. 

When we got off, crowding in sympathy around her, she was still crying, and said " Does he think I don't have a brother, and he doesn't have friends? He'll be thrashed this evening." 

That was horrifying - not because we were Gandhian, 

but because it implied that those of us without an older brother, and a gang of goons he could call up to thrash someone on our behalf, were without any defense in the capital. 

"A few years ago, in my Delhi barsati, on a cold night, I was narrating the situation of these girls to my female friends from Delhi. ... "

"One girl puked on my hand. Seeing her puke, another one puked, on my ZZ plant. Some moved to washrooms and some to the balcony to smoke. One short girl, short like really short, four feet something or maybe less, got so angry that she took a long puff and exhaled the smoke like she was a dragon, fuming fire on these boys. She started stabbing her cigarette in the ashtray as if she was hammering their skulls."

This would be the JNU crowd, not used to the fear and torture that was our everyday life unless we stuck to the college bus, which we did after a few first days, avoiding public buses if possible. Agnihotri must be much younger, and not merely junior. 

................................................................................................

"I am looking for an issue that can trigger off the spirit of activism in my protagonist. The humiliation of my table tennis friend at the two-wheeler stand in my college in Bhopal is fresh in my mind. To add to this, recently, in a Mangalore pub, a right-wing extremist group, Sri Ram Sene, led by Pramod Muthalik had beaten up some girls and pulled them out by their hair, for drinking and dancing and therefore violating Indian culture. 

"Subsequently, a consortium of 'Pub-Going, Loose, and Forward Women' started a ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign on social media. The novel form of protest was initiated by four women: Nisha Susan, Mihira Sood, Jasmeen Patheja, and Isha Manchanda. As the protest grew, pink underwear started pouring in from locations all over India in solidarity and thousands of pink chaddis were sent to Mutahilik's house, on Valentine's Day.  

"This campaign made an impression on me and helped me understand the power of social media. I want to use this real-life example to show how urban, modern, and educated girls are treated in our society. ... "

Anyone who highlighted that last sentence, is looking at things at the most superficial, shallowness level. Surprisingly, that includes Agnihotri, perhaps due to the trauma he suffered as a result of treatment of his friend. 

But anyone with slight distance from pubgoing crowd and familiar with India North of Vindhyas would know basic facts of life of females in India, and the huge difference between North versus South in that respect. 

In Delhi, the capital, college going girls weren't safe even in daylight in public buses and on roads. Not even with the said bus filled with "uncles", office commutrrs, most of them residents of out central government colony suburbs, colleagues and neighbours of our parents. 

If a boy bothered a girl in any way, they were silent, ignoring it. If she screamed and cried after he hit her back when she slapped him for groping, they spoke on his side. 

Later one saw lives of working women and housewives who weren't safe, either, whether going to work or simply through a neighbourhood market for necessary shopping for vegetables. This wasn’t limited to Delhi. Allahabad was worse, Lucknow the worst. Are other cities and villages North of Vindhya better? Perhaps, if at all, in erstwhile Maratha empire regions. 

But a clinching evidence here is Hindu weddings as routinely conducted, North versus South of Vindhya. 

A parallel example is the lightening speed with which hindu religious rituals are conducted in Gia, unlike the peaceful settled pace in Marathi or Tamil speaking regions, generally everywhere in regions of West or South India. This is result of centuries of Portuguese regimes oppression of Hindus, where police would arrive to disperse any such gathering and destroy the locale. 

Throughout the regions that were predominantly subjugated by islamic invaders, such weddings are conducted at night, and the bride departs early morning, with hardly one other female for company amongst the bridegroom party consisting chiefly or entirely of males. 

This speaks of a society used to abductions of young females by islamic invaders,  and need to conduct the wedding in dark, departing before light with dozens of msles protecting the few women. 

Weddings in South are, in extreme contrast, a feast for eyes of strangers, through the day and beginning the previous evening. In villages they used to be minimally week-long events. 

Bridegroom party does in South have all female relatives too, mother of bridegroom being of tremendous importance as someone to please. 

But one major ceremony is the previous evening procession of women, as friends and relatives of the bride, all decked with flowers on hair and sumptuous gold and diamond jewellery, carrying platters of fruits, accompany the bride to a local temple, to pray for success of this marriage beginning next morning with wedding rituals. 

And the wedding is conducted at first light with people waking up before dawn to bathe and dress up, with sunrise usually seeing the new couple married. 

But thereafter it's not a hurried departure a la North. Celebration continues through the day, guest arriving for a morning felicitation as per Indian tradition, staying for lunch if invited, or an evening reception a la West with a minimal offering of a snack, a drink, perhaps ice-cream. This is the tapering off, before departure. The big events are the wedding at or before sunrise and the feast at lunch. 

In Maharashtra it was routine to conduct a parade of the couple through town, in a flower bedecked automobile proceeding very slowly while rest of family - rather, Two families - walked with them. 

So before one sympathizes with plight of pubgoing rich females, one needs to know that poor and middle class females North of Vindhya are safe going out yo school, college, work, shopping and even just for a stroll. 

Before conducting sympathy sessions for the pubgoing, know this - one, it's not about "urban, modern, and educated girls", few of whom go drinking in pubs; that campaign was generated by support from the loss to business of sellers of liquor. 

Nobody profits by conducting a campaign for rights of women to education, work or freedom from attack in public. Hence the plight of most women is invisible. Unheard of. 

When we were discussing it a couple of times with a visitor from North, their reaction was almost identical. Why foes a Ekman need to go out, was the response from male from Allahabad, late 1970s. Younger female from Delhi in early years of the new millennium said Delhi was perfectly safe, she usually only went out with other girls who lived nearby. 

But she was working in Bangalore, not in Delhi. 

................................................................................................

"If we had followed Gandhi, we would have been a very different country. Kutir and Gram Udyog was built on a strong principle of entrepreneurship at the grassroots level. Native innovation is always more beneficial to the economy than imported technology. It’s cheaper, more effective and useful to local needs. It took almost 65 years for us to package amras, jaljeera juices and market them nationally. But by this time, the market was already saturated with foreign brands. We made engineers but not builders. We made doctors but not medical scientists. Teachers but not educators. We had neither a blueprint for villages nor any urban planning. Our growth story has been haphazard. Every year, regional, social, economic and political disparities are increasing and creating new, unexplored and complex webs of caste and class conflicts."

Oh they did follow. In political context. Where else could this so-called secular that is absurdly defined come from! From nehru siblings slapping, hard, a Hindu monk on fast, to every other concession and pronouncement that was either specifically anti-Hindu or pro-minorities at cist of Hindus (but never pro smaller minorities at vodt of minorities associated with ex colonial regimes!), has been progressively exaggerating, until throats of innocent have been cut with little action other than arrests, for heated words in a debate that fid not lie, in response to sustained campaign of lies after desecration of Hindu Deities - and a major one at that - was discovered. And the ridicule included cartoons on social media with questions supposed to further humiliate Hindus. 

Funny,  they rarely realize they bring out profound truths while doing thus. Such as when in 1990 or do a major newspaper asked if next on agenda was the Mumbadevi temple that had been demolished to build VT by British. Or even more do when someone questioned, with a photograph, if Hindus claim Bhabha Atomic reactor as a Shivalinga representation. 

What could be more true than the Atomic reactor representing Shivalinga, the Power of Shiva the Destroyer? Claimed as such it isn't, not so far, but a higher Truth it certainly is! 

................................................................................................

"Mao is the antithesis of Gandhi in that he believed war and armed conflict were necessary vehicles to drive a revolution forward. Gandhi explained that non-violence is crucial to a revolution. For Mao, political power comes from force and violence. For Gandhi, political power comes from cooperation and consent."

Has it occurred to them that Lincoln and FDR are a valid alternative team? 

"In independent India, much after Gandhi’s death, two revolutions began almost at the same time and for the same purpose: redistribution of the landlord’s land to poor peasants. While Mao’s disciples were killing people to redistribute land, Gandhi’s disciple Vinoba Bhave was walking all over India to request zamindars to donate their lands for the peasants and received over six lac acres for redistribution. One came to be known as Naxalism/Maoism and the other is known as Bhoodan. That we do not acknowledge Bhoodan but glorify Naxalism is a failure of our country’s conscience."

Colonial slave mindset, available for sale to every traditional buyer of slaves, whether China or anyone geographically West of India. 

................................................................................................

"Why is everyone talking about intolerance? Are we really intolerant? 

"How come we have so many political parties ruling so many different states? This means there is political tolerance. In industry, we have equal opportunities for all kinds of enterprise. Malls exist in the midst of local bazaars and street vendors. Sikhs have shops in the heart of Srinagar. Biharis have farms in Punjab. Which means there is no financial intolerance. In administration, education and health, we never question the religion or political alignment of the practitioner. If people can openly criticize the prime minister, ridicule religious leaders, question social taboos, debate issues ranging from FTII to bar dancers, return awards, make fun of regional leaders, it proves that there is no media or FoE intolerance."

Except by those claiming it and accusing Hindus fraudulently. 

"Why aren’t sane, rational voices heard any more? If you invite sane voices, voices of reason, the lethal game of boutique activism stands exposed. Boutique Liberal Activism feeds on the misery of others. Schadenfreude is the oxygen of their business. That’s why they show only the miserable side of our society. The evolved, enlightened and reasonable voice of India is absolutely absent from the national discourse. Who has divided us?

"Our society is divided into ‘overclass’ (as described by Michael Find) and ‘underclass’. Overclass has systematically siphoned off the national wealth, leaving the underclass to fight for two square meals. They either inherited or, in collusion with corrupt regimes, appointed themselves to positions of power and influence. With strong control over information, they kept the underclass in the dark. Their word was the final word. The biggest trick the overclass played on the underclass is keeping the hope alive that only they can get them out of this abject poverty. That we have problems and they have the solution. ... "

"Two phenomena disturbed this status quo. One, the advent of social media, and second, the rise of Narendra Modi. With easy access to social and digital media, the underclass started questioning the authenticity of information provided by the overclass. Suddenly, their statements are scrutinized, their credibility is questioned, their sinister campaigns and lies are exposed. Their dilemma is that if they quit social media, they lose their relevance, and if they stay, they lose their credibility. This war of intolerance isn’t between HDL (Hindu Defence League) and MDL (Muslim Defence league). This isn’t between the left and the right. This is between the overclass and the underclass. The intellectual hierarchy has been demolished."

It never was intellectual, in the first place. It was a dynasts vs SSR, always. 

Latter, suddenly - after he was so horribly finished off, and to those his roots belong to, the middle class striving for education - came to represent the society he came from. Striving and dreaming. 

Unlike the Doon school club. ................................................................................................

"The other panelists were Nandita Das, Alyque Padamsee, Sam Balsara. All urban, sophisticated, English-speaking elites and Barkha was making it sound as if entire Bollywood was against Modi. I told her that this letter wasn’t the voice of Bollywood but of an ‘intellectual mafia’. I could sense that Barkha was rattled. Nandita gave me a dirty look and Patwardhan got furious. I could see what they felt about me. The way an orthodox caste-conscious Brahmin feels when touched by a sweeper. Barkha got a bit upset at my remark and though she asked me ‘What do you mean by intellectual mafia?’ she didn’t let me answer. A patent trait of liberals. This is when, for the first time, the liberal gang started hating me and trolling me."

Except, the "intellectual" flatters them but is incorrect. If they thought, they'd have realised they aren't secular, as Agnihotri did a few pages ago, but Hindus are. 

"I knew at that very moment that I would never be invited by Barkha on NDTV again and that is exactly what happened, but ‘Intellectual Mafia’ became legitimate jargon in social media."

Did Agnihotri thank Gods for the former part?

"In the meantime, I was in advanced stages of discussing an independent release for Buddha with established distributors and both promised to release my film only after the elections.

"But after this show with Barkha, they stopped taking my calls and till date, I don’t know what made an advanced negotiation stop without any further discussion. I found it strange and I had no idea then that suddenly I had created lots of Gudsa Usendis who didn’t want me to succeed with this film. They were using all their tactics to destroy me. I had only two choices: speak up or shut up. I spoke up."

Perhaps they received calls? If not from Delhi, then from another city formerly of India and in India, across an ocean West? They have bosses, obviously. 

"I wrote another blog which again went immensely viral. With this blog on ‘Intellectual Mafia’, I went for a frontal attack and discovered an audience for my voice.

"Intellectual Mafia

"To cover up his illicit romances, rising corruption, the undercurrent of a revolt and massive defeat and humiliation by the Chinese, Nehru nurtured an ‘intelligentsia’ which justified his impractical economics and failed politics to the masses. The coterie of intellectuals he created was immoral. Historians know that whenever a king has surrounded himself with immoral thinkers, debauchery has begun. These short-sighted and opportunistic intellectuals justified ‘socialism’. Socialism has corruption in its very DNA. Nehru chose Big State over Big Market. More State-sponsored programmes meant inefficient system, red-tapism, favouritism, weaker economy, and corruption. It meant bigger disparity between masses and policy makers. More subsidies, doles, freebies meant more arrogance of rulers for they were the ones distributing alms. They became the givers. And us, the obliged masses, the takers.

"Thus, India arrived at State vs Masses. Corrupt vs Masses. Intellectuals vs Masses. Givers vs Takers. 

"Emergency was declared. Sanjay Gandhi took over. He created an army of morally corrupt, foreign-educated intellectuals with no track record. Their biggest strength was their unconditional loyalty to the Gandhi family. This tradition has continued. Loyalty over merit. Scheming over competence. Loot over contribution. Corruption grew. Guilt grew. Fear grew. With every scam, the family started making the intellectual wall bigger and bigger. Today this wall is full of scammers, crooks, agents, brokers, pimps, lobbyists, character assassins, land sharks etc. disguised as lawyers, journalists, NGOs, feminists, advisors, professors, socialists etc. Simply put, beneficiaries of Congress’s largesse.

"Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia. 

"And the hell broke loose."

Anyone with truth in mind would look for roots of the defeat of the first person he blames above for the phenomenon, which aren't that far distant historically. They are in the mentor who dethroned democratic choices more than once - thrice, at the very least - to ensure his choice was the first PM of India. 

But pointing at him would get Agnihotri in waters much hotter, and it requires far more courage to allow oneself to even see beyond Jawaharlal Nehru for the ills which Agnihotri speaks of that India has suffered, for well over a century now.

................................................................................................

"Discrimination isn’t always gender, race or colour-based. The most damaging discrimination is of the mind and ideology. I was discriminated against by almost all my Bollywood friends, whom I used to hang around with because, like them, I also believed in a certain ideology but found it fake and alienated from reality, and elitist.

"Everyone needs a villain and Narendra Modi became the media’s and the intellectual gangs’ main villain as 2002 was tailor-made to suit their agenda of secularism. Secularism was nothing but a ploy to attract Muslim votes and keep a control on Hindus from asserting themselves. In order to give it sanctity, the Congress regime under Sonia Gandhi patronized every creative and intellectual voice that helped her further her agenda against a potential contender, Modi, by giving them alms.

"Since I always believed that development is the only solution for India’s economic and social evils vis a vis secularism and that’s what Buddha In A Traffic Jam also professed, it was natural for me to be aligned with Modi’s agenda of development than the Congress’ agenda of secularism. Also, Congress was drenched in the politics of favouritism, sycophancy, and corruption.

"I was the first filmmaker who openly started supporting Modi and this hurt many. Modi was looking very strong and a lot of indicators were predicting his victory. This is when I found a letter signed by some Bollywood personalities, led by screenwriter Anjum Rajabali, that warned Indian citizens of a fascist invasion if they elected Modi. I could not fathom how a democratically elected leader could be called a fascist. Fascism exists when there is no other side of the story. In Modi’s case, only his opponents’ side of the story was in circulation. I could see through their divisive strategy. They were trying to reduce the debate to secularism vs communalism instead of the real issue of development vs corruption. When I raised questions about the intent of the petition signed by the liberal and Leftist filmmakers of Bollywood, out of whom most were non-practicing filmmakers cum activists like Anand Patwardhan, they started labeling me as communal, bhakt and Sanghi. This was that critical point when I should have withdrawn. But I decided to fight and take them on. I called up some journalist friends to write an article against the petition, only to realize they weren’t friends anymore. In these changing times, where mainstream media ends, social media begins.

"With no avenue left, I published a blog titled ‘15 Communal Questions to The Secular Bollywood’, which went viral. The response came from unexpected quarters – the real India. People who couldn’t articulate their thoughts but felt strongly against the intellectual discrimination and fakeness of secularism started connecting with me. Mine was the lone Bollywood voice of dissent against a very powerful cabal of Leftists who wanted Modi’s head. They say that big fires start with small sparks and that you climb Mt. Everest by taking a small step. ... "

................................................................................................

" ... Rohit is a powerhouse of talent. So is Ravinder but I am not very comfortable with him as he is very reserved and doesn’t smile. I can’t trust people who don’t smile from their hearts. A smile is the most natural human trait. When someone doesn’t smile, he is behaving in an unnatural manner and one should be cautious of that. Leftists don’t smile much, as if it’s an ideological code. There are various codes that we follow. Some people stay away from non-veg food, whereas some avoid women at any cost. Nazis wore a stiff uniform and a stiff face. They never smiled. Similarly, I have observed that Leftists don’t smile. They have only one expression on their frowning faces – anger. Together, as a group, they give a sense of an army marching forward, in order to stop the ‘motor of the world’. They give an illusion of a mass movement for the empowerment of the weak but in reality, it is a mass movement against development.

"In the Naxal theatre, the antagonist isn’t the oppressor, it’s development. When they oppose development, the victim starts negotiating and that’s when they extort the victim to keep their bank accounts growing. If the ‘motor of the world’ stops, the Naxal movement will be the first victim. Gangsters use guns for extortion, Naxals use ‘anti-development’ protests. ... "

Naxals seem out to prove Ayn Rand correct to the last dot, unless she was just amazingly perceptive, especially regarding so-called leftists by any name. 

" ... Ravinder is reinforcing my findings with his ideas. He is making it sound as if the entire world is suffering. Yes, everyone is suffering, if you look at it from a pessimistic point of view. But if you look at the statistics of last fifty years, you will find clear indicators showing that poverty, hunger, famines, violence, discrimination have all gone down dramatically. Average lifespan has increased, man is more productive, people spend more on humanity. But these people paint a scenario where you feel helpless and in rage want to destroy the system. Exactly like media, which creates an illusion of mass outrage out of some stray individual, agenda-driven opinions.

"I narrate the script and ideology to Ravinder, who very patiently listens but again without a smile. Whenever ideological scenes come, he shifts his body weight. In the end, both of us sit as if a Hindu and a Muslim are sitting together for dinner and someone raises the question of cow. Or a pig. Ideological beliefs are stronger than religious beliefs. There is silence in the room. Before Rohit can break the awkward silence, in that short moment of stillness, I think about using his fire to my advantage. I decide to use ‘anti-thought’. I think whenever we transit to the chapters dealing with the Naxals, I can use his anti-State songs. But to ask him to write ten such songs for free will be absolutely unfair. What if I use Dushyant Kumar or Faiz poetry? Will I need to buy the rights? Aren’t they in the public domain? As I try to articulate these queries in my mind, Rohit smiles and leans forward. 

"‘Sir, what if we use a couple of Faiz songs, some folk songs, and rest Ravinder can write. In that way, I’ll be able to give you a song for almost every bridge.’

"‘What about rights?’ I ask immediately. 

"‘We had contacted Faiz Saab’s daughter in Lahore, we can talk to her again.’ 

"‘Great. Go ahead. But remember, I can’t increase the budget.’ I reiterate my financial limitation so that he doesn’t retain any hope of extra budgets. 

"We get the license from Faiz House for fifty thousand rupees. Instinctively, I want to go ahead even if there is no budget. In the worst-case scenario, I’ll pay out of my pocket and use it in some other film.

"‘Make it fifty-one thousand,’ I tell Rohit when he comes to sign the contract.  I don’t know whether to feel happy for getting such great literary work for so little or to feel sad that such heritage work of masters sells for such a tiny amount whereas trash sells for lacs."

................................................................................................

One recalls the interview on a television channel that introduced this film, not as a usual publicity event, but because screening of the film had been blocked at JNU by the sloganeering crowds that had previously made news chanting slogans about intentions to break up India. 

That certified the film as worth seeing,  at least once. When it did get screened on television on a channel, just once, yes, it was almost textbook good, like once films used to be - Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zameen and Bandini, Kanoon by B. R. Chopra, Aawara by Raj Kapoor (despite the sugar coating that was to grow in his later films, although he always retained the quinine needed by society), and many, many more. In fact, those days, even mediocre films were good in that sense - however lampoon or ignored by the then critics with high standards, they often still retained a core soul. Until sixties and the sudden changes. But then too, new stream was just that- a stream. 

This film belonged there. It had a mind and a soul, and told a story that was real, however shocking, and exposed Abrahamic-IV in a way few dare. 

"The first institute we wrote to was JNU. Kanhaiya and his gang’s anti-India sloganeering and his subsequent arrest on sedition charges triggered an intense nationwide debate on the suppression of dissent and therefore curbing of freedom of expression. JNU became the symbol of freedom of expression. What could have been a better place to screen Buddha than this projected ‘Mecca of dissent’? What could be better timing than this when the entire nation was discussing the role of Urban Naxalism?" 

Why are they so blind? Obvious places would be IIT and related centre's of research, high education etc al. Not pretentious empty headed centre's of sloganeering seeking to destroy India and, thus, all human civilisation, an agenda of Abrahamic-III and Abrahamic-IV. 

"So, I wrote to Ira Bhaskar, dean, cinema studies, JNU. Once. Twice. Thrice… Naireeta called her several times. Messaged her many times. She returned the call only once, to tell Naireeta that—‘Abhi mahaul theek nahi hai.’ The atmosphere isn’t conducive? We explained to her why it is so important and relevant to show the movie now, and she promised to get back, ‘I will speak to the faculty and get back.’"

"Ira promises to get back, but she doesn’t get back. At all. She doesn’t answer calls. She doesn’t acknowledge us. 

"I need to think up a Plan B. An alternative strategy. 

"I am going through tweets and news. Everywhere, the intellectual ecosystem is trying to make Kanhaiya a youth icon. Kanhaiya has been exploiting his newfound fame and has been giving anti-State speeches, flying business class, attending seminars and raising questions about the government’s tactics to curb freedom of speech.

"I come across a tweet from a friend, a sensible director and a wonderful human being, Hansal Mehta, where he informs that his film Aligarh, based on the life of a homosexual professor, will be shown at JNU the day after."

"I take out my phone and write two tweets addressed to the leader of the FoE movement, Kanhaiya Kumar, who is also the elected president of JNUSU."

"Around 11 AM, I start getting several calls from unknown phone numbers. At about 11.45 AM, Anupam Kher calls me to find out why the media is calling him. He wants to know if we have any documentary evidence to substantiate that JNU indeed discriminated against our film. I brief him and mail him all the documentary evidence. By 12.30, Rahul Shivshankar of NewsX breaks the news and soon, almost all TV news channels start beaming the news on how Buddha In A Traffic Jam is stuck in the JNU jam. Calls start pouring in. News channels insist on talking to me live.

"Almost every channel and newspaper cover it in their headlines. Social media is abuzz with the controversy, deciding the balance of power between the left and the right. Only two channels, who have been extra vocal about JNU and the FoE issue, never mention it – Barkha Dutt’s NDTV and Rajdeep Sardesai’s India Today. Also, as expected, nobody from the film industry, not even the champions of FoE, stand up in my support."

Since then there's his next film, Kashmir Files, and while the televised version isn't as gory as reality that one glimpsed as one read of personal accounts and extrapolated over numbers, perhaps due to censorship of a different kind, still, one got a point that wasn't debated in the heated arguments over television next few weeks - that was close to this earlier work of the director, about propaganda, about universities and young minds. 

Kashmir Files exposed the anti-India sloganeering crowds on JNU, Jadavpur and other places neatly, even as it did it to a media person drawn from life. 

................................................................................................

"If police and other sources are to be believed, the Naxalites, with the help of Dalit youths and the Islamist terrorist group Indian Mujahedeen (IM), want to have their own government in the country by 2025. The revolution will emerge from the conflict of Hindus on one side and Dalits and Muslims on another. ... "

That explains much of the horrible, unreasonable conduct by opposition since 2014. 

"Lately, they have begun targeting India’s seat of power – New Delhi – and many other cities by setting up urban bases of these front organizations with the aim to penetrate and influence policymakers, judiciary, media, civil liberty, human rights, cultural, Dalit, women, and youth organizations. So far, the urban units do not indulge in violence but it is definitely a serious problem, posing a threat to our ambition of becoming the next economic superpower.

"Then, suddenly, something strikes me. 

"Why do they have to connect with the student if they can have their professors in the faculty? They can enter a student’s mind through this professor. It’s easier, faster, exact, less risky, and seems organic."

................................................................................................

"I start making concept maps, trying to be able to see the entire methodology of Urban Naxalism. And what it leads me to and what it reveals, stuns me. If this is true, I think, then a grave danger is looming over the internal security and the social fabric of this country. Somebody has to warn the masses. 

"The Naxal movement is engaged in Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW).  This war is waged by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants, and civilians. If they have reached this stage, we have no one but our political leaders to blame, who have used Naxals for their political gains and shunned them when not required. ... "

"This fourth-generation war is complex and long term. It’s decentralized, small in size, and lacks hierarchy. The strategy is to make a direct attack on the enemy's (in this case, the Indian State) culture, including genocidal acts against civilians and wage a highly sophisticated psychological and cultural warfare, especially through media manipulation. All available pressures are used – political, economic, social, and military. For this purpose, legal professionals are required, media professionals are required, creative people, varied intellectuals and academicians are required, and civil society leaders are required, especially those who are connected with NGOs. It begins with low-intensity conflicts where all the actors attack from different platforms.

"I pick up the papers given by my assistant. It’s the summary of the documented vision of the Naxalites – vision and strategy documents under an urban perspective plan – a blueprint for their urban movement/activities. 

"Out of these, the ‘Strategy and Tactics’ document and ‘Urban Perspective’ document catch my attention. These documents take a long-term approach as they believe direct confrontation for quick results won't help. The document admits that the enemy is very strong in urban areas and, therefore, he should not be engaged with until the conditions are favourable. And to make them favourable, it suggests, exploring and opening of opportunities, organize people through front organizations. Target the 'vulnerable group' of minorities, women, Dalits, labourers, and students through influencers who work undercover for a long time and accumulate strength. The document stresses on uniting industrial proletariats, the weak and students, and use them as vanguards who can play a direct role in the revolution."

One is reminded of the so-called protests since 2014, in reality organised violent and destructive events with mobs incited to sloganeering, burning, even killing others, and all indicative of a series of provoking actions, so normal citizens are terrified and government might just roll tanks. 

The last hasn't happened yet, despite all the efforts by opposition since 2014. In fact the last time was in 1984, in Punjab, specifically, while subsequent genocide in Delhi was dressed up as riots, but the lie was only supported by lack of independent media, and exposed amply by personal testimonies from media and other persons who happened to be in Delhi and dared to step out. 

"The city becomes the money source, shelter for cadre as transit points, source of weaponry and legal protection, medical aid, media attention, and intelligentsia network.

"So, an invisible Naxal-intelligentsia-media-academia nexus works as strategic fortification with the ultimate aim of taking over the Indian State to achieve Maoist rule. They have identified Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad as the Golden Corridor. Delhi-Kanpur-Patna-Kolkata as the Ganga Corridor. And KKTs (Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu) Chennai-Coimbatore-Bengaluru as the Tri-junction."

Was this why they strove to take over Maharashtra, by temptation of support to a junior partner of winning combo, so they could scrap not only the proposed Shivaji statue in Mumbai, but also put on hold,  indefinitely, the proposed bullet train - Mumbai to and from Ahmedabad, promoting ease for commerce of India, these two cities bring a vital duo amongst all cities important in the context? 

Apart from, that is, general loot by controlling Mumbai, not to mention terroristic of the city and citizens of not only state but elsewhere too, in general, with tactics that included fraudulent cases, arrests, torture and even murders, by police officers deliberately re-employed precisely for the purpose? 

 on hold, 

................................................................................................

"‘Mass organizations are operating under the garb of human rights NGOs. These are manned by ideologues, including academicians and activists,’ the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has said in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, detailing the new strategy of the Maoist movement.

"The affidavit cites the 'Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution’ document as a blueprint of the Maoist plan to seize political power. The affidavit states that one of the strategies adopted by Naxals is to mobilize certain targeted sections of the urban population through its mass organizations which are otherwise known as 'front organizations'. The MHA filed the affidavit in response to a notice issued by the Supreme Court on a PIL filed by former Madhya Pradesh MLA, Kishore Samrite, that the Maoist problem was spreading rapidly. 

"‘The mass organizations mostly operating under the garb of human rights NGOs are organically linked to the CPI (Maoist) structure but maintain separate identities in an attempt to avoid legality,’ the MHA affidavit says.

"The affidavit further says that such organizations pursue human rights related issues and are also adept at using the legal processes to their benefit. According to the Home Ministry, ideologues and supporters of Naxals in cities and towns have undertaken a concerted and systematic propaganda war against the State. ‘In fact, it is these ideologues who have kept the Maoist movement alive and are in many ways more dangerous than the cadres of the People's Liberation Guerilla Army,’ the affidavit says.

"The tactics employed are extremely effective and media attention grabbing. These range from using aggressive agitations and propaganda provoking Dalits to take up arms to programmes on anti-capitalist policies to target controversies in history (e.g. Is this what Dr. Ambedkar wanted in the Constitution?). They work with feminist groups, atheist groups, anti-superstition movements, intellectuals, students, labourers, slum groups, farmers, journalists, competitive exam centres etc. They take up genuine issues with the aim not to solve it but to create unrest and anger against the system and make people believe in armed struggle. This is how the 'vulnerable group' unknowingly becomes their vanguard. Like I became, under the mentorship of my professors."

"Maoist documents stress on building a strong base in cities and mention three kinds of urban mass organizations: secret, open and semi-open, and legal; the last including cover organizations and affiliated activists. The forest-based rebellion survives mostly on what Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao calls the ‘movement in urban areas’. From the urban network come logistics, moral and intellectual support, and the ideological argument for violence. The network is in several cities and sympathizers occupy prominent positions.

"So far, the urban movement has served the Naxals in a number of ways. Take logistics support for example. In 2006, police seized empty rocket shells and rocket launchers in Mahabubnagar district, Andhra Pradesh. The kingpin, ‘Tech Madhu’, later surrendered to the police which led to the detection of an elaborate network the Naxals had built to manufacture rocket parts and transport them to different parts of the country. The network originated in the industrial centre of Ambattur, a suburb of Chennai where these were fabricated in separate foundries and stealthily transported in private commercial carriers to different parts of the country. The network spread across five states: Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.

"On many occasions, important top-level leaders of the CPI (Maoist) have been arrested from cities and towns indicating that front organizations in cities are used as shelters. 

"The detection of Maoist activities in towns such as Surat in Gujarat, clearly indicates that the Naxals are attempting to penetrate the urban working-class movements. Besides, there have been reports of the detection of Maoist activities in Haryana – in Jind, Kurukshetra, Panipat, Sonepat, etc. A closer look at these areas reveals that these are industrial hubs. In Delhi, the Naxals have reportedly infiltrated the Delhi Safai Karmachari Sanghatan (DSKS), a union of sanitary workers. In fact, according to a media report quoting unnamed intelligence officials, ‘the rebels, the sources add, have plans to strike in the industrial belts of Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad-Calcutta and Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad to take their battle into the heart of India.’

"Some instances of Naxal violence adversely affecting the trade and economy are damaging road construction machinery, shutting down and destroying bank branches, damage to railway lines, highways and telecom towers, thereby inhibiting communication and transport and destruction of the pipeline for transporting iron ore slurry in Chhattisgarh. According to reports, ‘power and steel industry projects in Chhattisgarh with investments of the order of rupees one hundred and thirty billion were stagnated due to Naxalite disturbances’. All in all, it’s a very grim economic condition which affects all sectors of industry and all classes of people. Micro-economic effects include lower tourist inflows, lower regional tourism market share, reduced usage of public transport, reduced long-term investments in agriculture and other potential sectors, reduced enrolment in schools, lower job availability and lack of substantial opportunities.

"The majority of the people in Maoist-affected areas and even their supporters and cadres have little to do with Maoism at an ideological level. They are only alienated and angered people with no real idea of the perceived sense of injustice, oppression, and loss of dignity. Naxals are cleverly exploiting this sentiment to their advantage – caste conflicts in Bihar, resentment against landlords in Andhra, discontent against forest laws in tribal areas, unemployment amongst youth and radicalism among Muslims are all given the prescription of capture of power through the gun as the ultimate solution of all their problems. While the local grievances need to be effectively addressed through improved governance and ruthless accountability, there is also a need for creating mass awareness of the ultimate designs and consequences of what the extremists stand for.

" ... Why isn’t our intelligentsia talking about it? What if they are part of this nexus? Are they the urban terrorists? Urban Naxals?"

"It's not a film any more. It's a mission."

................................................................................................

"J&K Terrorist Groups 

"Naxalite spokespersons, on many occasions, have openly supported the actions and cause of the J&K terrorist groups. The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) terrorists who carried out the attack on the American Centre at Kolkata in 2001 had escaped to Jharkhand and taken refuge in a Naxalite sympathizer’s house in Ranchi. In return for this and similar other favours the J&K terrorists who are well trained in handling sophisticated arms, impart training to the Naxalite groups.

"The North-East

"Intelligence agencies have also reported linkages between Maoist elements and the insurgent groups of the North-East i.e. the United Liberation Front of Asom, Nationalist Council of Nagaland, and People’s Liberation Army (ULFA, NSCN, PLA). North-East insurgent groups like the PLA and NSCN follow the Maoist ideology and were even trained and supported by China in the 1960s and 1970s.

"SIMI

"It has emerged that the Naxals have openly supported the activities of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and both have been lately collaborating with each other.

"Nepal 

"Naxalite groups in India have tried to sustain their fraternal and logistic links with Nepal’s Naxals. The outfits of India, along with Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), have decided to work towards carving out a ‘Compact Revolutionary Zone’. The Indian groups have been extending moral, material, and training support to CPN (Maoist) cadres in guerrilla warfare, which has resulted in significant growth of Naxal violence since 2001. Cooperation between Naxals active in Nepal through Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, up to Andhra Pradesh, has provided the left extremists contiguous areas to operate, move, hide, and train.

"South Asia

"The Maoist groups of four South Asian countries, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, have joined hands to form the Coordination Committee of the Maoist Parties of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) to advance ‘People’s War’ in South Asia. The objective of the Committee is to unify and coordinate the activities of the Naxal parties and organizations in South Asia and spread protracted People’s War in the region."

Noticeable exclusion is Pakistan. 

WHY????? 

Because it's about loot, and there's nothing left to loot there, junta having finished it themselves? 

Or is ISI an integral part of maoist organisation's, like PLA, providing slogans and large stones where latter provides booklets and weapons?

Oh, here it is! 

"ISI Links

"The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been very active in Nepal and Bangladesh for long, especially along the borders, in their desire to encircle India and is giving support to numerous Indian militant groups based in Bangladesh. The ISI does not hesitate in providing moral and material support to these groups. This bond has been mutually beneficial to both the parties, as the left-wing extremists receive weapons from the ISI to be used against the Indian State.

"LTTE Links 

"The Naxalite linkage with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) dates back to the 1990s when it was estimated by the intelligence agencies that the PWG used to acquire weapons, especially AK-47 assault rifles, from this organization. In the present context, the Naxalites are actively involved in Tamil Nadu with the discovery of a training camp organized by former PWG Naxals in the Periyakulum forests in Tamil Nadu. It has led security agencies to suspect a renewed nexus between the Naxals and the LTTE.

"Revolutionary International Movement 

"The PWG maintains constant touch with the Maoist groups of 27 countries through the Revolutionary International Movement. A Turkish Maoist organization is known to have undertaken the task of publishing PWG activities through an Internet website.

"Linkage with Left-Wing Philippines Groups 

"A few media and intelligence reports from Southeast Asia state that the Naxalites in India have also developed links with the left-wing extremists of the Philippines, and through them, with other groups of Southeast Asia. The increasing expansion of Naxalism got further strengthened with covert support from other groups with a similar ideology in the Indian subcontinent. India’s ‘all weather adversary’ Pakistan has grasped the opportunity provided by Naxalism to further increase unrest in India and re-emphasize its dictum of ‘bleeding India by thousand cuts’."

................................................................................................

"The US State Department's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism has found that going by the number of terror attacks and the number of killings of innocent citizens every year from 2012 until now, the big-five terror group consists of the IS, Taliban, Boko Haram, al Qaeda, and the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

"I wonder why Naxals are called rebels or insurgents and not terrorists. I look for the most acceptable definition of terrorism ... "

" ... Naxals are terrorists and Urban Naxals are intellectual terrorists, a point the mainstream media and intelligentsia always love to ignore.

"The entire history of Naxalism is based on armed struggle. Their Strategy document clearly talks about an 'armed war' against the State and finally establishing their government in 2025 by toppling a democratically elected government through the barrel of the gun. For Naxals, socio-economic justice is just an instrument to cover up their terrorism against the State. They support everything that negates Indian nationhood, be it secessionists in J&K, insurgents in the North-East, radical Islamic groups or armed ethnic groups.

"In an interview in 2007, Ganapathy, the Secretary-General of CPI-Naxals asserted, ‘We see the Islamic upsurge as a progressive anti-imperialist force in the contemporary world. It is wrong to describe the struggle that is going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya as Islamic fundamentalism. Our party supports the Islamic upsurge.’ Commenting on the 26/11 massacre of Mumbai, Bimal, Politburo member, was quoted in Hindustan Times, saying: ‘We do not support the way they attacked the Victoria station, where most of the victims were Muslims. At the same time, we feel the Islamic upsurge should not be opposed as it is basically anti-US and anti-imperialist in nature. We, therefore, want it to grow.’

"Varavara Rao, referring to North-East insurgencies, stated on May 13, 2007: ‘This is a time for all revolutionary, democratic, and nationality movements, like the ones in Kashmir and the North-East, to unite and something will come out of this unity’.

"The Naxals stand against India’s sovereignty, unity, democratic polity, and civilizational values and hence, will have to be fought and defeated at all planes – ideological, political, and physical."

................................................................................................

"Ajit Doval, the current National Security Advisor, has written that the Naxals have targeted democratically and legally elected politicians to prove their vulnerability and to erode the legitimacy and credibility of the system. He writes, ‘Their attacks on police and para-military forces are aimed at demonstrating that the coercive power of the government is a myth as it is not even able to protect itself. Their holding Jan Adalats, imposing fines, and dictating terms for talks are calculated to undermine the government’s ability to enforce its writ and authority and give credibility to their propaganda that government is only a “paper tiger”. On the contrary, the State has been able to do little to demolish the contrived self-image of the Left Extremists as saviours of the people. The discordant voices within the government and display of confusion and indecisiveness immensely boost their morale. While the far-flung, tribal areas are in the news because of incidents of violence, what is lesser known is their fast-spreading influence in urban suburbs, among the trade unions, unemployed youth, students etc. much beyond the tribal areas.’"

Was this after 2014 that he said this? 

"I have no doubt in my mind that Naxalism is the biggest threat to India, bigger than Pakistan and China. Such links are not possible to maintain from the jungles of Dantewada. Where is their strategic hub?

"All the research points to Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) as the most active urban Naxal centre. Some of the organizations in Delhi that are under the scanner are the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), Committee for Release of Political Prisoners, Democratic Students Union, Nari Mukti Sangh, People Democratic Front of India, and Mehantkash Mazdoor Morcha. Many of their members are said to be active in towns adjoining Delhi like Gurgaon and Ghaziabad."

Not JNU?

................................................................................................

"Intelligence agencies stumbled upon the Naxals' strategy of setting up urban bases in cities like Delhi in 2009, with the arrest of Kobad Ghandy from Delhi, allegedly responsible for recruiting people from urban centres. More recently, Hem Mishra, a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, was arrested by Maharashtra Police for allegedly helping Naxals. His arrest followed a search at the residence of G.N. Saibaba, a professor at Delhi University.

"Delhi being the media centre of India attracts all kinds of intelligentsia. Another reason for such high concentration of intelligentsia is that all central research and policy agencies are here and these agencies were used by the Congress government to employ intellectuals and use them to give an ideological endorsement to their political narrative. Since Sonia Gandhi's politics align with the left, it is but natural that most of these people are Naxal sympathizers. The 'ecosystem' that Sonia Gandhi has nurtured consists of such intellectuals, eminent journalists, historians, and above all NGO heads."

About the said leanings of congress or its president, the seeming left inclination us only a convenient pose. 

"The next big question spinning in my head is about the bloodline of this movement – money. Money is one of the most important factors helping extremists to acquire weapons and explosives, raise their cadre strength by recruiting youth on regular salaries and carrying out mass mobilization programmes. They are reportedly collecting sixteen hundred crore rupees a year, which is big money for carrying out armed insurrection in an impoverished area.  Where do they get it from? Is it possible that the money is routed through NGOs since no one questions them?

"To further the military objective of the revolution, the Naxals surely would strengthen their cyber-warfare strategy. This is where students are most effective. They are cleverly using universities and colleges, which attract students from weaker sections, as easy sanctuaries for insurgents to thrive in the cities. Panic buttons need to be pressed right now, else the spread of the invisible Naxals in the sprawling towns and cities of India could shape up as a major destabilizing factor in future."

"We see Naxalism in a new light. Thus far we had known about the clash between these two Indias intellectually. Now we have seen it actually. The poker-playing India will always choose Naxals over tribals as tribals have nothing to give. We are disturbed. And angry. 

"The days of the narrative that people pick up guns because of oppression and haplessness are over. Guns today are an organized business. With profits."

"The Times of India of April 11, 2010, reported: ‘The Jawaharlal Nehru University campus became a battleground on Friday night when members of disparate student organizations clashed over what was seen as an attempt to support the Naxalites and “celebrate” the massacre of 76 CRPF men. Members of Democratic Students Union (DSU) and All India Students Association (AISA) organized a meeting to celebrate the killing of 76 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh. They were even shouting slogans like “India murdabad, Maovaad zindabad”.’"

So JNU character isn't evolved post 2014, but was so in 2010, even 1986! 

"Inspector General of police, Bastar range, SRP Kalluri has gone on record, as reported by India Today, as saying, ‘I felt disappointed when I came to know that celebrations were held at JNU (by some students) after the killing of seventy-six jawans in the forest of Tadmetla in 2010.’ 

"Under the headline ‘Naxals have a new address: Jadavpur University’, The Indian Express of Dec 10, 2010, reports that ‘Kanchan, the arrested CPI (Maoist) state secretary, has reportedly told the security agencies that a recruitment process is on for the outfit's military wing and Jadavpur University has emerged as a major centre for the cadres. Also, the Naxals are believed to have a backup module among the university students. Kanchan has reportedly also said that 12 students from (Kolkata’s) Presidency College are working actively as CPI (Maoist) cadres in Lalgarh.’

"Hindustan Times of March 28, 2010, carried a column with the headline ‘1970s revisited? Kolkata youth back in Naxal fold’. The report interviews an IB officer, involved with tracking Maoist activities, who says, ‘This trend is alarming. Many student and youth activists in the city campaigning for Lalgarh have visited the jungles and undergone arms training.’"

"The last few months have kept India occupied with shocking and repeated revelations from campuses of renowned educational institutes like Hyderabad Central University (HCU), IIT Madras, JNU, Osmania University, Jadavpur University, Delhi University, Bhagalpur University to name only a few. The common thread in all these institutes-turned-battlefields is a protest against the ruling government in India in the name of Constitutional principles and democratic values. A closer look at all these cases reveals that there is no suppression of ‘democratic principles’ by the government. However, a picture has been painted so. Some faculty members too tried to escalate these protests through their active participation or supportive roles. All this left the common man of this country wondering ‘How did students turn anti-India?’ ‘What is suddenly wrong with all these universities and institutes?’"

This was published in 2018, as per a beginning page. These eruptions had begun perhaps sooner, but certainly post 2014 elections brought fresh hope and breath to nation. It'd been clear even then that they were for creating circumstances forcing the new government to roll tanks, by provoking enough. 

In this, they'd failed. 

" ... a senior IPS officer from the Andhra cadre explained to us how urban Naxalism is seeping into our cities faster than we can imagine. ‘In the cities, the frontal “mass organizations” are generally manned by ideologues, who include academicians and activists, fully committed to the party line. Such organizations ostensibly pursue human rights related issues and are also adept at using the legal processes of the Indian State to undermine and emasculate enforcement action by the security forces. They also attempt to malign the State institutions through propaganda and disinformation to further the cause of their “revolution”. Whenever an incident like this happens, a sympathetic media protects them by blaming the forces. What they don’t know is that the forces are extremely professional now and do not indulge in civilian contact.’

"He details the mechanics of ‘Mass Mobilization’, ‘as it will consequently lead to “Party Building” for them which will be proletarian vanguard in the revolution and through which they can build a “United Front” and perform military tasks for the guerilla warfare in the areas surrounding cities where they have established their base or which are also known as “Liberated Zones”. Naxals form own organizations. Underground secret organizations which may not fit within the ambit of democracy, and open revolutionary organizations and legal democratic mass organizations, which can work within the ambit of democracy and law. They also infiltrate existing mass organizations and try to get into leadership roles to support their anti-State “revolutionary” agenda. They build several types of mass organizations simultaneously. From these mass organizations, individuals are selected, brainwashed into supporting and becoming members of the Maoist party. Mass organizations are the fodder for their party building in urban areas.’

"The Maoist documents have illustrated the hierarchy of mass mobilization in a compact flowchart."

Agnihotri gives a diagram, which includes writers' forums. Reminds one of the one in Delhi that is fraudulently and inappropriately named using the term algebra while having nothing to do with facts, truth or mathematics. 

Did they imply they'd bring enforced equality, somehow, using that term? Between facts and lies? 

"The IPS officer has spent a good time in the Greyhound force and has nabbed more than a dozen Naxalites. ‘I can smell them, irrespective of where they are hiding: in a forest or in a university,’ he says with a smile while relishing the smell of charcoal on the southern spices of the marinade."‘

"If you want to understand the smartness of their strategy, just see how seamlessly an individual converts from being a participant in a mass protest to a loyal party member. The most interesting part is that most participants don’t even know that they are part of the activist groups or party factions. The participants usually think that they are working for the betterment of democracy.’

"His insights were real and extremely useful for the film. We learn that the aggressive, enthusiastic and active candidates are selected for activist groups. They are indoctrinated and made party members. ‘Activist Groups’ is the first level of selection and a transitory phase, post which, selected activists enter the party cell and start working as Party Member."

................................................................................................

"One more important dimension for the Naxals’ focus on urban areas in the last few years is the recruitment ebb they are facing in tribal areas as tribals understood the hollowness of Maoist ideology due to the violence and harassment they experienced over last forty years. Naxals are not getting recruits for their dalams, the units in their Armed Guerilla Force. The number of surrenders has gone up manifold. Migration is highest in Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra as the youth there do not want to join the Naxal movement and they cannot go back to their villages due to fear of Naxals."

"The history of students’ and teachers’ association with Maoism is as old as the movement itself. Youth and labour are the backbone of the Maoist movement. The Strategy and Tactics of Indian Revolution mentions the following about students’ role in the Maoist movement. 

"‘Among the urban petty bourgeoisie, students and youth constitute an important category. They react to the events and historically from the anti-British movement they played a significant role. In the wake of Naxalbari, their role is exemplary. Our party has good experience in organizing them. While working in urban areas, we must pay necessary attention to organize them… There is a need to emphasize the necessity of uniting with intellectuals. We need to allot sufficient cadre to work among them and some special effort be put to unite and organize them.’

"‘Our forces are capable of defeating any enemy provided we can see him. How does one fight an invisible enemy who can be even your brother or your son?’ the IPS officer took a pause, emptied the last few drops from the bottle of Old Monk in his glass and said with a smile, ‘or even your wife?’ 

"I didn’t tell him that I have seen such invisible enemies and that I have been a part-time recruit."

................................................................................................

"But the book and film analyse a special, specific subject, as indicated in the title, Urban Naxal. What is this? Simply put it is the nexus between India’s “Red Corridor,” our “poorest and ironically the most militarized zone … the nerve centre of the Naxal movement” and its urban cultural and intellectual support base. Who are the Urban Naxals?

"They are, in Vivek’s own words, intellectuals who “present this beastly and gruesome reality in a sanitized, romantic, and palatable packaging for which the media and its urban audiences have a weakness.” They offer the legitimating and camouflaging ecosystem for what is an open, if internal, insurgency against the democratically elected government of the Republic of India."

Is there really such a revolt, genuine? Or is it a poverty and illiteracy exploited by China that's taken for the real article by romantic idiots who have little truck with reality, being cocoons in upper middle class comfort securely enough to talk nonsense about leftist creed but not sacrificing personal luxuries to adopt, say, a slum next door temporarily. 

"Spread across several states and districts of India, this war has claimed many thousand lives, both of Indian security personnel as of Maoist insurgents. Vivek’s book is full of facts, figures, questions, and ideas about this menace to India’s sovereignty and integrity. 

"But we must never forget that both the book and the film are not expert reports or documentaries. They are original, creative works, literary and cinematic. India-haters, of whatever political or ideological stripe, have one dream. It is to capture power and install their own government in India. They hope to harness the disgruntled, some would say disenfranchised, members of our society, “the Adivasi, Dalits, Muslims, and other ‘forgotten people’, united under one common red flag,” to “demolish the State,” instead of including them in democratic process."

Also, they seem to glorify not only China but killings. Taking an extreme example, who has sympathy for a close knit family that had four sisters see one another more than once a year, whether surrounded by the clan of dozens of uncles, aunts and cousins, and a grandmother, but subsequently lost contact due to a war and murder of two out of the four sisters during the war? Not the leftists. 

And there's the inhuman side of all this, when it's romanticised. For the real life sisters that are mentioned here weren't specifically guilty, any more than, say, an Anna Karen inability or a Melanie Wilkes were, for their respective social systems. 

"Vivek warns us against this real and present danger. According to him, Naxals are waging a conflict in which “the lines between war and politics, combatants, and civilians” gets blurred.  Right in our midst, in our social circles and living rooms are people who support such dangerous and armed terrorists. Vivek believes that he has a story that “needs to be told.” It is the story of “the invisible enemy” in our midst, perhaps more dangerous than a known and identified terrorist."

They are neither invisible nor unknown, but merely not taken seriously, due to an appearance of merely talking. But that's insidious, and the atmosphere they have generated over last four, five or more decades is what has led to the rotten part of JNU et al sloganeering junta. 

................................................................................................

Agnihotri certainly knows how to grapple your guts with his very opening! 

"‘Bloody, Fascist Brahmin… Go back.’ 

"Hundreds of young students are baying for my blood. Angry. Vengeful. Armed with wooden sticks and hot blood.  

"They want me beaten up. Humiliated. And killed. 

"They are trying to break the car open to pull me out and parade me as a symbol of an upper-caste oppressor and punish me for exposing their nexus."

Reminds one at once of two separate accounts, one of Alexandra and her five children being shot dead by a fusillade along with her husband, before they were burned and buried in lime so as to destroy the very remains. 

And then there are two separate accounts by Amitav Ghosh of Hindus surrounded by mobs intending to kill, in East Bengal.  

He goes back to an hour earlier, which reminds one of his bring a film maker and flashbacks being norm in Hindi film industry. His description of the private taxi driver, an enterprising and hard working man of poor background from bihar, trying to make way fighting in midst of political scene making it difficult if not worse, is all too real. 

" ... India is full of enterprising individuals but has failed to exploit their collective strength. We have never recognized the value of individual merit. Prabhu, if given equal opportunities, could be the owner of an Ola-like taxi service. Ideologically, there wasn’t any difference between him and a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, Tata, that recently bought a stake in Ola.  Both believe in quality and consumer delight."

He describes a street scene. 

" ... Soon in India, more people will have access to 4G telephones than water."

He returns to the bloodthirsty mob. 

The girl starts shouting what I gathered was written on the placard ‘Bloody fascist Brahmin. Go back Agnihotri’."

"Prabhu quickly rolls up the window. 

"The girl bends down. Looks deep into my eyes. 

"And then she spits on the glass."

" ... Through this abstract hazy foreground, I can see the distorted face of the girl still screaming. 

"‘There is no place for alternate narrative!’ 

"I can hear it in surround sound. I can read it on my window. In her spit. The venom."

................................................................................................

"I am sure if everything stops, these three men will survive; it might be difficult but they will find their way out. I bet my family will give in, in no time. My family is Systems India. These men are Common Sense India. And in between, there are middlemen. The middleman is the real connect between the two Indias. We had looked at these men from a Manuals & Systems point of view. The manuals of urban life picture such men as goons. Rapists. Murderers. They turned out to be our saviours. My children are still scared. What if they get the car out and then run away with the car? And all our belongings. And…What if something like this actually happens? Nobody will know until morning. We will be lost in the fog. Our screams won’t reach anywhere. We will believe and hold on to anybody who offers help. We will be at his mercy. At his command. We will be slaves to his agenda. How vulnerable will we be? How hapless will we be? 

"And, suddenly, I think of the Adivasi in the jungles of Bastar. A voiceless, faceless native that no one cares about. He is surrounded by middlemen who are working for a sinister design created by people who are hiding their greed behind the masks of a certain ideology. He is miserable. Suffocating in his own emptiness. He is struggling to come out of this vacuum. He holds every hand which offers help. He is at their mercy. He is the pawn in the game played by this nexus. This is the jaal the driver was talking about. He did not offer any logical argument; he was just telling me the way it is. The nexus siphons off all the natural resources and money that should rightfully belong to the Adivasi.

"The Naxals who claim to work for the tribal’s cause, know that there can be no revolution. So, what’s their motivation? They are the messiahs of the Adivasis; this is the only narrative I had heard so far. They are fighting with the State for tribal upliftment, empowerment and justice– fundamental rights of any Indian citizen. Is it possible then that they are also part of a nexus? Where do they get the money from? And arms?  Why do all our films justify Naxals? Where is the Adivasi in our films? Why is it that in a digital age he is not on the path of development? Why are we not told about the truth? And what is the truth? Is there another side to the truth? I want to explore it. Can I, as a filmmaker, tell the truth? There are moments when questions are raised only to reinforce the answer. My answer is clear. Yes.

"My mind is churning with questions, overlapping one another. For the first time, I feel I want to research a subject. I suddenly connect with the India I grew up in. And I am embarrassed of my mediocrity. Suddenly I am not hurrying up. I have slowed down. Hurrying is an internet and mobile age syndrome. We hurry when we are not interested. We hurry when we don’t care. This time I am interested and I do care. I remember telling my students at ISB that nobody cares for such stories. It’s true we don’t care when something isn’t important. We tend to take it for granted. But when more than fifty percent of India is Naxal-infested, this becomes a very important issue. What is the reason for calling someone, fighting with a gun in Kashmir, a terrorist and another man with a gun in Bastar, a revolutionary?

"After fighting mediocrity for a long time, I have found something which I truly want to do. This is the film I want to make. The crime thriller idea was only to sustain my mediocrity. This is a real idea to discover the truth. Explore Naxal politics and try to find out how the nexus works and present an alternate narrative."

" ... It is a paradigm shift moment for me. I was so distanced from my roots. ... :

................................................................................................

"While we wait for the others to climb up, I look at the gigantic building and wonder how they made it happen with just camels, horses and elephants. It’s an architectural marvel. An excellent example of defense, design, engineering, material science, structural design, water and waste management, cooling techniques, rich aesthetics, symbolism, lifestyle and comfort, and above all stability and durability. There is so much inbuilt art everywhere. On the gates, windows, floors, roofs, walls and the furniture.  We rarely get to see such optimum use of science, technology, and aesthetics in modern buildings. Our modern buildings are structural and design blunders; they are aesthetically challenged and weak. It’s a sad commentary that in independent India we have not built even one building which is an architectural marvel and which can stand the test of time. If these old buildings are a celebration of excellence and precision, our modern buildings are a celebration of mediocrity and corruption. 

"‘What are you thinking, sir?’ Raju guide asks me. 

"‘Just admiring the excellence of the man.’ 

"‘We built this city, janaab,’ he tells me with pride. 

"‘We?’ 

"‘Janaab, though it’s known for Rajputs, in reality, Amer was built by Meenas. I am also Meena.’"

"‘Just now you were telling me that Amer is the centre of Rajputana history.' 

"‘Janaab, don't go by what is told. Isn't all history wrong? We are taught a wrong history. We are told a wrong history. Jiski laathi uski bhains— ... There is history and there is truth, and the truth is that we Meenas ruled it before the Rajputs. It’s our land.’"

"Nehru judged history and filtered it to what should be told to an independent India and what should be hidden. He made sure that the history reinforced his ideology and made him look like a hero. His daughter Indira Gandhi and later her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi tuned our history to further their political agendas. In independent India, only a certain kind of narrative is allowed; the one that suits the ruler's agenda.

"The city of Amer is spread over 4 square kilometers and the fort is at top of a hill. This city was first built by Meenas and later it was ruled by Raja Man Singh. Meenas are an Indo-Aryan tribe with origins in the Matsya dynasty of Vedic India, ruled by king Virata. It is believed that after spending twelve years in vanvasa in forests, the Pandavas spent their thirteenth year of agyatavas, living incognito, here. In modern history, the Meenas ruled many parts of Rajasthan until taken over by Rajputs. Meenas are classified as a Scheduled Tribe in Rajasthan. They oppose the Gujjars’ demand for Scheduled Tribe classification, fearing that their share of reservations will decrease.

"The Meena tribe is divided into several clans and sub-clans like Ariat, Ahari, Katara, Kalsua, Kharadi, Damore, Ghoghra, Dali, Doma, Nanama, Dadore, Manaut, Charpota, Mahinda, Rana, Damia, Dadia, Parmar, Phargi, Bamna, Khat, Hurat, Hela, Bhagora, and Wagat. Bhil Meena is another sub-division among the Meenas. A sub-group known as Ujwal Meena seeks higher status and claims to be Rajputs, thus distinguishing themselves from the Bhil Meenas. Other prevalent social groupings are Zamindar Meena and the Chaukidar Meena. The Zamindar Meenas, comparatively well-off, are those who surrendered to the Rajput invaders and got settled on the lands believed to be granted by the Rajputs. Those who did not surrender to Rajput rule and kept on waging guerrilla warfare are called Chaukidar Meenas. 

"If a community of fifty lac people can have such a complex and competitive caste dynamics, how complex would it be to fathom the caste dynamics of India, with over three thousand castes and over twenty-five thousand sub-castes between one hundred and twenty-five crore people? Infused with politics, all these groups and sub-groups end up becoming interest groups and vote banks, fighting with one another endlessly without realizing that all of them have a common need – money."

................................................................................................

"I haven't made a film for the last three years. Not because I didn't try. I tried to mount four brilliant film projects but each time they were shelved just a few weeks before principal photography was supposed to begin. It's impossible for people who don't work in showbiz to understand the pain and agony of a film getting shelved. You give a film your blood and sweat. It takes so much from the maker. It sucks all your imagination, experience, physical and emotional energy. And leaves you empty. When a film is shelved, you start feeling demoralized and defeated.  You become desperate. You start succumbing to mediocrity. And mediocrity is very addictive. Anything which makes us escape from the challenges of life is addictive. The awareness that you are living a mediocre life is worse than being mediocre."

"I had failed four times. If a couple of films don't take off, the industry starts looking at you like a failed director. But four? That makes you a jinxed director. Like a manglik girl who is jinxed for marriage until she finds another manglik boy. I didn't understand then that I wasn't jinxed. I had become part of a jinxed game. Like the common man of India whose life is jinxed because he is a very small, inconsequential part of a big, jinxed jaal. This feeble common man is in the business of improving his life but the people who control his life are not in the business of improving his life. 

"The people who controlled my films weren't in the business of film-making. They were in the business of the stock market."

"I thought I knew India but last night I realized I had been window-shopping. Last night I felt I was back to where I belonged. An India where success doesn't lie in money. It lies in surviving. The complex India. The difficult India. The corrupt India. The honest India. The oppressed India. The feudal India. A regressive India. A progressive India. It's poor. It's filthy. It’s hard working. It smells of struggle, of co-existence, of sweat. Its diversity, its disparity, the chaos, the conflict. The aspirational India, the ignored India, the defeated India… The real India."

................................................................................................

"January 2011

" ... I have to make an entire film in less than the VFX budgets of my last film. It is possible only if everyone works for free, and locations and camera equipment are free."

" ... I try to escape behind Arnab Goswami's NewsHour. Pallavi hasn't yet understood how Arnab's shouting and screaming can de-stress me. He actually does de-stress me. I pick up the TV remote and increase the volume.

"Suresh Kalmadi is fired as the chairman of Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee in one of the biggest ever–a Rs 70,000 crores scam—under Sonia Gandhi's regime. Sonia Gandhi will go down as the most corrupt national leader in the Indian history.

"Over hundred people have died in a stampede in the Sabarimala shrine. ... "

"Bhimsen Joshi has passed away. ... I try to switch channels but I can't. I am stuck with him. I don't know if it's the remote or the TV's fault or something wrong with the Tata Sky set-top box. I want to switch over to Times Now to see what Arnab is up to on the CWG scam and Kalmadi's sacking, but I just can't. This is why I like mechanical devices rather than electronic."

" ... These are the times when I curse myself for giving up my application for the green card while studying in the USA. ... "

" ... I have to cast some seasoned and fantastic actors, get a crew of top-notch professionals, shoot outdoors (outdoor shooting is more expensive than a local shoot in Mumbai) for thirty-five days in Hyderabad, record music, finish editing, sound and final mixing and everything else in one crore fifty lacs. Plus, deliver it latest by April which is just three months away."

" ... By reducing the money, time and manpower needed to build cars as he refined the assembly line over the years, Ford was able to drop the price of the Model T from $850 to less than $300. ... "

"Nobody came from Tata Sky. 

"It’s been two days, and my TV is still stuck on the same Manohar Kahaniyan news channel. 

"I decide to tweet, tagging Tata Sky. 

"In some time, I receive a call from an engineer. He asks me if I am home, so that he can come personally to attend to the problem. 

"This is the first time that I realize the actual power of social media. Its usage for grievance addressal can open up so many horizons. Brands can't mess around with the customers. It can be so useful for public help, warnings, building public opinion, influencing policy, delivery of governance and above all as a check and balance for the narrative. 

"My hero has to be a social media influencer."

................................................................................................

"In the next one week, I meet all the heads of departments, technicians, and vendors for a cup of tea where I explain the importance of the subject, the role they can play, not in just making of the movie but also in the ownership of the film. In short, I talk to them from my heart with absolute honesty and sincerity. I make them equal partners in the creative process. My lighting vendor and chief electrician Barmu can't believe that I narrated the entire script to him and shared costume and set designs with him. I tell them why it is important for them to participate in the film. How they can contribute in filmmaking irrespective of their position and department. 

"Nobody has ever involved them in the filmmaking process. These people who work at the bottom of a hierarchy, as spot boys, light boys, setting boys, even the walkie-talkie attendants and many others keep working on film after film without knowing anything about the subject. They go outdoors but don't know the names of the city where they shoot. They keep moving shoot after shoot, following dead instructions without ever knowing what they are doing, and why. Did the workers on Sholay have any idea what kind of history they were participating in? 

"I involved everyone. Everyone. 

"In the end, everyone works for money but sometimes it takes a backseat when a film fulfils one's larger need. I am pretty clear on those larger needs, the motivations of each set of people. This note becomes my successful prescription. It becomes the solution to the budget problem."

" ... It sounds like a creative picnic. Everyone agrees to my terms. ... "

"I give them what they want and I get what I want. It’s a win-win deal. Everyone is hired on a fixed package and there is no scope for even a rupee to go up. But we are still fifty lacs over. Location, stay and food alone are costing sixty lacs. I resolve that if I have come thus far, it's in order to go further. I don't know how, but I have faith."

"For the first time, a film is going to have a hundred owners."

Does this last part remind anyone else of the Akshay Khanna - Amrita Rao - Arshad Warsi film Short Kut? 

................................................................................................

"April is one of the most pleasant months in the forests of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region. The early morning breeze flowing from Indravati river and brushing along champa and chandan trees work as a perfect catalyst for meditation. In the evening, the same breeze brushing through tendua and mahua leaves works as an aphrodisiac. The Indravati river, which starts its journey from the Vindhyas, converts into a picturesque delight at the point where Chitrakoot Falls are located. 

"It is believed that due to its heavenly fragrances of chandan and champa forests, Lord Indra and Indrani came down from heaven to stay here for some time. One day during his regular walks, Indra got lost and reached a small village Sunabeda, where he saw a beautiful girl Udanti, fell in love with her and stayed back with her. After waiting for Indra for a long time, Indrani couldn’t control her patience and sorrow and went around asking people about Indra. Everyone knew about the Indra and Udanti; they gave her solace and gently broke the news to her. When she broke down, they suggested that she stay with them as part of their family. Unable to hide her scorn, she cursed Indra and Udanti that they would never meet again. It is believed that she transformed into a river and stayed with the local tribals. Indra and Udanti rivers flow there separately, without meeting each other due to the curse of Indrani.

"Spread all around Indravati is Dantewada. It gets its name from the goddess Danteshwari, an incarnation of Shakti. No wonder Dantewada’s population has more females than males. Dantewada is surrounded by the dense forests of Dandakaranya, full of aavla, bahera, harra, dhavala, kusum, mahua and tendu and many other medicinal plants. Besides deep forests, Dandakaranya, from the ancient times, has been a habitat for different types of Adivasi communities.

"Dandakaranya is spread over hundred thousand square kilometres, and it literally means ‘the abode of the Rakshasa Dandaka’. Aranya is Sanskrit for forests. It was the kingdom a Rakshasa tribe called Danda, and it was also a colonial state of Lanka, ruled by Ravana."

"The perennial river Sabari, which flows through forests, is said to be named after Shabri, a tribal woman who had offered berries to Lord Rama.  Shabri could have been from one of the many tribes like Gond, Maria, Bhatra, Muriya, Halba, or Dhuruva living here since the time of Rama.

"Tribes residing here have never travelled out of these jungles and have no exposure to the outer world. Till date, they do not have any reference to a civilized life and the modern world. They feed themselves on the abundance of forest produce and by hunting animals in the forest. 

"‘The jungle is our life. We exist as long as jungles exist,’ I was told by a young tribal man when I had visited Bastar in the late 1970s. In Bastar, traditions and rituals are closely linked to these forests and trees. The tribals believe that their gods and goddesses reside in this jungle and, therefore, every tree is sacred. The saja, the mahua, the semal, the mango, the karanji, the banyan, the peepal, the salfi trees are symbols of good fortune and prosperity. The number of salfi trees in a house is an indicator of the wealth and prosperity of the household. The drink that is made from its fruit is an integral part of their culture. If the drinks of salfi, chind, and mahua are not offered during ceremonies of birth, marriage, and death, the ceremonies are considered incomplete.

"People revere trees just as they revere their parents and their deities. For they have never seen anything other than these forests. They don’t know that outside these forests lies an India that has been to the Moon and Mars. An India that is the world’s largest producer of films. An India that has over one billion mobile subscribers making it the second largest user of mobile telephony. An India which has the second largest English-speaking population, after the USA; whereas, the India that some of these tribals belong to, doesn’t even have a language.

"Dandakaranya has long been isolated from the outside world, and accessible only via forest pathways. Even when the British Raj tried to connect India through road and rail networks, this region remained geographically isolated and constitutionally excluded. India got independence, but nothing changed here. Feudalism prevailed and the only reason outsiders came here was to exploit its rich mineral wealth of iron ore, bauxite, tin, granite, marble, limestone, and corundum. These tribals are isolated from the rest of India– demographically, geographically, economically, socially, culturally, politically and psychologically. India has many Indias within. But they are not on the radar of the mainstream narrative. This is the lost India. This is an India that no one cares for. Hence, no one tries to find it."

Corundum?????

" ... She has no idea that the India she lives in is the fourth largest agriculture producer in the world, producing more food than all the countries of European Union combined. She has not even the faintest idea that while she starves, India wastes as much food as the whole of United Kingdom consumes, which is over forty percent of its total food production. In her India, food means a fresh and delicious chutney made of red ants and drinks made from salfi, chind, and mahua."

................................................................................................

"BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. 

"She hears loud sounds. The entire forest fills with birds squeaking all over the sky. For the next half an hour or so there are lots of firing sounds. Then they become sporadic.

"The date was 6th April 2010. It was a Tuesday, an auspicious day for Hindus. Tuesday, according to Hindu belief, is dedicated to Hanuman, son of the wind god Vayu and an ardent devotee of Rama. Hanuman fought Rama's war against Ravana. It’s in these jungles that Shabri advised Rama to meet Sugriva – the vaanar king – who appointed Hanuman to find Sita.

"On this day, sometime between six and seven in the morning, a bus full of eighty Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was returning after opening a road for the troops, to begin an operation called Green Hunt. In 2009, the central government of India deployed over hundred thousand paramilitary forces comprising CRPF, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Border Security Force (BSF), and one of India’s most specialized, experienced and successful unit in fighting asymmetrical warfare, Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), supported with ten armed helicopters from the Indian Air Force, in Bastar, Odisha, and Jharkhand, in what is known as the Red Corridor, a Naxal theatre.

"Apart from the paramilitary, there were two hundred thousand State Armed Police Force (SAPF). The Indian Army is also present here under the pretext of training the paramilitary forces. The Army chief along with his seven army commanders made an assessment to induce around sixty-five thousand troops to battle the Naxalites in this theatre. The Indian Air Force’s Chief Marshall declared his ‘full support to Green Hunt operations’ with additional fleets of MI-17V5 helicopters, besides the already engaged MI-17 choppers. The government is also planning to send over a couple of thousand troops of Naga battalions of the Indian Reserve Battalions (IRB) into the Red Corridor."

Reminds one of another film, this one from Prakash Jha, with Abhay Deol and Arjun Rampal, titled Chakravyuha. Plot is copied from the sixties film Becket, yet once more, after Hrishikesh Mukherjee had remade it on a labour vs industry theme in seventies, titled Namak Haram. 

................................................................................................

"These forces come with advanced satellite phones and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) engineered and supported by the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO). To bring in sharpness and precision to this operation, the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has developed specialized UAVs with ‘lower frequency radars’ to track down the Naxals in these dense forests. The NTRO has imported about a dozen hi-tech drones from Israel for surveillance purposes. The central government is simultaneously working on cloning a new commando unit on the lines of Andhra Pradesh’s deadly Greyhounds.

"The Red Corridor, one of India’s poorest and ironically the most militarized zone of India, is the ‘nerve centre’ of the Naxal movement. According to the South Asia Terrorism portal, between 2005 and 2011, over two thousand Naxals have lost their lives along with almost the same number of civilians and armed forces personnel. This indeed is the longest, deadliest war in independent India.

"While the CRPF team was returning, Naxalites blew up the bus with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), commonly known as landmines. Though overwhelmed by the heavily armed ambush of Naxalites firing from the heights, the CRPF men fought back and the encounter lasted until all eighty men fell one by one and those who survived ran out of ammunition.

"The Naxals then climbed down and shot the wounded men and looted their weapons. Seventy-six CRPF men were killed by over a thousand Naxals comprising of a supporting cast of local militia and sangam village associations.  ‘It was a total siege,’ a police officer reported. ‘The CRPF men were attacked not just from three sides, but even from the open area.’

"Some defenceless surviving CRPF men pretended to be dead but Naxals searched bodies, shot the pretenders and looted all weapons and ammunition.  Only three rifles were found at the site of encounter. It was a swift affair and perhaps the deadliest in the history of independent India. Even at the Line of Control (LOC) and in Kashmir, where our forces have been fighting an unending battle with Pakistani forces and terrorists, we never lost so many soldiers in a single attack.

"This attack came two days after the Naxals triggered a land mine blast in Odisha's Koraput district, killing eleven security personnel of the elite Anti-Naxal Special Operations Group. And five days after India launched its new Biometric Census, the largest census in the world, with the ambition to cover the people of this area which has been isolated since Rama walked in these jungles."

................................................................................................

" ... In our films, so far, we have shown a terrorist or a Naxal as a product of injustice or oppression. But my research proves otherwise. It’s an ideological act arrived at either by total brainwash or a lure for money or power… or both.

"My assistant gives me seven hundred pages full of violent acts in Naxal-infested areas. She has marked some pages with red tags. 

"‘What are these for?’ I ask her. 

"‘I found them unusual as these are rarely reported in mainstream media and I had to dig into blogs, tweets, FB posts etc. to collate facts. So, I am not sure how authentic they are… so if you want you can ignore them.’ She tells me like a typical assistant who doesn't want to take blame for anything."

"When we think of violence in the Red Corridor, we tend to assume that it's always between Naxals and the forces. Because that's what we get to read in the mainstream media. Media, as a prerequisite, has to be anti-establishment, which is good for a democracy. Therefore, media always pushes a narrative which is sympathetic towards Naxals unless a sensitive and inhuman Dantewada kind of incident takes place. This file is full of Naxal attacks on the establishment.

"I flip through pictures of thirty-eight Greyhound commandos killed by the Naxals in a reservoir in June 2008 in Odisha. Sixteen policemen slain in the jungles of Gadchiroli. On 18 March 2007, the Naxals attacked a police camp at Ranibodli, killing fifty-five policemen, including Special Police Officers (SPOs). Naxals ambushed a joint paramilitary-police team in Bihar, killing ten, wounding ten more, taking four prisoners, and robbing more than thirty-five automatic rifles from the State forces. On September 2010, they killed three policemen and took four hostages in an ambush in Chhattisgarh and at gunpoint made them promise that they would never take up arms against the insurgency again.

"This is a never-ending list of Naxal crimes. Looting. Rapes. Murders. There isn’t anything new in these reports. People know their crimes and it doesn’t matter whether we illustrate one example or hundreds. ... we need something which people don’t know. A well-hidden secret from the public eye."

................................................................................................

" ... slowly, the immediate economic and social problems of the masses took a back seat and the battle for the supremacy with the State became the central theme. There has been a range of acts of violence inconsequential to the rights of people, but invariably end up harming the masses. 

"Naxals in Jharkhand have set aside their ideals and emerged as a mining mafia. A report claims that a multi-crore mining scam is being staged by the Naxalites. The Maoist extortion business is estimated to be around a whopping Rs 2,000 crore. All contractors have to pay five to ten percent of the project cost to Naxalites as ‘protection money’. Trucks that pass through the ‘Red Corridor’ pay Rs 1,000 each per month. There have been repeated incidents of Naxals blowing up schools, trains, and railway lines, apart from government buildings which harm the common masses more than the politburo of governance. There have been reports that Naxals physically torture police informers by gruesome acts like hacking off limbs and even gouging out eyes. In July 2007, a group of armed Naxalites extorted Rs65,000 from a poor farmer in Chikmagalur in Karnataka. Such atrocities demonstrate that the Naxals have lost the principles for which they once fought and are adversely affecting the lives of the people they once sought to help."

................................................................................................

"Latehar is a backward district located in the north-west corner of Jharkhand. Surrounded by natural beauty and forests, Lateher is rich in mineral deposits. Almost half of its population is tribal and the balance is Dalit. Enough to attract Naxals. Like in most backward and rural areas, the government runs its infamous MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) which guarantees a minimum of hundred days of employment per household per year. ... "

"Niyamat Ansari, a local activist, along with his colleague Bhukan Singh, used to help villagers access the benefits of this scheme. Soon, he realized that the villagers were not getting their due amounts. Together with Bhukan, Niyamat raised his voice against the looting of government funds by corrupt contractors. He had no idea that this whistleblowing would have fatal repercussions. From an unexpected enemy. 

"In February 2009, the Naxals, who are active in this area, held a so-called ‘people’s court’ and accused Ansari and Singh of acting under the influence of the police and being ‘involved in counter-revolutionary activities’. 

"When it became evident to Niyamat that the Naxals and contractors are working in tandem, he raised his pitch to expose this nexus. Naxals, guided by a local contractor, attacked Niyamat and Bhukan’s houses with a severe warning to the neighbours against informing the police or even providing any kind of help. Naxals also put up posters against them with ‘fatal’ warnings.

"On March 1, a formal complaint was registered by the police against several individuals. Niyamat identified and reported Naxals and also Shankar Dubey, a local contractor, as perpetrators of the attacks.

"On March 2, about twenty armed Naxals, led by their local commander Sudarshan, came back to the village and started beating Niyamat. According to Human Rights Watch, ‘When Niyamat’s sister tried to protect him, she was shown the gun and was asked to back off, with the warning that she would be shot. She sat nearby and cried. After brutally beating him with lathis and assuming that he was dead, a village woman was told to inform Niyamat’s family, with the statement ‘Take him wherever you want to take him.’ Niyamat’s father rushed to his son and realized that he was still breathing. He roamed through the village to collect people and ask for help, but no one came forward due to fear. ‘This was a scene from Dilip Kumar’s Mashal, where he screams for help for his dying wife but nobody helps,’ a student told me. 

"By the time he was carried on a charpoy and brought to Latehar hospital, he was dead.

"In no time Naxals released a pamphlet taking responsibility for Ansari’s killing. The pamphlet read: ‘You all know that our fight against imperialism, capitalism, and samantvad, that is against class enemies, is going on and Niyamat and Bhukan from both these viewpoints are class friends. That’s why we are also sad that Niyamat had to be executed. Despite his being under the influence of the police administration, carrying out anti-people, counter-revolutionary activities, and challenging the party, we gave him several chances to mend his ways in writing as well as verbally. He didn’t show any improvement, and as a result, we were forced to give him the punishment of death penalty.’"

This isn't fighting injustice, it's totalitarian system from China being imposed by so-called Naxalites. 

"In Latehar, all voices against corruption were silenced."

................................................................................................

"A friend of mine, Vijay Ganti, who works with the State Bank of India and travels in the interiors of Jharkhand and Bihar for financing tribals, tells me that the poor tribals who work on MGNREGS are always in trouble. On one side, there are corrupt contractors. On the other, there are the Naxals, who support contractors to get money. ‘While both the Naxals and the MGNREGS contractors claim to be working for the welfare of the tribal communities, in reality, they are engaged in a nexus to benefit themselves. Which is why they don’t want anyone to create awareness about people’s rights,’ says Ganti. To reinforce his argument, he sends me a story which was never investigated by the mainstream media and brought to its logical conclusion.

"Amrapara is a community development block in Pakur district of Jharkhand. This hilly area is rich in coal. It has a population of roughly sixty-six thousand out of which around fifty-five thousand are tribals.

"In 2006, PANEM Coal Mines Ltd started its mining operations in Amrapara. With the advent of mining came money, which empowered the population with purchasing power. ... "

"This is the moment the middlemen wait for. They soon started alluring samiti youth on behalf of company officials, government servants, and politicians. This was a perfect playground for the Naxals. Slowly, Amrapara descended into an abyss of criminalization. Sister Valsa kept trying to work against the criminal nexus led by the Naxals and she was seen as a stumbling block to their evil aspirations. On November 15, 2011, a mob of fifty armed men, out of which over thirty were Naxals, broke into her house and hacked her to death.

"According to a report in Mainstream Weekly, ‘the immediate spark for Sr. Valsa’s murder was provided by the rape of a girl working with her. Some days earlier, Surajmuni had been picked from Alubera, a weekly market by a group of young men, and gang-raped that night. The next day, her parents had reported the rape at the local police station and tried to file an FIR, but the police refused and chased them away. Thereafter, the parents had approached Valsa for help. On her advice, the victim and her parents had gone to the police station again. They had been rudely told to settle the case out of court and accept monetary compensation. But the rape victim had refused to compromise and demanded justice. At this juncture, Valsa had intervened and managed to get an appointment for the rape victim with the District Collector on November 16, 2011."

"Naxals admitted to their role in Sister John’s killing. In an interview with the BBC, Naxal spokesman Somnath said, without providing any basis, that Sister John was ‘working for the interests’ of mining companies. Because she had ‘let down the tribals,’ he said, the Naxals had to ‘resort to the extreme step (of killing her)’."

................................................................................................

"Niyamat and Valsa were from the minority who were fighting oppression, injustice, and corruption against the marginalized section of society. They were working for the same cause as Naxals. Then why were they killed? I can smell a design which is akin to the underworld's strategy for keeping their supremacy. I dig into similar stories. As I turn the pages, umpteen stories of barbaric, gruesome, and brutal killings start unfolding, leading me to dangerous motives and the sinister politics behind it. Every case I probe indicates that Naxals don't want any development in their area. They don't want the children to be educated, they don't want roads to be built. They want tribals to remain in the dark.

"And to achieve this perverse end, they can go to any extent of violence, even if it means killing an infant. A four-month-old baby was killed in a Jan Adalat in front of her mother as her father was a suspected police informer. Naxals burn mark sheets and transfer certificates of 10th and 12th students, so that they cannot go for further education and migrate from their villages. Families do not keep their children in the area as they fear that Naxals will induct them forcibly in the movement. I met some students in Nagpur who do not go to their villages and their families come to Nagpur to meet them. Naxals burnt fifteen vehicles of contractors who were building roads as they believe that roads will eventually lead to development. Dalit Patru Durge was killed because he was taking government help to get lift irrigation in his village."

................................................................................................

" ... For the last few months, I have been struggling to convert Naxal politics into a simple story. There are so many agencies involved. Today's Naxal movement is not the same as in the times of Charu Majumdar or Sitarammaiah or Paddi Shankar. Their story was simple. A Zamindar oppresses villagers, rapes their women, and takes their land. ... A central theme of many films.

"There are no Zamindars today, so who are they fighting in the tribal areas? Why is it that after four decades of struggle, neither have the rebels achieved their objective nor have the tribals been empowered? Why is the government not being able to stop this oppression? Where do they get money from? Are all those intellectuals who openly support the Naxal movement on national TV, righteous people? What is in it for them? This is a movement being fought in jungles inhabited by wild animals, snakes and, the tribals– is it possible for it to survive for so long? That too without financial, intelligence, strategic, and logistical support? It's impossible for a movement to survive for so long only on good intentions. So, who are the masterminds?"

................................................................................................

" ... discussions always remain at the circumference. Very rarely do we talk about the centre. The tribal, who everyone is fighting for. 

"I relook at the picture of the tribal girl. No clothes, no context.  I name her Vanbala after a poem by my father, of the same title.

"Ironically, Vanbala doesn’t even know her hell. This vast, lush and unapproachable jungle is her kingdom, of which she is the princess. I keep looking at her photo. I realize hell and heaven are such subjective concepts. What appeared heaven to me was hell to the rich maestro’s wife. What appeared heaven to her is hell to me. Hell is not a place. It’s a state of mind. A fakir walks barefoot in scorching heat, sleeps on a pavement and yet sings a song admiring the beauty of the world. Whereas a film heroine, living in a castle of fame, opulence and glory, drinks herself to death, escaping from her hell. 

"Vanbala didn’t know about her hell, until the Naxals came. 

"Mainstream media hasn’t done justice to this grave issue. Almost all the reports are mere copy-paste jobs. Nobody wants to go into the jungles to do real reporting. Which is why, the reports are only about the killings between the forces and Naxals, circulated by syndicates. There is a thirty-three page essay by Arundhati Roy on the issue yet it doesn't smell of the jungles. It smells of her. It stinks of her agenda. Why, I wonder? Why is it that most of the op-eds and essays from the so-called intelligentsia comprising editors, professors, historians, political analysts, social workers, NGO entrepreneurs, humanitarians, and civil society leaders favour the false Naxal narrative?"

"I am interested in understanding the psyche of Vanbala. And the psyche and motivations of that Naxalite who takes a conscious decision to spend his life in this hell in order to protect Vanbala from this hell. I find it in independent blogs. Where the mainstream media fails, citizens shine.

................................................................................................

" ... one fine morning, in Naxalbari, a group of hungry and exploited peasants, armed with crude weapons rose to fight for what was rightfully theirs – the land and the crop. They attacked landlords, seized granaries and stole paddy, burnt all land records and forcibly took the land. And gave it back to the landless peasant. 

"An uprising had begun. Illegal. And unconstitutional. 

"An editorial in People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, called it ‘spring thunder’ and declared it a successful rebellion ‘… a Red area of rural revolutionary armed struggle has been established in India.’ Thus, began India’s longest and most lethal social war. 

"Influenced by Mao Zedong’s political sentiments contained in his Little Red Book, Naxalism bases its ideology on the ’Historic Eight Documents’, a set of eight monographs written by Charu Majumdar, who was deeply influenced by Mao's ideas and believed that similar conditions existed in India wherein militant peasants and youth could be mobilized to overthrow the government through armed struggle.

"Charu Majumdar laid down four conditions for the aspiring Naxalite. 

"One: Acceptance of Mao Zedong as the leader of the world revolution and his thoughts as the highest form of Marxism-Leninism of that era. 

"Two: Belief in the view that a revolutionary situation existed in every corner of India. 

"Three: Area-wise seizure of power as the only path for taking forward the Indian revolution. 

"Four: Guerilla warfare as the only means of advancing the revolution.

"Majumdar wanted to bring the Indian State to its knees by attacking it with a web of underground organizations and thus bring about the revolution. Soon he found to his surprise that a variety of intellectuals like writers, artists, professors, journalists and almost everyone from the Bhadralok of West Bengal joined in as also a large army of moralistic, energetic and risk-taking students. ... "

Hence the complete lack of independent thinking, common sense, even decency in discourse and discussions, where they are soon ranting, abusive, screeching and filibusters. 

Those very conditions listed out by Agnihotri amount to reducing followers to somnambulist robotic entities with mind on hold, a la Chinese mobs. 

"Naxalism as an underground movement has mushroomed across fourteen states, which are recognized as dreaded dens of ‘Naxalite insurgency’. It is spread over Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. To a lesser extent, this trend is also visible in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. It is estimated that Naxalites are active in more than forty percent of India’s geographical area, which is known as ‘Red Corridor’. It is now spreading its tentacles in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Delhi is emerging as the centre of Urban Naxalism."

Recent years, those doing propaganda for congress were seen defending urban naxals who'd been caught by police in Pune!. 

................................................................................................

Agnihotri begins chapter 11, Vanbala, by recounting the story as he wrote it. 

A particularly disgusting detail reminds one of a US film about South, set in not too distant past, titled Help. 

"Vanbala becomes the new establishment. 

"Establishment has to survive. Survival requires funding and an ecosystem. Therefore, it becomes a compulsion to form a nexus with the politicians, police, and the middlemen. They also start looting contractors, trucks, and godowns."

"The localized movement takes a pan-Indian shape, to accomplish its real goal – to wage a full-fledged war against the Indian State. Slowly, the Naxals become successful in establishing an alternate State structure. Stretching from the border of Nepal to Central India and Karnataka in the south. It’s christened ‘Red Corridor’."

How did Tamil Nadu escape? 

Or did it?

" ... She starts appeasing the Dalit youths by invoking the name and images of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Sardar Bhagat Singh in Maharashtra and Punjab respectively. When above ground tactics fail, they create terror. They kill.  They kill those who don’t subscribe to their ideology. They kill to create a power and governance vacuum and soon they fill up this space. They attack schools because education promotes awareness and empowers youth with skills for a livelihood other than farming and forest-related jobs. This is how they keep the population in their area of influence out of the mainstream milieu.

"They form ‘Bal Dastas’, enrolling children in their fold with the purpose of brainwashing and conditioning these young and innocent minds with violent Maoist ideology. Exactly like the Taliban or the ISIS. 

"They recruit lots of women in their cadre by coercion and threats. Poor Adivasis part with their girl children. This inhuman practice is the reason for a large number of women in their cadres. They also use children and women in the forefront of engagements with the security forces.

"It’s not easy to enthuse, manage, and maneuver such large, widespread cadres, where it takes weeks of walking on jungle trails infested with snakes and scorpions, only to communicate. One thing that keeps them motivated is the power to kill innocent people with a promise to change their hell into heaven.  

"All the stories I read outside of the mainstream media lead to the missing links. But one theme which is common in all the stories is that a sinister politics is developing at the behest of Naxals. Be it from a first-hand account in a blog, a social media post, or the police reports. Only time will tell whether this is a fact or just a hypothesis, but it’s worth probing."

................................................................................................

"If police and other sources are to be believed, the Naxalites, with the help of Dalit youths and the Islamist terrorist group Indian Mujahedeen (IM), want to have their own government in the country by 2025. The revolution will emerge from the conflict of Hindus on one side and Dalits and Muslims on another. ... "

That explains much of the horrible, unreasonable conduct by opposition since 2014. 

" ... Two consolidated rebellious, energetic forces pumped with raw adrenaline, will go for each other’s blood. And then it will be opportune to hijack and change the narrative to oppressed, proletariat, and marginalized vs bourgeoisie, elites, and Brahmins. This attracts poor and intellectuals both. In this case, the Adivasi, Dalits, Muslims, and other “forgotten people”, united under one common red flag, will demolish the State. That’s the ambition. And they also have a plan."

................................................................................................

"‘How will they achieve it?’ I wonder. ‘How will they communicate with the students? Students don’t go to the jungles.’ I take a long breath. ‘There has to be someone, something, some system that connects the Dalit and the Muslim youth, from all the campuses of India, with the comrades in the jungles. But… then… you need time, organization, management, training, and funding for such a huge project… It’s a logistical nightmare… how can they undertake such a mammoth and complex operation without getting noticed?’ asks the Byomkesh Bakshi inside me. I understand that jungles are their home turf, where it’s easy to annihilate the enemy and exist; but how is it possible to go unnoticed in the government’s home turf, where the government machinery is omnipresent? 

"Naxals have a history with students. It had started with fourteen students of Osmania University, Hyderabad, who vowed to never marry and dedicate their life to the cause of people’s revolution.

"In 1978, the Radical Youth League was formed in association with Jana Natya Mandali and Radical Students Union, with 'Go to the village' campaign. Through these shows, youngsters would make villagers aware of their political situation, like how oppressed they were and the importance of an armed revolution for their empowerment and justice. They were the first political force that invaded the minds of villagers. This was the first political narrative introduced and with that one more decision taken, that no alternate narrative was to be introduced. Their leader Seetharamaiah, a sharp political mind and master strategist, created a network of these tough and fearless rebel students, who would integrate with the tribals and poor farmers to push their party’s agenda."

"They organized themselves and started annihilating all government machinery including security forces. Their justification for such destruction and killings of government servants and security jawans is oversimplified: ‘What work do they have in jungles? If they are in the jungles, it means they are here to obstruct our mission.’"

"I want to understand how have they organized themselves. What if they have sleeper cells in campuses? I look up the organizational chart of the Naxals."

"Then they have State Military Commission, State Committees, District Committees, Zonal Committees, Area Committees. 

"There are also Revolutionary Writers Associations and Jan Natya Mandalis to promote propaganda and forward misinformation to the young. 

"I am utterly confused and tired. Everything is becoming clinical. I remember in 1985, a Leftist friend of mine had tried explaining the Naxal organizational structure to me, and finally exasperated, he’d said, ‘Trying to understand the Naxal movement is like peeling an onion. In the end, you will have only tears in your eyes and many disconnected and scattered layers of the onion.’"

"It’s difficult for a militarily trained cadre to easily connect and communicate with a student on a campus. It’s impossible to mobilize students if one is not working with them day and night. It requires easy access.

"‘How are they connected?’ I ask. ‘There must be some underground channels. This connection can’t be ad hoc. It has to be a regular connection, disguised amongst the “real regular” connections.’"

................................................................................................

"I discover that the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has close fraternal ties with North-Eastern terror groups. Most of such outfits have linkages with external forces hostile to India. The CPI (Maoist) has openly expressed its solidarity with the J&K terrorist groups. These ties are part of their ‘Strategic United Front’ against the Indian State. The CPI (Maoist) also has close links with foreign Maoist organizations in the Philippines, Turkey, etc. 

"The outfit is also a member of the Coordination Committee of the Maoist Parties and Organizations in South Asia (CCOMPOSA), which includes ten Maoist groups from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, with the aim to create a ‘new South Asia’. 

"Slowly, I start to connect the dots. A plethora of front organizations starts revealing itself around which an Urban Naxalism is being woven. These front organizations are the offshoots of the parent Maoist party, which maintains a separate existence to escape legal liabilities. These Front Organizations (FOs) carry out a two-pronged communication attack—propaganda and disinformation. They raise funds for the insurgency and assist cadres in legal matters. These FOs are also used to provide safe houses to underground cadres and shelter to fugitives. They bring intellectuals into their fold who provide an intellectual veneer to the illegal, unconstitutional, and inhuman violence in the Naxal movement. In effect, these intellectuals present this beastly and gruesome reality in a sanitized, romantic, and palatable packaging for which the media and its urban audiences have a weakness. Such FOs exist in twenty out of the twenty-nine states of India. They are seeping into the strategically sensitive north-eastern states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh."

................................................................................................

"Lately, they have begun targeting India’s seat of power – New Delhi – and many other cities by setting up urban bases of these front organizations with the aim to penetrate and influence policymakers, judiciary, media, civil liberty, human rights, cultural, Dalit, women, and youth organizations. So far, the urban units do not indulge in violence but it is definitely a serious problem, posing a threat to our ambition of becoming the next economic superpower.

"Then, suddenly, something strikes me. 

"Why do they have to connect with the student if they can have their professors in the faculty? They can enter a student’s mind through this professor. It’s easier, faster, exact, less risky, and seems organic."

................................................................................................

"There was a time when I was at the threshold of joining the Naxal movement. Today, it reads like a film script."

Hence the eagerness to establish atheism and otherwise secular credentials via God glimpsed in sunrise seen reflected in Taj dome? 

Wonder what Agnihotri thinks of films of Abhishek Kapoor. 

"Flashback: My college days - Bhopal

"I have written a play for the annual function. The winning play will travel to various drama festivals. Before I start directing it, I want to take feedback from my dramatics professor, a middle-aged man who is also active on Bhopal’s theatre scene. He writes, directs, and sometimes acts in plays, performed at Bharat Bhavan and Tagore Hall."

Character that provides skeleton of a major one in film. 

" ... He dresses like a typical government college science professor but there is something very cowboyish about his style."

Almost description of leftist uniform. Seemingly casual but disdainful in some way that can't be ignored, yet not really simple in a normal way. 

"He lights another cigarette, from the previous one. I like the way he takes the first puff of his cigarette. He closes his eyes, takes a deep drag and holds it for a few seconds and then exhales, softly and smoothly, blowing out smoke rings. I don’t know what has impressed me more – the smoke rings or the satisfied expression on his face? I am going to try it the moment I leave from here. If I get the rings right, would it be an influence or an inspiration? Or would I be simply aping him? I try to decode his theory. If I make circles and make the same face like him, I would be copying him. If I make rings with my own expressions, I am influenced. But if instead of rings I exhale squares or triangles of smoke and have a sad expression, then I would be inspired. And if I just don’t smoke at all and blow no smoke with no expressions, then I would be called a revolutionary. An original revolutionary."

Leftist in India, spending on smoking for no real need, instead of feeding poor, typical leftist. 

"‘Here are some of my old manuscripts… I wrote these essays in college.  These are original. Neither influenced nor inspired,’ he confesses while throwing the files in front of me, letting the dust from the files mix with the smoke particles. Together, the dust and the smoke fill the entire path of a lone sunbeam, filtering from a hole in the window and falling on the overflowing ashtray sitting alone on the wrought iron table. If there was no dust and smoke, I would not have noticed the existence of the sun and its filtering rays inside this dark room."

Hole in the window? Wooden doors?

"I distinctly remember as I was leaving his house, a few students from different colleges were collecting outside in the lawns of his government quarter for chaupal - a forum for an exchange of ideas. Many years later, I learnt that some of them were arrested in the tribal villages of Chhattisgarh, on the charge of spreading Naxal ideology. I could have been one of them."

................................................................................................

"I start flipping pages and try to read quickly. This file is an assortment of the professor’s essays, plays, poems, and ideas. Ideas for the revolution. He is deeply affected by the caste system. His writings reek of hatred for the Brahmins. ... "

Wonder if they realized this is exactly as per Macaulay policy, who designed it with aim of breaking up India? Elsewhere, rebellion would be against kings, rich, landlords and title holders, aristocracy. 

In India, whoever heard of rebellion, or even a stray slogan, against a rich dynasty, whether Nawaz of Hyderabad or society circles of Lutyens Delhi? 

Brahmins, merely convenient targets, after over a millennium during which barbaric invaders targeted the priests and teachers of a culture that invaders sought to destroy, for the very reason they set fire to libraries at Nalanda and other universities, and institutions of learning, monasteries and temples, and killed scholars. 

Brahmins were always poor, even in ancient tales of India. Abrahamic-IV attacks against them far more than against priests of Abrahamic-II and Abrahamic-III reek, not of leftism, but of colonial mindset. 

................................................................................................

"I don’t know much about the current ragging scenario but anyone who has survived the ragging of the 70s and 80s can survive any hardship. For the next six months, we were ragged every single time we came across the seniors. Our movements were restricted. We couldn’t go out to the open ground, the lakeside, the main hall, the two-wheeler stands or the canteen, as all these spots were crowded with the seniors. Bus stand, canteen, and two-wheeler stands were their favourite spots. The reason was that there were few girls in our college, at the most ten or fifteen, who would invent new ways to avoid this bunch of ogling seniors. But using the canteen in free periods, pulling out their two-wheeler from the stand or to take a bus from the bus stand, was something they just couldn’t escape. The moment the girls would go to the canteen, it would get filled with the seniors. Hundreds of eyes would stare at them. Penetrate them. Analyze their anatomy, making their own short, mental blue films. The worst part was that the girls knew they were being filmed by these staring eyes but they were not in a position to stop their visual rape. 

"Yes, a visual gang rape. Some boys would even pretend to be lost in thought while walking and collide with the girl or brush their hand lightly on their breasts. Sometimes, while girls were returning home, after their evening tuition classes, seniors would find them in dark patches of the streets and grope them."

In Delhi, dark was unnecessary - a public bus crowded with commuters, mostly middle aged males going to work, did just as well for the said college boys groping girls who could only cry in shame and fury. 

When one slapped the grocery, he slapped her back, and the respectable umcles who were government employees criticised her, because they were too cowardly to reprimand the guy, fearing he'd hit them and then their respectability would crumble. 

When we got off, crowding in sympathy around her, she was still crying, and said " Does he think I don't have a brother, and he doesn't have friends? He'll be thrashed this evening." 

That was horrifying - not because we were Gandhian, 

but because it implied that those of us without an older brother, and a gang of goons he could call up to thrash someone on our behalf, were without any defense in the capital. 

"A few years ago, in my Delhi barsati, on a cold night, I was narrating the situation of these girls to my female friends from Delhi. ... "

"One girl puked on my hand. Seeing her puke, another one puked, on my ZZ plant. Some moved to washrooms and some to the balcony to smoke. One short girl, short like really short, four feet something or maybe less, got so angry that she took a long puff and exhaled the smoke like she was a dragon, fuming fire on these boys. She started stabbing her cigarette in the ashtray as if she was hammering their skulls."

This would be the JNU crowd, not used to the fear and torture that was our everyday life unless we stuck to the college bus, which we did after a few first days, avoiding public buses if possible. Agnihotri must be much younger, and not merely junior. 

Funny, it's Pallavi Joshi whose birthdate is provided on internet with year, but not Agnihotri. And yet popular judgements indict women for hiding age! 

"One girl kept looking at me for some time and then held my hand and asked, ‘Who gave you so much pain?’ 

"My pain? This was the pain of an Indian girl. These girls were mostly from Delhi and a few from Bangalore and Mumbai. Normally, the story of an Indian girl’s pain comes from the victims, survivors, or the feminists. A regular girl's suffering in her day-to-day life doesn’t ever feature in the national feminist narrative. They have been conditioned to accept it as part of living, as an everyday struggle. A part of the culture that wants to crush their dreams. Their aspirations. Their confidence. 

"It shall remain a paradox that despite such suffocating, dark surroundings, these girls shine in their lives. As engineers, doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, managers, scientists, cops or as efficient housewives. Whereas, such boys end up doing nothing with their lives. Outside the college and employment market, they are left with no option but to join politics and earn by either extorting or mediating for commissions. This is a standard template."

Obviously, guys who amounted later to anything were as busy with concerns regarding future as those girls, suffering pains of not only going to college to study, sit for examinations and more, but doing it despite the horrible guys, when they could have taken the easier route of giving up education, suffering their parents to marry them off to a worthy candidate, and meanwhile being busy with fashion, cosmetics and such. 

................................................................................................

"Present Day 

"I open my old college photo album and find a picture of all Jokers Party members. In checked bellbottoms and long-collared printed shirts, we look like a funny version of the Beatles. Or a derivative of the Klu Klux Klan."

Surely Agnihotri knows KKK dates back to end of US Civil War and occupation of Confederate South by military? They aren't recognised by bell bottoms, even if they wore them when in style. 

Bell bottoms came into fashion post WWII, copied from navy, where they were useful for wearing over long boots. In India the fashion dates to late sixties and early seventies, until jeans swept them out. 

"As soon as we announced our party, one of the most attractive girls met me and expressed her desire to contest from our party. She wanted to democratically wrest political power from the seniors and assert her right to stop the visual gang rapes. 

"She was a senior army officer's daughter, and however clichéd it may sound, the girls from an army background are smarter and more modern than their civilian counterparts in cities like Bhopal. Similarly, this girl was very modern and beautiful. She had short hair, played table tennis and wore short skirts. For a city like Bhopal, in the early 80s, this was a fantastical reality. ... 

"She never looked at me, but instinctively, I knew she was aware of my presence. I knew because her walk changed when she crossed me. An awkwardness would come in her body language, a concentrated self-consciousness would capture her persona, which any boy in that high-testosterone age can sense from any distance."

"‘I want to be friends with you.’ Something made me say this. I was possessed. 

"She took a pause and spoke to some other girls, her sisters perhaps, and then came back on the line. 

"‘Come and meet us at the club at 5.45. Don’t be late because my dad will be there by 6. See you then.’ She didn’t wait for my confirmation. 

"I found her ‘army-like’ behaviour very cute. 

"We became good friends. I genuinely cared for her. She was impressed with my debating and dramatic skills. Unfortunately, till date, I don't know what the status of our relationship was. If there was a Facebook then, I would have called it 'in progress'. Most love stories in small towns die while ‘in progress’ and are eventually found at the end of a notebook or a diary as a poem. We met every evening and played table tennis, gossiped about college and killed time."

"For the next half an hour I watched her tears falling on the TT table as she told me how a few boys from the opposing parties literally molested her, groped her, and humiliated her in a crowded bus. It's strange that in India most girls are raped, molested and groped in crowded places. She wasn’t angry because she was groped. She was furious because she couldn’t even react. 

"‘They were touching me, feeling me, rubbing their elbows on my boobs, laughing and blowing smoke on my face and I couldn’t even react. I kept looking down as if nothing was happening. Why?’ She broke down, ‘Why am I being denied to even react to my molestation?’ 

"I tried to console her but she shrugged and asked me, looking deep into my eyes, ‘Imagine yourself in my situation… what would you do?’ 

"Next day, she withdrew her nomination."

Judging by various public pronouncements by various leaders thereof, males leading opposition parties of post 2014 time have retained this mentality, regardless of age or community. 

"I stay awake the entire night and keep writing until dawn, with my Hero fountain pen, on the back side of the extra invitation cards of my sister’s wedding. By morning, I have a new play. It’s about discrimination against a Dalit woman. It’s not a satire. It’s dark. Hard hitting. Penetrating. Suffocating. And revolutionary.

"The play proves to be a success. I am the new hero on the campus. My fellow students believe that I will topple the establishment. I am invited to debates from remote corners of the country. All my dramatic, literary, and debating work for the next few years remains revolutionary and inspired by the Naxal ideology of armed struggle."

"In no time, I am burning buses and throwing stones at the Vidhan Sabha. And I am introduced to desi katta and rusted swords."

" ... my drama mentor congratulates me."

"‘And I am happy that you have won the game,’ he concludes."

"I didn't even realize then that I had become his new recruit. I had become an Urban Naxal."

................................................................................................

"I start questioning my drama mentor and subsequent professors in my post-graduation course in economics at the School of Social Sciences, Bhopal. Jana Natya Mandali, Radical Students Union, and Radical Youth Movement were recruiting students and thousands of them were joining. In the garb of a touring cultural group, they would amplify the injustice and glorify revolution. There is no one who hasn’t faced injustice. A friend who was fascinated with Naxalism had told me once, ‘Revolution is the only purpose of life.’ A Naxal army was getting built on the ground. A revolution had begun. A new India was taking birth in the minds of students. An education system rooted in the principles of utopian socialism, courtesy Nehru's fascination for the same, and the professors, enamoured of the Nehruvian dream, were feeding the young minds to wage a war against India."

Nehru did leave a chink in the armour. But the hidden villain is China. Attempting to break up India has been ambition of every jealous outsider, every outside institution that had nothing comparable. 

"Did they really care about me or was I just a pawn in a bigger game? What if I had not gone to Delhi and USA for further studies, would I have become a professional Naxal? Were those professors Naxals? Is this how they make inroads into urban India? Like a venomous, silent snake under your bed, getting set to attack and kill you? Was I helping that snake? Was I that snake? 

"My head spins."

................................................................................................

"‘Sir, I think this is precisely the time you must write, not when you are at your creative best but in such times of confusion. Especially when you are lost and have nowhere to go,’ she speaks confidently.  

"As she talks I feel surrounded by the ghosts of all those filmmakers and creative artists who worked out of nothing. No offices, no assistants, no money, no experience and yet they spoke the truth that took our civilization forward. Some were ridiculed. Some were punished. And some were executed. 

"‘It's not that I don't know where to arrive at. I know where I want to reach but I don't know if anyone would want to hear it.’ 

"‘Sir, why do we always think about what the audience wants to hear? Why don't we say what we want to say?’ 

"Sometimes life-changing advice comes from the least expected quarters."

................................................................................................

"I start making concept maps, trying to be able to see the entire methodology of Urban Naxalism. And what it leads me to and what it reveals, stuns me. If this is true, I think, then a grave danger is looming over the internal security and the social fabric of this country. Somebody has to warn the masses. 

"The Naxal movement is engaged in Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW).  This war is waged by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants, and civilians. If they have reached this stage, we have no one but our political leaders to blame, who have used Naxals for their political gains and shunned them when not required. ... "

"This fourth-generation war is complex and long term. It’s decentralized, small in size, and lacks hierarchy. The strategy is to make a direct attack on the enemy's (in this case, the Indian State) culture, including genocidal acts against civilians and wage a highly sophisticated psychological and cultural warfare, especially through media manipulation. All available pressures are used – political, economic, social, and military. For this purpose, legal professionals are required, media professionals are required, creative people, varied intellectuals and academicians are required, and civil society leaders are required, especially those who are connected with NGOs. It begins with low-intensity conflicts where all the actors attack from different platforms.

"I pick up the papers given by my assistant. It’s the summary of the documented vision of the Naxalites – vision and strategy documents under an urban perspective plan – a blueprint for their urban movement/activities. 

"Out of these, the ‘Strategy and Tactics’ document and ‘Urban Perspective’ document catch my attention. These documents take a long-term approach as they believe direct confrontation for quick results won't help. The document admits that the enemy is very strong in urban areas and, therefore, he should not be engaged with until the conditions are favourable. And to make them favourable, it suggests, exploring and opening of opportunities, organize people through front organizations. Target the 'vulnerable group' of minorities, women, Dalits, labourers, and students through influencers who work undercover for a long time and accumulate strength. The document stresses on uniting industrial proletariats, the weak and students, and use them as vanguards who can play a direct role in the revolution."

One is reminded of the so-called protests since 2014, in reality organised violent and destructive events with mobs incited to sloganeering, burning, even killing others, and all indicative of a series of provoking actions, so normal citizens are terrified and government might just roll tanks. 

The last hasn't happened yet, despite all the efforts by opposition since 2014. In fact the last time was in 1984, in Punjab, specifically, while subsequent genocide in Delhi was dressed up as riots, but the lie was only supported by lack of independent media, and exposed amply by personal testimonies from media and other persons who happened to be in Delhi and dared to step out. 

"The city becomes the money source, shelter for cadre as transit points, source of weaponry and legal protection, medical aid, media attention, and intelligentsia network.

"So, an invisible Naxal-intelligentsia-media-academia nexus works as strategic fortification with the ultimate aim of taking over the Indian State to achieve Maoist rule. They have identified Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad as the Golden Corridor. Delhi-Kanpur-Patna-Kolkata as the Ganga Corridor. And KKTs (Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu) Chennai-Coimbatore-Bengaluru as the Tri-junction."

Was this why they strove to take over Maharashtra, by temptation of support to a junior partner of winning combo, so they could scrap not only the proposed Shivaji statue in Mumbai, but also put on hold,  indefinitely, the proposed bullet train - Mumbai to and from Ahmedabad, promoting ease for commerce of India, these two cities bring a vital duo amongst all cities important in the context? 

Apart from, that is, general loot by controlling Mumbai, not to mention terroristic of the city and citizens of not only state but elsewhere too, in general, with tactics that included fraudulent cases, arrests, torture and even murders, by police officers deliberately re-employed precisely for the purpose? 

 on hold, 

................................................................................................

"‘Mass organizations are operating under the garb of human rights NGOs. These are manned by ideologues, including academicians and activists,’ the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has said in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, detailing the new strategy of the Maoist movement.

"The affidavit cites the 'Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution’ document as a blueprint of the Maoist plan to seize political power. The affidavit states that one of the strategies adopted by Naxals is to mobilize certain targeted sections of the urban population through its mass organizations which are otherwise known as 'front organizations'. The MHA filed the affidavit in response to a notice issued by the Supreme Court on a PIL filed by former Madhya Pradesh MLA, Kishore Samrite, that the Maoist problem was spreading rapidly. 

"‘The mass organizations mostly operating under the garb of human rights NGOs are organically linked to the CPI (Maoist) structure but maintain separate identities in an attempt to avoid legality,’ the MHA affidavit says.

"The affidavit further says that such organizations pursue human rights related issues and are also adept at using the legal processes to their benefit. According to the Home Ministry, ideologues and supporters of Naxals in cities and towns have undertaken a concerted and systematic propaganda war against the State. ‘In fact, it is these ideologues who have kept the Maoist movement alive and are in many ways more dangerous than the cadres of the People's Liberation Guerilla Army,’ the affidavit says.

"The tactics employed are extremely effective and media attention grabbing. These range from using aggressive agitations and propaganda provoking Dalits to take up arms to programmes on anti-capitalist policies to target controversies in history (e.g. Is this what Dr. Ambedkar wanted in the Constitution?). They work with feminist groups, atheist groups, anti-superstition movements, intellectuals, students, labourers, slum groups, farmers, journalists, competitive exam centres etc. They take up genuine issues with the aim not to solve it but to create unrest and anger against the system and make people believe in armed struggle. This is how the 'vulnerable group' unknowingly becomes their vanguard. Like I became, under the mentorship of my professors."

"Maoist documents stress on building a strong base in cities and mention three kinds of urban mass organizations: secret, open and semi-open, and legal; the last including cover organizations and affiliated activists. The forest-based rebellion survives mostly on what Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao calls the ‘movement in urban areas’. From the urban network come logistics, moral and intellectual support, and the ideological argument for violence. The network is in several cities and sympathizers occupy prominent positions.

"So far, the urban movement has served the Naxals in a number of ways. Take logistics support for example. In 2006, police seized empty rocket shells and rocket launchers in Mahabubnagar district, Andhra Pradesh. The kingpin, ‘Tech Madhu’, later surrendered to the police which led to the detection of an elaborate network the Naxals had built to manufacture rocket parts and transport them to different parts of the country. The network originated in the industrial centre of Ambattur, a suburb of Chennai where these were fabricated in separate foundries and stealthily transported in private commercial carriers to different parts of the country. The network spread across five states: Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.

"On many occasions, important top-level leaders of the CPI (Maoist) have been arrested from cities and towns indicating that front organizations in cities are used as shelters. 

"The detection of Maoist activities in towns such as Surat in Gujarat, clearly indicates that the Naxals are attempting to penetrate the urban working-class movements. Besides, there have been reports of the detection of Maoist activities in Haryana – in Jind, Kurukshetra, Panipat, Sonepat, etc. A closer look at these areas reveals that these are industrial hubs. In Delhi, the Naxals have reportedly infiltrated the Delhi Safai Karmachari Sanghatan (DSKS), a union of sanitary workers. In fact, according to a media report quoting unnamed intelligence officials, ‘the rebels, the sources add, have plans to strike in the industrial belts of Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad-Calcutta and Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad to take their battle into the heart of India.’

"Some instances of Naxal violence adversely affecting the trade and economy are damaging road construction machinery, shutting down and destroying bank branches, damage to railway lines, highways and telecom towers, thereby inhibiting communication and transport and destruction of the pipeline for transporting iron ore slurry in Chhattisgarh. According to reports, ‘power and steel industry projects in Chhattisgarh with investments of the order of rupees one hundred and thirty billion were stagnated due to Naxalite disturbances’. All in all, it’s a very grim economic condition which affects all sectors of industry and all classes of people. Micro-economic effects include lower tourist inflows, lower regional tourism market share, reduced usage of public transport, reduced long-term investments in agriculture and other potential sectors, reduced enrolment in schools, lower job availability and lack of substantial opportunities.

................................................................................................

"The Urban Movement has attracted students towards the Maoist fold in various parts of the country. In the 1980s, hordes of students from Kakatiya University and Regional Engineering College (now National Institute of Technology), Warangal, and Osmania University, Hyderabad, joined the then Progressive War cadres. Besides, according to one media report, ‘…security agencies believe that the front organizations have started a vigorous movement in the education sector, to rope in students from several reputed colleges for their cause… (they) warned the (Nagpur) city police about these student-oriented revolutionary organizations. People working under banners with hints of revolution, like “sangharsh” and “kranti” are under the scanner’.

"Following the arrest of Himadri Sen Roy, a very senior Maoist leader, and Somen alias Sumanand, West Bengal State Committee Secretary, near Kolkata, police claimed that ‘the CPI (Maoist) has initiated a drive to spread its network in the city (Kolkata) and its outskirts and the outfit has brought some youths and students from premier educational institutions like Presidency College under its fold in the last two years’.

"In Bengaluru too, Maoist activities in colleges have been noticed. According to a media report, the police suspected that a group, known as the Karnataka Communal Harmony Group (KCHG), a congregation of intellectuals and activists, is a Maoist front. Apparently, top police officials visited the famous Jesuit college – St Joseph’s – to investigate the involvement of students with the KCHG and the Naxals. In fact, in Karnataka, it was the urban movement that was stronger than the rural movement. Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad Central University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Allahabad University, IIT Madras, Jadavpur University are the citadels of urban Naxalism."

"The majority of the people in Maoist-affected areas and even their supporters and cadres have little to do with Maoism at an ideological level. They are only alienated and angered people with no real idea of the perceived sense of injustice, oppression, and loss of dignity. Naxals are cleverly exploiting this sentiment to their advantage – caste conflicts in Bihar, resentment against landlords in Andhra, discontent against forest laws in tribal areas, unemployment amongst youth and radicalism among Muslims are all given the prescription of capture of power through the gun as the ultimate solution of all their problems. While the local grievances need to be effectively addressed through improved governance and ruthless accountability, there is also a need for creating mass awareness of the ultimate designs and consequences of what the extremists stand for.

" ... Why isn’t our intelligentsia talking about it? What if they are part of this nexus? Are they the urban terrorists? Urban Naxals?"

"It's not a film any more. It's a mission."

................................................................................................

"J&K Terrorist Groups 

"Naxalite spokespersons, on many occasions, have openly supported the actions and cause of the J&K terrorist groups. The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) terrorists who carried out the attack on the American Centre at Kolkata in 2001 had escaped to Jharkhand and taken refuge in a Naxalite sympathizer’s house in Ranchi. In return for this and similar other favours the J&K terrorists who are well trained in handling sophisticated arms, impart training to the Naxalite groups.

"The North-East

"Intelligence agencies have also reported linkages between Maoist elements and the insurgent groups of the North-East i.e. the United Liberation Front of Asom, Nationalist Council of Nagaland, and People’s Liberation Army (ULFA, NSCN, PLA). North-East insurgent groups like the PLA and NSCN follow the Maoist ideology and were even trained and supported by China in the 1960s and 1970s.

"SIMI

"It has emerged that the Naxals have openly supported the activities of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and both have been lately collaborating with each other.

"Nepal 

"Naxalite groups in India have tried to sustain their fraternal and logistic links with Nepal’s Naxals. The outfits of India, along with Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), have decided to work towards carving out a ‘Compact Revolutionary Zone’. The Indian groups have been extending moral, material, and training support to CPN (Maoist) cadres in guerrilla warfare, which has resulted in significant growth of Naxal violence since 2001. Cooperation between Naxals active in Nepal through Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, up to Andhra Pradesh, has provided the left extremists contiguous areas to operate, move, hide, and train.

"South Asia

"The Maoist groups of four South Asian countries, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, have joined hands to form the Coordination Committee of the Maoist Parties of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) to advance ‘People’s War’ in South Asia. The objective of the Committee is to unify and coordinate the activities of the Naxal parties and organizations in South Asia and spread protracted People’s War in the region."

Noticeable exclusion is Pakistan. 

WHY????? 

Because it's about loot, and there's nothing left to loot there, junta having finished it themselves? 

Or is ISI an integral part of maoist organisation's, like PLA, providing slogans and large stones where latter provides booklets and weapons?

Oh, here it is! 

"ISI Links

"The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been very active in Nepal and Bangladesh for long, especially along the borders, in their desire to encircle India and is giving support to numerous Indian militant groups based in Bangladesh. The ISI does not hesitate in providing moral and material support to these groups. This bond has been mutually beneficial to both the parties, as the left-wing extremists receive weapons from the ISI to be used against the Indian State.

"LTTE Links 

"The Naxalite linkage with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) dates back to the 1990s when it was estimated by the intelligence agencies that the PWG used to acquire weapons, especially AK-47 assault rifles, from this organization. In the present context, the Naxalites are actively involved in Tamil Nadu with the discovery of a training camp organized by former PWG Naxals in the Periyakulum forests in Tamil Nadu. It has led security agencies to suspect a renewed nexus between the Naxals and the LTTE.

"Revolutionary International Movement 

"The PWG maintains constant touch with the Maoist groups of 27 countries through the Revolutionary International Movement. A Turkish Maoist organization is known to have undertaken the task of publishing PWG activities through an Internet website.

"Linkage with Left-Wing Philippines Groups 

"A few media and intelligence reports from Southeast Asia state that the Naxalites in India have also developed links with the left-wing extremists of the Philippines, and through them, with other groups of Southeast Asia. The increasing expansion of Naxalism got further strengthened with covert support from other groups with a similar ideology in the Indian subcontinent. India’s ‘all weather adversary’ Pakistan has grasped the opportunity provided by Naxalism to further increase unrest in India and re-emphasize its dictum of ‘bleeding India by thousand cuts’."

................................................................................................

"The US State Department's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism has found that going by the number of terror attacks and the number of killings of innocent citizens every year from 2012 until now, the big-five terror group consists of the IS, Taliban, Boko Haram, al Qaeda, and the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

"I wonder why Naxals are called rebels or insurgents and not terrorists. I look for the most acceptable definition of terrorism ... "

" ... Naxals are terrorists and Urban Naxals are intellectual terrorists, a point the mainstream media and intelligentsia always love to ignore.

"The entire history of Naxalism is based on armed struggle. Their Strategy document clearly talks about an 'armed war' against the State and finally establishing their government in 2025 by toppling a democratically elected government through the barrel of the gun. For Naxals, socio-economic justice is just an instrument to cover up their terrorism against the State. They support everything that negates Indian nationhood, be it secessionists in J&K, insurgents in the North-East, radical Islamic groups or armed ethnic groups.

"In an interview in 2007, Ganapathy, the Secretary-General of CPI-Naxals asserted, ‘We see the Islamic upsurge as a progressive anti-imperialist force in the contemporary world. It is wrong to describe the struggle that is going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya as Islamic fundamentalism. Our party supports the Islamic upsurge.’ Commenting on the 26/11 massacre of Mumbai, Bimal, Politburo member, was quoted in Hindustan Times, saying: ‘We do not support the way they attacked the Victoria station, where most of the victims were Muslims. At the same time, we feel the Islamic upsurge should not be opposed as it is basically anti-US and anti-imperialist in nature. We, therefore, want it to grow.’

"Varavara Rao, referring to North-East insurgencies, stated on May 13, 2007: ‘This is a time for all revolutionary, democratic, and nationality movements, like the ones in Kashmir and the North-East, to unite and something will come out of this unity’.

"The Naxals stand against India’s sovereignty, unity, democratic polity, and civilizational values and hence, will have to be fought and defeated at all planes – ideological, political, and physical."

................................................................................................

"Ajit Doval, the current National Security Advisor, has written that the Naxals have targeted democratically and legally elected politicians to prove their vulnerability and to erode the legitimacy and credibility of the system. He writes, ‘Their attacks on police and para-military forces are aimed at demonstrating that the coercive power of the government is a myth as it is not even able to protect itself. Their holding Jan Adalats, imposing fines, and dictating terms for talks are calculated to undermine the government’s ability to enforce its writ and authority and give credibility to their propaganda that government is only a “paper tiger”. On the contrary, the State has been able to do little to demolish the contrived self-image of the Left Extremists as saviours of the people. The discordant voices within the government and display of confusion and indecisiveness immensely boost their morale. While the far-flung, tribal areas are in the news because of incidents of violence, what is lesser known is their fast-spreading influence in urban suburbs, among the trade unions, unemployed youth, students etc. much beyond the tribal areas.’"

Was this after 2014 that he said this? 

................................................................................................

"I have no doubt in my mind that Naxalism is the biggest threat to India, bigger than Pakistan and China. Such links are not possible to maintain from the jungles of Dantewada. Where is their strategic hub?

"All the research points to Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) as the most active urban Naxal centre. Some of the organizations in Delhi that are under the scanner are the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), Committee for Release of Political Prisoners, Democratic Students Union, Nari Mukti Sangh, People Democratic Front of India, and Mehantkash Mazdoor Morcha. Many of their members are said to be active in towns adjoining Delhi like Gurgaon and Ghaziabad."

Not JNU?

................................................................................................

"Intelligence agencies stumbled upon the Naxals' strategy of setting up urban bases in cities like Delhi in 2009, with the arrest of Kobad Ghandy from Delhi, allegedly responsible for recruiting people from urban centres. More recently, Hem Mishra, a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, was arrested by Maharashtra Police for allegedly helping Naxals. His arrest followed a search at the residence of G.N. Saibaba, a professor at Delhi University.

"Delhi being the media centre of India attracts all kinds of intelligentsia. Another reason for such high concentration of intelligentsia is that all central research and policy agencies are here and these agencies were used by the Congress government to employ intellectuals and use them to give an ideological endorsement to their political narrative. Since Sonia Gandhi's politics align with the left, it is but natural that most of these people are Naxal sympathizers. The 'ecosystem' that Sonia Gandhi has nurtured consists of such intellectuals, eminent journalists, historians, and above all NGO heads."

About the said leanings of congress or its president, the seeming left inclination us only a convenient pose. 

"The next big question spinning in my head is about the bloodline of this movement – money. Money is one of the most important factors helping extremists to acquire weapons and explosives, raise their cadre strength by recruiting youth on regular salaries and carrying out mass mobilization programmes. They are reportedly collecting sixteen hundred crore rupees a year, which is big money for carrying out armed insurrection in an impoverished area.  Where do they get it from? Is it possible that the money is routed through NGOs since no one questions them?

"To further the military objective of the revolution, the Naxals surely would strengthen their cyber-warfare strategy. This is where students are most effective. They are cleverly using universities and colleges, which attract students from weaker sections, as easy sanctuaries for insurgents to thrive in the cities. Panic buttons need to be pressed right now, else the spread of the invisible Naxals in the sprawling towns and cities of India could shape up as a major destabilizing factor in future."

................................................................................................

"We see Naxalism in a new light. Thus far we had known about the clash between these two Indias intellectually. Now we have seen it actually. The poker-playing India will always choose Naxals over tribals as tribals have nothing to give. We are disturbed. And angry. 

"The days of the narrative that people pick up guns because of oppression and haplessness are over. Guns today are an organized business. With profits."

"The Times of India of April 11, 2010, reported: ‘The Jawaharlal Nehru University campus became a battleground on Friday night when members of disparate student organizations clashed over what was seen as an attempt to support the Naxalites and “celebrate” the massacre of 76 CRPF men. Members of Democratic Students Union (DSU) and All India Students Association (AISA) organized a meeting to celebrate the killing of 76 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh. They were even shouting slogans like “India murdabad, Maovaad zindabad”.’"

So JNU character isn't evolved post 2014, but was so in 2010, even 1986! 

"Inspector General of police, Bastar range, SRP Kalluri has gone on record, as reported by India Today, as saying, ‘I felt disappointed when I came to know that celebrations were held at JNU (by some students) after the killing of seventy-six jawans in the forest of Tadmetla in 2010.’ 

"Under the headline ‘Naxals have a new address: Jadavpur University’, The Indian Express of Dec 10, 2010, reports that ‘Kanchan, the arrested CPI (Maoist) state secretary, has reportedly told the security agencies that a recruitment process is on for the outfit's military wing and Jadavpur University has emerged as a major centre for the cadres. Also, the Naxals are believed to have a backup module among the university students. Kanchan has reportedly also said that 12 students from (Kolkata’s) Presidency College are working actively as CPI (Maoist) cadres in Lalgarh.’

"Hindustan Times of March 28, 2010, carried a column with the headline ‘1970s revisited? Kolkata youth back in Naxal fold’. The report interviews an IB officer, involved with tracking Maoist activities, who says, ‘This trend is alarming. Many student and youth activists in the city campaigning for Lalgarh have visited the jungles and undergone arms training.’"

................................................................................................

"The last few months have kept India occupied with shocking and repeated revelations from campuses of renowned educational institutes like Hyderabad Central University (HCU), IIT Madras, JNU, Osmania University, Jadavpur University, Delhi University, Bhagalpur University to name only a few. The common thread in all these institutes-turned-battlefields is a protest against the ruling government in India in the name of Constitutional principles and democratic values. A closer look at all these cases reveals that there is no suppression of ‘democratic principles’ by the government. However, a picture has been painted so. Some faculty members too tried to escalate these protests through their active participation or supportive roles. All this left the common man of this country wondering ‘How did students turn anti-India?’ ‘What is suddenly wrong with all these universities and institutes?’"

This book was published in 2018, as per a beginning page. These eruptions had begun perhaps sooner, but certainly post 2014 elections brought fresh hope and breath to nation. It'd been clear even then that they were for creating circumstances forcing the new government to roll tanks, by provoking enough. 

In this, they'd failed. 

" ... a senior IPS officer from the Andhra cadre explained to us how urban Naxalism is seeping into our cities faster than we can imagine. ‘In the cities, the frontal “mass organizations” are generally manned by ideologues, who include academicians and activists, fully committed to the party line. Such organizations ostensibly pursue human rights related issues and are also adept at using the legal processes of the Indian State to undermine and emasculate enforcement action by the security forces. They also attempt to malign the State institutions through propaganda and disinformation to further the cause of their “revolution”. Whenever an incident like this happens, a sympathetic media protects them by blaming the forces. What they don’t know is that the forces are extremely professional now and do not indulge in civilian contact.’

"He details the mechanics of ‘Mass Mobilization’, ‘as it will consequently lead to “Party Building” for them which will be proletarian vanguard in the revolution and through which they can build a “United Front” and perform military tasks for the guerilla warfare in the areas surrounding cities where they have established their base or which are also known as “Liberated Zones”. Naxals form own organizations. Underground secret organizations which may not fit within the ambit of democracy, and open revolutionary organizations and legal democratic mass organizations, which can work within the ambit of democracy and law. They also infiltrate existing mass organizations and try to get into leadership roles to support their anti-State “revolutionary” agenda. They build several types of mass organizations simultaneously. From these mass organizations, individuals are selected, brainwashed into supporting and becoming members of the Maoist party. Mass organizations are the fodder for their party building in urban areas.’

"The Maoist documents have illustrated the hierarchy of mass mobilization in a compact flowchart."

Agnihotri gives a diagram, which includes writers' forums. Reminds one of the one in Delhi that is fraudulently and inappropriately named using the term algebra while having nothing to do with facts, truth or mathematics. 

Did they imply they'd bring enforced equality, somehow, using that term? Between facts and lies? 

"The IPS officer has spent a good time in the Greyhound force and has nabbed more than a dozen Naxalites. ‘I can smell them, irrespective of where they are hiding: in a forest or in a university,’ he says with a smile while relishing the smell of charcoal on the southern spices of the marinade."‘

"If you want to understand the smartness of their strategy, just see how seamlessly an individual converts from being a participant in a mass protest to a loyal party member. The most interesting part is that most participants don’t even know that they are part of the activist groups or party factions. The participants usually think that they are working for the betterment of democracy.’

"His insights were real and extremely useful for the film. We learn that the aggressive, enthusiastic and active candidates are selected for activist groups. They are indoctrinated and made party members. ‘Activist Groups’ is the first level of selection and a transitory phase, post which, selected activists enter the party cell and start working as Party Member."

................................................................................................

"One more important dimension for the Naxals’ focus on urban areas in the last few years is the recruitment ebb they are facing in tribal areas as tribals understood the hollowness of Maoist ideology due to the violence and harassment they experienced over last forty years. Naxals are not getting recruits for their dalams, the units in their Armed Guerilla Force. The number of surrenders has gone up manifold. Migration is highest in Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra as the youth there do not want to join the Naxal movement and they cannot go back to their villages due to fear of Naxals."

................................................................................................

"The history of students’ and teachers’ association with Maoism is as old as the movement itself. Youth and labour are the backbone of the Maoist movement. The Strategy and Tactics of Indian Revolution mentions the following about students’ role in the Maoist movement. 

"‘Among the urban petty bourgeoisie, students and youth constitute an important category. They react to the events and historically from the anti-British movement they played a significant role. In the wake of Naxalbari, their role is exemplary. Our party has good experience in organizing them. While working in urban areas, we must pay necessary attention to organize them… There is a need to emphasize the necessity of uniting with intellectuals. We need to allot sufficient cadre to work among them and some special effort be put to unite and organize them.’

"‘Our forces are capable of defeating any enemy provided we can see him. How does one fight an invisible enemy who can be even your brother or your son?’ the IPS officer took a pause, emptied the last few drops from the bottle of Old Monk in his glass and said with a smile, ‘or even your wife?’ 

"I didn’t tell him that I have seen such invisible enemies and that I have been a part-time recruit."

................................................................................................

"I am looking for an issue that can trigger off the spirit of activism in my protagonist. The humiliation of my table tennis friend at the two-wheeler stand in my college in Bhopal is fresh in my mind. To add to this, recently, in a Mangalore pub, a right-wing extremist group, Sri Ram Sene, led by Pramod Muthalik had beaten up some girls and pulled them out by their hair, for drinking and dancing and therefore violating Indian culture. 

"Subsequently, a consortium of 'Pub-Going, Loose, and Forward Women' started a ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign on social media. The novel form of protest was initiated by four women: Nisha Susan, Mihira Sood, Jasmeen Patheja, and Isha Manchanda. As the protest grew, pink underwear started pouring in from locations all over India in solidarity and thousands of pink chaddis were sent to Mutahilik's house, on Valentine's Day.  

"This campaign made an impression on me and helped me understand the power of social media. I want to use this real-life example to show how urban, modern, and educated girls are treated in our society. ... "

Anyone who highlighted that last sentence, is looking at things at the most superficial, shallowness level. Surprisingly, that includes Agnihotri, perhaps due to the trauma he suffered as a result of treatment of his friend. 

But anyone with slight distance from pubgoing crowd and familiar with India North of Vindhyas would know basic facts of life of females in India, and the huge difference between North versus South in that respect. 

In Delhi, the capital, college going girls weren't safe even in daylight in public buses and on roads. Not even with the said bus filled with "uncles", office commutrrs, most of them residents of out central government colony suburbs, colleagues and neighbours of our parents. 

If a boy bothered a girl in any way, they were silent, ignoring it. If she screamed and cried after he hit her back when she slapped him for groping, they spoke on his side. 

Later one saw lives of working women and housewives who weren't safe, either, whether going to work or simply through a neighbourhood market for necessary shopping for vegetables. This wasn’t limited to Delhi. Allahabad was worse, Lucknow the worst. Are other cities and villages North of Vindhya better? Perhaps, if at all, in erstwhile Maratha empire regions. 

But a clinching evidence here is Hindu weddings as routinely conducted, North versus South of Vindhya. 

A parallel example is the lightening speed with which hindu religious rituals are conducted in Gia, unlike the peaceful settled pace in Marathi or Tamil speaking regions, generally everywhere in regions of West or South India. This is result of centuries of Portuguese regimes oppression of Hindus, where police would arrive to disperse any such gathering and destroy the locale. 

Throughout the regions that were predominantly subjugated by islamic invaders, such weddings are conducted at night, and the bride departs early morning, with hardly one other female for company amongst the bridegroom party consisting chiefly or entirely of males. 

This speaks of a society used to abductions of young females by islamic invaders,  and need to conduct the wedding in dark, departing before light with dozens of msles protecting the few women. 

Weddings in South are, in extreme contrast, a feast for eyes of strangers, through the day and beginning the previous evening. In villages they used to be minimally week-long events. 

Bridegroom party does in South have all female relatives too, mother of bridegroom being of tremendous importance as someone to please. 

But one major ceremony is the previous evening procession of women, as friends and relatives of the bride, all decked with flowers on hair and sumptuous gold and diamond jewellery, carrying platters of fruits, accompany the bride to a local temple, to pray for success of this marriage beginning next morning with wedding rituals. 

And the wedding is conducted at first light with people waking up before dawn to bathe and dress up, with sunrise usually seeing the new couple married. 

But thereafter it's not a hurried departure a la North. Celebration continues through the day, guest arriving for a morning felicitation as per Indian tradition, staying for lunch if invited, or an evening reception a la West with a minimal offering of a snack, a drink, perhaps ice-cream. This is the tapering off, before departure. The big events are the wedding at or before sunrise and the feast at lunch. 

In Maharashtra it was routine to conduct a parade of the couple through town, in a flower bedecked automobile proceeding very slowly while rest of family - rather, Two families - walked with them. 

So before one sympathizes with plight of pubgoing rich females, one needs to know that poor and middle class females North of Vindhya are safe going out yo school, college, work, shopping and even just for a stroll. 

Before conducting sympathy sessions for the pubgoing, know this - one, it's not about "urban, modern, and educated girls", few of whom go drinking in pubs; that campaign was generated by support from the loss to business of sellers of liquor. 

Nobody profits by conducting a campaign for rights of women to education, work or freedom from attack in public. Hence the plight of most women is invisible. Unheard of. 

When we were discussing it a couple of times with a visitor from North, their reaction was almost identical. Why foes a Ekman need to go out, was the response from male from Allahabad, late 1970s. Younger female from Delhi in early years of the new millennium said Delhi was perfectly safe, she usually only went out with other girls who lived nearby. 

But she was working in Bangalore, not in Delhi. 

................................................................................................

"As a CSR activity, the professor mentors a pottery club run by his wife, Sheetal. The pottery enthusiasts make pots which are purchased by the government and the monies raised are donated to an NGO working in Bastar for tribal welfare. The NGO is run by Charu, the professor’s protégé.

"This idea of the Potters’ Club came from my growing up days. I grew up in a colony of IAS and IPS officers. My father was the only educationist amongst them. I remember, many IAS officers’ wives used to run pottery or handloom workshops, where they would get poor potters or weavers to create products to be sold in exhibitions as a formality and the remaining produce, the bulk of the total production they would sell to their husband’s department. No other country can match us in inventing novel ways of corruption. Sheetal Batki is a similar middle-aged, bored housewife, who uses her husband's office for profit and to look empowered and busy. Ironically, her need to create a social space separate from her husband’s, depends on her husband's official position. Sheetal Batki is an arts graduate who worked as a curator in Delhi’s Modern Art Gallery and then married a much older professor, Ranjan Batki. To kill her time, she started pottery with the tribal artisans and using her husband’s influence she sells it to the government’s department of social welfare. The money raised is then donated to an NGO, Green Commando.

................................................................................................

"They say writing a script is half the battle won. Once you start casting, you learn that the real battle has begun now."

"I am going to cast the professor first – Anupam Kher. 

"Back in the late 90s, when I wanted to diversify from ad filmmaking to directing television shows, Kher saab gave me a platform. ... My first serial was called Yeh Kahan Aa Gaye Hum. It was a musical thriller, for almost all episodes had songs and it boasted of being India's first digital TV show (in those times U-matic and Betacam were in fashion) and a stellar star cast consisting of Pallavi Joshi, Nikki Aneja, Girish Malik, Renuka Shahne, Makrand Deshpande, Rohini Hattangadi, Tinu Anand, Sulbha Deshpande and many young TV stars. There was a tall boy who I had seen struggling to work in Pallavi's earlier serial Aarohan. I had liked him a lot, so I cast him in a leading role. He later became a superstar in the South. He was R. Madhavan."

" ... Home TV was headed by Karan Thapar, who had a concept of how a CEO of an entertainment channel should behave and dress up but he had no idea about the qualities a CEO must possess. ... In the several meetings that I had with Karan, I could sense that his reason for commissioning the serial had nothing to do with its content but with the fact that he wanted to use it as a bait for Kher saab to do a chat show for his channel.

"In those days, film celebrities weren't keen on doing TV and Karan was going out of his way to persuade Kher saab. These were my first learnings in the film industry. I learnt that the content is secondary and personal benefits are supreme. ... Once he got Kher saab committed to a chat show, Karan's behaviour changed. For one of the meetings, which could have been done on phone, he insisted that I meet him in his Delhi office. ... He made us wait for hours – the first sign of territorial assertion. Finally, we met him. He was dressed like a typical bada saheb from the colonial era with a twist in the colours. He wore a greyish suit and a bow with pink stars. His socks were fluorescent pink and yellow with parrot green polka dots. He spoke at length about how he wanted to revolutionize Indian TV. Every wannabe has a role model. In Karan's case, it was BBC. He told me that my serial was of BBC standard but it had a problem which he wanted to fix.

"‘Vivek, I like the serial but I have a problem with the casting,’ Karan took me by surprise. 

"‘But this is the best casting possible… it's like a casting coup.’ 

"‘Rest are fine, but I don't like Pallavi.’ 

"‘What? Really?’ 

"‘Yeah, change Pallavi.’ 

"‘Why? She is a TV star and national award winner. She is one of the best we have got.’ 

"‘But she is dark. I want someone fair,’ Karan said without hesitation."

"‘Goodbye, Mr. Thapar’. 

"As expected, Karan shelved the serial. In times like these, producers choose to side with the channels. Kher saab stood by me. And it was his unconditional support that helped me get the serial commissioned by Zee TV within the next few days. Yeh Kahaan came to be known as one of the most stylish serials ever. During that period, I learnt a lot from Kher saab, especially his positive attitude and fearlessness, and made a bond for life."

................................................................................................

"‘I have no issues with negative characters. Some of my best roles are negative.’ 

"‘Yes, I know, but it's not that kind of negative.’ 

"This catches his attention. 

"I narrate the script to him. He listens quietly. Narration is a very tricky task. In Bollywood, stars don't read scripts. They mostly listen to narrations. Narrating a film to a star is something almost every director hates. Stars are so bored, so uninvolved that every moment feels like death. I have never understood why stars are so uninterested in their core job. But actors like Kher saab are a delight to narrate the script to. ... They are involved. They react. They don't judge.

"I finish the narration in precisely forty-five minutes. Experienced actors decide in the first ten minutes of the narration. As soon as I finish, he takes a deep breath and relaxes in his chair.  

"‘Kya aatma ki shanti ke liye bana rahe ho?’

"‘Don't know about soul but I am making it because truth must be told… that's all I know at this moment.’ 

"‘Marwaoge,’ he smiled in his typical style and added, ‘Punditji, I am doing your film.’"

"I have learnt that once someone buys your sales pitch, you should leave immediately. My problem is I want to request him to give me a discount on his price and I don't know how to approach the subject. Finally, I give in. 

"As I am about to leave, he stops me. 

"‘Vivek, don't worry about money. I'll talk to Bhaskar. You must know why I want to do this film. I want to do this film because I can see the hunger in you.  In every director's life comes a point when he finds his sur, his song. This film is your song. I can feel it.’

"I am speechless. Not because of the praise. I have no words to describe the feeling when a creative person understands your inner voice."

"Bhaskar calls me at night. Instead of negotiating any fees with me, he asks me to give whatever we could afford. 

"‘In fact, Kher saab said that if there is anything we can do to help you make this film, please do not hesitate to ask.’ 

"Anupam Kher is a good man and such moments are rare in this industry. I am going to cherish it and miss him, especially at times when I am going to miss good men."

................................................................................................

"Suddenly, I don't want to party. I am feeling relaxed after a long time. I am hopeful. I know in my guts that this party can only disturb that. I call the valet and ask him to get my car. As I wait for the car I realize two things: 

"One, whatever quality this industry produces is because of people like Shanoo who want good films to be made. It's due to the indirect contribution of such people that we make some good films. When your intent to make a good film is firm, you start attracting such people in your ecosystem. The people we find in our lives are there to help us actualize an intent.

"Two, I have met Shanoo only outside bars."

................................................................................................

" ... Satya, my associate director and editor, has auditioned more than a hundred people for the small but very important roles of the Naxal leader and the Salwa Judum official. Both the characters have to speak in their native language and must look like they haven't been out of the jungles in ages. He shows me shortlisted tests but none are working.  Most of them are too urban with big biceps. Those who are good actors look well-fed and successful. The film begins with both these characters and the actors will have to hold the scene for almost fifteen minutes. You can't just select anybody as the opening batsman."

" ... This fusion of styles is so funny that one can't just stop laughing. Other assistants also come in to participate in this laugh riot. I am feeling lighter after laughing for the five minutes of audition. Then, something strikes me. 'Why do we laugh when we meet real people?' 

"This man can easily be an RTO officer or a food inspector in a village in Chattisgarh. He is perfect for that role. Why can't he be a Salwa Judum official? A man who has always lived in the jungles and has no urban influence would look funny in an urban setting. I ask everyone to shut up and play the tape again. The 'De-stress' folder literally de-stressed me. I also find my Naxal leader in an actor called Gopal Singh. He is in the 'de-stress' folder too for he is very skinny and tall. Since the assistants see only well-built people for auditions, they found him very funny. The sad part of the film business is that we spend so much time with the unreal that when faced with the reality, we find it funny. His lanky figure is my asset. Normal thinking dictates a Naxal leader to be like a dacoit – well-built and strong. I know that these Naxals have to survive for weeks on red ant chutney. Gopal’s skinny frame becomes his asset. Indel’s ruralness becomes his asset. One never knows when his weaknesses can become his assets. I have found both my actors."

................................................................................................

"We still have to cast for Sheetal, the professor's wife. For Sheetal, I had met a couple of reputed senior actresses but they were not willing to compromise on their fees. ... I wasn't surprised at all when this tall, sultry, award-winning actress who has done a lot of commercial films but is known for her arty roles, told me that all she cares about is money and if I could get her the desired money I don't even have to bother about narrating the story or the character to her."

Is Agnihotri refraining from naming a descendant of an Aligarh professor, mentioning the powerful names being taboo? 

"It's a nuanced role that deserves an experienced actor who can subtly draw the line between her outgoing, flirtish behaviour and her deep empathy for a cause. I don't have many choices. In fact, none."

................................................................................................

"I have many guests at home. My house parties are famous for long discussions on films, politics and spirituality, and Bhopali meat. Very often, these discussions turn into arguments. Today's argument is about the CWG and 2G scams. Like always, it shifts from politics to films. I am always at the centre of any discussion but today I am just not interested. It's like noise. I am thinking about my immediate problems at hand. How do I adjust the fifty-lac gap in the budget and where do I find my Sheetal? I excuse myself and shift to my study and start juggling with the budget on my laptop. Knowing well that this exercise won't lead me anywhere. I am dejected, frustrated and stressed. 

"I call Ravi and tell him that there is no way I can cut down the budget. 

"‘Should I stop casting? What's the point if we can't afford these actors?’ I share my worries with Ravi. 

"‘No, Vivek, we just can't do that.’ 

"‘How can you have the cake and eat it too? Either you can have these actors or the budget.’ 

"‘What do you think we should do?’ 

"‘There is no point making a film on this subject if the audience can't invest in the characters and therefore the actors become crucial for the film to communicate with the audience.’ 

"My problem is what should be the problem of any filmmaker: how to communicate through casting? All the research, hard work, creativity, scripting and money go waste if the cast is not right. Good casting can sometimes save even a bad film but not the other way around."

"‘Vivek, you go ahead with the casting, I'll write to all ISB alumni and more AIKYA families. I'll also try for sponsors but you go ahead, I'm sure something will work out,’ Ravi tries to assure me. 

"‘What if nothing works out?’ I ask Ravi.  

"‘We haven't come thus far to stop here. We have come thus far to go further,’ Ravi tells me."

"Suddenly, there is silence outside. I go out to check if everyone has left. I come out to find everyone engrossed in Pallavi's singing. She is singing Faiz Ahmad Faiz's revolutionary poem: 'Hum Dekhenge… Lazim hai ke hum bhi dekhenge, wo din ke jis ka wada hai, jo lauh-e-asal mein likha hai… hum dekhenge' We shall witness, it is certain that we too, shall witness the day that has been promised, of which has been written on the slate of eternity.

"This is one of my favourite nazms and it also has a nostalgic connect as it was introduced to me by a Pakistani girl whom I almost married. Besides being a poet and a great singer, she was a Communist and during Zia Ul Haq's tyrannical dictatorship she went underground and spent a lot of time with me in Delhi. When I had visited Lahore, she gave me a cassette with the live recording of this nazm sung by Iqbal Bano. Pallavi learnt this song from that recording I had saved despite the invasion of CDs. Pallavi notices me and smiles at me. Such moments, when a singer looks at you in the audience and without speaking, just with the eyes, communicates the highest form of sharing, are rare and beyond description. Such sharing is not just romantic, it's reassuring and soulful.

"I sit down and surrender myself to amazing lyrics of Faiz and Pallavi's soulful voice. Slowly, all my stress and frustration is disappearing. Long after the song is over and others have started singing, I keep looking at Pallavi and wonder why was I looking for the diamond all over the planet when it was in my own house.

"Why did I not think about casting Pallavi in Sheetal's role? After we got married, Pallavi decided to focus on our children and from working round the year without any break she cut it down to just shooting a day or two in a month. From a national award-winning actor and a busy star, she had chosen to become a wife and a mother. That was her choice but why did I choose to forget how fabulous an actor she is? In marriage, the biggest blunder we make is that we forget the core values of a person for which we marry him/her. I stand guilty.

"I call Rohit to share my eureka moment."

"‘Sir, I was wondering what if Pallaviji plays Sheetal?’

"I just can't believe it. Ideas float in the universe. People who are tuned on to a certain intent catch those ideas, often at the same time. Both Rohit and I were focused on a problem and, therefore, we could get the same idea at the same time. Coincidence? Or the unfolding of a design? 

"It's not easy to convince Pallavi. She asks lots of questions, not to judge you but in order to understand the subject and the character. I know Rohit hates it but we have no other option. She is also reluctant to leave the kids with the domestic help for a thirty-day-long outdoor schedule. It takes a lot of convincing before Pallavi agrees to make a comeback in films. After marriage, this is the first time I am going to direct Pallavi. A rare opportunity for a husband to direct his wife. And a great opportunity to work with such an accomplished actor. "

................................................................................................

"Finally, I have a cast in hand.  I call it a day."

"‘Sir, what about the Adivasi?’ Satya runs behind my car to remind me. 

"‘You don't bother about him. I have already found him.’ 

"'Who is he?’ 

"I remember Buddhe, the Adivasi who had been my guide during the research. Nobody can understand what he speaks. It's impossible to direct him as he doesn't understand what we speak. But there is one thing that only he has. His eyes speak. Like an uncorrupted Adivasi.  

"The real Adivasi."

................................................................................................

"Rohit meets me again but this time with a tall gentleman with a deep baritone. His name is Ravinder Randhawa. He is Swara’s live-in partner.  Their band Swang primarily creates leftist music, about the oppression of the tribals, jungle, and zameen, and other forms of class struggle. I have heard such songs in Kabir Kala Manch’s functions. Swara was singing some of these songs at the FTII golden jubilee function. After talking to Ravinder for some time, I realize that his politics is very clear in his head. He strongly believes in his radical leftist ideology and doesn’t care about another point of view. Strangely, the way Rohit and Ravinder have interpreted the film is not what I am making. My idea is to expose such people who support, overtly or covertly, the Naxal movement and here I am sitting with such persons asking them to do music for my film. I am stuck in a very delicate situation. 

"‘Look, I am not sure if you would like to work in this film as it’s opposite of the ideology you follow,’ I warn them. 

"‘This is our professional work and that is our personal belief and we won’t mix those two,’ Ravinder and Rohit both speak almost together."

This Rohit Sharma isn't son of Shivkumar Sharma, was it?

"This is how we legalize hypocrisy. We write against the exploitation of women and at the same time we accept it in our workplace. The irony of Leftist intellectuals lies in its supporters like Ravinder. Here I am making a film to expose and crush Ravinder’s personal beliefs with a powerful medium like a film and he is willing to contribute to my cause on the pretext of professional ethics. Most of our Leftist leaders and intellectuals do the same. They fight for the weak and the poor and use this for their personal materialistic growth. It is this hypocrisy, disguised as professionalism, that makes them so rich."

" ... Rohit is a powerhouse of talent. So is Ravinder but I am not very comfortable with him as he is very reserved and doesn’t smile. I can’t trust people who don’t smile from their hearts. A smile is the most natural human trait. When someone doesn’t smile, he is behaving in an unnatural manner and one should be cautious of that. Leftists don’t smile much, as if it’s an ideological code. There are various codes that we follow. Some people stay away from non-veg food, whereas some avoid women at any cost. Nazis wore a stiff uniform and a stiff face. They never smiled. Similarly, I have observed that Leftists don’t smile. They have only one expression on their frowning faces – anger. Together, as a group, they give a sense of an army marching forward, in order to stop the ‘motor of the world’. They give an illusion of a mass movement for the empowerment of the weak but in reality, it is a mass movement against development.

"In the Naxal theatre, the antagonist isn’t the oppressor, it’s development. When they oppose development, the victim starts negotiating and that’s when they extort the victim to keep their bank accounts growing. If the ‘motor of the world’ stops, the Naxal movement will be the first victim. Gangsters use guns for extortion, Naxals use ‘anti-development’ protests. ... "

Naxals seem out to prove Ayn Rand correct to the last dot, unless she was just amazingly perceptive, especially regarding so-called leftists by any name. 

" ... Ravinder is reinforcing my findings with his ideas. He is making it sound as if the entire world is suffering. Yes, everyone is suffering, if you look at it from a pessimistic point of view. But if you look at the statistics of last fifty years, you will find clear indicators showing that poverty, hunger, famines, violence, discrimination have all gone down dramatically. Average lifespan has increased, man is more productive, people spend more on humanity. But these people paint a scenario where you feel helpless and in rage want to destroy the system. Exactly like media, which creates an illusion of mass outrage out of some stray individual, agenda-driven opinions.

"I narrate the script and ideology to Ravinder, who very patiently listens but again without a smile. Whenever ideological scenes come, he shifts his body weight. In the end, both of us sit as if a Hindu and a Muslim are sitting together for dinner and someone raises the question of cow. Or a pig. Ideological beliefs are stronger than religious beliefs. There is silence in the room. Before Rohit can break the awkward silence, in that short moment of stillness, I think about using his fire to my advantage. I decide to use ‘anti-thought’. I think whenever we transit to the chapters dealing with the Naxals, I can use his anti-State songs. But to ask him to write ten such songs for free will be absolutely unfair. What if I use Dushyant Kumar or Faiz poetry? Will I need to buy the rights? Aren’t they in the public domain? As I try to articulate these queries in my mind, Rohit smiles and leans forward. 

"‘Sir, what if we use a couple of Faiz songs, some folk songs, and rest Ravinder can write. In that way, I’ll be able to give you a song for almost every bridge.’

"‘What about rights?’ I ask immediately. 

"‘We had contacted Faiz Saab’s daughter in Lahore, we can talk to her again.’ 

"‘Great. Go ahead. But remember, I can’t increase the budget.’ I reiterate my financial limitation so that he doesn’t retain any hope of extra budgets. 

"We get the license from Faiz House for fifty thousand rupees. Instinctively, I want to go ahead even if there is no budget. In the worst-case scenario, I’ll pay out of my pocket and use it in some other film.

"‘Make it fifty-one thousand,’ I tell Rohit when he comes to sign the contract.  I don’t know whether to feel happy for getting such great literary work for so little or to feel sad that such heritage work of masters sells for such a tiny amount whereas trash sells for lacs."

................................................................................................

" ... I find myself walking to the Dean’s office with Ravi and Sandeep. On our way, we have a quick lunch at the canteen. The food is mostly south Indian but delicious. 

"‘How much does it cost you per meal?’ I enquire. 

"‘Dirt cheap…peanuts.’ 

"I make a quick mental calculation and figure out that if we can get the food for the unit at the same rate we will end up saving about two hundred rupees per person per day for hundred and fifty people for thirty-five days which equals a little more than ten lacs. 

"Ravi calls the contractor and we decide to meet after meeting the Dean and in the meantime, he will also work out his logistics. 

"‘Is it possible that we ask the Dean to not charge us for the location and the stay?’ I ask Ravi. 

"‘Impossible. Aamir Khan wanted to shoot 3 Idiots here but they refused. That they are letting us shoot itself is a big exception. Let’s not disturb that.’ Ravi tells me. 

"‘Something needs to be disturbed, if we have to make the film,’ I sigh."

................................................................................................

"‘Ok. Tell me. I have been very curious to know what these young men and women are up to,’ the Dean says with a smile. 

"I tell him the story, trying not to show the professor in a really bad light. He listens patiently with a child-like smile as if exploring a fantastical world of Disney characters. He asks some valid questions. His eyes light up when he hears me narrating how the hero wins the battle not with guns but his ideas. 

"‘Ideas… that’s what we need in this country. Nice, efficient, productive ideas.’ 

"‘Thanks.’ 

"‘Wonderful subject.  I also believe that the Naxal issue has only a business solution.’ He looks at Ravi and adds, ‘Great job. Let me know if you need anything from me. All the best.’"

"‘Actually, we need your help,’ I speak out of turn."

"‘Wait,’ the Dean addresses me. ‘Please tell me how I can help.’ 

"‘If you can give us a discount on the location fee and a rebate on the hostels for the crew’s stay, we can make the film without a glitch.’

"‘Absolutely no problem. I think this film must be made at any cost not because my students are involved in it, it must be made because it’s important.’ 

"He calls the administrative officer. 

"‘They will be shooting a film here. Let them use our facilities with no charge at all and if possible, provide them accommodation for a token amount.’ He looks at me, ‘Anything else?’ 

"‘No. Thanks a lot. I’ll remember this gesture all my life.’ 

"‘But I have one condition.’ 

"The next few seconds of suspense almost kill us. 

"‘I won’t allow generators, cables and lights on the campus.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Mr. Agnihotri, meet me when you are here to shoot. All the best, gentlemen.’ 

"The meeting has lasted only twenty-odd minutes but in these twenty minutes my faith in ‘good people’ has got reaffirmed." 

................................................................................................

"Swara has some questions. ... "

" ... she raises more doubts. As I try to answer her queries, she starts raising issues which I feel are beyond the scope of the script as they aren’t script-related but ideological disputes. ... "

"‘It’s our film, our ideology, our voice. She cannot piggyback her ideologies on us. If she is so convinced about her beliefs, she can make her own film,’ Rohit says and while getting up to leave, he adds, ‘I am not changing a thing in the script even if I have to fight with you forever.’ A convinced and driven co-writer is always an asset.

"‘It’s OK. You don’t have to think too much as I have decided to call her and tell her simply that no script-related changes can be considered at this stage. I am sure she will understand.’ 

"‘Sir, that exactly is the problem. She will understand for the time being as she can’t argue with you but later, while shooting, she will again raise them and she will keep raising doubts as she can never be convinced about a political stand that destroys the very premise of her political ideology.’ 

"This is the first time I have ever looked at an actor as an ideological entity. Aren’t actors supposed to act? Acting means pretending to be someone else and making people believe that you are what you aren’t. 

"‘Sir, if she continues to have issues with every damn thing on the sets, from the vanity van to what the professor says, then we are in big trouble,’ Rohit’s voice has an urgency and serious concern. 

"Deep down, I know that Rohit is making sense. ... "

"I call up my office and ask the production manager to stop Swara’s contract for some time. I have no idea who will replace her. I just can’t think of anyone who will fill into Swara’s shoes at such short notice, especially when I am not in Mumbai. I need to think of someone who will blindly follow me."

................................................................................................

"Rohit tells me that he will send the songs to me before the beginning of the shoot. This is the worst by-product of digital technology – late deliveries. He tells me that if I want another song for the lovemaking situation, it will cost me around three lacs more. 

"‘I just can’t afford it,’ I repeat myself. 

"‘Sir, please try to take out money from somewhere for I can guarantee that a song at that moment will take the film to a different level,’ Rohit pleads."

" ... Rohit suggests that he can sing for free if I want. But I am thinking of a female voice. A female singer who loves me unconditionally. Sometimes, we can’t find our glasses because we are wearing them, exactly like I couldn’t think of the only person who loves me unconditionally and is a great singer to top it. 

"‘Have you heard Pallavi sing?’ I ask Rohit. 

"‘Yes, on TV. But not in person.’ 

"‘You go and meet her today and listen to her. If you like her voice, let’s record it with her. If you have to pay someone for playing the harmonium, forget about him and request Pallavi as she can play the harmonium also.’"

................................................................................................

"Later, on the flight when the stewardess offers me a welcome drink, I ask her to give me a chocolate instead. I want to eat something sweet. Not because it’s customary to eat a sweet after a good act, I actually want to feel like those chocolate commercials, models who look ecstatic after eating chocolates. I want to feel like them. Happy. And ecstatic."

................................................................................................

" ... We are staying on the campus. Everyone is staying in dorms with four independent rooms and a common hall and a kitchen. Saini, the actors and I are living in independent one-room apartments. We are following the lifestyle of the students and most of their timings. Breakfast. Work. Lunch. Work. Chill on the lawns. Beer. Poker. Midnight parties. Sleep for a few hours. 

"My crew tells me that this is the first time they are working without regular shift timings. When you break the working norms, people become relaxed and work for their inner satisfaction. I can see the results. We are knocking off shots at a good speed and with better nuances. It’s more like a picnic. Some people have already started saying that this is the best shoot of their careers."

"Once ready, the shot looks wonderful. I am happy. Just for a moment. When Ravi and Sandeep called these students to be part of the crowd in the bar, he didn’t tell them it can take forever. They assumed that it will be a maximum of a couple of hours. These students work by the clock. They have scheduled stuff to do and now they are getting impatient. Despite a lot of pleading and persuading they aren’t ready to shoot. I use my ‘student’s mind’ and make an announcement. 

"‘Anyone who wants to have chilled beer and just have fun with us can stay and the rest can leave.’ 

"Only ten or fifteen students leave out of a hundred. The rest agree to stay back for two hours on the ups."

In Chhichhore, the gang gave milkshakes. 

"If the students have to be let go in two hours we can’t shoot too many angles. Also, they are not actors. We can’t have too much movement of characters as the focus is very critical and complex in 5D cameras. I decide to shoot the entire scene in one go. This is the advantage of digital technology. I have shot all my films on 35mm film where every foot counts. The band plays real-time. The audience reacts real-time. Aanchal dances real-time. We knock off the entire scene in no time. We still have one hour and a song to shoot. I decide to continue this style of ‘capturing the act’ rather than constructing it.

"It’s a film of students and I have real students whose real behaviour cannot be matched by extras. One of the reasons this scene is working out is because of amazing chemistry between the students and Arunoday. He spent the last couple of days in classrooms and evenings with the students. Also, he looks and talks like one of them. Aanchal is like water. She merges with the environment. I give her dialogues and ask her to speak the way she would speak in real life. The students actually start pulling her leg and the scene turns out to be outstanding. ... "

"Aanchal has no idea how to react to this unusual style of shooting. I say ‘Action’, she gets on the top of her act and dances so naturally that everyone forgets that it’s a shoot. Students are already high with the free beer and no one is performing anymore for the camera. When the camera stops existing in a performer’s mind is when he performs best."

" ... For the first time in my career, I am not thinking of shot division and camera angles or lensing. All I am doing is creating a real situation and asking the actors to behave like the character. It is creating an organic beauty and innocence. Nothing is manipulated. Nothing is forced. The simplicity of the shots is bringing me closer to the truth. The absence of cinematic tricks is making it become more cinematically real.

" ... No set rules, no timings, no discipline. Our film shootings are so stressful and chaotic because everyone is in a panic mode. This happens because of the shift timings. There is a day plan and one has to achieve it within that time so everyone is racing against time. Here, there is no race. No panic. No chaos. Slower is faster. There is only fun and when work becomes fun and fun becomes work, everyone is smiling. That’s exactly what Kher saab noticed when he arrived on the fifteenth day of the shoot. 

"‘Why is everyone smiling?’ Kher saab asks me. 

"‘Because you are here,’ I reply with a smile."

................................................................................................

"‘Kher saab, we always stay in five stars but this time we decided to stay here on the campus and believe you me it’s been such a wise decision.’ 

"‘Yeah… but I am not used to all this.’ 

"‘Why don’t you stay here just for one night? Experience the evening and tomorrow I’ll shift you to a five star. I know it’s not as comfortable but it is a once in a lifetime experience.’ After some thinking, Kher saab agrees. I have ensured that his apartment is in a location where peacocks hang out."

" ... Dattu, Kher saab’s personal assistant, informs me that he wants to meet me. ‘

"Vivek, there are two things I want to discuss with you.’"

"‘Well, first the good news, that I have decided to stay here,’ Kher saab says with a very serious face, and then smiles. I feel so relieved that I don’t wait for a moment before relaying the news to my production manager who sounds so happy that instead of saying ‘wonderful’ or ‘congrats’, he ends up saying ‘have a nice day, sir’."

" ... Good actors can make any camera angle look great but not vice versa. When the scene was being reshot, it felt like it was the professor’s house. Kher saab spent quite some time getting familiarized with every nook and corner of the house. He spent time with the owners and tried to understand how they behaved inside their house. Once I said action, he behaved as if he had been living here for decades and teaching these students for a long time. He owned the place.

"This scene has Pallavi speaking long monologues about the history of pottery. Pallavi was getting stuck at a couple of places because she was trying to put weight in few words. I asked her to speak it like she is narrating an ordinary anecdote without emotionally investing in it. After her take, Arunoday tells me that this is the first time he actually understood the history of pottery. Pallavi is a revelation to me in this film. She has never done a role like this where she is smoking, drinking, flirting with a young man yet has a wonderful relationship with her husband. Where she blindly follows her husband, yet is empowered. Pallavi is playing such delicate nuances with such ease that I feel the industry, including me, has never known her true potential. There was only one exchange of dialogues between Pallavi and Mr. Kher but both of them improvised it into a banter so common in a mature marriage."

................................................................................................

"A phone rings somewhere. Kher saab has left his phone on the table. It’s his dad. I run to give him his phone. When I give the phone to Kher saab, I think why not close the film on a shot where his father calls and the professor confesses his guilt to his father which he can’t do with anyone in the world. His dad is the only factor which hasn’t been resolved. 

"When everything is over for the professor and there is frightening silence in the empty hall, his phone rings. Professor tells his father ‘Sorry, dad.’ 

"The End. 

"One can’t have a better ending than this. Last minute ideas are the finest extract of creative juices. Just two words, ‘Sorry, dad’, resolve everything. The film ends on hope and a desire for forgiveness. Kher saab instantly agrees and we shoot it with such ease."

................................................................................................

"‘OK friends, since everything has turned out so well, if I leave now I won’t feel good. So, I am not going today and I will leave tomorrow and all of you are invited for a party from my side,’ Kher saab throws an open invitation for a wrap party which we had no money for. I owe it to him. 

"It’s 3 AM and the party is still strong. Kher saab pulls me to a corner and puts his hand on my shoulder and smiles. 

"‘Punditji, in my three decades of acting and after doing over 450 films, I have learnt one thing that when a director finds his true calling it starts showing in his work, in his body language and in his eyes. Throughout this shoot I have noticed that spark in you. I think you have found the purpose. You have found your song. Mark my words, this film will change your life. Thanks for casting me and all the best.’ 

"I try very hard to control my tears. As soon as Kher saab leaves, I hide behind a tree and I cry. I don’t know if the tears are flowing because someone finally understood my quest or because I am going to miss this shooting experience or because I have no idea what will happen in the future. I feel like a Buddha, in a traffic jam."

................................................................................................

"The Times of India group has a division called MediaNet. Under this, they sell editorial space in their newspapers. Yes, they sell the editorial space. One can pay and get whatever one likes printed. If you really want to know what is wrong with India, I'd advise you study the MediaNet model of the Times of India Group. 

"They have started a new vertical where they give free coverage to your film in most of their editions and in return they come on board as co-producers, taking fifty percent of the profits. This business is focussed only on small films. Their executives have been chasing me for my film. They are putting a lot of pressure to partner with us. It's a tempting offer for we won't have to spend money on the advertising of the film. It is exploitative but then beggars can't be choosers. Making a non-starrer film in India instantly makes you a beggar and open to exploitation. Like the father of a dusky daughter.

"Right now, I feel like the parent of that dusky daughter and MediaNet appears like that exploitative groom who is only interested in the dowry and not the bride. They are trying every tactic possible to take my film. They are showing me dreams and pretending as if this film is the best thing that happened after the advent of Times of India. Why are they so desperate? Because they are getting fifty percent ownership of the film for doing nothing. Also, they want a 'last in, first out' deal which means they will recover their investment first and then share fifty paise with us from every rupee earned.

"Ravi is after my life to tie up with them. I ask TOI to wait until the first cut is ready but they insist on signing the contract just after seeing a few scenes as a formality. If you are proud of your product, you want people to buy it only after understanding its features. I have been warning them that it's a different kind of film and I do not see any brand fit with TOI's image. But they won't take no for an answer. Also, they smile too much, as if they are pleading."

"One of the executives who wants to write films calls me to say that they haven't taken the film because of its political message. It doesn't surprise me at all as it was obvious. This is how films are commissioned and acquired by the studios. These executives didn’t even see the full film to know what it says. They didn't bother to ask themselves how this film will connect with the audience. They aren't concerned about the people who will eventually pay for the tickets and make them richer but instead, they are concerned about only one person's reaction who happens to be one of the owners of the Times Group: Vineet Jain. If there is corruption and incompetence in thought at such a preliminary stage, then how does one expect these studios to deliver great films? Vineet Jain can become the world's richest and most successful man, but in my eyes, he will always remain the destroyer of the fourth pillar of Indian democracy. He and his elder brother Sameer Jain single-mindedly corrupted and crippled Indian journalism."

"Bombay Times isn't a gossip tabloid. It's a symbol of everything corrupt in our system. If you have money, you can buy space every day and slowly people will start believing that you are a star. That's why people who appear in Times supplements fall flat when their stardom is tested at the box office. Vineet Jain's Medianet is an extortion business, aimed at desperate people who want to be in the news, hiding behind maxims like 'Profit, profit, profit', which is the media equivalence of Bollywood’s 'entertainment, entertainment, entertainment'."

................................................................................................

"We run the film in one go. Slowly, the audience is getting segmented in their responses. Some people react to nuances and some don't react at all. There are very awkward silences at times. Normally, you get to hear a lot of rustling and coughing in theatres but here it feels like everyone is stuck to a posture. I like Arunoday a lot. Aanchal is fantastic. Mahie is awesome, Pallavi is outstanding and Kher saab has anchored the film brilliantly. I make mental notes of parts to be chopped. There is nothing we can touch in the last thirty minutes of the film. 

"I go out the moment Kher saab says sorry to his dad, to receive the guests outside where refreshments are served.

"You know the impact of your film by the energy that people exude after the trial. The energy is very encouraging. A young couple is so moved by the film that they have too many things to discuss. Instead of the film, they want to discuss the politics of Naxalism. Like most of the youngsters in metros, they didn't have much idea about Naxalism before seeing the film. What else can be the purpose of a film? Nobody feels that it's long. The Indian audience is very patient with film lengths but international audiences don't appreciate films that are longer than a hundred and twenty minutes. There is a legend that this length was invented by Alfred Hitchcock ..."

................................................................................................

"It's been more than ten minutes but Suresh, Gopi, and the students haven't come out. I go inside to check and find all of them in a serious discussion. As soon as I enter, I feel wrong energies. When they see me, their expressions change.

"‘Vivek, there are some very serious issues with the film,’ Ravi tells me as if he is the judge and I am the judged."

"‘Vivek, we will think and get back to you but my first reaction is we can't be associated with this film. We are business people. We have to work with everyone. I hope you understand. Whatever is spent is spent, I have no problems and if you want to get funds from somewhere and finish and release the film, please go ahead. But we can't do it. Still, we will discuss and let you know.’"

" ... Gopi hugged me and said, ‘I loved the film. You have made it brilliantly. I am there for any support.’ I know he means it. He adds, ‘I have some connections in a few studios, I'll connect you with them.’ I am experienced enough to understand the real meaning of his last sentence.

"Technically the film is shelved. It is shelved because it worked. It hit them hard. It made them realize that it's a very risky film for their business empire. Their faces had dropped because they knew that their decision was selfish. They were scared to associate themselves with the alternate thought that the film presents. They are mainstream businessmen working with the establishment. They can't upset any groups like politicians, Naxals, Leftists, intellectuals, and media. ... The film scared them. If I had made a cliché film, they would have invested more. Now I have nowhere to go. The shelving of the film would mean all the emotional and intellectual investment that I made goes waste, plus I have no money in the bank. I don't even know how I'll pay my bills.  My heartbeat stops for a moment. I feel I am sinking. I rest on a chair and take deep breaths.

"The lights go off as the booking time is over. 

"I stand alone in the preview theatre feeling exactly like one feels after everyone leaves the cremation ground for you to mourn alone."

................................................................................................

" ... a particular news item, in the ‘States’ page, catches my attention. 

"‘Noted Maoist leader Gudsa Usendi and his wife surrender to Andhra police.’ 

"In another paper, the same news has a different headline: 

"‘Who is Gudsa Usendi, the “invisible” Maoist?’

"I know this name – Gudsa Usendi. I had first read about him when in May 2013, the Naxals killed twenty-seven Congress leaders in one of the most barbarous attacks in the modern history of humanity, in Darbha Valley of Sukma district in the Red Corridor. Some two hundred top Congress leaders including former minister, Salwa Judam founder and an aggressive anti-Naxal activist, Mahendra Karma, Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, veteran Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla, and prominent lady tribal leader Phulo Devi Netam were travelling through the thick jungles of Darbha Valley in a convoy of twenty-five vehicles when they found the road blocked by trees, felled by Maoists. When the cars stopped, the Naxals triggered a thirty-kilogram IED, completely blasting one vehicle and leaving a five-metre crater in the ground. In a panic to escape, vehicles collided with each other. 

"As soon as the vehicles jammed, over two hundred and fifty Naxals opened fire from hilltops on all sides. With no way out, the Congress leaders surrendered. The Naxals made them identify themselves. When Mahendra Karma identified himself, they beat him up, stabbed him repeatedly and sprayed him with bullets. They beat in his head with gun butts. Seventy-eight stab wounds were found on his body. Then they started firing at random, killing most of the leaders. Nand Kumar Patel’s son was also with him. They broke his son’s head with an axe in front of his eyes, stabbed him mercilessly and then kept firing bullets on his corpse. Vidya Charan Shukla’s personal security guard couldn’t bear the beastly killings and shot himself. The survivors have recounted how after the killings, the Naxals, who had a large number of women cadre, danced around the mutilated bodies.

"The Naxals used automatic weapons, a bomb and modern wireless communication throughout the operation.

"A four-page statement was issued by the Naxals, taking full responsibility for the attack and justified it as the punishment for Salwa Judam founder Karma.

"The statement was signed by Gudsa Usendi. 

"Gudsa Usendi was closely in touch with the media, sending audio clips, press notes, updating them about attacks. But no journalist ever met him. No wonder he was also known as the ‘phantom spokesperson’ for the Maoists.

"What really interests me is a statement of Usendi to a reporter, Suvojit Bagchi, in 2010, ‘We have to kill informers. If we don’t kill them, we will not be able to survive.’"

................................................................................................

"An article in the magazine Governance Now says, ‘Gudsa Usendi is just a name: the person using that name changes from time to time. Usendi, those in the know of Naxal operations in the region say, is the title used by the spokesperson for the Dandakaranya special zonal committee.’

"There is a legend that in June 2000, in Potenar village in Abujhmarh, Chhattisgarh, in the middle of the night, police surrounded a hut while hunting for Naxals. Five ultras were killed, of whom one was identified as seventeen-year-old Gudsa Usendi. As if to pay back the compliment, a year after his death, the Naxal spokesperson of Dandakaranya took on Usendi’s name to keep his memory alive. The practice has continued ever since.

"‘Gudsa Usendi is always in the picture but never seen, only read and heard,’ says a former Naxal. ... "

"Gudsa Usendi is the invisible enemy."

................................................................................................

"Three years ago, when I exposed the ‘invisible enemy’ in Buddha In A Traffic Jam, the people who initiated the project dissociated themselves from the film, killing an idea in the womb. They left me alone to struggle with the film. The idea of ‘invisible enemy’ was my interpretation of Urban Naxalism, which they didn’t understand. Instead of encouraging it, they got scared. No wonder. All innovations first scare people. But they weren’t just any people. They were the producers of the film. After two years, once again, I feel convinced about the film’s theme of ‘invisible enemy’ and my belief in the film stands reinforced.

"Suresh never spoke to me after that. The students graduated and took up jobs in multinational corporations. Everyone else I understood, but why did Ravi try to sabotage his own baby? This kept baffling me until I found out that after graduating from ISB, he had started working for Suresh’s LANCO group.

"Two years is a very short time in a filmmaker’s life if he is in the making of his film. But the same two years can feel like a lifetime if he is waiting to release his film. When Suresh refused to fund the film any further, the first feeling that hit me was of denial. Then defeat. Then depression. On the one hand, I was so broke that I was planning to quit films, sell off everything and move to Bhopal. On the other hand, I had invested everything I had in the film – my time, my savings, my experience, my ambition, my thoughts, my feelings and above all my future and my conscience. I was totally spent. Emotionally. Morally. And financially."

................................................................................................

" ... When Kishan asked me to direct this film, I could see an opportunity to make some money to pay my debts and market Buddha. I signed the film with the condition that I would rewrite the entire script. He agreed, she agreed and Bhushan agreed to produce this love story with me, instead of a hate story. I started writing the film and it worked as a detox after an intense film like Buddha, and Hate Story. 

"While I was working on the script, Anubhav Sinha, the director of Ra.One, who used to visit his estranged wife, our neighbour and a very dear friend, asked me if I could help him by directing a film for his new production house. He told me that he had bought the rights of a German psychological thriller which was a very subtle and nuanced film about a homosexual man who gets attracted and then obsessed with his new neighbour. The film explored human emotions, new worlds and the mind of an obsessed person. 

"To suit the Indian market, Anubhav had already changed the protagonist to a girl. ... "

"After I finished a short schedule in Goa and came back to Mumbai, I saw a huge poster of the film standing at the reception of Anubhav’s office. I was flabbergasted to see Barbie standing almost naked in the poster."

"I was stunned. It’s not that I had anything against erotica but I just didn’t want to repeat the genre. Also, I had agreed to make a psychological thriller and not an erotic thriller. I couldn’t believe that a director who never got tired of narrating incidents of how his work in Ra.One was sabotaged by the star-producer and his coterie was doing exactly the same thing."

"I am told Anubhav shot the rest of the film. During its release, he sent a cheque of eleven lacs through the Film Director’s Association’s (IFTDA) secretary Ashwini Choudhary and president Ashoke Pundit. They gave me a single page gagging contract which basically asked me to shut up if someone asks me if I had directed the film or not. Though Ashoke tried a lot to persuade me to take the money, I refused. He said that people forget rifts but money always comes handy. I wasn’t convinced but I promised to keep quiet as my fight was about a principle and not with the film. My fight was with the Gudsa Usendis, the invisible enemies, disguised as producers.

"I got busy with the love story for T Series. It was titled Junooniyat. I signed Pulkit Samrat and Yami Gautam. I shot the first schedule in the Kashmir Valley and Amritsar. When Bhushan and others saw the rushes, they were spellbound. Bhushan told me that he was very ambitious about the film and wanted to market it uniquely. Everyone was very happy. The word spread. Everyone at T Series started talking about the chemistry of the lead actors, the emotions, songs, and photography. I started to prepare for my next major schedule in Patiala and Shimla.

"At the same time, Bhushan’s wife Divya Kumar, fresh from the fluke success of her film Yaariyan, was mounting her next film and was struggling to cast some decent actors. Then came the news that she had signed Pulkit and Yami for the film and my dates were allocated to her film’s schedule.  Same actors, same genre, same production house, same music directors, same locations and same marketing people. How was this possible? When I confronted Bhushan, he told me without any guilt that it was his wife’s birthday and she asked for her film to be released before mine on Valentine’s Day and he couldn’t say no as ‘how can I say no to madam… it’s my birthday gift to her!’ Bhushan’s birthday gift to his wife became my film’s coffin.

"I want to walk off this film but everyone advises me not to. I have one film stuck, another I have left and now leaving this also will seal my career forever as no one likes directors who take stands against a producer’s corruption. The film got postponed indefinitely. Again, I had no money. No work. No hope.

"I sit for a long time looking at the headline ‘Who is Gudsa Usendi, the “invisible” Maoist?’ When I had invested everything I could, to expose Gudsa Usendis, I had no idea that someday I would be surrounded by so many of them – the invisible enemies. They control the narrative here and just won’t let me create an alternate narrative. I feel blank. But this blankness isn’t of defeat. It’s of determination. If I really have the burning desire to tell my story, if Buddha In A Traffic Jam is my purpose, then I’ll have to fight the Gudsa Usendis. I’ll have to tell the story and expose these invisible enemies of India, so the people of my country can finally see ‘Who is Gudsa Usendi?’"

................................................................................................

"When you don’t have a regular job and feel low and confused with life, you tend to indulge yourself in something to escape. Some find comfort in alcohol, some in watching movies, some in overeating, some in excessive shopping, some in depression. I found myself diving into politics. I took to Twitter and Facebook for politics and social commentary. I belonged to a club which is the secular club of Bollywood. Like them, I also hated nationalists and loved Leftist activists. I also believed that in Kashmir, the Army is the real villain. Naxals are fighting for the oppressed lot. Media is a responsible fourth pillar. And the intellectuals are always right. Slowly, I learnt that they are a country of their own, with their own constitution. They are well connected and work with precision to manage a fake secular narrative. Their narrative is fake because their constitution is fake. 

"They mislead people by talking about secularism as an antidote to communalism. I could see through this fakeness. Slowly, I started seeing their hypocrisy and realized that a lot of these intellectuals were directly or indirectly connected with ‘invisible enemies’, working for the same purpose. I started speaking against their constitution. They started avoiding me.

"I could see their hypocrisy because in these two years of desperation and despair, I had travelled a lot. I had decided to write a book and travelling in small towns in India is very cheap. I had got disconnected from my roots and felt secure in the intellectual bubble of Bollywood. I was proud of being creative but I had lost touch with the basic element required to be creative, the earth. Far away from the la-la land of Mumbai, I met a new India and her people, struggling to survive the scorching sun and mammoth corruption. This Indian doesn’t want to leave India because his life is hell. He is in hell because the mainstream narrative is always talking about intangible issues like secularism and never about the education, health, jobs and security of this common man of India. The people I saw on TV and films were not the people I met in real India. The more I travelled, the more real Indians I met and with this new understanding, I reached where I belonged – outside the club.

"Whenever I met people from Bollywood, I felt like a failure. Maybe it wasn’t coincidental but after Hate Story, people’s perception of me got divided. Commercial minded producers, directors, actors started loving me, whereas film-wallas who thought they were here to change the world started avoiding me. Commercial film makers have only one god – Audience; one temple – Box office; and one religion, one ideology – Money. Despite being in a majority, their voice doesn’t find any credence because like other businessmen they don’t want to disturb their equation with their God – the Audience. They believe in destiny and follow the maxim never to underestimate anyone – ‘You never know when someone’s fortune will start shining.’ Till date, I don’t know what caused the club members’ boycott; was it because of the genre of the film or was it due to my rebellion against their fake political ideology?

"The club members are different. Their religion is socialism and secularism. They claim to want equality and justice but their ideology is founded on intellectual discrimination. They start with hating and condemning commercial filmmakers. By increasing the scope of their condemnation for “social evils” and humanitarian issues, their voice finds resonance amongst other intellectuals. They praise, support, and promote one another. They have an impeccable networking system. This system finds its strength by condemning a common Indian’s choices and confronting his beliefs. If he wants to feel proud of his jawans they will accuse the army of atrocities in Kashmir. If he wants to feel happy about his festivals, they will raise the issue of drought and farmer suicide. On Diwali, they raise the issue of pollution and on Karva Chauth, they paint the festival as regressive.

"Through their control over the narrative, they hold common people responsible for disturbing the social fabric and thereby, keep them in perpetual guilt. They create and revel in moral one-upmanship. But life isn’t all about ideological correctness. Ideology is always culture, civilization, evolution, economics, social structure, and geography-specific. They want to deny this fact. They want to be the custodians of a universal moral charter and profess a narrative that protects their elitism.

"We have moved from nationalization to liberalization to globalization but our narrative remains stuck in the 1960s-70s. They hide their regressive ideology behind a fake humanitarian concern in the name of art or indie cinema. All film festivals are their properties. If you are not part of the club, you’ll never be invited to these festivals. David Dhawan, Rohit Shetty, Feroz Nadiadwala and other commercial filmmakers, whose one film makes more money than the films of all the filmmakers of this club put together, are never seen in such festivals. The media loves this club because it helps the media’s agenda. The media gets intellectual support and in return, they get good reviews. They have become the voice of Bollywood. When I started questioning this unfair equation, they started unfollowing me. Then they started blocking me on Twitter. And, slowly, from their lives."

................................................................................................

"Discrimination isn’t always gender, race or colour-based. The most damaging discrimination is of the mind and ideology. I was discriminated against by almost all my Bollywood friends, whom I used to hang around with because, like them, I also believed in a certain ideology but found it fake and alienated from reality, and elitist.

"Everyone needs a villain and Narendra Modi became the media’s and the intellectual gangs’ main villain as 2002 was tailor-made to suit their agenda of secularism. Secularism was nothing but a ploy to attract Muslim votes and keep a control on Hindus from asserting themselves. In order to give it sanctity, the Congress regime under Sonia Gandhi patronized every creative and intellectual voice that helped her further her agenda against a potential contender, Modi, by giving them alms.

"Since I always believed that development is the only solution for India’s economic and social evils vis a vis secularism and that’s what Buddha In A Traffic Jam also professed, it was natural for me to be aligned with Modi’s agenda of development than the Congress’ agenda of secularism. Also, Congress was drenched in the politics of favouritism, sycophancy, and corruption.

"I was the first filmmaker who openly started supporting Modi and this hurt many. Modi was looking very strong and a lot of indicators were predicting his victory. This is when I found a letter signed by some Bollywood personalities, led by screenwriter Anjum Rajabali, that warned Indian citizens of a fascist invasion if they elected Modi. I could not fathom how a democratically elected leader could be called a fascist. Fascism exists when there is no other side of the story. In Modi’s case, only his opponents’ side of the story was in circulation. I could see through their divisive strategy. They were trying to reduce the debate to secularism vs communalism instead of the real issue of development vs corruption. When I raised questions about the intent of the petition signed by the liberal and Leftist filmmakers of Bollywood, out of whom most were non-practicing filmmakers cum activists like Anand Patwardhan, they started labeling me as communal, bhakt and Sanghi. This was that critical point when I should have withdrawn. But I decided to fight and take them on. I called up some journalist friends to write an article against the petition, only to realize they weren’t friends anymore. In these changing times, where mainstream media ends, social media begins.

"With no avenue left, I published a blog titled ‘15 Communal Questions to The Secular Bollywood’, which went viral. The response came from unexpected quarters – the real India. People who couldn’t articulate their thoughts but felt strongly against the intellectual discrimination and fakeness of secularism started connecting with me. Mine was the lone Bollywood voice of dissent against a very powerful cabal of Leftists who wanted Modi’s head. They say that big fires start with small sparks and that you climb Mt. Everest by taking a small step. ... "

................................................................................................

"Here is the blog which started the fire and paved the way to change my social life forever:  

"15 Communal Questions to The Secular Bollywood April 17, 2014 

"Yesterday, certain Bollywood personalities led by my very dear friend and renowned scriptwriter Anjum Rajabali, issued an appeal to the public at large. 

"In their appeal, simply put, they have warned us that India is in grave danger from divisive and communal forces led by a ‘man-they-won’t-name’ (read Modi). These A-lister personalities have reaffirmed their faith in secular nature of ‘their’ India. They have appealed to all Indians to stop these communal forces by voting for only secular parties. In order to save India’s cultural diversity, its pluralism and above all ‘secularism’. 

"Suddenly, it reminded me of Indira Gandhi’s era where she always cautioned us about looming dangers from CIA conspiracies. Then Rajiv Gandhi started warning us against foreign elements trying to destabilize India. Sonia Gandhi led UPA has brought us to this. Where Indians are pitted against Indians. 

"Armed forces and Bollywood are India’s two most secular institutions. Mr. Anjum Rajabali and his ilk, in their obsession with Modi-hate, have betrayed the film industry. I am sorry your appeal has obfuscated us more than enlightening. I have few questions and I am sure you would like to answer to help me help India.

"1. I am going to vote for Modi. Am I secular? Or communal? 

"2. I have decided to vote for the only man who says repeatedly that India is his religion and her Constitution is his holy book. If I vote for ‘that man’, how will I threaten the secular fibre of India? Pl. enlighten. 

"3. Millions of Indians (read Hindus) love Modi. They respect him. Adore him. And some also worship him. Like many worship Shahi Imam of Congress. By hating their leader, calling him a grave danger to India, aren’t you playing a communal card? Aren’t you questioning the judgment of millions? Aren’t you hurting the sentiments of millions? How is your appeal secular?

"4. Secular, as I understand, means that religion should not play any role in governance. If it’s true, then why were you quiet for last 10 years when the ruling party was continuously giving alms to Muslims? Did you and your fellow signatories utter a word when PM M.M. Singh said that minorities have first right over natural resources?

"5. You say India is vulnerable. Yes, I agree. India is vulnerable to poverty, unemployment, corruption, crumbling institutions, terrorism and Naxalism (Coincidentally, I see a lot of your signatories have certified Naxal leanings). What’s your hidden logic that you find ‘secularism’ as the only threat to India and not the above evils? Pl. enlighten.

"6. Do you want me to believe that India will collapse if ‘the-man-you-won’t-name’, Modi, comes to power? You write – ’The need of the hour is to protect our country’s secular foundation’. Some of you are learned men. Where does this ‘secular foundation’ come from? India was always a Hindu nation. Until it was invaded and looted by Moguls, British, and Congress. India has survived that. India is secular because of its Hindu culture. With its millions of gods and goddesses and millions of reincarnations, no one understands secularism better than the natives of this country. If Hinduism wasn’t secular in its DNA, it wouldn’t have survived for thousands of years. It’s the very secular nature of Hindus that it never ever invaded or attacked any other country or civilization. Hinduism encompasses all other faiths and religions and not the other way round. Hindus have let Muslims and British rule us. It’s the Hindu sensibility that has let an Italian run this country for 10 years. There is a Shahi Imam who also appeals to vote against communal forces. Who are these communal forces? Hindus? Or a party which believes in Hindu secularism and is led by ‘the-man-you-hate’ who says 10 times a day that his only mantra is ‘Justice for all. Appeasement for none.’ So whom are you pointing your fingers at? Who is threatening India?

"7. Your representatives, in a Times Now debate, said that they are not pimping for any party. But you are asking us to choose. If it’s not Modi-led BJP, then who do you want us to vote for? There are only two national parties. BJP and Congress. Who is secular, according to you? Unless you meant SP, BSP, AIADMK, LJD, TMC, NCP etc. What is compelling you to talk in cryptic language and not naming ‘the-man’?

"8. Mr. Robin Bhatt, your spokesperson, at Times Now admitted that Modi is secular. Mr. Hansal Mehta, on the other hand, in the same programme, confessed that he hates Modi. How is it that even before the ink dried on the letter, your signatories are distancing themselves with ‘personal’ and ‘official’ positions? Are you a political party? Like AAP? Or is it that AAP is speaking through you? How can there be two opinions if some passionate ‘saviours’ of ‘art & culture’ have come together for a cause they believe in, so passionately? Is it possible that some people like Robin Bhatt and many others have signed it blindly because of your deep association with them in the Writer’s Association?

"9. Why is it that most of the signatories also happen to be part of the same association that you have very constructively nurtured? I happen to know some of them closely. Are you sure they feel neither obliged nor compelled? Is this their absolute free and conscious voice? If they felt so strongly about India’s vulnerability, how come they have never ever uttered a word about politics of any kind? How come they never spoke on social issues at least?

"10. If your fellow ‘secular’ filmwallas feel so strongly about the ‘secular foundations’ and its preservation thereof, how come they never uttered a word against the Muzzafarnagar riots? Or against Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav? Or Azam Khan? Or Abu Azmi?

"11. I have an observation to make. Why is it that the Leftist crusader of truth, Shri Anand Patwardhan, while speaking only looks down, never looking in the eyes? You are a genius scriptwriter who studies characters. Is this how men with convictions address the most sensitive issue which can shatter the secular foundations of Hindustan?

"12. You know Bollywood is the biggest brand India has. People follow Bollywood more than cricketers and politicians. Your appeal has created an impression that entire Bollywood endorses your views. Have you written a disclaimer in your letter that these are your personal views and have nothing to do with Bollywood? Maybe not. But when media called it Bollywood’s stance, did you try to call the same editors to deny it with the same enthusiasm? Or are you taking advantage of a position that was never to be misused for political or personal gains?

"13. Do you seriously want us to believe that secularism is the sole issue in these elections? And not development? Are you telling me that hungry, jobless people will ensure more communal harmony then well fed, employed people? Do you seriously mean that a corrupt India, lawless India, uneducated India and a weak India has better chances of preserving ‘secularity, inclusiveness & pluralism’ than a modern, educated and strong India? Or is it that like many Maoists/Naxals/ Leftists, you also see development as the biggest threat to your own existence and political agenda?

"14. Shrimati Sonia Gandhi also issued an appeal a few days ago. Is it a coincidence that your appeal is reinforcing exactly the same? Can you vouch it for yourself and the other signatories that none has ever been a beneficiary of Congress’s alms? And that none of you have any vested interest, no political agenda? And no one is firing from your shoulders? If not, where was the need to get organized and send an appeal in such a hurry? Did you send this mail to all listed film professionals or just to those who you knew will sign blindly?

"15. Last but not the least, I have two young kids at a very impressionable age. Next time if we happen to meet what should I tell them… ‘This is your secular uncle? Because he did not vote for Modi.’ Is that the only thing you have reduced yourself to be called a ‘Secularist’?

"In conclusion, my fellow filmmakers, I’d like to make a small correction in the mission statement of your appeal where you write: 

"‘However, one thing is clear: India’s secular character is not negotiable! 

"Not now, not ever.’ 

"I find it narrow and rhetoric. Hence, I’d like to make a small correction to suit the aspirations of millions of Indians: 

"‘However, one thing is clear: India’s United character is not negotiable! 

"Not now, not ever.’ 

"And also add: ‘Jai Hind.’"

................................................................................................

"The blog became so viral that I was invited to my first political panel discussion on TV by Barkha Dutt for her iconic show The Buck Stops Here.  

"When I reached the venue, Anand Patwardhan was already there. I said hello with a smile to which he gave a very cold response. He asked me why I had opposed the petition. I gave him my reasons but he wasn’t willing to listen and instead kept telling me how bad the Gujarat model was. He was confident that Modi could never win. Every pore of his body was oozing hatred for Modi and his supporters. 

"‘Don’t they have a right to choose the leader they like?’ I asked Patwardhan.  

"‘They don’t know anything about Modi,’ he replied. 

"‘How can you say that?’ 

"‘Because I know.’ 

"In his tone, manner, and content, there was so much authoritarianism, entitlement, arrogance, hatred and contempt for these common supporters of Modi that he did not realize that he was professing exactly what he condemned – fascism.

"‘If Modi is so bad why are people connecting with him?’ 

"‘Who connects with Modi? I don’t know of any.’ 

"‘The poor man who sells mangoes on the streets connects with Modi.’ ‘

"I don’t care about the man who sells mangoes,’ Patwardhan got angry and almost screamed, ‘Modi must be stopped. He must lose.’ 

"I kept looking at him and wondered how his frail body could contain so much hatred and anger. His aura was dark and negative."

................................................................................................

"The other panelists were Nandita Das, Alyque Padamsee, Sam Balsara. All urban, sophisticated, English-speaking elites and Barkha was making it sound as if entire Bollywood was against Modi. I told her that this letter wasn’t the voice of Bollywood but of an ‘intellectual mafia’. I could sense that Barkha was rattled. Nandita gave me a dirty look and Patwardhan got furious. I could see what they felt about me. The way an orthodox caste-conscious Brahmin feels when touched by a sweeper. Barkha got a bit upset at my remark and though she asked me ‘What do you mean by intellectual mafia?’ she didn’t let me answer. A patent trait of liberals. This is when, for the first time, the liberal gang started hating me and trolling me."

Except, the "intellectual" flatters them but is incorrect. If they thought, they'd have realised they aren't secular, as Agnihotri did a few pages ago, but Hindus are. 

"I knew at that very moment that I would never be invited by Barkha on NDTV again and that is exactly what happened, but ‘Intellectual Mafia’ became legitimate jargon in social media."

Did Agnihotri thank Gods for the former part?

"In the meantime, I was in advanced stages of discussing an independent release for Buddha with established distributors and both promised to release my film only after the elections.

"But after this show with Barkha, they stopped taking my calls and till date, I don’t know what made an advanced negotiation stop without any further discussion. I found it strange and I had no idea then that suddenly I had created lots of Gudsa Usendis who didn’t want me to succeed with this film. They were using all their tactics to destroy me. I had only two choices: speak up or shut up. I spoke up."

Perhaps they received calls? If not from Delhi, then from another city formerly of India and in India, across an ocean West? They have bosses, obviously. 

"I wrote another blog which again went immensely viral. With this blog on ‘Intellectual Mafia’, I went for a frontal attack and discovered an audience for my voice."

................................................................................................

"Intellectual Mafia

"To cover up his illicit romances, rising corruption, the undercurrent of a revolt and massive defeat and humiliation by the Chinese, Nehru nurtured an ‘intelligentsia’ which justified his impractical economics and failed politics to the masses. The coterie of intellectuals he created was immoral. Historians know that whenever a king has surrounded himself with immoral thinkers, debauchery has begun. These short-sighted and opportunistic intellectuals justified ‘socialism’. Socialism has corruption in its very DNA. Nehru chose Big State over Big Market. More State-sponsored programmes meant inefficient system, red-tapism, favouritism, weaker economy, and corruption. It meant bigger disparity between masses and policy makers. More subsidies, doles, freebies meant more arrogance of rulers for they were the ones distributing alms. They became the givers. And us, the obliged masses, the takers.

"Thus, India arrived at State vs Masses. Corrupt vs Masses. Intellectuals vs Masses. Givers vs Takers. 

"Emergency was declared. Sanjay Gandhi took over. He created an army of morally corrupt, foreign-educated intellectuals with no track record. Their biggest strength was their unconditional loyalty to the Gandhi family. This tradition has continued. Loyalty over merit. Scheming over competence. Loot over contribution. Corruption grew. Guilt grew. Fear grew. With every scam, the family started making the intellectual wall bigger and bigger. Today this wall is full of scammers, crooks, agents, brokers, pimps, lobbyists, character assassins, land sharks etc. disguised as lawyers, journalists, NGOs, feminists, advisors, professors, socialists etc. Simply put, beneficiaries of Congress’s largesse.

"Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia. 

"And the hell broke loose."

Anyone with truth in mind would look for roots of the defeat of the first person he blames above for the phenomenon, which aren't that far distant historically. They are in the mentor who dethroned democratic choices more than once - thrice, at the very least - to ensure his choice was the first PM of India. 

But pointing at him would get Agnihotri in waters much hotter, and it requires far more courage to allow oneself to even see beyond Jawaharlal Nehru for the ills which Agnihotri speaks of that India has suffered, for well over a century now.

................................................................................................

"In 2014, after my blog on ‘Intellectual Mafia’, I started losing friends in the film industry but started gaining lots of fans and followers outside the industry. These people started putting pressure on me to write more. They also started showing interest in Buddha. When Bhushan Kumar abruptly junked the T Series film, I sat and reflected on my life. 

"I picked up some old canvas, cleared the dust and started painting. I made many paintings and instead of selling, I gifted them to friends, I wrote more articles. I started teaching. I travelled. I started meeting all my old friends who had nothing to do with films. A new ecosystem started building up and slowly, I started connecting with people. I found my voice. And my lost confidence.

"This is when I received an email from the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI), India’s number one film festival, then chaired by Shyam Benegal, that Buddha In A Traffic Jam was officially selected in the India Gold category which features five or six best films of the year. I couldn’t believe it at first. And I didn’t know if we would be able to send it for the screening as we didn’t have the censor certificate which was mandatory, and I was sure of not getting it without major changes. Thirdly, the cut required background music, post-production, and some publicity material. I neither had the time nor the resources to send the film to MAMI. ... "

"I decided to at least show the rough cut to as many studios as I could. I met Siddharth Roy Kapur, MD of UTV, who instantly agreed to do a screening. Very strangely, he didn’t come for the screening and instead sent a creative director who had just joined, and a young girl who had no idea of Indian politics. They loved the film and told me that this was one of the finest films they had seen in a long time and it should get a well-planned release. I wasted a lot of time with them and in the end, was told that ‘as a policy, we can’t be associated with a film of this kind’.

"I went to Viacom but almost the same story was repeated there. Viacom has also done many films which were ‘different and bold’ like Gangs of Wasseypur. Another thing that bothered me was that these studios can afford to lose hundreds of crores on mindless films which help neither the audience nor the producers, have no archival value, nor do they help society at large but when it comes to standing up for Buddha kind of films, they have a policy. I showed it to all the big studios, small studios, studios which were not studios, producers who wanted to become studios but after showing extraordinary appreciation, all of them backed off. How can you love something so much and still not invest in it? It happens only in Bollywood."

Agnihotri isn't mentioning in writing what a younger artist did in court. Perhaps he had no personal evidence. 

"It’s really strange but true that the films which win national awards or are selected by MAMI and other international film festivals, which deserve to be celebrated by the country and the studios, go through spine-breaking struggle, agony, humiliation, and hopelessness. Studios, producers, actors, and the entire film fraternity should invest in them and showcase them to a large audience to promote good cinema and develop audience taste for them to be able to make better films. We have invested large sums, time, and emotions in dumb cinema and by and by the audience has stopped appreciating any movie which has logic or reality. The industry makes you feel as if you have committed a cardinal crime by making such a film. This is the reason that in a social function you can identify the makers of such films with droopy shoulders, under confident body language, standing alone in a corner, and getting drunk, whereas the maker of a mindless comedy loaded with double entendres would be surrounded by top stars, producers, and media. We are a defective film industry.

"We had only seven days left when I sent the film to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) on a Friday. In the meantime, I got to know that CBFC needs clearance from the Animal Welfare Board which is based in Chennai. On Monday morning, the agent threw a bomb at me. He asked for two lacs to get the clearance within the deadline. I failed to understand why a certificate would cost two lacs to which he said that officers would have to be bribed. This was blackmailing and a film that is anti-corruption can’t be made by bribing people. I was so angry that I immediately called up the Chairman of the board and asked him on what basis his people could take such huge bribes. He told me very cordially that they charged only five hundred rupees, and in order to protect filmmakers from such touts, they had gone digital. He said the board meets every Wednesday and any application that is received by Tuesday evening is reviewed at the Wednesday meeting and the decision is immediately uploaded on their site. So, in effect, clearance is given in less than twenty-four hours and that too for just five hundred rupees and a simple e-application. I was in shock. Not because of the transparency and efficiency of the authority but because of my own ignorance. Somewhere, some good work is taking place which will eventually transform India, but the media never lets the goodness be part of the main narrative.

"‘Please file your e-application today and on Wednesday by noon we will list you.’ 

"On Tuesday morning, I drove to the CBFC office. 

"The small CBFC office in the Malabar Hill area of Mumbai doesn’t look like it has anything to do with films except that its name has ‘film’ in it. I was expecting red tapism and someone to ask me to come only after taking an appointment, but I was treated with a lot of dignity and I got to meet the main officer immediately. I explained to him why it was crucial to certify the film within the deadline.

"‘Why didn’t you inform us about the film’s selection in MAMI? You would have got the certificate on a priority basis.’ 

"‘I had no idea that you guys consider such things.’ 

"‘It’s really unfortunate that our filmmakers go to any length for their films, but nobody ever comes to meet us with their problems. They just criticize us without even meeting us once. In modern times of negative media, government servants are always the suckers as nobody listens to their point of view. Everyone needs villains and filmmakers have found it in us. May God bless them all.’ He then looked at me as if he was about to ask me to leave. ‘I’ll organize your screening tomorrow early morning and if you get the animal clearance by noon and make the desired changes by the evening I can issue the certificate by Wednesday evening.’ 

"‘Thank you very much. I really mean it.’   

"‘Thanks for what, sir? It’s our duty. We also like it when our films are selected for prestigious awards. All the best.’

"When the film ended, I was called by the screening committee in the semi-dark hall of Liberty cinema. There were four men and a lady, all from different strata. One gentleman who looked like their leader because he had some forms in his hand, smiled and spoke softly. 

"‘Congratulations for making such a daring film. All of us just loved it. This film requires at least a thousand cuts…’ 

"I exhaled all the air from my lungs and waited for the bad news. 

"‘But we discussed and have come to the conclusion that we will certify it with no cuts because we believe this is a very important film of our times and it must be released in its true form, else it will lose its meaning and impact.’ 

"‘You have made a very good film. I learnt a lot,’ said another member.

"‘There is a small correction you will have to make because it’s a constitutional obligation, else we would have passed that too as there is an abusive word used with 26th January, which you will have to change… as it’s a constitutional requirement.’

"I immediately calculated that this would take a lot of time and I would miss the deadline. But if you really care about something a lot, you also find quick solutions. Luckily for me, the character who had said the lines was a Telugu actor and the way he had said it sounded more like ‘chhaaabbeees januaree’ than ‘chhabbis january’. I saw an opening and agreed instantly. 

"Instead of reworking the scene, I just punched ‘chaaaubbeees january’ and changed that bit which matched his lips perfectly. By noon, we got the animal clearance and by 5 PM we submitted the corrections and by seven in the evening I got the adults category ‘A’ certificate. A few minutes before midnight, we submitted the film to MAMI. Just a few minutes before the deadline.

"With this exercise, I learnt two major lessons. First, never go by hearsay and always check out the facts yourself before accusing anyone of corruption or dishonesty; and second, corruption takes place mostly when you are ignorant, desperate, and seek shortcuts."

................................................................................................

"The first screening of the film at MAMI was attended mostly by film industry colleagues. A lot of them came to check it out as they just couldn’t believe that my film was in MAMI. In the film industry, they want you to fail both commercially and critically. For some, it was indigestible that I could be present in both the spectrums. The screening was so formal and the reactions so controlled that it made me nervous. People weren’t laughing at the right places. There was no rustle of clothes on the seats. No coughs, no uncivilized mobile phones ringing. It’s a torture for film people to see a colleague’s good film. When the professor’s true identity is revealed, they started getting a bit itchy. Sitting behind them, watching their response, it seemed as if their true identities were getting revealed. By the time the film ended they were confused about how to react. Some of my very good friends left without meeting me. Overall, the response wasn’t very encouraging; as a matter of fact, it was depressing. Pallavi always understands my confusion so she came and stood next to me, to comfort me. For a wife to see her husband’s creative pain in waiting for four years for his movie to release can be very heartbreaking.

"‘Mark my words, this film, hundred kilometres outside of Mumbai, will find its real audience,’ I told Pallavi, holding her hand tight. 

"We didn’t have to wait that long. The next two screenings, on following days, were more informal and full of young students and non-filmy people. The response was encouraging. In the third screening, the Q&A went on for a very long time and it wasn’t restricted to only the film but national politics. Fenil Seta wrote a very good review on his blog. On social media, genuine appreciation started pouring in. The common thing amongst them was that all of them called it an ‘eye-opener’, which later became a cue for my marketing plan.

"Reliance’s Big cinema had backed out as sponsors of MAMI as it was going through a massive financial crunch and there were rumours that it might shut down. That is when elder brother Mukesh Ambani came in as the sponsor and the festival was taken over by Aamir Khan’s wife Kiran Rao and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s wife Anupama Chopra. From down-to-earth, genuine filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, the festival now was in the hands of corporates, critics, powerful people’s wives and their admirers. This was the year when MAMI officially transformed from a cinema lovers’ festival to a corporate club festival. I learnt this when I reached Chandan cinema with Pallavi for the closing award ceremony. We were official nominees, yet we were asked to sit in a corner seat in the tenth or twelfth row whereas the front rows were all occupied by commercial stars, star wives, their friends and people who are inconsequential to indie cinema. I was officially nominated; my wife Pallavi, besides being a senior actor is a national award winner and has been on the jury of the national awards, but nobody was ready to recognize those who did not make great press.

"I met Anurag Kashyap, the self-proclaimed messiah of indie films, and asked him to see the film once and help me with its marketing but he pretended to listen to me while looking for someone more powerful and left the moment he saw Anushka Sharma. This was the time when he was also cozying up with the same stars and star directors whom he had condemned all his life. It’s understandable why indie filmmakers give up and become sycophants of stars to survive in this industry. I found it very funny and tragic at the same time that the festival was organized to promote the best cinema of our country, but their makers had no place of dignity in either the auditorium or their hearts. That day I saw the change with my own eyes. The MAMI organizers’ agenda wasn’t to promote these films anymore but to promote themselves. MAMI is just another club of the elites.

"A dead film had been resurrected. With the honour and dignity it deserved. There was a tweet from a very close director friend whose films I had promoted blindly, without even seeing them, where all he wrote was about Pallavi’s song. It was a very diplomatic tweet. He was monkey balancing between our friendship by doing lip service without saying anything about the film, good or bad, and also managing his high ratings with the people who wanted to kill the film without even seeing it. In this moment of happiness, his tweet hurt me.

"MAMI did two things for me: it gave the film the respectability it deserved, and it made me realize that my journey from here on was going to be lonely as Bollywood would only pull this film down. I had to find my audience. My market. My space. And my voice. All alone.

"The film started getting invitations from film festivals. We won the Best Original Screenplay award at the Madrid Film Festival. The response was overwhelming. I had heard about ‘standing ovations’ but never received one. The response was way beyond ‘standing ovation’. It was the connection. Instead of clapping and taking selfies, people engaged in discussions about Naxalism and other related politics. Almost every time, the discussions became intense with the audience getting into arguments with each other. The film was evoking a definite response. It was stimulating and engaging the audience. 

"‘How did you know that the film will work outside Mumbai?’ Pallavi asked me after a tremendous response at Delhi. 

"‘Because I know that the India Bollywood sees is not the India we live in. And this film is about the real India, real Indians and real Indian issues that impact their lives.’

"It’s true. The adulation, the connection, the support was coming from non-English speaking, small-town youth; the most ignored people in the national narrative. Bollywood filmmakers and other intellectuals have a fantastical idea about Naxalism. They are so isolated from the reality that when they saw the film, they perceived truth as a lie. 

"A senior film journalist who works with India’s largest Hindi media group and is also involved with the group’s film festival, which primarily encourages the spirit of indie cinema, came to my office to request me to send the film to their festival. He told me about his Leftist background and how he hates Modi’s regime. I connect with Leftists very easily as I have been in their shoes. He kept pushing me until I sent the film. Then he saw the film at a screening at MAMI. 

"‘I don’t agree with the film but that is your freedom of expression,’ he told me after the screening. 

"The film was never shown at his festival. It hurt me a lot.  

"That day I decided to fight. I decided to not rest until the release of Buddha In A Traffic Jam."

................................................................................................

"I am watching a viral WhatsApp video where a group of students is screaming these slogans. I think it’s some students in Pakistan displaying their extreme hatred for India. But they don’t look like Pakistanis. Their accent is also different. Is it Kashmir? As the video progresses, I realize it’s neither Pakistan nor Kashmir. In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have ever imagined that these are the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), shouting anti-national slogans, inside the campus, right in the heart of India’s capital. Fifteen kilometers from the Parliament, the temple of democracy."

" ... It was beyond my understanding that the students whom I hold in such high esteem are passionately seeking the breakup of my motherland, my karmbhoomi, my love – India. How can they celebrate a dreaded terrorist who attacked our Parliament?"

Reminds anyone else of the children wielding guns, shooting the teacher? 

"A couple of days ago, on the cold night of February 9, 2016, an official cultural event had turned into a political rally. The event was against the hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri terrorist convicted for the attack on Parliament on 13 December 2001 and hanged on 13 February 2013. The event was led by the president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Student’s Union (JNUSU), Kanhaiya Kumar, Kashmiri students Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid and other student leaders of Leftist parties that are sympathetic to the Naxal movement. Kanhaiya Kumar and his fellow students shouted anti-India slogans including the prayers for India’s break-up and eventual devastation.

"Kanhaiya Kumar and his gang get arrested on February 11th on charges of sedition. A ‘war of narratives’ begins in India. Rohith Vemula, a PhD student at the University of Hyderabad, had committed suicide a few weeks ago, leading to widespread Leftist protests around the country, because he was supposedly Dalit – the insinuation was that he had been driven to his death by caste oppression. Anybody who saw these protests in isolation is politically naive because it was just a scene in a screenplay.

"It connects now with the Kanhaiya episode. The screenplay started with the Film and Television Institute (FTII), where a section of the students went on strike over the appointment of a new Director; then the IIT Madras row over the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (IIT Madras had de-recognised the students’ association after a complaint that it was creating hatred against Hindus. The ban was later lifted.); then Vemula; and now it looks like it is culminating at the citadel of Urban Naxalism – JNU.

"Looking at the modus operandi, I can very easily see that Kanhaiya Kumar and the gang is just the front organization for the Naxals. Kanhaiya is being used by the faculty as an ‘intellectual terrorist’ to wage war against the State. They assume that the Modi government is new and not settled as yet, and therefore it’s the right time to strike. In no time, the usual suspects like Barkha Dutt, Arundhati Roy, and all other Naxal sympathizers come out openly in support of Kanhaiya. A civil war-like situation is being created, the government is attacked for suppression of dissent, curbing freedom of expression and for being anti-Dalit. It’s a full-fledged war between the Leftist forces and the State. All front organizations and supporters have come out of the closet. JNU is the battlefield and Kanhaiya their puppet.

"In the chaos of the Kanhaiya episode, the media keeps a vital development in the Red Corridor hidden from us. In the last quarter, security forces have achieved greater success than ever in tackling left-wing extremism and there was over a thirty per cent decline in violence perpetrated by Naxals this year.

"Seventy-six Naxal cadres were killed in the first few months of this year in comparison to fifteen in the same period last year. According to the Home Ministry, as many as six hundred and sixty-five Naxals were arrested and almost the same number surrendered as compared to just above hundred last year in the same period.

"Almost at the same time, the Home Ministry cracked down on a number of NGOs which got foreign funding in the past couple of years. In the second half of 2015, the Indian government cancelled registrations of more than ten thousand NGOs across the country, including Greenpeace. With the increasing fatalities, arrests, and surrenders of the cadre, the tightening grip of the security forces, decrease in funding through NGOs, the Naxals have been feeling the heat, hence FTII, Vemula, and Kanhaiya seem obvious and logical tactics."

................................................................................................

"I heard Kanhaiya’s speech and it took me back to my college days when student politics wasn’t as sophisticated and well-oiled. When media professionals had not become brokers. ... there were speeches and sloganeering by the student leaders and their mentors from either Congress, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) or Leftist parties.

"Those speeches were mostly about how to make the university a better place for students. Only leaders from Leftist parties used to gives speeches which were about a utopian social engineering, and freedom from the State. Listening to Kanhaiya, I felt as if I was listening to a pop version of speeches I heard decades ago. Barring Kanhaiya’s personal mannerisms and dialect, his speech was straight out of a Communist template. A narrative which hasn’t changed a bit with the changing times."

................................................................................................

"I won’t go into the details of Kanhaiya’s speech as it’s a function of his political agenda, but I’d request him not to mention Manu Smriti without studying and understanding it. Manu Smriti doesn’t speak of the “caste system.” It talks of Varnas. Varna is not caste. Nor was “Manu Smriti” a “law book” enforced by the State. Hardly anyone reads the Manu Smriti in popular Hinduism. It’s time Communists stop using Manu Smriti as a polemic to exploit uneducated, poor people. Their strategy is to use innocent people to further their agenda, which is why I do not agree with Communists.

"I’d also advise Kanhaiya and his supporters not to talk of freedom of speech as JNU is the last place where dissent and freedom of expression (FoE) is practiced. People with ‘If you aren’t anti-State, you are an enemy’ kind of attitude must not give us sermons on FoE. FoE is part of an Indian’s native intelligence. By native, I mean Hindus like Kanhaiya and me. It’s native Hindu civilization’s strength and openness that Muslims and Christians are accepted in mainstream culture. Dear Kanhaiya, if you chose to blame one hardworking chaiwala for all the evils, just because he represents Hindu aspirations, it shows your lack of understanding. It shows you have thoughts but your mind is not azad. To understand what I am saying, you may have to consult Manu Smriti."

................................................................................................

"Another reason I do not subscribe to the Communism of Kanhaiya is that Communists practice violence. Tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed in Naxal-infested areas and millions remain poor and oppressed. Your comrades do not allow TV in tribal areas as it can instill greed in the Adivasis. They would want to make money and the only antidote to your poison is money. Communism is not an ideology, it’s an economic system, but the mentors of Kanhaiya fool people by projecting it as an ideology. Liberalism and even Fascism are ideologies but Communism is not. That’s why I don’t subscribe to this erroneous politics.

"Communism is really good only as textbook material. In practice, it destroys societies and their spirit. Look around the world and you will find that wherever Communism reached, people lost their freedom. Their voice. Their lives. First, it makes you angry, then hapless and then a victim. It does not allow dissent or debate. Communism’s only contribution is that it has encouraged poverty, mediocrity and violence. I shun such hypocrisy."

One has to question that beginning of the last paragraph. There are a great deal too many platitudes that are accepted as ideals and truths because of words strung together for sounding good, but they are false all the same. 

Such platitudes, fed India especially since Gandhi, include "all religions are same", or about equality of people. In reality any religion that seeks to convert usually promises heaven and hell exclusively to its own adherents and others, respectively. 

As for equality, few believe that a slum dweller is no different from pope, else there would be archbishop cleaning slums; but most people are only too willing to believe that every woman is lesser than every male, with an unspoken reasoning that can be applied with equal validity to a male buffalo being superior to a human male. 

There are a great deal too many platitudes that are accepted as ideals and truths because of words strung together for sounding good, but they are false all the same. 

Communism is mostly that, and cannot work without violence in any society setup that isn't an ashram of ancient Hindu tradition, with a strongly rooted spirituality of India's ancient traditions. 

................................................................................................

"The Dalai Lama is a living example of how much azadi Communism allows. He has been living in free India as a refugee, away from his motherland, because of Communism. West Bengal is another living example of how Communist ideology destroyed the entire region. Today, Kolkata is a monument of poverty and failure. I can bet you will never meet anyone who has been benefited by Communism or terrorism. In modern India, Communists have acted as intellectual terrorists.

"So, people who are excited and want to portray Kanhaiya as a hero or a youth icon aren’t in love with Communist ideology. They have nothing to do with JNU. They don’t want any azadi. They are supporting him because they don’t want Modi to grow. Because Modi means azadi from corruption, sycophancy, and middlemen. Public relations czarina Niira Radia’s phone conversations with senior journalists became public knowledge in 2010 and showed how compromised our media persons are. But even she will vouch that most of our media men and women don’t want this azadi. 

"Hence, Arvind Kejriwal. 

"Kejriwal fails. 

"Hence, Kanhaiya. 

"It’s as simple as that.

................................................................................................

"Kanhaiya represents aspirations of just a few thousand students of JNU. Even they will flip once they have to earn their bread and butter. India is too big and has millions of real students who actually want Azadi from such negativity, pseudo-intellectualism, and broker-ship. Students who want to be proud of their nationality, their Constitution, their government, their people, and their culture – Kanhaiya does not represent their aspirations. He is not a genuine youth icon. He is a trained, well-funded student leader on hire. By calling him a youth icon, you are insulting millions of Indian youth/students who at this very moment are studying hard and getting prepared to create wealth and repay their motherland by getting her Azadi from poverty and ‘traders of poverty’.

"I feel as if someone has taken the script of Buddha and is playing it in real life. The only difference is that in the end, unlike Kanhaiya Kumar, my hero Vikram Pundit, instead of destruction of India, professes the idea of reconstruction of India."

................................................................................................

"The first institute we wrote to was JNU. Kanhaiya and his gang’s anti-India sloganeering and his subsequent arrest on sedition charges triggered an intense nationwide debate on the suppression of dissent and therefore curbing of freedom of expression. JNU became the symbol of freedom of expression. What could have been a better place to screen Buddha than this projected ‘Mecca of dissent’? What could be better timing than this when the entire nation was discussing the role of Urban Naxalism?" 

Why are they so blind? Obvious places would be IIT and related centre's of research, high education etc al. Not pretentious empty headed centre's of sloganeering seeking to destroy India and, thus, all human civilisation, an agenda of Abrahamic-III and Abrahamic-IV. 

"So, I wrote to Ira Bhaskar, dean, cinema studies, JNU. Once. Twice. Thrice… Naireeta called her several times. Messaged her many times. She returned the call only once, to tell Naireeta that—‘Abhi mahaul theek nahi hai.’ The atmosphere isn’t conducive? We explained to her why it is so important and relevant to show the movie now, and she promised to get back, ‘I will speak to the faculty and get back.’"

"Ira promises to get back, but she doesn’t get back. At all. She doesn’t answer calls. She doesn’t acknowledge us. 

"I need to think up a Plan B. An alternative strategy. 

"I am going through tweets and news. Everywhere, the intellectual ecosystem is trying to make Kanhaiya a youth icon. Kanhaiya has been exploiting his newfound fame and has been giving anti-State speeches, flying business class, attending seminars and raising questions about the government’s tactics to curb freedom of speech.

"I come across a tweet from a friend, a sensible director and a wonderful human being, Hansal Mehta, where he informs that his film Aligarh, based on the life of a homosexual professor, will be shown at JNU the day after."

"I take out my phone and write two tweets addressed to the leader of the FoE movement, Kanhaiya Kumar, who is also the elected president of JNUSU."

"Around 11 AM, I start getting several calls from unknown phone numbers. At about 11.45 AM, Anupam Kher calls me to find out why the media is calling him. He wants to know if we have any documentary evidence to substantiate that JNU indeed discriminated against our film. I brief him and mail him all the documentary evidence. By 12.30, Rahul Shivshankar of NewsX breaks the news and soon, almost all TV news channels start beaming the news on how Buddha In A Traffic Jam is stuck in the JNU jam. Calls start pouring in. News channels insist on talking to me live.

"Almost every channel and newspaper cover it in their headlines. Social media is abuzz with the controversy, deciding the balance of power between the left and the right. Only two channels, who have been extra vocal about JNU and the FoE issue, never mention it – Barkha Dutt’s NDTV and Rajdeep Sardesai’s India Today. Also, as expected, nobody from the film industry, not even the champions of FoE, stand up in my support."

................................................................................................

"March 15, 2016 

"I am back in Mumbai. My inbox is full of people extending their support, requests for interviews, and abuses. In this chaos, I get a call from a student of JNU. He asks me if I would be interested in screening the film at JNU. Without any hesitation, I say yes. He says he will figure it out and get back. Oops, I have forgotten to ask his name. 

"March 16, 2016 

"I get a call from him again. He says that he has got the permission for 18th March between 5.30-8.30 PM from the student’s body, JNUSU. 

"‘How many students are you expecting?’ I ask him. ‘

"Sir, approximately hundred. We will also get a few friends from outside so say, hundred and fifty,’ he tells me.  

"‘What’s the capacity of the auditorium?’ ‘

"About two hundred to two fifty.’ 

"‘Won’t it look empty?’

"‘Sir, more students want to come but they are scared of the faculty. But we will try to convince them. Please don’t say no now. It’s a matter of our prestige.’

"‘Let me think.’ 

"‘Sir, since you said yes we got the permission.’ 

"Oops, I again forget to ask his name. I don’t want to call back to know his name and sound desperate.

"But his proposal has also put me in a real dilemma. JNU is at the centre of national news. Our film is in the news. All political groups are watching the controversy keenly. If we go, it may appear that we are trying to milk the situation. If we don’t go, the film doesn’t get the platform I have been fighting for, for so long. What if we go, and there aren’t enough students? What if it becomes political? What if they try to sabotage it? What if they write bad things about the film? What if it’s a ploy by those whom the film exposes? I have been wanting to show the film at JNU and now when the opportunity comes knocking on my door, I am worried about how many people will come to see the film. In testing moments, it’s always the sceptic mind that takes over.

"I call Kher saab. He takes a long pause after I inform him about my fears that there may be a chance of not many people coming to see the film, and media and opponents of the film, who suddenly popped up from nowhere, will try to show pictures of an empty hall to suggest that no one is interested in the film and therefore justify Ira’s discriminatory action. Anupam Kher listens to me patiently and then he says something I needed to hear most.

"‘Vivek, our real job is to make movies and show them to our audience. Even if ten students come, we must show the film to them. Just because ninety people don’t want to see the film doesn’t mean we can take away the right of those ten people who want to see it. A film is successful even if it changes just one heart. I think your film has that power. In the end, you will get what you deserve.’ 

"‘Will you come?’ 

"‘Yes.’"

"In the evening, I again get a call from the JNU boy. This time I ask his name. He is Saurabh Sharma, joint secretary of JNUSU. 

"‘Sir, now everything is fixed, we students have contributed ourselves and raised money for the projector and a screen. There are over hundred confirmations. Sir, everybody thinks JNU means only Kanhaiya and anti-national students, so no one cares about students who love India. We may be small in numbers but we do exist. For their sentiments please don’t say no.’ 

"‘But who is saying no? We will come.’ 

"‘Is it a yes?’ 

"‘Yes.’"

................................................................................................

"March 18, 2016 

"I reach Delhi, guarding the hard drive which has the film’s digital print. I have no idea what is in store. 

"The organizing boys come to meet me and try to understand from Naireeta the various technical requirements. 

"‘Sir, we will start the screening at 6 pm sharp as we have permission only till 8.30 pm. After that, the students start leaving for dinner.’ 

"‘That’s OK. We can start even at five or five thirty.’ 

"‘Sir, five may be too early as there will be a lot of sun.’ 

"‘What has sun got to do with us?’ 

"‘Sir, the screening has been shifted outdoor at the admin bloc.’ 

"I am blank. 

"‘What? But, why?’ 

"‘Sir, they refused to give us the auditorium saying there will be too few people. So, we decided to screen it outdoors but admin gave permission only from 5.30-8.30 PM.’

"No filmmaker worth his salt would allow his film to be shown outdoors before the theatrical release. That too with bad projection, bad sound. That’s not what we work so hard for.

"‘But how can we screen it outdoors? You can’t begin until it’s dark and it doesn’t get dark before seven. Why can’t you make another request to the admin to give you the auditorium? If you want I can come or I can request Mr. Kher to speak. That may make the difference.’ 

"‘Sir, firstly that will never happen. Secondly, after the auditorium’s cancellation, there has been an amazing response from the students who were silent so far and now they are coming out in open and committing to attend the screening and I have a feeling that the auditorium won’t be able to take five-six hundred students.’ 

"‘What? How many students did you say?' 

"‘Sir, five to six hundred.’ 

"For a filmmaker like me, who has shown the film to a maximum of hundred and fifty people in one screening, this feels like heavy showers in the desert of Jaisalmer. 

"Never in the life of this film had I imagined these kinds of numbers at JNU. But this is also true that never in my life had I imagined that someday I would be forced to show my film outdoors, prior to its official release. For everyone, it has become an event. For me, it is the future of the film. Inside me, there is a conflict between a filmmaker who wants a perfect screening and a man desperate to tell the truth. Naireeta can quickly make out whenever I am confused.

"‘Sir, you always say that in the moments of confusion never follow your fears but follow the design of things.’

"Five hundred students won’t even wait for the film to get over and will start posting comments on the film on social media. One bad word and that would be the end. These aren’t just five hundred students but they are five hundred live cameras ready to broadcast to thousands of people in an instant. If life is about taking chances, this is that chance. I am taking this chance.

"I quickly write to Ira Bhaskar, inviting her for the screening. ... "

Hence, subsequent troubles?

................................................................................................

" ... Kher saab is insisting that he wants to go half an hour early just to walk around and interact with the students. So, we leave at 5 PM to be there at 5.30.

"When we reach JNU, we feel like we are in a different world. Definitely not the world we were promised. The entire arena outside the admin bloc is jam-packed with electrified students. The car can’t move further so we are forced to stop about four hundred metres before the venue. 

"‘You still want to walk?’ I ask Kher saab. 

"‘Only if I can get out.’

"Kher saab’s desire to walk gets crushed instantly by thousands of students shouting ‘Vande Mataram’. This is not the JNU I had known. The cop-in-charge whispers in my ears ‘Kam se kam paanch chhe hazaar ladka hai.’ Five to six thousand students?

"We try to walk towards the stage but it’s impossible to move even an inch. It’s not that we have never been amongst charged up fans but this seems like an unregulated crowd of uncontrollable students. That too in JNU. This is when more than two dozen girls come from somewhere and form a human chain around us and help us walk to the screen.

"When the organizing students want to start the film, the other students won’t let the film begin until we speak to them. I look for Saurabh but I am informed he has gone to an NDTV debate with Kanhaiya. This is when someone announces my name to speak to students. I go up on this makeshift dais and I choke looking at the sea of students, charged and exhilarated like sea waves on a heavy monsoon day.  I am a little overwhelmed. I didn’t come here to give a speech. ... "

"I have been a debater but never ever gave an impromptu speech and that too in front of so many politically motivated students and a battery of media cameras looking for a political controversy in a politically volatile institute. I know students want me to speak on the current political controversy. What do I say? Do I talk about the film? Or just say a few good words and hand over the mike to Anupam Kher? I am holding the mike but my mind is blank. I look around. There are students on the ground, on the stairs, on the terraces, on trees and on top of cars. The sun is setting behind the redbrick admin bloc, and entire JNU is filled with the chants of ‘Vande Mataram’. It seems like a historic moment. Then I see some twenty-odd students raising back flags and screaming ‘Agnihotri wapas jaao… Sanghi wapas jao…’. Why are they protesting against me? They haven’t even seen the film.

"Rejection has an amazing quality. It gives you strength. I don’t know if it was the chanting of Vande Mataram or the sloganeering against me. Or both. I am taken over by some force. And I speak. From the heart. Like I have never done before."

................................................................................................

"‘Vande Mataram. Jai Hind.’ 

"The arena explodes with ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. 

"While watching the screening with the students, I am thinking about the people who are against this film. Why were some faculty members not letting it screen? Who are this faculty? I am amazed at their political power. Are they running these institutes at their whims? Are these educational institutions or political madrasas? Is the faculty Taliban and are the students jihadis? Why is it that the Barkha Dutts of the world did not even bother to cover this historic moment? Or have they taken an oath to cover only the anti-national news?

"The politics, on which I had based my film, and which up until now I only believed and felt intellectually, was slowly revealing itself in actuality. Conviction of thought is stronger than any other power. I can see this as the students laugh, clap, cheer at the right moments, which the Bollywood friends of mine missed at the MAMI screening."

"When the film ends, there is a huge roar of applause that makes a standing ovation redundant. For the next two hours, we are hounded by an unruly media and a selfie attack by our newfound fans and supporters. 

"As I head back to the hotel around midnight, some fifty-sixty students are taking out a victory march for Umar Khalid, who has just been released on bail. 

"Victory march? Really?"

................................................................................................

"Soon after the JNU screening, we start getting invites from various universities and institutions for the screening of our film. Naireeta shows me the emails and is super excited. 

"‘We have got an invite from IIT Gandhinagar, sir. Isn’t that great?’ 

"I am busy reading a text message on my phone."

"Just a few weeks before the JNU screening, I had met with an executive at PVR Cinemas, India’s largest chain of multiplexes, because they run a project called ‘Director’s Rare’ under which they support award-winning yet unreleased films on limited screens ranging between ten and twenty-five. To the producer it costs two to five lacs and his film gets a technical release for him to be able to sell satellite, overseas, digital, and other rights, and recover some of his costs. If one is really lucky, some indie lovers also come to see such films. I have been to some screenings and never found more than ten-fifteen people watching it, including the director and some actors. It’s a tragic state of affairs but I wasn’t complaining. The system brings down the maker of small indie films to such a level that even one screening feels like winning an Oscar.

"I met PVR COO Deepak Sharma and showed him the screener. Deepak understands politics pretty well. When he saw the screener of the film, he got excited and told me that it’s a very powerful film and asked me to go for a full nationwide release with hundred and fifty prints. A few meetings later, I realized that what Deepak had proposed would require nothing less than thirty-forty lacs for the digital prints. This is exactly hundred percent more than what we had. I did some quick mental math. I thought I would release it without any conventional TV or print advertising. Digital is free, which I can manage. I may need some money for travelling and print material. This would cost another ten lacs. I need fifty lacs. PVR charges fifty lacs to release a film and here they were offering to release my film for free. I didn’t want such an opportunity to go away.

"I called several people who finance films but they weren’t interested in a non-starrer film and that too one which had been stuck for so long. Some people did not understand how a film could be released without publicity. The powerful people didn’t want to touch it after the JNU screening. I requested Anurag Kashyap to see the film since he has major clout in distributing such films but he didn’t respond. I even pleaded with Manish Mundra, founder of Drishyam Films, who has produced several small indie films, to invest any amount from five lacs to fifty but by and by I realized that it was going to be impossible to get film industry folks to invest in a controversial film. Also, it was impossible for anyone to understand how a film could create awareness without spending big bucks in conventional advertising. We don’t have an innovation culture nor do we understand disruptive ideas. No wonder we are surrounded by mediocrity. After a lot of humiliation, disgust, and hyperacidity, I decided to meet Deepak and tell him my real situation. It’s not easy to stand naked in front of people who put you on a pedestal."

Was Rajshree too out of box for Agnihotri to occur?

................................................................................................

"As I was about to enter the swanky elevator of the PVR office in Andheri, someone called my name and he turned out to be an old friend and a trade consultant who had worked at Sony Pictures and is well connected with the distribution networks. He told me that he was looking for me as a childhood friend of his, Jay Merchant, wanted to contact me. Jay Merchant runs a theatre group in Vadodara and also teaches theatre. Jay was planning a play on the Naxal issue and while doing the research he read somewhere that I had made a film on Naxalism and since then he had been trying to find me. ... "

"‘I have a student in my theatre group who wants to invest small amounts in Hindi films. He wants to invest in a ready product. Would you be interested in meeting him?’"

"In Vadodara, I met a wonderful couple, Sharad and Shreyanshi Patel. Sharad had invested some money in a Gujarati film which turned out to be a blockbuster. He wanted to invest small amounts in irregular cinema. He is apolitical and just by seeing the screener, he agreed to invest the required amount. I had reached his house at ten in the morning and by one PM, the deal was locked.

"A tripartite contract was drawn up with PVR and all marketing plans and logistics were confirmed. It was decided that the film would release on May 6 on hundred and fifty-odd screens. 

"I was supposed to sign the contract today.

"‘What happened sir? Aren’t you happy with the news?’ Naireeta asked me again. 

"‘No, I am happy with the news… it’s just that we have the film, the audience, an investor but no distributor.’ 

"‘What do you mean no distributor? We have PVR, no?’ 

"‘No. They have backed out.’ 

"‘But why?’ 

"‘I don’t know. And I think we will never know.’"

"The first thing the film industry does to a free-willed filmmaker is that it makes him believe that there is no life without the producers, distributors, and money. Actually, it’s the other way around. There is no life for the middlemen without the creators. Since the middlemen have the money, they have set the rules of the game which make them more powerful and rich and the filmmakers weaker. This is the reason filmmakers give in and start playing by their rules to fit in and survive, and in return, the truth and the creative quotient of the film become natural victims. I shall not give in to the middlemen."

Do Bigha Zameen - of art. 

................................................................................................

"The IIT Gandhinagar campus is new, the amphitheater-style indoor auditorium is big enough to take over a thousand people.  The screening is at 6 PM. It’s 5.50 PM and there isn’t a soul except for the organizing students. My heart is pounding as, like any greedy filmmaker, I don’t want to run the film in an empty hall after the blockbuster screening at JNU. 

"It’s 5.55 PM and there isn’t anyone in the hall. 

"‘It’s OK, we can’t expect engineers to come and see a political drama,’ I tell Naireeta who is very disheartened. 

"‘Maybe they haven’t informed students properly. Looks like a flop show.’ 

"My phone rings. It’s Akshay Rathi whose family owns the Rathi group of cinemas in the central province of India. He asks me if I would be interested in screening the film at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai. It’s one of Asia’s top management institutes and there is no reason why I shouldn’t accept the invitation. They want to screen it the day after tomorrow as the students will be going on preparation leave.

"I notice there are four missed calls from Naireeta. ... "

" ... I rush to the auditorium. When I enter the hall from the rear door, I just cannot believe what I see. The hall is jam-packed with students. All eleven hundred of them. 

"‘Where have they just come from?’ 

"‘Sir, they had a class until 5.45.’ Naireeta informs me. 

"‘This is the real test of our film,’ I tell Naireeta, looking at a concentrated pool of India’s top technological and scientific minds in a dark auditorium. 

"I introduce the film. 

"‘How many of you know about Naxalism?’ 

"Very few hands go up. 

"‘Well, in that case, this film is for you.’

"The film begins in complete darkness. In the first scene, we see the Adivasi cutting wood in 2000 BC, and as the shot changes to 2014 AD and we see the same Adivasi cutting wood without a thing changed around him except for the leaves of mahua, the students clap. Some laugh. Some whisper. Some smile. I know the film is making a connect. Students are reacting at the right moments. I am keen to see how they react to the climax.

"When the climax comes, I go and stand near the exit door. From here, I can see everyone, in the flickering beam of the projector. As soon as Vikram Pundit takes out his iPad and says ‘Yeh hai naye Bharat ki nai soch, the new thinking of the new India’, some students clap. Then more join in. And more. This applause is coming from the heart. As an emotional response. I never expected this reaction. A film which is made to intellectually stimulate the audience ends up stimulating them emotionally. Slowly, the applause starts echoing hard enough to break out of this newly-built auditorium and its high ceiling. I want them to stop clapping and concentrate on the dialogues. If I had the faintest idea that this dialogue would generate such an overwhelming reaction, I would have created some silence in the moment.

"When the professor says ‘Sorry, Papa’ in the end, everyone laughs. This laughter isn’t the same as the way one laughs upon hearing a joke. It’s a laughter emanating from the satisfaction that evil has accepted defeat. This is the intended payoff of the film. And it has delivered.

"The Q&A begins with some general questions related to the film, but slowly it becomes intense, shifting from Naxalism to caste issues and exploitation of the Dalit. A girl from Kerala asks me why I have not shown caste-based oppression as she is a victim of this social evil. She is angry and very tense. She tells me how Dalit power is rising and Naxalism is the only support that they have.

"A very insightful discussion follows. What I gather from these small-town middle-class students is that they have a deep desire to rid India of its social evils, disparity, and inefficiency. They want to build India. They want change. Not by fighting the State but by fighting with ideas that do not let us grow. When I ask how many of them want to go abroad after graduation, very few hands go up. Student aspirations are changing. India is changing. The film has connected with them because it reaffirms this aspiration and the faith that the real revolution will come from ideas, and not war.  While the students of JNU want to bring about transformation with a political fight, these students want to use innovation as a tool for social and financial justice. They are Buddhas."

................................................................................................

"If we had followed Gandhi, we would have been a very different country. Kutir and Gram Udyog was built on a strong principle of entrepreneurship at the grassroots level. Native innovation is always more beneficial to the economy than imported technology. It’s cheaper, more effective and useful to local needs. It took almost 65 years for us to package amras, jaljeera juices and market them nationally. But by this time, the market was already saturated with foreign brands. We made engineers but not builders. We made doctors but not medical scientists. Teachers but not educators. We had neither a blueprint for villages nor any urban planning. Our growth story has been haphazard. Every year, regional, social, economic and political disparities are increasing and creating new, unexplored and complex webs of caste and class conflicts."

Oh they did follow. In political context. Where else could this so-called secular that is absurdly defined come from! From nehru siblings slapping, hard, a Hindu monk on fast, to every other concession and pronouncement that was either specifically anti-Hindu or pro-minorities at cist of Hindus (but never pro smaller minorities at vodt of minorities associated with ex colonial regimes!), has been progressively exaggerating, until throats of innocent have been cut with little action other than arrests, for heated words in a debate that fid not lie, in response to sustained campaign of lies after desecration of Hindu Deities - and a major one at that - was discovered. And the ridicule included cartoons on social media with questions supposed to further humiliate Hindus. 

Funny,  they rarely realize they bring out profound truths while doing thus. Such as when in 1990 or do a major newspaper asked if next on agenda was the Mumbadevi temple that had been demolished to build VT by British. Or even more do when someone questioned, with a photograph, if Hindus claim Bhabha Atomic reactor as a Shivalinga representation. 

What could be more true that the Atomic reactor representing Shivalinga, the Power of Shiva the Destroyer? Claimed it isn't, not so far, but a higher Truth it certainly is! 

................................................................................................

"Mao is the antithesis of Gandhi in that he believed war and armed conflict were necessary vehicles to drive a revolution forward. Gandhi explained that non-violence is crucial to a revolution. For Mao, political power comes from force and violence. For Gandhi, political power comes from cooperation and consent."

Has it occurred to them that Lincoln and FDR are a valid alternative team? 

"In independent India, much after Gandhi’s death, two revolutions began almost at the same time and for the same purpose: redistribution of the landlord’s land to poor peasants. While Mao’s disciples were killing people to redistribute land, Gandhi’s disciple Vinoba Bhave was walking all over India to request zamindars to donate their lands for the peasants and received over six lac acres for redistribution. One came to be known as Naxalism/Maoism and the other is known as Bhoodan. That we do not acknowledge Bhoodan but glorify Naxalism is a failure of our country’s conscience."

Colonial slave mindset, available for sale to every traditional buyer of slaves, whether China or anyone geographically West of India. 

................................................................................................

"Back in Mumbai, I show the film at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research and India’s leading engineering institute, IIT Bombay. The film receives an overwhelming reception, followed by intense Q&A sessions. 

"At IIT Bombay, I meet Professor Bapat and his colleagues. This is the computer science department which most toppers of JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) opt for. These are some of the best professors in India with several innovations and patents in their bags. It’s said that when these professors walk, instead of footprints they leave behind innovations. Despite such achievements and contribution to India’s technological growth, the head of the department and his colleagues aren’t happy people since Narendra Modi won the elections.

"Professor Bapat tells me that all his life he has been attending the Indian Science Congress and various conferences to speak on Vedic science, but since Modi became PM, wherever he speaks on Vedic science, people start calling him Sanghi. He is worried about such intolerance. He has been able to overcome the biggest of the scientific challenges but sees himself failing in front of this emerging political intolerance of an idea that is rooted in Hindu traditions and history. He feels an organized campaign is being run to demoralize such citizens who take pride in Hindu civilization and its traditional knowledge systems.

"IIT Bombay is not like any other institute. After a quiet screening, I am bombarded with questions ranging from Naxalism to Artificial Intelligence and Vedic knowledge. This, perhaps, is the only institute where research scholars have strong faith in ancient knowledge. This isn’t a Q&A anymore, it has become an event to share ideas, aspirations, and concerns. I am observing that at each screening, the film intellectually stimulates the audience and engages them. Normally, Q&A sessions are mostly restricted to the film but in our case, students ask all kinds of political questions as if I have all the answers. In the end, all points of views merge and create one main flow of debate, a debate that every student, every professor is involved with: The Intolerance Debate."

................................................................................................

"A few months back, I had an opportunity to meet Prime Minister Modi at his residence at 7 Race Course Road, over an informal chat filled with humour, ideas, and positivity. And of course, there was chai along with chaas, dhokla, idlis, and veg kathi rolls which were literally forced on me and the rest by the Prime Minister himself.

"It was a time when both the intolerance debate and award wapsi was at its peak and the media was loving to portray Modi as the root cause of the increasing intolerance. They wanted Modi’s head but he kept silent. Munnawar Rana, a popular Urdu poet, was leading the attack on various channels.

"I remember Prime Minister Modi sharing his belief that the cultural space shouldn’t be ‘rajya aashrit’, government-dependent, as it takes away the voice of reason but it should be ‘rajya puraskarit’, awarded by the State. And without ‘fearless cultural evolution’, we would be a robotic society. He clarified that he never received any request from any ‘kalakar’ to meet him. ‘One day I saw on TV that Shri Munnawar Rana was saying that if PM invites us, we’ll go and tell him about our concerns, so I immediately called my secretary and asked him to invite Shri Rana at his convenience but till date no one has come. As a PM, I can’t go beyond this. Home Minister Rajnath Singhji has publicly extended the invitation, twice, but no one has responded.’

"On the murder of rationalist academic Kalburgi and the lynching of a Muslim man at Dadri, he said that no one has met the governors of the states and lodged their concerns in order to be channeled to him as he can’t interfere in state issues. He had asked the Karnataka government to send him all the files on the Kalburgi murder but they had not sent them as yet.

"PM Modi gave an example of administrative intolerance. During the last days of the Vajpayee government, it was decided to build six All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). The then health minister Sushma Swaraj named the Patna AIIMS Jaiprakash Narayan Institute, and similarly, the other five were also named after non-Congress national leaders. Vajpayee’s government lost the elections and the Congress-led UPA came to power. The UPA passed a Bill in Parliament and ‘banned’ these names to be used for any government project. That was the level of intolerance, he said.

"He was concerned about ‘political concern vs national interest’. He told us that fifty-four heads of African countries were in India for the Indo-African summit. ‘So many heads of state don’t even attend a state funeral,’ he said sarcastically. ‘One-third of the world’s population, its concerns, and aspirations were represented, yet in our media and public discourses, this event was absent.’

"He said emphatically, ‘If there is a loss to the country due to my mistake, please criticize me which you must… punish me… but just to oppose me or any other political rival, one shouldn’t forget national interest. This much intolerance is not good.’

"He quoted how Galileo was nearly killed for opposing a belief but in India, when Charvak, an atheist, challenged the Vedas with logic and rejected the idea of reincarnation, he was given the title of ‘rishi’. Indian thought isn’t about tolerance, it’s about acceptance. He reminded us that societies which champion the cause of human rights are the ones who started two world wars whereas India has been the most peace-generating country in the global context. He said, ‘I have absolute faith that the tapasya of thousands of years can’t be destroyed by you and me.’"

WWI and WWII were started by Germany, not known to champion human rights until end of WWII. Germany, or rather, the naxis blamed England of course, for WWII and possibly the one before. That merely meant, if only Britain hadn't meddled while Germany was merely enslaving Europe, looting it and conducting genocides, there wouldn't have been any war. 

Indeed. 

World might have been a nazi colony, instead. 

................................................................................................

"Why is everyone talking about intolerance? Are we really intolerant? 

"How come we have so many political parties ruling so many different states? This means there is political tolerance. In industry, we have equal opportunities for all kinds of enterprise. Malls exist in the midst of local bazaars and street vendors. Sikhs have shops in the heart of Srinagar. Biharis have farms in Punjab. Which means there is no financial intolerance. In administration, education and health, we never question the religion or political alignment of the practitioner. If people can openly criticize the prime minister, ridicule religious leaders, question social taboos, debate issues ranging from FTII to bar dancers, return awards, make fun of regional leaders, it proves that there is no media or FoE intolerance."

Except by those claiming it and accusing Hindus fraudulently. 

"Why aren’t sane, rational voices heard any more? If you invite sane voices, voices of reason, the lethal game of boutique activism stands exposed. Boutique Liberal Activism feeds on the misery of others. Schadenfreude is the oxygen of their business. That’s why they show only the miserable side of our society. The evolved, enlightened and reasonable voice of India is absolutely absent from the national discourse. Who has divided us?

"Our society is divided into ‘overclass’ (as described by Michael Find) and ‘underclass’. Overclass has systematically siphoned off the national wealth, leaving the underclass to fight for two square meals. They either inherited or, in collusion with corrupt regimes, appointed themselves to positions of power and influence. With strong control over information, they kept the underclass in the dark. Their word was the final word. The biggest trick the overclass played on the underclass is keeping the hope alive that only they can get them out of this abject poverty. That we have problems and they have the solution. ... "

"Two phenomena disturbed this status quo. One, the advent of social media, and second, the rise of Narendra Modi. With easy access to social and digital media, the underclass started questioning the authenticity of information provided by the overclass. Suddenly, their statements are scrutinized, their credibility is questioned, their sinister campaigns and lies are exposed. Their dilemma is that if they quit social media, they lose their relevance, and if they stay, they lose their credibility. This war of intolerance isn’t between HDL (Hindu Defence League) and MDL (Muslim Defence league). This isn’t between the left and the right. This is between the overclass and the underclass. The intellectual hierarchy has been demolished."

It never was intellectual, in the first place. It was a dynasts vs SSR, always. 

Latter, suddenly - after he was so horribly finished off, and to those his roots belong to, the middle class striving for education - came to represent the society he came from. Striving and dreaming. 

Unlike the Doon school club.

................................................................................................

"Media czars have lost their access to the corridors of power and to people’s hearts. It’s the overclass’ space that has been taken over by the underclass. Their discomfort is with the new order where the others are also heard. Hence, the feeling of shrinking space. They are intolerant of this new phenomenon – the emergence of the underclass. They try to devalue this new, empowered underclass by associating it with Modi and, therefore, Hindutva, and that’s a grave mistake. The universe that was full of their voice has expanded to accommodate this new voice. This is what they call an attack on FoE and growing intolerance.

" ... Social justice, if it has to come, will come only from a free and fair market. Why didn’t our liberals tell us this simple truth? When agendas, vote banks, and self-delusion take over, reasoning and sympathy are needed to keep up a common conversation. Without it, there is aggression, deafness, and an obsession with purification; hence the divisive politics of Boutique Liberalism. Boutique Liberalism is an Indian tragedy and a very damaging detour into the quicksand of communalism. Indian Liberalism has come to mean the colour opposite of saffron. That’s their failure. In a desperate attempt, their new mantra is – ‘We don’t care if you are a murderer, we want to know whether you are a liberal or a Sanghi murderer?’ 

"This is where the real intolerance lies."

No, it far more sinister. 

It's fraudulent accusations against innocent Hindus to prove that Islamic terrorists are cuddly teddy bears. It's torture of innocent Hindus arrested fraudulently by cops not shy of physically and mentally torturing them, threatening rapes of females - and of female relatives- by dozens of them, and forcing fraudulent confessions via these and worse tortures, at instructions from "high up" during the UPA regime. 

It's a bill almost passed in parliament to the effect that any Hindu, if accused by someone non-Hindu, loses all civil rights including habeas corpus. 

It's public statement of denial of Hindu Deities and assertion of non-existence thereof, by the said regime. 

Worse, it's constant fraudulent accusation against a state CM as one responsible, while witnesses to Delhi riots who knew role of  congress henchmen in 1984, were living in fear, if living. 

Worst of all, it's never asking if the Gujarat riots were an Islamic jihadi agenda from johafists who considered their victory against USSR led to another in Kashmir enforcing Hindu exodus, and were therefore encouraged to conducting an ethnic cleansing of yet another border state, a prosperous one. 

A UPA minister conducted an inquiry about the pilgrims burnt alive by muslims in Godhra, designed to conclude that the pilgrims dud it to themselves  so the attackers were pronounced not guilty. Victims included even, children and old. 

This whole onslaught is an attempt to return to the era when Hindus were slaves to invading barbarians, never equal. 

And they didn't ask, is paki design to conquer behind this flurry of attacks against Hindus, and against PM Modi? Perhaps they knew it was, and were silent because they were paid. 

Was 2002 a paki attack, foiled, and therefore the maligning of the then CM?

................................................................................................

" ... After an hour or so, I see a tall, lanky boy in a kurta and jeans with unkempt hair and uneven beard, walking towards the auditorium. I call him to ask where to find tea. 

"‘Thanks. In case, you are going to see the film, you are already late by an hour,’ I tell him. 

"‘I don’t want to see the film,’ he replies. There is contempt in his body language. It intrigues me. 

"‘Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. I am the director of the film – Viv...’ 

"‘I know you are Vivek Agnihotri,’ he says with a cold look. 

"‘Great. May I ask why you don’t want to see the film?’ 

"‘Because I have already seen it.’ 

"‘Where?’ ‘On the net.’ 

"‘That’s impossible.’ 

"‘Everything is possible on the net.’ 

"‘You mean the full film?’ 

"‘Yeah, we have seen the full film. Not just once, but several times. Last we saw it this morning.’ 

"‘And what did you think?’ 

"‘That we will tell you in the Q&A.’ 

"I have never met anyone who can look into your eyes and offend you with his honesty. 

"‘Since there is an hour for the Q&A to begin, why don’t we sit down and chat? You tell me what doesn’t work for you and if I can make you understand my reasons, maybe we can discover another truth.’ 

"We sit on one of the concrete benches, overlooking the lush green garden. 

"‘It’s not about liking or disliking the film; this film is dangerous.’ 

"I find him interesting. I want to indulge him. After all, that is the purpose of this journey, to debate and learn from a new perspective. 

"‘The intention behind this film is to begin a debate,’ I try to set the tone. 

"‘You are not starting a debate; you are creating a narrative. And that’s dangerous.’ 

"‘You sound like a logical young lawyer. Why would you say it’s dangerous? It’s just a film.’ 

"‘That’s why. As a film, it will create a new narrative.’ 

"‘What’s wrong with a new narrative? It’s based on facts.’ 

"‘I don’t care about your facts. We just don’t need another narrative.’ 

"‘You hate the film so much?’ 

"‘I don’t hate the film. In fact, the film is really good. Perhaps, one of the best. We just don’t want the film to be released.’ 

"‘How can you even say that?’ 

"‘That’s true. We have seen it several times and we have decided that we will rip it apart and ensure that it’s not released.’ 

"‘We? Who are we?’ 

"‘We are everywhere. You will meet some of them in the Q&A. Today is going to be your worst day.’ 

"‘Why are you telling me all this? You could have just attacked me directly in the Q&A.’ 

"‘True. But when I met you, I wanted to hurt you. I want you to suffer.’ 

"‘Just because I have a point of view?’ 

"‘For the revolution to come, we must destroy any narrative which is against Naxalism. Including your film.’ 

"‘Why are you doing this?’ 

"‘Because we want an India which is free of Brahmins like you.’"

Agnihotri goes on here to equivovate, either not realising or not daring to point out, that the anti-Brahmin agenda was vital to Macaulay policy to destroy India - and its a colonial slave mindset that accepts as gospel truth the completely fraudulent blames and accusations heaped against Brahmins, which in reality were copied from realities of church, but untrue of Brahmins. 

Regardless of the source of this hatred, whether Abrahamic-II or Abrahamic-III or Abrahamic-IV, Macaulay policy it is they follow, forever the crystallised form of hatred for India from outsider, lesser cultures of barbaric invaders. 

" ... These vulnerable students are then brainwashed with a false argument against Brahminism and gut-wrenching stories of oppression and class struggle. In a few months, they are trained to hate everything about Brahmins, upper class, the rich and successful, and money. All this anger is consolidated in one enemy: RSS. Since RSS’ agenda is to create a Hindu nation, these young people end up hating everything related to Hinduism, including Hindus."

................................................................................................

" ... As a student, I was as angry and as honest. But our dreams were different. This boy is not a hardcore Leftist yet. He is trying very hard to be one. He is a good boy. He has the sincerity, character, and passion. He has a dream for India and the energy and desire to accomplish it. These kinds of young men and women got us freedom. These are the kind of men and women, if used tactfully, can be instrumental in building a nation. Or breaking it."

" ... In public life, appreciation builds slowly but opposition builds exponentially.

"A bright spotlight is turned on and its bright beam falls straight on my face. A few girls stand up and start clapping. Slowly, everyone stands up and claps. As the students give a standing ovation to the film, I try to identify those who are not clapping and these are the same students who had poker faces when I introduced the film.

"‘What do you think about Manu Smriti?’ a boy from the last row asks me. His body language is defensive but his eyes are aggressive.  

"I am not prepared for questions outside the scope of film’s theme. I have to take a call whether to engage in a pre-decided strategy of the Leftist students or escape it with humour. I decide to counter-argue. 

"‘I haven’t read Manu Smriti. But I have read versions of it and I think maybe it had relevance in its time but in today’s context it has no relevance,’ I reply. 

"‘Why are you avoiding the question?’ he asks.

"‘No, I am not. I am not an expert on it and I feel it’s irrelevant in my life so I don’t care much.’ 

"‘That’s because you are a Brahmin.’ 

"I don’t like it. I have never liked casteist discussions. If there is any one thing that is alien to my entire being, one thing that I detest, it is casteism. But I know where they want to lead me. 

"‘The only time I was called Brahmin before this was when I went to study at Harvard. There we were called Boston Brahmins. But Brahmin there signified meritocracy. You are here in India’s top institute, in a top profession, so in my eyes, you are also a Brahmin.’

"‘You are again running away from the issue.’

"‘I hope you realize that neither Manu Smriti nor Brahminism is within the scope of this film. The film is about Naxalism, about intellectual terrorism… feel free to ask anything around the theme.’ 

"‘So… you want me to shut up. OK, say so.’"

"A French-bearded management professor, sitting next to the VC, asks the students to be quiet and he rises to speak. 

"‘I think it’s a democracy and we follow absolute freedom of speech, so I think students should be allowed to ask any question,’ the management professor makes a point.

"‘OK. After seeing the film, you can’t question my commitment to absolute freedom of speech. I just didn’t want to digress.’ I point at the VC and continue, ‘Whatever VC saheb says.’ I know I have put the VC in an awkward situation. He desperately wants to see the students corner me but he also wants me to give a good report card to his bosses. He has a tough job.

"‘I agree with Agnihotri saab that the questions should be around the film,’ he turns to address me, ‘But Agnihotri saab, you are not just a filmmaker. You write on politics, so it might be a good idea if you took some other questions from the students.’ He smiles at me and then turns towards the students and smiles at them. Law schools teach you how to take a stand in favour of one of the arguments and here the VC wants to appease both sides.

"They aren’t interested in listening. They just want to attack. They throw questions on RSS, Godhra, Dadri, intolerance and of course on Rohith Vemula’s suicide. For them, I represent the enemy. And now it seems, I am the enemy. 

"‘What are your views on Rohith Vemula, Mr. Agnihotri?’ a student with a long beard asks.

"‘It’s very sad. Except for that, I have no views on Rohith Vemula.’ 

"‘Just sad. A Dalit student was forced to commit suicide and you have no views. Isn’t that sad?’ 

"‘First of all, we don’t know if he was forced or he did it of his own free will. We don’t even know if he was a Dalit but his being Dalit doesn’t make his death sadder. In my mind, a young bright boy lost his life. So, I feel as sad as I feel for any other young student.’

"This makes them furious. In this mini-battle, their attempt is to corner me with personal attacks as they know film is my home ground and they can’t win an argument there. Hence, this strategy to raise sensitive issues of Dalits, minorities, feminism, homosexuality, Ram Mandir etc. which have become sentimental issues. They want to cash in on the Dalit part of the story and put the blame on Hindu aspiration.

"‘What are your views on reservations?’ 

"‘I think reservations should be for FBC – Financially Backward Class.’

"This makes the bearded guy furious. 

"‘You know what is your problem? You are an oppressor. You have no right to make such a movie… you are a liar!’ He starts using the most unparliamentary language. 

"I look at the VC and the professor. The VC avoids my eyes but the management professor keeps staring at me. He is keen to see my reaction. He wants to see me break. They let him speak his insulting language. I am in a very positive frame of mind. I don’t want to get into an argument that leads nowhere. My film is my argument. I think I must navigate the session in a different direction.

"‘Why are you so angry, my friend? I empathize with your frustration as I have also been a student like you who has expressed his anger by burning government buses but as I grew up I realized that a little sense of humour helps,’ I say, addressing the other group. The majority of the students agree. 

"‘You want to see sense of humour?’ He charges towards me.

"All heads turn towards him. He charges through the aisles from the last row, yelling at me. I can feel an aura of violence around him. He is going to attack me. I prepare myself mentally. I look at Naireeta. She looks scared. I look at the VC and the professor who are not responding, as if waiting to see how the event unfolds. He picks up speed and comes running towards the podium. He climbs the podium. In the next four steps, he is going to catch my neck, or pounce on me, or spit on me. He takes the first step and the second…Naireeta jumps from somewhere and stands in front of me. The boy stops. Collective sigh. 

"He stares at me as if trying to do with his eyes what he couldn’t do with his hands. He is gasping for air. His hands are trembling. He gives me a hateful look. Hate is very hurtful whether expressed by a physical attack, or words or just a look.  

"‘How can you discuss money when so many people are dying? There is no point talking to you, Mr. Agnihotri,’ and he walks out of the auditorium with the same speed, banging the door behind him.

"After a long, suspended moment of awkward silence, the management professor raises his hand. 

"‘I want to know your views on capitalism since your movie shows capitalism winning in the end,’ says the professor. 

"‘It depends on which side of capitalism we are looking at. Capitalism means innovation, excellence, wealth creation, empowerment, conveniences, quality of human life and so on. Capitalism also means greed, ambition, conflict, corruption, exploitation and so on. I believe in the former. I believe every facet of life has two sides: good and bad. I believe in balance. But if I have to make a choice, I’d always want to choose the good part.’

"‘So, you are pro-money?’ 

"‘I love money. I am sure you love money too. If not, then you should, because a great economist said, “Money is the most creative invention of humanity.”’ 

"‘Who said this? Economics is my specialization but I have never heard this,’ he says with arrogance. 

"‘Kautilya,’ I reply. ‘Kautilya who?’ 

"‘Chanakya.’ 

"There are murmurs interspersed with laughter in the audience. The VC looks at his professor and realizes that it’s time to close the proceedings.

"Later, as Mr. Mustafa comes to drop me off to my car, after a delicious Hyderabadi dinner, he requests me that if I meet the HRD minister I must tell her about his achievements and his desire to implement the vision of the new government."

................................................................................................

"Our car runs through a dark highway. We are late for our next screening at Osmania University. Naxalism has attracted many students of Osmania. It has always been a hotbed of radical politics. It was in Osmania in 1974-75 that fourteen students renounced family life and vowed never to marry with the purpose of devoting their entire lives to the revolution. ‘Overground’ organizations were formed. The first state-level conference of the newly formed Radical Students Union (RSU) was held in Hyderabad to formalize strategies to integrate the student movement with the armed revolution. It was attended by an overwhelming number of students whose enthusiasm and collective efforts gave impetus to the Naxal movement.

"A huge screen has been put up in front of the main building under which many freedom fighters had found their resolve, many writers had written classic poetry, ideas of so many revolutions were seeded. If an orthodox politician Asaduddin Owaisi crossed this sanctum sanctorum, then the architect of liberalization, P.V. Narasimha Rao and the astronaut Rakesh Sharma also walked here."

" ... The screening gets a tremendous response. People laugh, clap and go silent like a statue. People clap very hard when the nexus between the professor, the NGO, and the Naxals is exposed towards the end of the film. After my experience at NALSAR, filled with negativity, pessimism, hatred and violence, this screening with its positivity, optimism, and hope feels spiritual.

"The Leftists are too eager to latch on to anything that gives them an opportunity to publicly attack and defeat pro-India voices intellectually. Whereas these students at Osmania want to move away from the days of disturbance and conflict and are ready to latch on to any positive, optimistic and hopeful idea. At NALSAR, they had a plan, a strategy, and an agenda. When they saw themselves and their strategies getting exposed in the film in front of their ignorant colleagues, they got angry at me. They wanted to kill the messenger. That exactly is the reason they keep failing with their revolution.  I will relish these contradictions all my life.

"We have to catch a flight the next morning for Bengaluru.  We have screenings at the National Law University and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). We decide to leave at 9 AM. Sleep evades me.  A mass of questions is whirling inside my head."

................................................................................................

" ... Political masterminds never look at it as a loss of life. They look for political plugs like religion, caste, regionality, economic status etc. A Muslim death is always more beneficial than a Hindu death. A lower caste death, a farmer’s death, a slum dweller’s death always has the scope to be spun it into an emotional saga of the oppressed and thus maintain a fake narrative of class struggle."

"Here is a man who fell for a utopia and joined the Communist student body, the Students Federation of India (SFI). When he realized that the ‘people’s revolution’ is a facade for the sinister and ruthless politics that is against every principle of humanity, his faith shattered."

"Instead of being led to social justice and people’s empowerment, he found himself being exploited just as a political pawn in a dangerous, inhuman game."

Vemula had been suspended for reasons more than adequate. He had physically assaulted another, dalit student, who was in a serious condition, hospitalised, and hence their was a serious police issue (because the distraught widow, who was mother of the student hospitalised, wasn't forgiving of Vemula merely out of a political consideration for his being dalit as well?), so Vemula took the last step - if he did! There's no evidence that it wasn't a murder, perpetrated by left, for political convenience. 

................................................................................................

"‘Saar, Ram Navami is never a holiday but our professor wasn’t happy with the screening of your film… he asked me many times to cancel it…  he can’t cancel the permission for the auditorium because students will get angry… so last night he sent the mail to our network declaring today a holiday. Tomorrow and day after are Saturday and Sunday; so, as the students got a long weekend, all of them left. Saar, I was waiting to meet him, the professor, that’s why I got delayed, sir.’ 

"We take a deep breath and let it sink in. It’s not easy to understand his accent and construction of sentences. I process whatever I understood. 

"‘So, what’s the status now?’ 

"‘Saar, if you want to show to ten fifteen students, it’s fine but now he may not give the auditorium as he will say there are no students, why are you taking auditorium.’ 

"‘How do you know he declared a holiday just so that students don’t attend the screening?’ 

"‘I know saar, he doesn’t want screening.’ 

"‘But he hasn’t seen the film.’ 

"‘Saar, but everybody has read about the film. Your film is very popular amongst the faculty.’ 

"‘You think it’s a sabotage?’ 

"‘I am sure saar. Very positive, saar.’ 

"‘Why would he do that?’ 

"‘He doesn’t want any alternate narrative saar.’ 

"I don’t have to ask him anything. I guess the rest. 

"‘Can I tell the press? Will you stand by it?’ 

"He looks at me as if I have pulled his tongue out. He starts crying. 

"‘Saar, please don’t tell anyone my name. He asked me to keep quiet. If they get to know I tell you saar, they will suspend me and my other colleagues in the organizing committee. I am very poor saar, my parents very poor, we can’t go back home. We are research scholars… all our marks depend on professor saar. Please, saar.’ 

"‘I’ll never say anything unless you agree. So, relax. But I am curious to know his name.’ 

"‘Sir he is Prof. Mathew. He is a very strong Leftist. He also contested the election on AAP ticket in 2014.’

"I know we have lost the battle. There is no way we can question such a perfect and technically foolproof sabotage. I am not worried about our loss but I am worried what will happen if India ever loses this battle."

AAP, in other news, when denied ownership of Delhi police, stopped paying cleaners in Delhi. So sudden holiday for Ram Navami was quite in AAP style.

................................................................................................

"The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) ranks number one in India and it is one of the top ten specialized universities of the world. Once, the father of Indian industry, Jamshedji Tata, while travelling in a ship, had a chance meeting with Swami Vivekananda and they discussed various ideas, including Tata’s plan to bring the steel industry to India and Vivekananda’s quest for bringing scientific research to India. Many years later, Tata wrote a letter to Swami Vivekananda: 

"‘I trust, you remember me as a fellow traveller on your voyage from Japan to Chicago. I very much recall your views on the growth of the ascetic spirit in India, in connection with my scheme of a research institute of science in India.’ In the letter, he requested Vivekananda to guide him in this endeavour.

"Jamshedji Tata conceived of a university in 1896 that would work for India’s scientific development and at the behest of Vivekananda, the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, donated three hundred and seventy acres of land in Bangalore. Since then, IISc has been headed by some of the best scientific brains of the world, such as Nobel Laureate CV Raman, Satish Dhawan, C.N.R. Rao, just to name a few. IISc’s contribution in the fields of science, space technology, advanced computing and nuclear science is unparalleled.

"After I failed to get into engineering, I tried to get admission in IISc but couldn’t make it. Today I am being invited to screen my film there. This makes one wonder about the concepts of destiny, luck, and intent."

Reminds one of SSR  speaking at IIT after, or was it before,  shooting for Chhichhore. 

................................................................................................

"We reach half an hour before the screening. Students meet us outside the auditorium and inform us that the venue has changed and take us to a hall near the registrar’s office. There isn’t anyone here except for some workers trying to fix a generator for an uninterrupted screening. When I reach the hall, I just cannot believe that common sense is so scarce in one of the world’s best science schools. The hall has long French windows everywhere without any curtain or blind cover. It’s already very hot and the hall is not air-conditioned. The whirr of fans is very disturbing. There is an LED screen but the sound is pathetic. The noise of the generator can be heard easily inside the hall. A few people have come but they aren’t enough to fill this ancient hall with lots of windows. I look for Naireeta who is crying in a corner. I am always chilled out but just can’t take anyone tampering with my work. I lose my temper.

"‘What do you think we are doing here? Who organizes a screening in a hall with windows? Do you collect water in a sieve? Are you a science student?’ 

"‘Saar, we were allotted a screen in the main auditorium but some Leftist students raised serious objections and at the last minute we had to shift the venue.’ 

"‘Do you call this a venue? It’s a godown with a hundred windows.’ 

"‘Saar, Dr. CV Raman used to conduct lectures here. It’s of historical value.’ 

"‘Of course, I can see that in the last fifty years, since Raman, no one ever entered this hall.’ 

"‘Saar, we tried our best but we are small in number. We knew what happened at NLU and that’s why we decided that whatever happens, we must do the screening. This is a victory for us, saar.’"

" ... When I reach the ‘hall with a hundred windows’, to my surprise, it’s jam-packed. People are sitting, standing, squeezing themselves and trying to fit into this extremely hot hall which is now stinking of sweat.

"The front rows are taken by the professors who have come in large numbers. There are some outsiders from other institutes. I have no idea if they will be able to sit through this heat. I am felicitated and asked to speak."

"‘I know it’s hot, noisy and uncomfortable. I have sacrificed a lot to be able to reach this far and I am ready to sacrifice more as this is the most important issue in my life, to be able to see a truly shining India and that isn’t possible until we get rid of “invisible enemies” who want to break us. I would suggest that only those commit themselves to see the movie in bad projection, muffled sound and extreme heat who also share my dream and are willing to sacrifice something for it.’ 

"Nobody moves. Then some students get up. More join and then some more. My heart sinks. Slowly, the entire gentry gets up and they scream together ‘Vande Mataram’. The film begins but the chant still echoes in this ‘hall with a hundred windows’.

"The student leader takes me around the institute. We sit under a tall statue of its founder Jamshedji Tata and chat about the politics. 

"‘Saar, there is not much politics here. It’s just some students who want to create a rift between Hindu and Dalit students. They don’t want any work related to nationalism, culture or heritage to be discussed or displayed. Like for your screening, if the faculty and administration had helped us, we would have screened it in the main hall but sometimes the administration listens to them.’ 

"‘But why? You aren’t doing anything wrong. It’s your right to screen a film. You are also a research scholar like them. Then what is the basis for this discrimination?’ 

"‘Saar, they have created a perception that they are intellectuals and we are emotional buggers. They have convinced everyone that talking about our country or parents or rakhi for sisters or anything that is Hindu and Indian is regressive but talking about revolution, free sex, protest and Mao are progressive things. That’s why, saar.’ 

"The film ends amidst thunderous applause and chants of ‘Vande Mataram’.  I speak.

"‘I am a bit emotional thinking about the hardships one has to go through in our country to excel, to innovate, and to express oneself. A lot of people choose to escape to foreign universities and jobs. A lot give up. Just two hours ago I was about to give up. I dedicate this evening to those who stay back, fight and dedicate their entire lives to make India a better, stronger place. Normally, we have a Q&A after the film but today I want to hear your experiences, after seeing the film, which you may want to share with me so that I can get more inspired, more determined to take this fight all across India and expose these invisible enemies.’"

"For the next hour and a half, I listen to lots of experiences, some scary, some painful. These are some of the most valuable insights. The common theme is intolerance of the Leftist community to accept them as intellectuals. It’s true that most of the students from here go on to work for government institutions that work for India’s development and scientific progress. It’s clear that life is really hellish for a development-leaning, non-English-speaking, small-town student. He is considered to be a right-wing person. What can be a sadder commentary than this, where the world’s top-class scientists, the real intellectuals, have no place in the national intellectual discourse. Today, I understand why. Because the entire Naxal/Left/Maoist movement in India is based on an illogical venom against the country and any kind of scientific and logical discourse works like an antidote to their destructive ideology."

And until, these are the real intelligentsia, not the leftists who really are what Indian languages know as Padhatamourkha. For they go strictly by text, whether it fits or not - as befitting Abrahamic-IV.

................................................................................................

" ... Open-Air Theatre of IITM where the film is to be screened tonight. It’s huge and accommodates around six thousand people. Naireeta tells me that the organizers are confident that it will fill more than the capacity. ... "

"Before I can ask Naireeta anything, she receives a screenshot of a tweet from Sumeet. 

"@Sumeetroy red elements at IITM tried their best to stop us. They removed our posters last night. However, we again kept posters today. 

"Sumeet belongs to a middle-class Bengali family, but he was born and brought up in the tribal-dominated district of Betul, Madhya Pradesh. He has seen Naxalism first hand. He has traveled extensively in sixteen states of India and has spent time on our international borders with China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Sumeet loves exploring new places, writing articles, and reading. He runs an organization called Vande Mataram at IIT Madras, an independent initiative by IIT Madras students. Along with other students, he created this Vande Mataram group with the vision of making the youth socially aware. To achieve this objective, they arrange talks, discussions, screenings and also do selfless service like teaching, tree plantation, cleanliness drives.

"If you take out Vande Mataram from his resume, he is an ideal candidate to join the Leftists. But for his group, Vande Mataram is not just a name. When someone asks them, what is the difference between them and the Leftists, they say, ‘Vande Mataram.’ 

"Vande Mataram invited us to screen our film because they felt Buddha In a Traffic Jam is the most relevant movie in recent times which reveals the nexus between NGOs, the Naxals, and the academia. IIT Madras is a fine example of it, where many professors and students of the humanities department openly support terrorists like Yakub Memon, Afzal Guru, Abdul Nasser Mahdani etc.

"When we land at Chennai, the Vande Mataram team is waiting for us with flowers. Nobody speaks until the car picks up steady speed. Sumeet informs me that they had to face lots of problems for the screening of the film. ‘First, they delayed the permission, without giving any reason, then they gave permission for the programme but not for the venue. Then just three days ago they gave permission for the Open-Air Theatre. Then they cancelled that yesterday. We were told by the Dean that the film secretary doesn’t want to give Open Air Theatre for the screening of this movie.

"‘Whereas, we have a screening every weekend. Just a few days ago, Aligarh was shown because it’s a film supported by the Leftists. But I know unofficially that the film secretary who is a Leftist got scared when he realized that the OAT will be jam-packed. When we protested, the Dean gave us permission for SAC (600 capacity). When more students signed up for the screening, they changed it at the last minute and finally, they gave permission for ICSR hall (capacity 300). Last night we put up posters of the movie but Leftists removed them overnight. Now the problem is that there are too many students, at least 800, who want to see the film, but the capacity is only 300.’

"‘Ask the rest of them to sit or stand in the aisles. That’s how it has been wherever we screened,’ I try to find a solution.

"‘No sir, we can’t do that. They aren’t allowing anyone to sit or stand in the aisles, whereas last week there was a talk and we were all standing in the aisles, shoulder to shoulder.’

"‘Is that a new rule?’ I ask.

"‘No sir. New tactic.’

"A pattern is emerging. The Urban Naxals are installed in top institutes. Institutes which matter, which engineer the narrative. They are using these campuses as ‘intellectual training zones’. Like in the military, no point of view other than the combat is allowed to enter a soldier’s mind; in these campuses, no narrative other than theirs is allowed to pass through the minds of their intellectual soldiers."

That this includes IISc, IIT is the shocking part. 

................................................................................................

"‘In almost every instance, they deliberately delay the permission to the last minute leaving us with hardly any time to organize the programme. Many times, they give permission for the programme per se, but don’t give permission for the venue. This is their standard strategy. Never give in fully to your needs. Create hurdles. Change venues at the last minute. Make your life so miserable that you finally give up. They kill you without using arms.’

"Sumeet narrates many incidents which are a sad commentary on our education management. He sounds very perturbed with Dalit politics.  

"‘Leftists present themselves as rational, liberal and supporters of equality; however, they support irrational things like caste reservation and Muslim Personal Law Board. Leftists mostly use the fraud Aryan-Dravidian theory to divide the people on the basis of region and skin colour. Leftists refer to Ambedkar and Periyar to justify hatred against upper castes and Indic religions.’

"‘In an engineering college, how do students get attracted to an unscientific and irrational narrative? By temperament, shouldn’t they be apolitical?’ I inquire. 

"‘Many Leftist activists, mostly from Kerala, have taken admission in the Humanities department. Many of them are associated with SFI, DYFI, CPI. Most of them are from non-engineering backgrounds and have taken admissions through tests and interviews conducted by department faculties. The admission process is highly questionable as it is mostly based on department faculty recommendations rather than any open competitive exam score. They haven’t taken admission through JEE, GATE, CAT or any other tough competitive exam.’

"One of the observations he makes is that the faculty members, who are also alumni of JNU, are trying to divide the students in the name of caste and religion. Distribution of pamphlets and sticking posters of hate speeches and anti-India substance are now becoming common on the IIT campus.

"‘You know sir; this is a very successful strategy. Leftists always try to spread their message through educational institutes which are the best places to brainwash young minds. That’s the reason the Leftists captured all the influential posts in educational institutions. It is a long conspiracy which was started in the 1970s when Leftists demanded influential posts in universities in return for their support to the Indira Gandhi government,’ he explains. 

"‘Why do you oppose the Left?’ 

"‘Because Leftists don’t believe in borders. This campus has a border. States they fight for have borders. Their houses have borders. But they don’t believe in national borders. They are violent in nature and want to take control with the use of arms. I am against violence. Leftists always play the victim card, cry in the name of human rights, minority, lower caste etc. I am against identity politics. Leftists have a common agenda all over the world. They want to overthrow the democratic set-up and want to take over the control of the country. For this, they use the principle of divide and rule, where they try to spread hatred among the people in the name of caste, religion, community, region. They want to prepare a chain of anti–democracy and anti-national forces to overthrow the system. I am against any kind of polarization.

"‘Leftists have great sympathy for jihadis, which is a part of their international agenda. India is not the only country, US universities like the University of California are also affected by Leftists. Many student bodies are working there to reveal the nexus between Leftists and jihadis. I am dead against terrorism. I want a strong, successful India, and they want to break India. They believe in Lal Salaam and I believe in Vande Mataram.’ He pauses and then adds, ‘I am rational. I have reasons. But they call me bhakt as if I am blind to reason.’

"‘What kind of students join them?’ 

"‘Students belonging to SC/ST are attracted to Leftist propaganda because of the fraud theory of Aryan-Dravidian divide. Leftists have also misrepresented Indian epics like Manu Smriti and manipulated Indian history books to brainwash students. Students from Kashmir with a jihadi mentality easily get attracted towards Leftists as they both have a common agenda of weakening India.’

"‘If you are right, you must follow your conviction. Never give up.’

"‘That’s what we are doing. We don’t fight. We just do the right things. But unfortunately, in India, “what is right” is decided by Leftist ideology. All debate is decided by the Leftists, there is very little space for an alternate narrative. The greatest gift of India to the world is the capacity to debate. India has given shelter to people of all religions including Jews and Zoroastrians. India is the country of Lord Buddha, where ‘Ahimsa Paramo Dharma—non-violence is the greatest dharma)’ is preached. It is the country of Lord Rama which believes in Janani Janma-bhoomischa Swargadapi Gariyasi—mother and motherland are dearer than Heaven. He starts getting emotional."

................................................................................................

"I open the newspapers but there is no news about the sabotage. It would have been national news backed up with protests if I were a Dalit or a Muslim or a Leftist or a liberal. 

"Indian media, especially the metro-based English media, is the most dishonest institution of India. They are always in a hurry, their questions are statements, they have no courtesy, they are arrogant, rude and humiliating.  They are always running late for something and, therefore, have no concentration. I am not talking about those hundreds and thousands of hard-working young girls and boys who are running from one breaking news to another. I am talking about those who instruct them to twist the news. Or who twist it themselves to further their or someone else’s agenda.

"And it’s no rocket science to understand the design of this parallel politics. They have become victims of their own agenda. For the last 70 years, English media has loved to paint any rightist organization, especially RSS, as regressive, uncivilized, aggressive and fundamentalist. Any organization connected with RSS e.g. ABVP is considered a party of goons. Whereas the student members of left-wing parties are considered rebels, revolutionaries, progressive and intellectuals. It’s more like a perception battle. The media has created a ‘group of somebodies’ and a ‘group of nobodies’. Those raising slogans against the State of India are painted as The Superiors and the ones singing ‘Vande Mataram’ as The Inferiors. This is the reason why people like to associate themselves with the left – The Superiors.

"Some people like to believe they are liberals. Liberals are those who do liberal things, not the ones who are against the right. If you look at the reporting of the Jadavpur University crisis after the seditious JNU incident, they always wrote ‘left-wing students’ and ABVP goons or outsiders. I realized this when a journalist asked me at JU, ‘What do you have to say about the presence of some outsiders, ABVP goons?’ I wondered, ‘Aren’t they students here? Aren’t they called Akhil Bhartiya VIDYARTHI Parishad? Vidyarthi means student.’ She was taken aback and said ‘But…no… yeah… But…’ I knew she had no answer, only biases. I again asked her, ‘Aren’t they students of the same university? What do they need to do to be recognized as students? Raise anti-India slogans?’ She got upset and left me to cover the protesting students – the real students, according to her."

................................................................................................

"‘Communists spread lots of unfounded theories which provoke students against the system. They exploit women on the pretext of women empowerment and propagate free sex. I am not against free sex but it should be out of free will and not a condition to be part of their revolution. Most of them come from orthodox backgrounds and sex works as an incentive and a bond. That’s how they create a large intellectual ecosystem."

"‘Though Communists say they don’t spend any money to attract the poor, in reality, they organize seminars very frequently. They put up posters everywhere. Now, if one poster costs nine to ten rupees, for five hundred posters it costs five thousand rupees. Where do they get it from when if you ask an individual worker to buy you a cup of tea he will start telling you how poor he is? And what are the themes of their seminars? “The Economics of Riots”, “We are also Kalburgi”, “Understanding Naxalism for a Bright India”. They deliberately organize them in the open spaces because at any time at least five to six hundred freshers roam around. These freshers start listening to these speakers and when they find someone listening curiously, they target those students and introduce them to senior research scholars who introduce them to senior professors who further influence the student."

"‘Concepts of free sex and free drugs also attract freshers who have never seen such freedom. The fresher thinks that if intellectuals are supporting them, then they must be right. Slowly, they start attending all their seminars and private meetings where they are further brainwashed. Is there anybody bhaiya, in this world, who thinks that injustice has not been done to him? Slowly, the fresher becomes their loyalist and he starts brainwashing others. Most people don’t really want the truth. They just want constant reassurance that what they believe is the truth. They choose comforting lies over unpleasant truth.’

"When Manish speaks about these things, he comes across as very different from his appearance. He has things sorted out in his head. He talks more like an observer and I am happy that he is not hateful and bitter. 

"‘What stops you from exposing them, debate with them?’ I ask.  

"‘Prashant Bhushan came to our university in 2015-16. He was invited by the president of the Student’s Union, Richa Singh, who is elected under the coalition of socialist and Communist parties. The topic of Bhushan’s seminar was “Employment for the youth”, but he used the occasion to abuse and ridicule Hindu culture and nationalism. We asked him if lawyers would force courts to open their gates at three in the morning, to free a terrorist, how is one supposed to feel safe amongst them? At this, Bhushan got really angry and there was big chaos and we were forced to leave the hall. They never reply, never answer. Theirs is a one-sided communication, like in the army. Army kills enemies outside our borders but these people want to kill their own brothers and sisters.

"‘Then there was a programme after Kalburgi’s murder: “I am also Kaburgi”. One speaker said, “What can happen if I piss on a Shiva lingam?” He compared Bharat Mata with a witch. The students who felt hurt at such provocations started questioning their theories. Soon, everything converted into mayhem. They started beating up those students who were questioning them. Police came. They have a very smart tactic. Whenever a clash happens between them and ABVP students, their girls start saying that they were molested. Bhaiya, you read reports about any incident, you google, in every single fight between them, the Communist girls always accuse ABVP students of molestation. Now even the police know it. One journalist even told me that you don’t have to tell me what happened because the headline is ready that girls were molested by ABVP students.

"‘But in the last couple of years, their hold is becoming weaker. Maybe, due to social media, now they are not as strong. This has rattled them and they have become active differently. At this moment, all I know is that these students work as underground agents of CPIM and Naxals. They secretly go to Shankargadh, a nearby area which is declared Naxal-infested. I have a feeling they are up to something. Something is going to happen. Because there is silence, and their silence means danger.’ Manish takes a deep breath. I can feel he is exhausted."

................................................................................................

"In Varanasi, Ganga Aarti is a daily ritual, and for the visitors a must. Sitting on the stairs of Assi Ghat, watching the flames against a serene Ganga, slowly, I get lost in my own world and the mesmerizing sounds of the chanting and the manjiras become the barrier between my thoughts and the world. I am somewhere between the meditative state and tranquility. The many sides of India are appearing in my mind, in slow motion. There are many realities of India hidden in one large Nation."

"We are the world’s least innovative country, yet we made the cheapest journey to Mars. We are world leaders in unorganized recycling and repairing. We are champions of multi-purpose usage of devices. We call it jugaad. The best example is how we use our railway tracks for mass sanitation and use the excreta as fertilizer for growing vegetables. We are the world’s oldest country with the world’s first planned cities in Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. Paradoxically, we have the worst planned cities with appalling quality of sanitation, drinking water and hygiene today. We built the world’s first global university at Nalanda and today, we have a pathetic education system. We have given holistic wellness sciences such as Yoga and Ayurveda to the world but have high rates of malnutrition in our society. We are the world’s second most populated country and ironically also have a history of forced sterilizations."

" ... We do not just tolerate cows sitting in the middle of the road; we accept them as part of our urban landscape. In a lot of Indian cities, monkeys live freely. Tourists find them menacing and throw stones at them while locals live with them with an inexplicable understanding and reverence, treating them like descendants of Lord Hanuman."

" ... We love our malls and five-star hotels for their cleanliness but spit out our gutka the moment we are out on the street. If you want to see our civic sense, just take the staircase of any building in any part of India and look at the corners; if they aren’t painted red with paan spits, you aren’t in India. We pick up filth from private properties and throw them on public properties."

" ... Nobody has a clear view of whether not standing for our national anthem is our right or throwing the defiant viewer out of the cinema hall is our right."

" ... We are victims of intense terrorism, yet we take decades to convict a terrorist and then fight for his right to live. We hang terrorists and also mourn them as martyrs. Liberalism is defined by attacking and ridiculing the majority while secularism is practiced by appeasing the minority."

"We are a loud noisy, melodramatic, and over-the-top society. Be it a wedding or a funeral, an election or a selection, traffic or TV, everything in India is larger than life. Amidst all this, people travel here to find peace."

"For a visitor, India is a mess. For an inhabitant, India is the cosmic truth. When foreigners arrive, India is a question. When they leave, India is the answer. They come to discover India but end up discovering themselves.

"India is ‘Vasudaiva Kutumbakam’—one world family. It’s a home. Home is not a building. It’s a feeling. Our roots are in the joint family system. Joint families don’t run on tolerance. They run on understanding and acceptance. This kind of coexistence doesn’t come from tolerating. It comes from understanding the reality of our world, our potential, and our limitations and by accepting them. We believe in universal acceptance and unconditional surrender to cosmic reality. It’s in our nature. It’s our DNA. This is the real ‘Idea of India’. 

"Sitting on the steps of Ganga, in the world’s oldest city of moksha, as I probe India, I also discover my own reality and the purpose of my life."

................................................................................................

"Two senior journalists want to have a long chat with me. I invite them for the screening. One of them is Vandana Shukla, associate editor of the arts section of The Tribune. I am very impressed with their line of questioning. These are the real journalists of India. While they work their ass off to maintain high standards of journalism, fearlessly and honestly, a few corrupt journalists of Lutyens Delhi have brought such shame to the entire profession that even honest journalists are called ‘presstitutes’. The brokers of journalism have created a perception that the entire media is corrupt.

"‘They must rot in the hell of democracy for such disservice to the noble profession,’ one of them tells me."

................................................................................................

"The film finds a new meaning in the context of local politics. Dalit students of this university aren’t as poor, backward or oppressed as in other parts of the country. Here, the Leftists have strong ties with Khalistan activists. In the rest of the country, they are trying to unite the radical Islamists and Dalits to create a bloc, here they are trying to connect Dalits with the separatists of the Khalistan movement.

"As the movie progresses, the jam-packed auditorium starts getting divided. I can see a set of students have slowly stopped responding to the film, unlike their counterparts. There is tension in their body language. When the film ends, I am called on the stage for the Q&A amidst thunderous applause and scattered booing, I know in my bones that I am up for some surprises other than the serious grilling by the Leftist students.

"‘Dear friends, I have flown thousands of kilometres, not because I want to hear your applause. I am here to understand what is bothering you, what are your concerns, aspirations and whether this film portrays them rightly. I am here to discuss, debate and learn. So, all those who don’t agree with the film raise their hands.’

"Two hands go up. They ask me questions on ‘intolerance’, cow slaughter, Hindutva and slowly a few more hands come up and the line of questioning shifts to its intended issue: Rohith Vemula and Dalits. 

"‘If you are talking about Dalits because of Rohith’s suicide, then I must say you are not doing your job well,’ I reply, which irks some. ‘I am against using Rohith’s suicide as a crutch to win an argument. I believe your politics should be such that it helps empower Dalits rather than using them as a bait to settle scores with your political opponents.’

"By and by, more sensitive questions are hurled at me but my outspokenness and fearlessness come in really handy. The biggest weakness of the Leftists is that they lack facts and logic. I use facts and logic. When the angry students who have come with the purpose of not letting me succeed, start getting entangled in their own hate and violent ideology, some professors come to their rescue. A professor rises up and starts giving me a lecture on the language of the film.

"‘I am very upset and ashamed to have seen this film. You have characters abusing and speaking all kinds of filthy language which is not appropriate for the students and especially in such an esteemed University of Punjab. If I had known, I would have never let this screening take place.’

"‘Sir, I thought this is a University and not Aastha Channel. When I came here, I thought I am coming to a University which has led the fight for freedom of expression. A University which has given us radical thinkers and leaders like Khushwant Singh, Manmohan Singh, Kalpana Chawla, Balraj Sahni, Romila Thapar, Kiran Bedi, Sushma Swaraj, and Shankardayal Sharma. And of course, Hargobind Khurana and Prem Dutt, Bhagat Singh’s comrade. But if that is the thought process, then I am afraid soon we will bring a lot of shame to the legacy of this University.’

"‘I take very strong objection to what you say.’ 

"‘Sir, even I take strong objection to your views of censoring reality, for interfering with my freedom of speech. What the film shows is the reality and if the University wants to isolate its students from the reality, then I think it’s for the students to decide whether they want to fight for freedom of speech or not.’ 

"This starts a cross-argument between the student groups. Another professor gets on stage and orders to shut the event. Harman says he has the permissions and asks him the reason for stopping it, to which he says he has the right to shut anything if he fears indiscipline or any kind of conflict. 

"‘But it’s a debate of ideologies, sir.’

"‘There is no place for such films on our campus.’ 

"‘Is that the reason?’ I butt in. 

"‘Yes.’ 

"He snatches the mike from Harman and announces that the show is over, asks everyone to leave instantly and orders to shut the lights. The Leftist students leave like a victorious team leaves the field. The other students who are in the majority, protest for some time and then leave, saying ‘nothing is going to change here’."

................................................................................................

"Vandana Shukla is stunned and surprised by the professor’s behaviour. 

"‘Aren’t universities supposed to be nurseries of ideas? Shouldn’t debate and disagreement be the very foundation of our campuses? How can he stop the function? Is this a primary school? Why doesn’t anyone protest?’ the journalist in Vandana raises some tough questions. 

"‘Madam, protests will not change anything but films like these will. The problem with India is that our wise men, good men, the knowledgeable men don’t speak. Our media never speaks in favour of students who want to build India. In a deaf and dumb society, you don’t need protests, you need awareness, education of poor unaware Dalits and Muslims who are being used as pawns by the Leftists. We need films like these. And we showed it successfully… it’s a victory,’ Harman tells Vandana.

"Later, while dropping me back to the hotel, Harman shows me a WhatsApp message, from an article by Professor Chaman Lal, a retired professor from JNU, New Delhi, and Fellow of Punjab University Chandigarh. 

"‘… Sadly, Punjab University, Chandigarh, has not even put any plaques in the university in memory of Prof. M G Singh, Prof. Brij Narain, who became victims of Partition-induced hatred and were assassinated in their offices in PU, Lahore, nor about Bhagat Singh’s comrade Prem Dutt Verma, who taught in Punjab University, Chandigarh, after his release from jail. Whereas, the Lahore website of the university proudly claims Pakistani scientist Abdus Salam and Indian scientist Hargobind Khurana as its alumni, Nobel laureates of 1968 and 1979 with photographs and brief biographies, the Chandigarh website does not even mention Hargobind Khurana.’"

................................................................................................

"I get up at 5 AM and go for a run in the famous rose garden of Chandigarh, before leaving for Shimla. ... "

"When I look at my watch, I realize I have been jogging for an hour. In Mumbai, I hardly do three kilometres and think I can never do more. I can feel a new energy in abundance. I can run more but I have to leave for Shimla soon. ... "

"As I start to walk slowly to cool down, I start becoming aware of the fresh scent of roses mixed with the fragrance of the grass, wet with dew. As the rays of the morning sun, filtering through thick trees, fall on my body, every pore opens up. Perhaps for more energy to get in. I start noticing beds of roses and slowly my focus shifts below, at thorns, and I notice that the bigger the rose, the thicker the thorns. More beautiful the rose, sharper the thorns. When our heart truly seeks, Mother Nature provides the answers. Mother Nature is the real guru.  

"I take a picture of a rose and its thorns and tweet with the caption ‘Roses don’t come without thorns’."

................................................................................................

"It’s after some twenty years that I am travelling by train. The Shatabdi Express to Kanpur is a fantastic train. Wide seats with a work table and plug points, efficient service, delicious ethnic food and noiseless. 

"We screened the film last night at Delhi University. They had fixed an LED screen at the main arena of the Arts Faculty, under the statue of Swami Vivekananda. The vast arena was filled with students who watched the film with concentration. The Q&A was loaded with ideas to improve our democracy. These are serious students who take their roles very seriously.  They understand politics, society, and the economy. They have an ‘idea of India’. It’s very different from the ‘idea of India’ I saw in JNU. They are hardly 20 km apart from each other but poles apart in vision."

................................................................................................

"‘Sir, have you shown your film to Kejriwal?’ an IAS aspirant asked me. 

"‘No. Never thought about it. Also, why would he see this film?’ 

"‘Sir, he will definitely see it. He is a regular Bollywood critic. He sees every movie and writes about it. If you can get a critic for free, and that too a chief minister, then why not?’ 

"In the last few weeks, a lot of people have asked me to show the film to Arvind Kejriwal but I never took the suggestion seriously. During the Anna Hazare movement, I left all my work, travelled to Delhi and invested my hopes, emotions, thoughts and money in Kejriwal’s campaign against corruption. Slowly, a lot of myths shattered and I found him utterly selfish, shallow, and pretentious. He became hungry for votes. The end became more important than the means, so he started using all sorts of unethical means.

"But I feel that a lot of youth with contrarian views listen to Kejriwal. His tweets reviewing Bollywood movies go viral, so if he reviews the film, it will benefit the movie. I write a mail to him quoting 15 reasons why he must see the film: ... "

"I never got a reply to the mail but when Buddha in a Traffic Jam released, the AAP would take note. Negatively. But more of that later."

................................................................................................

"Nothing has changed in Kanpur. If someone threw a cigarette packet on the road many years ago, there are chances that he may still find it there. But it’s my hometown and I love it the way it is. The moment we step out of the train, I feel a certain belonging. For me, it’s some sort of a milestone to screen the film at IIT Kanpur, which as kids we only dreamt of as the highest body of knowledge. 

"The screening is at 10 PM in their Open-Air Theatre. It’s been deliberately kept late so that students can finish their dinner before the mess closes at ten. Some three thousand students are expected. The Director has invited me to be the chief guest at their annual cultural evening where the faculty and the staff present various acts on stage and students are the audience. Senior professors and their wives perform skits, songs, dances, stand-up comedy and it’s obvious that they are enjoying their performances. There is a sense of openness and maturity in the atmosphere. 

"I reach the venue fifteen minutes early to check the arrangements and am surprised to see it’s one of the most hi-tech, state-of-the-art setups. The screen is huge, the sound system exceptional and the seating is like a large amphitheater. Students have started coming in in small groups. Around 9.55, the groups become larger and slowly the entire theatre converts into an overpowering sight of thousands of heads over one another, rising above the ground like a sea wave in a storm.

"The film gets a long-standing ovation. Here too I see some students still sitting and not clapping. They have a frown and their eyes are cold. Taking a bow in all humility and gratitude, I am also preparing myself for the storm. Not the one I saw before the screening but the real storm."

................................................................................................

"As expected, after a few questions from the happy students, the angry students raise their hands.

"‘Who is the professor based on?’ 

"‘My professor.’ 

"‘Tell us the name.’ 

"‘I can’t.’ 

"‘Why? Are you scared?’ 

"‘No. It’s unethical.’ 

"‘So there is no professor.’ 

"‘That’s what you are saying. I never said that.’ 

"Happy students start booing him. Angry student stands up. 

"‘Did you live with Adivasis? Or with the Naxals?’ 

"‘No. But I have interacted with them.’ 

"‘So, you never lived with them but you find yourself competent to make a film on their problems.’ 

"‘I am sure most scientists never went to the moon but they created machines that sent man to the moon.’

................................................................................................

"Happy students boo. Angry students start abusing them. Slowly, tens of students who were raising their hands start coming on stage and a group of about twenty students gherao me and start pushing and heckling me. Naireeta tries to disperse them along with the organizers who are too hesitant to intervene. One boy takes my arm and starts twisting it. I decide to stay cool. I know they need a reaction and I am not going to give them that pleasure. I also want to see the extent to which they can go. 

"‘What you have shown is not true,’ one young man screams. 

"‘I don’t know the truth but whatever I have shown is absolutely real,’ I stand my ground.

"‘No. It’s not real.’ 

"He is furious. The veins on his forehead are on the threshold of exploding. He starts screaming at the top of his voice.  ‘You have no shit idea about Adivasis. You have no right to make a film about Adivasis. Naxals are right. You are wrong. Your film is a lie!’ He is running short of breath. He starts pushing me, twisting my arm. If there was any background sound it would be people screaming ‘Kill Agnihotri, kill Agnihotri!’ From somewhere a girl screams and enters inside the cordon. 

"‘Talk to me. I have lived with Adivasis in Bastar. Every single thing shown in this film is true. If anyone of you has ever lived the way I did, then challenge me, otherwise shut up.’ And she starts crying. Naireeta holds her. 

"The guy who was twisting my hand, stops, stares me in the eye, gasps for air, pushes me and leaves. With him, all the others leave.

................................................................................................

"Students apologize to me and one by one start telling me their stories of discrimination by some of the faculty. Naireeta uses her presence of mind and starts shooting all those testimonials on her phone. I know we have captured invaluable sights and evidences to support the film’s theme. I am looking for the girl who came to my rescue. She is nowhere to be seen. Sometimes God sends messengers to help you at moments when you are helpless and least expect them. As we start to leave at 2 AM, a few boys chase our car, calling for Naireeta. Car stops. I roll down the window. Two boys literally touch my feet and start pleading. ‘

"Sir, please ask madam to delete our video recordings. We told you all that in emotion. We can’t antagonize our professors.’ 

"‘But we will never show it to anyone. It’s only for our eyes,’ Naireeta tries to take them in confidence. 

"‘Sir, we trust you fully but please delete it…sir, please… if our professors ever get to know about it, they will ruin our life.’ 

"I keep looking at their terrified faces as Naireeta deletes the recordings. Where fear ends, terror begins."

................................................................................................

"The sun is rising and we are speeding towards Lucknow airport. We have to be in Indore this evening, for the screening at IIM Indore. I open my phone and go through all the messages and mails. I stop at a mail which is written to Naiteeta and a CC to me.  It reads: 

"‘Hi Naireeta, 

"I just saw Buddha In A Traffic Jam today at IIT Kanpur and wanted to appreciate the whole team who made such a realistic movie.

"First of all, I would like to make it clear that I am not an Adivasi…I was born and brought up in Jagdalpur which is a city in Bastar. I always wondered why national media seriously never reported the atrocities done by Naxals on the tribe of this region. This movie had clearly depicted the dilemma of a tribal who is stuck between the government and Naxals. I understand how difficult it is to convince people from the other parts of the country to and make them believe that the situations shown in this movie are real. This is because nobody else has ever brought up this issue before. The condition of Bastar is fairly complex and it’s really difficult to put whole scenario in single movie. There are both, bright sides and dark sides. This movie highlights the dark part of Bastar which has been ignored for a long time.

"I occasionally visited village in Bastar and I always felt sad that the people who live in the interiors are fighting for basic amenities. Moreover, the Naxalites are destroying schools and other public and private facilities in villages and this made me even more sad because this way they ensured that the tribals do not get educated and empower themselves. There are various incidents which are really disturbing.

"I had no intentions to watch this movie because it would bring back many sad memories but after watching this movie it gives me a hope that the situation could be changed. I strongly believe that technology and education is the key to development in any part of the world. There are numerous ways in which technology can improve the situation in the Naxal affected regions. I really appreciate that this movie is being shown at prominent educational institutes to catch the attention of the new generation and give them a message that there are some parts in our country which are in immediate need of technologists and entrepreneurs. 

"Looking forward to see more such fantastic movies from your team. 

"Best regards.

"(Name withheld on request) 

"(I have not made any changes in the email. Exactly as received)"

................................................................................................

"IIM Indore is located on a height. Some places have vibes. When I am asked to speak to students, I tell them what my heart is feeling at this moment. 

"‘Hello everybody. Good evening.

"‘I love talking to B-school students because you are the guys who love money and I love money too. I am going to tell you the reason why I love money and why you should love money too. Chanakya, the great political thinker, the great economist of India, said, “Money is the most creative invention of human beings.” Unfortunately, in our country, we never celebrated money. We always celebrate mediocrity. I have always seen in Hindi movies that a rich man’s son is always a rapist or a bad boy. A rich man’s daughter has to necessarily be a bad girl. We have always shown that it is good to be poor and it is bad to be rich.

"‘If you travel to UK, US or any of the developed countries, you ask a young boy, “What do you want to be in life?” and nine out of ten will say, “I want to be rich.” Unlike us, they do not feel guilty about money. It’s not a moral issue. And why should it be a moral issue? Can we imagine life without money? I am deliberately using the word money here because whichever institute I go to, wherever I talk about money, people think here comes a capitalist bastard. In fact, one student came to hit me at NALSAR. This is the reason I am discussing money.

"‘This is the reason this film was made…because we have been told in a very clever political narrative that it’s not good to celebrate success. This has been done systematically to cover up the government’s own failure in delivery. Mediocrity has become the central narrative, the central theme of this country. And this is the reason why despite being number one in jugaad…like, if anything goes wrong, a tap is not working, a bulb is not working, there is a traffic jam, the kind of traffic jams we have in this country, imagine if this kind of traffic jam happens in London or New York, trust me people will be on the streets for 30 days.

"‘It happened in London when there was a heat wave which led to a traffic jam and people were on a highway for several days, a lot of people died. Jugaad means how effectively and quickly we solve our problems with minimal resources and expenditure. We are smart people. We are a country of young, struggling, middle class people. And this is our asset. Struggle gives you a lot of ideas. If we are so smart in solving problems with jugaad, any problem of any magnitude, be it a Mars mission, or expeditions to the Antarctic, having the largest number of IT professionals, and yet we are not the innovation hub of this world, it’s because we do not let merit succeed.

"‘We do not celebrate merit. Whenever somebody talks about business, people think he is a bad guy as he trying to earn money. I believe if you want to change something, obviously you have to have new plans, new strategies, new systems in place, you have to have a different kind of systems thinking. Also, what you need is to change the conversation from a poverty mindset to a rich mindset; from scarcity to abundance. Once you change the conversation, in favour of innovation, the country will automatically start making money.

"‘The intellectual space of this country has always supported the Naxal movement which is why they are anti-rich, anti-success. If Tendulkar, with his merit, becomes rich, you find the same people starting to criticize and belittle him. They want to confuse people and want to blur the difference between people with talent, who work hard and have ideas and innovation to make money and people who became successful by corruption.

"‘This film is a start-up in the true sense. After our film was made, people who were financing it backed out. Whoever saw this film, ran away; they ran away because a lot of people didn’t understand it. They said how is it possible that academia is brainwashing our students and converting them into intellectual terrorists. The second kind of people who ran away said we understand but it is so bloody controversial that you know it’s not good for us, and the third set of people obviously were against the film because the film exposes those very people. A lot ran away because they wondered how can we show a capitalistic idea as a solution. How can we celebrate private enterprise, profits and money?

"‘So, we were stuck with a product which we believed is one of the best products because it not just exposes the truth, it also shows the might of Indian students that they are capable of telling a story which has not been allowed to be told in the last 70 years because of a corrupt system, corrupt administration, corrupt government who kept blaming rich people, successful people and criticizing money.

"‘We were alone. We tried to show it in some universities but unfortunately there also the faculty was hand in glove with a lot of anti-national activities and they also rejected our film. Then some students said we want to show this film outside on the street. On 18th March, in JNU, some five thousand students watched this film sitting on the ground, on the street actually, on trees, on terraces and on rooftops. Since then we have not stopped for a moment. This is the first time in the history of world cinema that a film has been shown to so many students and people before the release. Does any manufacturer go out sampling his product, free, before the formal launch of the product? People are generally scared…What happens if my film gets badmouthed, what if people criticize it on social media, then I am doomed. The biggest of the stars will never do that. Second thing, any filmmaker worth his salt will never allow his film to be screened in halls, auditoriums, in amphitheatres, outdoors on streets with thousands of mobile phones ready for piracy. We’ve had screenings with bad sound systems, we’ve shown it right on the wall of a university because there was a lot of wind and the screen was flying like a kite. We have shown this film in places where one channel had conked off.

"‘Why are we doing this? Why are we showing this film to whoever that invites us? In every institute, university? Because it’s not about the box office, trust me, I am not lying, the mathematics is not on our side. Even if every single person watches this film, this film cannot make the kind of money big films make. Then why are we doing this? The purpose to show this film is to make people realize, to make young students realize that the time has come to work in the direction of innovation. You have to work in a direction where this country can be an innovation hub of the world and that must happen now because we have a golden opportunity.

"‘We have brought this film thus far without spending a penny. Have you ever seen any film in your lifetime which has been marketed without any TV spots, press ads, hoardings, radio spots etc.? We have not spent any money. Because nobody is giving money. But slowly it is finding its own audience. It is making people discuss, debate. If you go to social media, you will find angry comments saying, “Kill these people”, “Destroy this movie”, but you won’t find anybody saying bad things about this movie. Nobody will say it’s away from reality. And this is success. This is the success of an idea. Of marketing. Of disruption. I have learnt a lot from this and three learnings I want to share with you are: 

"‘a)​Believe in the power of collective conviction of thought. If four or five of you think of an idea, an innovative idea, you can make it work. ‘

"Sometimes the dips which come, the failures which come, they are just the testing times, of how strongly you feel and believe in the idea. Sometimes you have an idea before its time has come, like we made this film four years ago. Nobody understood; if the Kanhaiya episode had not happened, nobody would have understood the film. I lost money and my sleep but never the belief. If you have belief, the time will surely come.

"‘b) Every product and service which you create has to contribute to people’s lives so that people are emotionally invested in it and that, I think, is the key to success. Be it an Apple, be it a Google or Ola, or any product or service, if it does not genuinely satisfy or gratify some human needs and doesn’t connect with them emotionally, it’s very difficult to make that work. This is the reason why this film is working today, without any marketing, without any stars. This is happening because somewhere we have been honest, we have really been struggling to be heard and people can see that. The film must be contributing to their lives and connecting with their concerns. The film has given them hope.

"‘c)​There is nothing wrong in marketing your ideas. Be ruthless. Because ultimately the purpose of our lives is to communicate our ideas to as many people as possible. Marketing is not a bad word, like money, if you are honest about it. If you really believe in something, go ahead and market it shamelessly. Don’t care whether people are listening to you or not. A time will come when people will listen to you. Like you are listening to me now. (Laughter). 

"‘So, here’s a film which we have marketed without marketing it. In marketing, there is a push factor and a pull factor. This film has worked with the pull factor which you know is better than a push factor. Push involves lots of money. Pull builds on quality and word of mouth. Consumer reviews. Consumer satisfaction.

"‘The last thing I want to share with you is that very often you may find your professors or leaders asking you to think out of the box. I have been trying to think out of the box all my life, and I have been failing. Honestly. I felt that everybody was thinking out of the box, and I was one of them. So, I said, what do I do? I demolished the box. I just demolished the box. I said there is no box and then I got freedom and liberation. You should try it too. Imagine you are box-less, become a bubble. 

"‘You know the difference between a box and a bubble. A box is always opaque, a box has sharp edges and a box never changes. But a bubble is always transparent and because a bubble is round, it doesn’t hurt anybody. And when a bubble meets another bubble, it becomes a bigger bubble. So, these are all the insights I can share with you and I believe tonight my bubble will meet yours and we will have a bigger bubble. And if we truly want a revolution, we will have to meet more bubbles and keep growing into a huge bubble which can change the destiny of India forever. So, here is a film made of the students, for the students, and marketed by the students. So, I am presenting your film to you.’"

................................................................................................

"The attempts to cancel our screenings have reached a figure where now I feel there is a conspiracy behind this pattern. Verbal attacks, ridicule, heckling, resistance, sabotage have been the attractions of this journey. A friend from the US called after reading some FB posts on the attack at Kanpur IIT. 

"‘What are they are fighting?’ he asked me. 

"‘A film,’ I replied, to his utter shock."

................................................................................................

"I am on the last leg of the campaign. The film is releasing in one week. The last week has been extremely hectic. We have been to so many institutes that I have lost count. After Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mumbai and many other universities, I am in Pune, before I fly the entire night to be in Kolkata tomorrow for a screening at Jadavpur University (JU). I have some time before the screening and I want to visit FTII. I always do so whenever I am in Pune, as it never fails to give me a new perspective. The film was supposed to be screened at FTII but as expected, Leftist groups did not allow it.

"The last few months have kept India engaged in ruthless campus politics in institutes like IIT Madras, JNU, Osmania University, JU, DU, Bhagalpur University, HCU, and FTII. The fire was ignited at FTII and it led to all the other agitations. These agitations were centred around an argument that the new government is crushing the constitutional rights of free speech and dissent. In reality, no constitutional right was ever curbed or can ever be curbed. But the losers of the 2014 elections created a fact-less story, amplified by the media. The political masters, in order to embarrass Modi, made these students mouth anti-India slogans. This left the entire world wondering ‘What went wrong with these institutes that they have started churning out anti-national students?’"

................................................................................................

"In Pune, I meet two wonderful people, Nikhil Karampuri, the organizer from Think India and our host, and the disruptive blogger Shefali Vaidya, the chief guest. Nikhil isn’t a stereotyped bhagwa flag holder or temple goer. He is an atheist who questions everything, besides being an Apple freak who loves his gadgets more than anything, a person who watches TV series like Suits and The Blacklist and enjoys reading the RSS’ Hindi magazine Panchajanya as well. 

"Nikhil is from Ahmednagar and studies at MIT, Pune, the Oxford of the East. He comes from a family which is religious, rooted in Hindu ideology and sympathetic to RSS. Despite this background, Nikhil, at an early age, worked with some left-leaning NGOs, and found himself in alien territory. So, he joined Think India. 

"Think India was set up in 2007 to inculcate the value of thinking that could nurture the growth of India. With its maiden national convention in Bengaluru, Think India started its work in premier national institutes like IIT, IIM, AIIMS, NIT etc. Since then, Think India has spread across all the national institutions to bring the youth together to collaborate for realizing the dream of National Reconstruction.

"‘At some point, I was disillusioned with the left and their inhuman ideologies, and I was planning to quit both my studies and my job when Think India gave me the courage and confidence to do both at the same time,’ Nikhil tells me."

"He cites many examples where injustice was done to their group just because they talk about national integration and development. What catches my attention is one of their recent issues with the Leftist students at FTII.

"‘Think India activists were eager to interact with the protesting students but were denied initially by the student association of FTII,’ says Nikhil. ‘Finally, after a long dialogue with the authorities and the student association, our activists were allowed to interact with the student community which didn’t want the strike and they outnumbered the protestors. When we started speaking to students who wanted the institute to function, the Leftist students stopped our interaction and booed us out. I was shocked at the muzzling of our voice in a flagship institute for freedom of expression. The students who wanted to study were threatened and boycotted by their seniors and were forcefully dragged into the whole lockdown of the institute. These students were openly working on the instructions of Leftist and AAP leaders.

"‘The film industry has always portrayed only one side of the story, creating an illusion about Naxalism. As they say, “It’s better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.” We wanted the students to know both sides of the intellectual discourse. In Buddha In A Traffic Jam, we see the dawn of a different narrative and we decided to screen it at FTII. More for symbolic reasons. What could be a better place for a filmmaker, who faced resistance everywhere, to screen his film in one of the world’s best film institutes? But to my surprise, FTII denied an open screening of the film, just because it portrayed a perspective that was contrary to a few students’ ideological belief. We pursued the administration but even then, the permission to screen this movie was denied, citing some petty and baseless reasons.

"‘With no option left, we then decided to screen it at Savitribai Phule Pune University. When the event was finally organized, the authorities demanded a pre-screening for censoring the movie. The movie was subjected to scrutiny, unlike any other movie or documentary that has been previously screened on the campus. A movie carrying a new narrative of Naxalism in India as never portrayed before was seen as a threat for reasons that are still unknown to us.

"‘The left in India is just an NGO, which only seeks grants for doing nothing. We all know about the problems that we are faced with and the Indian public is interested now to find solutions rather than indulging themselves in cribbing. The leftists are supposed to be the champions of the oppressed classes and Dalits, but there is no representation of Dalits in any of the Communist politburos of India. The worshippers of non-violence have been known to indulge in extreme violence in Kerala and West Bengal. A very interesting term was introduced a decade ago by a few investigative journalists – The Golden Corridor. This acts as a furnisher of the Naxalites’ monetary requirements. These forces act as middlemen between Naxalites and Maoist supporters spread across the world.

"‘There needs to be clarity on the concepts of modernization, Westernization, globalization and liberalization. But Leftists oppose everything without any logical reasoning. A lot of them are pure vegetarians but they want the cow to be slaughtered because the right wing wants to ban it. They even try to convert basic tenets of social and cultural life into an “intellectual fight”. The world today is dominantly run on capitalist and socialist/ Communist models. India has created a very intriguing model by amalgamating the two models and extracting the best from both to serve its citizens. What India has done is the most amazing example of setting up an alternate narrative to these pre-recognized models. Another indigenous example of an alternate narrative was presented by Deen Dayal Upadhyay in form of Integral Humanism which he has described perfectly in the book with the same title. Integral Humanism has human development at the core of it.’"

................................................................................................

"The India that we are talking about here is not the India that won her independence from the British in 1947 but the one that has existed for thousands of years. Be it Chandragupta Maurya who along with Chanakya tried to form a unified India or Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj who did the same against a different resisting force. India is not a modern concept but an age-old belief that has been passed on to us over the generations. It is not merely an idea but a reality that has existed well before any other civilization. I dream of an India which is the ‘Guru’ for the world, a role model that the world looks up to for setting all wrongs right, a teacher that teaches them to create a harmonious co-existence of thousands of communities under a single unified belief. 

"India has been a habitat to a spectrum of ideologies for centuries and it can continue to remain so but the crux of them all should hold the Nation-first attitude. 

"Nikhil quotes an apt line from our beloved Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his own words, 

"भारत जमीन का टुकडा नही,  जीता जागता राष्ट्र पुरुष है। 

"India is not a piece of land, but a living entity. 

"It’s been an enriching interaction and I am so glad that finally, India is arriving."

Atal Bihari Vajpayee actually diluted it, by not paying attention to the very term Bharat Mata. 

Sri Aurobindo and Mother had said it was a Living Reality behind India. 

................................................................................................

"We travel overnight from Pune to reach Kolkata. Naireeta is very sick. As soon as we reach the hotel at 5 AM, I call for a doctor only to learn that Naireeta has chicken pox. I feel handicapped without her. She has been my navigator through this struggle. Moreover, it’s her city. As I am making arrangements for her to go to her parents’ house, she receives a mail from Pritam Duttagupta, the head of the student body which invited us. Some mornings start with a bundle of bad news. This is that morning.

"‘We want to inform you with sadness that the Jadavpur University authority has cancelled the screening of the film in the Dr. Triguna Sen auditorium at the eleventh hour. It is a deep shame, they invoked that the screening of the film violates the model code of conduct of Election commission. It is the deepest blow to the Freedom of Speech in the country…  It has been proved again and again that the dominant intellectual hegemony of the Jadavpur University is silent on this regard and even passively or actively supports the decision of the authorities, much for their great talk on dissent and the Freedom of Speech. It is established that we have not violated any rules. Political slogans and posters are regularly put on in the campus by the left political parties without being censored. So how can a non-political platform be denied entry into an auditorium at the last minute for screening a film passed by the censor board? We have also consulted the legal experts and they have also agreed with us that this doesn’t violate any code of conduct because this is a cultural event."

"The JU students who got inspired by the previous successful screening of the film in different campuses are willing to screen the film in the campus of JU. But the dean orally transmitted that the film needs to be censored by an internal board. The students dissented and due to the shortage of time for the whole process to get completed devised other ways. 

"Some of the students being part of ‘Think India’ took the matter and approached the university through their platform and booked the auditorium for the screening. But the authorities at the last minute has cancelled the booking and left the students in dismay.

"It is to be noted that the VC has equivocally said that he stands for freedom of speech and even allowed the anti-national posters to remain. There has been much protest on the campus without even informing the authorities. 

"But we, fortunately, maintained all due process but unfortunately were ruthlessly suppressed because we don’t confront to the intellectual paradigm of the university nor we have’ comrades in the faculty’.

"But lastly, we stand by our freedom and our right to dissent and peacefully agreed to oppose the authoritarian fascist attitude of the authorities. 

"We also are surprised about the staring silence of the intellectuals and it proves their intolerance towards dissent. 

"We finally are peacefully organizing the screening in the campus in the open and will always stand by our fundamental right to our last breath. 

"N.B JU intelligentsia always speaks of critical thinking but it doesn’t give the right to be a critic of their critical thinking. It’s time to change it.’"

"Pritam Duttagupta"

................................................................................................

"The censoring and banning of and resistance to right-wing material in our educational institutions has been going on for a long time. Unchallenged. The right-wing has assumed that it’s impossible to fight the Leftists on their home turf. That’s why it had given up on institutes like JNU, HCU, JU etc. But somebody had to challenge this myth. I did it by making Buddha In A Traffic Jam. I did it by taking the film directly to students and that too in Naxal citadels like JNU, IITM, NALSAR, and now at Jadavpur. They hate my guts, my conviction and my fearlessness. I exposed the shallowness of their arguments on Manuvaad se Azadi, Brahmanvaad se Azadi. I explained to them how one has to innovate, make profits, create capital in order to find bhukmari se azadi, freedom from hunger. Challenged them in their idiom and with sound logic. 

"They hate logic because logic destroys their mythical world. They have been showing the poor masses and gullible students an ‘invisible end’ of suffering, ... and they protect this illusion by not allowing debates, dissent, and rationality to exist in their fortresses. And if one still challenges them with facts and logic, they collectively attack you in collusion with the media to destroy you. I have come to this conclusion only after visiting the top institutes of India and with over hundred hours of intense Q&A sessions, debates, and discussions, especially with Leftist students. Wherever the faculty and administration are left-leaning, attempts were made to cancel the screening or just sabotage it by creating inane hurdles.

"As Pritam explained on the phone, they kept making the rounds of the Administration Office without any movement on their application. They were sent from one desk to another. Then the administration started citing absurd reasons that many students don’t want this anti-Naxal film to be screened, though nobody had seen the film in this part of the country. The organizing students asked them why they allowed anti-India sloganeering, marches and graffiti when most pro-India students didn’t like it, and when the admin couldn’t win the argument, they put another condition – that film could be screened only after their ‘internal censor committee’ saw and approved it.

"Really? The students argued that the film is already censored by CBFC and they have no right to re-censor it. They told the registrar that when the decision of the ‘internal censor committee’ is already known, why didn’t they straightaway refuse to show it? This fight went on for over two weeks without any party relenting on the censorship issue. Finally, the students gave up and went to book Triguna Sen Auditorium which is managed by the alumni association and can be booked for a certain sum. They contributed money and booked the hall. 

"Pritam told me that it happens to them all the time, therefore this time they decided to not give up and go ahead with the screening even if it had to be done in a hostel room. There was genuineness in his voice. With anguish, he told me that there is a systematic ‘institutional minoritization’ of their voice.  Simply put, nobody hears them. They are labeled ‘Sanghi’ and aren’t considered intellectual because they speak against Naxalism. BTW, he is a research scholar in Physics. Yet, he is ‘The Inferior’."

That, right there, is reason why Calcutta university, once respected, is and has now been a dump for decades - mindless parroting of a text, coupled with violence against dissent, is revered as intellectual, while a research scholar in physics who thinks for a living, lifelong, is labeled with a tag that isn't derogatory, but is artificially branded so. 

Church did that to words like 'grotesque', which foes not mean ugly or hideous but only means alike grotto; once grottoes contained images or statues of worshipped Gods and Goddesses 

Congress and left have done it to words like sanghi, bhakta, etc, neither words nor what they refer to bring negative, but branded do by congress and left, relentlessly over decades. 

Imagine if Hindus did this, branding -say -'foreigner' to mean dirty, unwashed, etc; and then proceed to label urban naxals as 'foreigner-type'. 

It might be merely factual, at that. 

................................................................................................

"At 4.15, I leave the hotel in an Innova driven by a Bihari driver named Prabhu, hoping to reach JU at 5, to screen the film in an open ground. Only if we can manage to. We enter JU from Gate no 8. There are hundreds of students smoking, chatting and preparing placards and black flags. This is when some students see me and in less than a second, the car is gheraoed by an unruly and violent mob of students. They start raising slogans, hitting the car and trying to pull me out. A mob of journalists runs towards the car. We hear a big crash and realize that they have broken the windscreen of Prabhu’s taxi.

"Prabhu is really scared. He looks at me and then at the students. He wants to protect me. And his car too. The car, he can’t. Me, he can, perhaps. I don’t know what to do. I am not prepared for a political ambush. It’s getting claustrophobic. They are banging on the car. They are abusing me in Bengali. And then a girl spits on my window and screams: ‘Agnihotri, you bloody, fascist Brahmin… go back.’

"A student slides his hand inside and calls me the murderer of Rohith Vemula. 

"‘You killed Rohith Vemula, you murdered him.’ 

"‘Rohith wasn’t murdered. He committed suicide,’ I reply coolly.   

"‘You… you fucking liar. He was murdered. And you guys murdered him.’ 

"‘I have stronger reasons to believe Rohith than you,’ I tell him.

"He is angry. He tries to pull me out of the car. Anticipating violence Prabhu rolls up the window and in that jiffy my hand gets stuck in the window. This boy doesn’t leave my hand. He is pulling my hand out. My hand is stuck. I pull it hard and give up as I feel a shooting pain in my shoulder. Some students jump in front of the car. Like highway thugs. Some of them start kicking the car. I can see some major dents on the bonnet. I don’t want to think about other dents all over. One skinny student comes running and jumps on the bonnet. A few girls start throwing sticks on the car. Some start attacking the car with the wooden handles of placards. One boy kicks the side mirrors. A mirror falls down, crumbling on the hot tar."

................................................................................................

"There is a projection system and sound system but I can’t see any screen. 

"‘Sir, they tore apart our screen. We asked for a new one but they are not letting it enter the gates. I have no idea what to do.’ 

"The force that brings a crisis on us also shows us the light. I am not going to give up. 

"‘Does anyone in your hostel have a white bedsheet?’ I ask. 

"‘Yes.’ 

"‘Run and get it.’ 

"‘Sir, it will take ten minutes. The students are very restless and there can be a fight. So why don’t you address them for ten minutes?’ he pleads. 

"I have given speeches in closed auditoriums and in front of controlled audiences but never spoken extempore to volatile students, surrounded by violent protestors. On top of that, the shooting pain in my broken shoulder is killing me. Do I have a choice?"

................................................................................................

"I take the mike. The protestors raise their volume and start sloganeering, ‘Brahmanvaad se Azadi… bhukmari se Azadi…’ and so on. I look at them for some time and when I realize they won’t give me space to speak, I address them at an equally high pitch and ask them: 

"‘OK brothers and sisters, I agree with your call for Azadi, but this time you tell me how will we attain this freedom? Your biggest misunderstanding is that I am speaking against you. You love India and I love India too. You want to change India and I want to change India too. You want India’s name to rise so much that the entire world says “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, I too want the same. The only difference is that you carry black placards, whereas here some boys are carrying white ones. The difference between black and white is that black is the colour of death, whereas white is the colour of peace. You want India’s betterment with the colour black, we want it with the colour white.’

"Their protest starts slowing down. Students with white flags start chanting ‘Vande Mataram’."

................................................................................................

"‘Friends, for the past forty-five days non-stop, I have been visiting universities across India, where I have continuously been with students. and I have decided that the battle which started from JNU must end at Jadavpur University.

"‘This fight is not between the left and the right, neither is it a fight between Sanghis and Laal Salaam; this fight is between those who want to make India better and those who want to break India. The past forty-five days that I have interacted with students have convinced me that if a revolution is to happen, it will be brought by those students who want to make India shine with their ideas.’

"Protesting students again raise their slogans of ‘Azadi’. 

"‘Brothers and sisters, the question is from whom will you attain this freedom? Freedom is attained when you are a slave to someone. You are not a slave. Who are you seeking this Azadi from? Before asking for freedom, for once, question yourself and think about your parents who have sent you here after investing their blood and sweat for your education.

"‘Your fight should be with those people who are not efficient, who are unproductive, who are corrupt and dishonest. But if you will fight with your brothers and brainwash the gullible to hate other brothers, then this country will never change. 

"‘I cannot stand by the thought process of people who celebrate a terrorist, who speak about the destruction of India. And nowadays, there is a new fashion, a weird new attitude that is developing that the road to fame is through abusing the country. But this is wrong. On Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai’s channels, the ones who are called intellectuals are actually not intellectuals. Have you ever heard the names of those people in the list of intellectuals who sent a mission to Mars? What is the reason that only those people make the list of intellectuals who abuse all the traditions and festivals of India, who abuse everything related to India and speak about breaking India? Real intellectuals are those who quietly work hard, who want to study, innovate and take this country forward.

"‘Friends, I have lived in the freest country in this world, America, I have studied there too. In any American university, if ten boys stand up and shout slogans promoting Osama Bin Laden, within three minutes they will be sent to an undisclosed location. India is the only country in the world that gives us so much freedom. We must make good use of it. By expressing new ideas and not by breaking windows of a taxi.

"‘If you want freedom from starvation, then I will tell you how we can achieve that. Freedom will be attained because of your thoughts, because of your creativity. The next war will not be fought with guns but will be fought by entering the minds of students. And let me remind you that numbers don’t matter, quantity doesn’t matter, quality does. The Kauravas were a hundred. The Pandavas were just five. Today at Jadavpur University, the boys who speak in favour of building the country may be less in number. But they can. And they must.

"‘In the end, I want to say just one thing. If you will free Kashmir, free Meghalaya, free Bastar, free every place of the country, then who will be left to give freedom? You know that in China it is not possible to become a citizen, so you will not be able to go there. Then what happens? So now the time has come, no matter what your thought process is, to see a collective dream. Together we dream that by 2025 (by which time you will have graduated and started working someplace), India becomes the world’s “idea capital”! A global innovation hub! There is no country in the world where this kind of jugaad is possible. You need a lot of brains for jugaad and that is why our students are so highly respected wherever they go in the world. So, can we not decide that in the next ten to fifteen years, we make India the innovation and idea hub? This will happen with our ideas and not slogans, because slogans have no science.

"‘I would like to thank you all for inviting me here. It was very courageous of you to call me, I really liked it. When I was sitting in the car, someone asked me if I was feeling scared. I said, now I feel more determined. After coming to Jadavpur University, my courage has risen more, now nobody can stop this film, it will release on May 13, this is my faith. This is my truth. This is my Buddha.

"‘Thank you, thank you very much.’"

................................................................................................

"While I speak, a few students have got a bedsheet and have tied it on the grill of the playground. The projector turns on and the beam falls on the bedsheet… the screen. I can see the power of collective thought. Even the protestors have learnt that it’s never about the numbers; it’s about the conviction of ideas. As the projection falls on the bedsheet, a record of sorts is being created as no film has been ever been screened on a bedsheet, prior to its release. I take a picture. This is the mother of all dissent images. An alternative narrative has begun. History is being created.

"As the movie reaches its mid-point, amidst the sloganeering, I hear someone screaming. I get up to see and find that a short man is yelling at Pritam and his friends in Bengali. Someone tells me he is the registrar. I can make out he wants the screening to stop instantly. I run towards the screening spot and ask the boys not to stop it until the registrar speaks to me. Students don’t give up. Two masses of students are threatening each other. With abuses, hatred, and violence. The registrar senses that the situation is getting out of hand so he threatens the organizing students with dire consequences and leaves.

"It feels like I am in a war zone. Jadavpur, it feels like, has everything, barring education. This isn’t political activism. It’s goondagardi, hooliganism – supported by the administration and faculty. It’s an extremely sad commentary on the state of our education system. These poor students don’t even realize that they aren’t anti-establishment anymore. Slowly, they have become anti-India. What can I say about the students when our media also writes headlines like ‘Them vs Us’ (Indian Express headline on Yaqub hanging).

"Well, the film ends. I have to say it with deep anguish that Jadavpur is the only university where I didn’t have a Q&A session. Because they believe in only raising questions. Not willing to listen to the answers.

"Lights shut down. It is pitch dark. My driver Prabhu is trying to fix the bumper of his car. Students are shaking hands with me, congratulating me, hugging me, taking selfies with me. For them, it is a victory. For me, it is a shameful commentary on seventy years of democracy."

................................................................................................

"After an hour and half, while I am having dinner at the hotel, I get a call from one of the students and he tells me that they are being beaten up very badly by the Leftist students.

"I switch the TV on and the news is everywhere. On all the channels, I am the centre of the news. The fight started with a boy called Sandeep Das. He is a Dalit. Leftist boys asked him why he watched the film despite being a Dalit. He said he liked the movie and liked my speech as it made sense to him and opened his eyes. So, they started beating him up saying this was how he would learn to support them. Then riots broke out and the entire thing became political. The political sharks have hijacked the issue. ... I am advised by the security to stay in my room and not tweet until I leave Kolkata. I obey."

................................................................................................

"Before Prabhu dropped me at the hotel, he had asked me: ‘Why are they against you?’ 

"‘Because I talk about working hard, making money and being successful.’ 

"‘What’s wrong with that?’ He paused and then added, ‘What are they fighting for?’ ‘

"They are fighting for the poor.’ ‘

"But I am poor. Why did they have to break my car?’ 

"I put my hand on his shoulder and told him, ‘Even I am trying to figure that out. Let’s have a deal. Whoever figures it out first will call the other.’ 

"I knew pretty well that I will never have to call him because I’ll never have the answer."

................................................................................................

" ... It’s been over seven months since May 13, 2016, the release of Buddha In A Traffic Jam. This was the first time I released a film on my own and I learnt that the night before the D-day feels exactly like your daughter’s bidaai. Once the film hits the theatre, the maker loses all control over it. You conceive, deliver, nurture, protect, give form, shape and a soul and finally it goes away to where it belongs: the audience. Normally, the release day is the most important day in a filmmaker’s life. But in my case, the journey after the release has been the most important experience of my life.

"I am so grateful to the invisible power, viewers, supporters, politicians, activists, critics, media, trolls, and the intellectuals for richly contributing to my life-changing experience. I am not the same person anymore. Today, I do not fear losing anything. I fear no one. Not out of arrogance but because of my complete surrender and understanding of the principle that eventually, only truth wins: Satyameva Jayate. Because of my realization that no sacrifice is as valuable as the discovery of truth. No opposition is as strong as the truth. For, the truth is the real enlightenment, the real Buddha. The created became so strong that it changed the creator. A film became so powerful that it changed the beliefs of its maker. This is the victory of Buddha.

"It was just a film. A small film, initiated by a bunch of students. It would have gone unnoticed. But they converted it into a political fight. In this fight, everyone left me. They were huge in number, might, and control. I walked alone. They tried everything to stop it but, eventually, it reached the audience and, in the end, the film won. The truth won. Buddha won.

"When the Jadavpur University incident happened and the media started building up the news, bringing the film to the forefront, a lot of Urban Naxals were rattled. It was easy for them to restrict the film on university campuses but to curb its spread into households was beyond their might. They had broken the legs of the movie and never expected it to release but they had forgotten to break its spirit."

................................................................................................

"The drama began on May 7th, a night after the Jadavpur incident caught fire. A group of people in Lutyens Delhi, led by AAP-supporter scribe Abhinandan Sekhri of newslaundry.com and other journalist accomplices started a campaign to ridicule the film. Sekhri tweeted:

" ... and while I think no matter how silly or mediocre your film, it must be screened, that doesn’t take away from your buffoonery.’"

"This was nasty and unnecessary. He was commenting on the film without even seeing it. But he was not alone. The cocktail circuit of Lutyens intellectuals started attacking me on social media, columns, blogs and all available public forums. A few days after the film released and found massive appreciation, and once the public opinion started building in favour of the film, Sekhri was forced to call me for an interview. When he came to my office with his camera team, I asked him if he had seen the film which he ridiculed so much. He admitted that he had not. I made him sit in my office and watch the entire film on my computer. After watching the film, he hugged me and said he was wrong in pre-judging me and apologized for the longest time. During the interview, he confessed at least three times to the camera about running a dirty campaign against me, apologized and praised the film extensively, and asked others to see it. Later, he tweeted:

"‘Thanks for that (interview and screening of the film) & I owe u an apology. I was disparaging about your film without seeing it I then watched it & enjoyed it’ 

"This was Buddha’s victory."

................................................................................................

"Well, how can Bollywood be left behind? Lyricist and stand-up comedian Varun Grover led the attack with a number of tweets: 

"‘Many versions of who got violent 1st at JU screening of VA’s film. But bottom-line – stopping a film from being screened is plain Talibanism.’ 

"He didn’t stop at this sarcasm and in a series of tweets, puked a lot of venom at the film. 

"‘So yeah, good for the film that some noobs (JU admin or students or whoever) considered it worth stopping. Shaheedi ka tamga, best tamga! (Martyr’s label, best label)’"

................................................................................................

"An ex-critic of The Hindu, Sudhish Kamath wrote several pieces, tweets on the film, ridiculing it, bashing it, ripping it apart, and raping it, trying to prove that the film is worse than Gunday, a film supposed to be the worst ever. "

By what criteria, it's unclear. It dealt with a good many unexplored issues related to recent history which hindi films never dared explore, even the 1971 war as far as Liberation of East Bengal goes. 

Any sane viewer and critic would opine the preppy-yuppy candyfloss dressed up as films by KJo far below the raw Gunday. 

But perhaps that's merely evidence that the industry is dominated by a jihadist narrative dictated from across border Northwest, perhaps from a city across ocean West that was in India, and 1971 is taboo unless one shows only a small battle West with the heroes of India depicted dead, even though living in reality. 

And another taboo, apart from victory of the whole war and of war in Eastern theatre, is the issue of illegal immigrants from across border, long after refugees fleeing a fascistmilitary regime out to conduct ethnic cleansing via genocide is abated. 

Gunday dealt with illegal immigrants issue, however sympathetically. Hence the condemnation? Dictated via a phone call? 

" ... This came from a man who has himself made a film. Ironically, these people take pride in calling themselves reformists, liberals, progressive. So far, they had opposition only from vernacular, sanskari people in kurta pyjamas, who they could label as regressive or Hindu fundamentalist. For the first time, one of them was exposing them in their own idiom, style, and manner. Nobody from their own community had called them ‘Urban Naxals’.  I did."

................................................................................................

"They started debating if my shoulder was actually broken or not. How could I hold the mike if it was broken? One journalist even wondered how I was alive without the backing of the ruling party. Not all, but some of them wanted me dead. Some wondered why my dad didn’t use a condom, besides hurling abuses at my mother, wife, and daughter. They sent me life threatening messages. I still sometimes revisit some messages from a pimp of a large corporation asking me to withdraw my film from the release. ‘You don’t know our power,’ he had threatened. By this time, a filmmaker should have chickened out. But I didn’t and this made them angrier and they employed all their weaponry to destroy me."

................................................................................................

"On May 13th, when the movie released, it found two distinct responses. One from Mumbai and Delhi-based critics and another from the rest of the world. The Mumbai/Delhi critics club was led by Raja Sen of Rediff and Suprateek Chaterjee of Huffington Post. If you were to read the reviews from Rediff to Huffington Post to Scroll.in, the movie is ‘a propaganda film’. Scroll.in’s Nadini Ramnath says ‘warnings about the “red menace” sound like direct quotes from the speeches of Baba Ramdev and Mohan Bhagwat.’

"Suprateek Chaterjee called it a ‘right-wing propaganda piece’, Raja Sen said Buddha in a Traffic Jam made him ‘feel sorry for Indian right-wingers’ because it was apparently not good enough propaganda. Sarit Ray, writing in Hindustan Times, called it ‘propaganda disguised as cinema’. It was a mere coincidence that all of them are Bengalis and they wrote exactly the same reviews as if out of a pre-decided template. Be it tweets, FB posts, reviews or blogs, all the paragraphs were in the same order with the same content with the word ‘propaganda’ spread out evenly.

"I had always believed that Huffington Post was a responsible publication and would never entertain personal grudges to become part of its editorial. Raja Sen refused to give the film any star. This was the first time in my memory when I saw a critic refusing to give any star to a film. How bad can a film be which won so many awards and was selected by MAMI under Shyam Benegal’s chairmanship as one of India’s best five films?

"These people didn’t write reviews. They wrote hate pieces. In some time, it came out that most of them had written those hate pieces without even watching the film."

................................................................................................

"Slowly, other reviews started coming from other, non-agenda parts of India and abroad where genuine critics, who saw the film in the theatre, and not just wrote reviews but essays on the politics of Naxalism and the points the film made. Those who live outside competitive and ambitious Mumbai and Delhi are more socially and politically conscious. While metro critics start with finding negatives, the non-metro and rooted critics try to find positives. One critic, Mayuresh, wrote:

"‘To truly appreciate the scale of the attack on Freedom of Expression (FoE) that the Jadavpur incident represents, you have to see Buddha in a Traffic Jam. I think most of the social media discourse about the movie is misleading as it refers the movie as anti-Naxal or anti-left, and hence the battle for its screening as a battle between red and saffron in a manner of speaking. Actually, the movie is neither of these. It is a microscopic, almost anthropological, look at how the poorest people of India are hard done to by evil corporates on one side and the militants on the other. As the movie cuts back and forth between the metro where college professors talk revolution, and the harsh, arid landscapes of rural India, we realize there are no heroes, only victims. That, argues Vivek, is the true tragedy of this conflict.

"‘The first strike against Vivek is, of course, his refusal to drink the Leftist concoction of ‘intolerance’ and ‘award wapsi’. Vivek was always going to be a target after that. Buddha shows the poor people in nothing but sympathetic light, it is the gun-toting maniacs that Vivek has problems with. The Jadavpur gang does not care for the poor people, or they would have allowed a movie proposing a solution for the poor to be screened. In this dispute, the Jadavpur gang is acting as bouncers of the armed militants. They are the bullies, trying to crush Vivek’s voice so that the armed militants can continue exploiting some of the poorest people on the earth."

Reminds one of the recent mobbing of Delhi by so-called farmers, in reality paid mobs agitating in interest of not farmers but middlemen, supported by all opposition until bills allowing freedom to farmers were scrapped and middlemen won. Lynching, rapes and more by the said mob were supported by the opposition in the process, in name of farmers, name used fraudulently. 

"‘The second strike is his balanced portrayal of the problem at the root of the Naxal terrorism, and his temerity to suggest that technology and trade may be the answer to the problem. For people who are used to terming modern business and modern technology as the villains of the episode, Vivek’s solution is damn near blasphemous.’"

And that exposes the true character nature of left, those supposedly striving for people, but in reality no different from fascists, only totally fraudulent. 

................................................................................................

"Slowly but steadily, the film started finding its cult. This is the victory of Buddha.

"Today, at the end of the year, Huffington Post has released a list of the ten best films of the year and they have rated Buddha In A Traffic Jam as the second best, ... Many other prominent listings have rated the film among the three best films of the year. Huffington Post writes in honour of our film, of course after watching it and understanding it:

"‘Buddha in a Traffic Jam is a powerful film about morality, corruption, and social injustice that forces us to think about things which we don’t usually pay heed to. The film was panned by the Indian left-wing lobby at the time of its release. The issue at the heart of Buddha in a Traffic Jam is the Naxalite crisis. But the film dares to show us a different side to the Naxalite movement – not as a struggle in the jungle but driven according to a sophisticated business model designed by high-thinking masterminds. Directed by Vivek Agnihotri, Buddha in a Traffic Jam is well-researched and extremely well made. It is a real pity that the film was unjustly censured for leaning towards the right at the time of its release when in actuality it is equally critical of both the extremes. Here is an important film that hopefully will find a cult following in times to come.’ 

"This is the victory of Buddha."

................................................................................................

"On the release day, some three hundred troll handles were opened with zero followers to troll the film. This was led by Arvind Kejriwal’s fans and the group of trolls was led by the queens of trolls – @Rajyashree and Swati Chaturvedi @Bainjal, who later wrote a book on trolls. The best part is that none of them had seen the film. Like they share articles without reading them only on the basis of the headline, they started writing pre-determined reviews and comments. One anonymous guy/girl with the handle @GabbbarSingh trolled the film and called it a shitty film. Reading the comments, I knew that he/she had not seen the film so I deliberately asked which chapter he/she hated the most, which was never replied to. This person had not seen the film but was either paid or motivated to write against the film, otherwise, how can anybody be so stupid?"

" ... Slowly, the appreciation started pouring in on social media. Support came from everywhere, from students, housewives, ex-Naxals, social workers, scientists, economists, sociologists, writers, painters, editors, religious gurus, soldiers, NRIs, and by and by, it became a people’s film. I can guarantee no other small film in recent times has received so much of appreciation, support and fan following like Buddha in a Traffic Jam.

"We started getting invitations from Oxford and Cambridge, Australia, Singapore and many American universities and associations. Random people started exposing the lies of people like Raja Sen and Sekhri. Slowly, an army of thousands of Buddha believers started protecting the film from Urban Naxals and started promoting it through unconventional channels. The film found its market, its audience and created an ecosystem. The film got sold to all major digital platforms. It got over a million organic views on YouTube in no time. This is the victory of Buddha."

"The same media which tried every trick in their bag to discredit me has been requesting me to write articles for them, which I do now on a regular basis. NDTV and India Today, which I had come to believe would never call me to their studios, have been regularly inviting me to their debates. This is the victory of Buddha.

"The Leftists, liberals and intellectuals and their sympathizers had panned the film as my fantasy. Journalist Saba Naqvi, in a TV debate, even went to the extent of saying that I oppose Naxals because I have no intellect and radical activists like Kavita Krishnan and Shehla Rashid called the film my fantasy. But once the film started getting ground support, their own organizations, forums started inviting me to their seminars, conventions as the main speaker. The doors of literature festivals opened up for me. Academic forums started inviting me to present my views on Urban Naxalism and Intellectual Terrorism. Since the release of the film, I have been travelling the length and breadth of the country for almost 15-20 days a month to give lectures at various prestigious forums.

"I was invited by TedX. I have been commissioned by the Forum for Integrated National Security (FINS) to make a documentary on Naxalism and the shooting is on in Bastar. Arvind Kejriwal’s left-hand man, Ashish Khetan of AAP, was forced on national TV to invite my film for a screening at Delhi’s secretariat. There hasn’t been a day when the national media hasn’t called me for a byte on national issues. They can condemn me but not the voice of Buddha. This is the victory of Buddha."

................................................................................................

"Suresh Chukappali, the producer who had abandoned the film midway to die, called me to his house after the release. Not only that, he requested me to send the awards and the trophies to him to be displayed at the reception of his new swanky office. This is the victory of Buddha."

................................................................................................

" ... as I start work on my next film, trying to discover yet another political mystery, there is news that has brought the film back in the limelight. Professor G.N. Saibaba of Delhi University has been sentenced to life imprisonment for colluding with the Naxals and working against national security. Along with him, the students whom he brainwashed and mentored to pick up guns and become Naxals were also arrested. The Inspector General of Police of the Nagpur Range, Ravindra Kadam, said that a few students of the university had joined the underground Maoist cadre at the behest of the professor. The students who joined the Naxal movement were members of the Democratic Students’ Union (DSU). It’s the same students’ body whose member Umar Khalid was arrested by the Delhi police, in relation to the Afzal Guru sloganeering case at JNU.

"‘Professor Saibaba had been active with Left-leaning students of both JNU and DU and had been indoctrinating and recruiting them for the Maoist movement. In course of time, Saibaba had prepared and recruited four students as Maoist cadre,’ Kadam said.

"‘Either these people followed your script in real life, or you are a clairvoyant who read their future script. Whatever it is, your effort to show the truth is worthy of a salute,’ anti-Naxal hero Inspector General Kalluri told me. This is the victory of Buddha."

Actually, Agnihotri interpreted his own past experience, correctly. 

................................................................................................

"Earlier, in November 2016, a Delhi University professor Nalini Sunder was booked along with other Naxals on charges of murder of an Adivasi villager in the insurgency-hit Sukma district of Chattisgarh. The government has identified hundreds of NGOs who have been working illegally and are suspected of helping anti-national elements. Many ex-Naxal women have reported sexual abuse, rape and oppression of women exactly like the film depicted.

"A few days ago, Naxals shot down twenty-five CRPF soldiers in a dastardly act of violence. In a quick operation, police nabbed some Naxals and some surrendered. One of the surrendered Naxals, Podium Panda, confessed to the police and later in the court that he was the link between Nalini Sunder, activist Bela Bhatia, and the Naxals. He used to drive them on his motorbike to the Naxal bastion.

"It’s been established beyond doubt that some members of academia have been helping Naxals in attaining their objective of toppling the democratic system of India with an armed revolution. Exactly like the film.

"Today, unanimously, the film is recognized as a prophetic film of our times. Even by its opponents. This is the victory of Buddha."

................................................................................................

"I was invited for a town hall at Facebook’s headquarter at Menlo park in Silicon Valley and this is where I realized that most of the Indians in the audience have been discussing ‘Urban Naxalism’ after seeing the film. I spent the entire evening with them discussing this red terror and almost all of them felt that they have been victims of Urban Naxalism while in college. One young IT engineer who has just joined Facebook hugged me and held my hand tightly and said, “Sir, your film is my story. I was also influenced by my professors to turn leftist and before I could realize I had started hating India. It’s only after watching our movie I realized how I was brainwashed and now I believe in India and will do anything to build a New India. Thanks for speaking up.” This is the victory of Buddha."

................................................................................................

"They tried to shut me up by painting me as a part of the Hindutva campaign. But it was never about Hindutva. It’s neither about freedom of speech or intolerance. This is a tactic employed to protect their castles. They confuse the issue by bringing in lots of counter news and views. They quote laws. They try to make it look like an anti-RSS, anti-BJP issue. This isn’t about any of the above. It’s about a war against India. In 2010, there was an intelligence report that terror groups were making inroads in Indian universities. Everyone ignored it exactly like when intelligence said Ishrat Jahan was a suicide bomber. They believe in intelligence reports only when it suits them. This is India’s real threat.

"The myth that sustains the Naxalite movement is that the ‘Indian State’ and the ‘government’ are outright evil entities, and every instrument of the State is, therefore, a justifiable target for violence and that the Naxalites themselves, in turn, are the only protectors of the people against the evil State. Far from Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal’s class war, today’s Naxalites are ‘guns for hire’, and exploit and oppress the very people they claim to be fighting for. Even schools in rural areas, which could help them break out of the poverty trap, have been blown up by Naxals, for whom every educated child represents the potential loss of a blinkered recruit. 

"The people who work as their mouthpieces also know very well but they succeed in spreading the lie as they have been controlling the narrative. We broke into it, challenged it and tried to introduce a new narrative. In the last six months, we have travelled in deep Bastar and recorded umpteen stories of Naxal barbarity and exploitation of Adivasis. The awareness the film created has given a lot of confidence to ex-Naxals who have been secretly wanting to share their stories with me. This is the victory of Buddha."

................................................................................................

"Today, I am at the nerve centre of the Naxal movement: Chhattisgarh. I have been invited by a group of ex-Naxals and anti-Naxal groups. There is a flood of innocent Adivasis who can’t even speak properly but they are here to acknowledge the dent the film has made to Naxalism. I am overwhelmed with their love. They have made me feel like a hero, a crusader.

"A couple meets me. Their story can make any sane person puke with disgust. They are ex-Naxals. While fighting the ‘revolution’, they fell in love but couldn’t marry as the Naxal law dictates that every man gets a vasectomy operation done before marrying a Naxal woman cadre. One day, after their colleagues killed an innocent villager, opened his chest, gouged out his eyes and mutilated the corpse with an axe, both of them fled and took protection in Jagdalpur. They married and now have children. They are crying. Not because of the suffering but out of the joy of meeting and sharing their pain with me.

"‘Sir, whatever you have shown in the film is absolutely true. Everything. We have come here to pay our gratitude to you for showing the truth behind the barbarity of savages like Naxals. Somebody had to do it. Thanks.’ 

"I have tears in my eyes. This is the victory of Buddha. The truth.

"There may not be a place for the alternate narrative in Naxal-infested jungles, campuses, media and minds but in the world of real, rational and sane people, there is always a place for truth – the only narrative one needs to know.

"Satyameva Jayate."

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"In the loving memory of my father Acharya Prabhudayalu Agnihotri, freedom fighter, 

Indologist and teacher who introduced me to 

Kalidasa and the meaning of being an Indian. 

"To my mother Sharda Devi Agnihotri, freedom fighter who made me understand the value of excellence. 

"To my wife Pallavi Joshi who did not stop my 

crusade even after life threats. She helped me 

make a better version, of this book, and me. 

"Everyone needs Hari. When I was seeking a new horizon, 

Hari found me. And sculpted me. 

"To the students of India."

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"समर शेष है 

"नहीं पाप का भागी केवल व्याध, 

"जो तटस्थ हैं 

"समय लिखेगा उनके भी अपराध। 

"रामधारी सिंह "दिनकर"" 

"The war still rages on 

"The attacker alone can't be blamed, 

"Those who stood aloof 

"In time, they also will be shamed. -

"Ramdhari Singh ‘‘Dinkar’’"

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Foreword 

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"I don’t believe in Forewords. A book should stand on its own, speak for itself. But this book is an exception. A “Bloody Fascist Brahmin” penned it, who was stopped from screening his film, Buddha in a Traffic Jam, at Jadavpur University. His car was gheraoed and damaged. He himself was injured. An angry mob of Leftist students and activists bayed for his blood. 

"Why such hatred? Why so much intolerance? What was Vivek Agnihotri saying or showing in his film which was so dangerous or destabilising? Why was he such a blatantly marked target of “intellectual terrorism?” Vivek is right when he says, “In India, people fight with all their might to kill an idea.”"

It's not a phenomenon that either belongs to, or was generated by, India,  in any sense; Its as much an import as Abrahamic-II, Abrahamic-III and Abrahamic-IV creeds, all of them imports. In fact, without any exaggeration whatsoever, it's easy to see that the phenomenon belongs with Abrahamic creeds, especially the latter ones. 

"First they nearly stopped him from making his film. Then they tried to prevent him from screening it. When he took his exquisite and excruciating creation literally to the streets and to the campuses, showing it directly to target audiences, again he was heckled and blocked.

"I thought to myself, whether we love or hate the film, we cannot allow this in India. In my own university, JNU, another Leftist bastion, it was blocked by the Dean of the School of Arts & Aesthetics, in whose auditorium it was originally to be screened. Instead, the students arranged an outdoor screening, which was attended by over five thousand. The film had a rousing, almost delirious reception. When I saw it, I was moved, disturbed, provoked.

"It was one of the most original and unusual movies I had encountered in a long time. A political thriller, with great acting, music, and a theme of national importance. I loved it. Instantly, I became one of the “hundred owners” of the film."

" ... This book is a triple triumph. It not only tells the story of how this extraordinary film got to be made, but also how its auteur, Vivek Agnihotri, healed his broken spirit, snatching victory from the very brink of disaster, despair, and depression. “This film is making me reinvent myself,” he realizes during the shooting, “Every day. Every moment.” In addition, it is a profound reflection on the condition of India, especially on the Maoist insurgency that is gnawing at the innards of our democratic polity."

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" ... Vivek “had failed four times. Like a manglik girl.” In a cut-throat industry, where you’re only as good as the money your last film makes, what is the future of a director who wants to tell the truth? This is every creative artist’s dilemma. There is, besides, “a mindset in Bollywood that doesn't let Indic ideas flourish.”

"When Vivek decides to speak out against the Bollywood campaign against Narendra Modi in 2014, he finds that he has overnight become a pariah in his fraternity: “I was discriminated against by almost all my Bollywood friends, whom I used to hang around with because, like them, I also believed in a certain ideology but found it fake and alienated from reality, and elitist.” Trying to make Buddha in a Traffic Jam only makes it worse. But Vivek succeeds in breaking the Bollywood’s dominant code.

"How does he do that? He discovers that “Within each of us, there is a seeker who is hungry for knowledge and wisdom. After working in the film industry for over six years, this is the first time I can feel this seeker.”"

Actually it's more complex, and frightening now, post the gruesome end of the brilliant maverick SSR and the silence of the fraternity that reminded one of supposed suicides over the decades that made no sense. 

"Right in the midst of the near-impossible ordeal of trying to make an off-beat, politically incorrect feature film on a ridiculously low budget of 2 crores in an industry where a single star for a single movie may demand and get upwards of 50 crores, Vivek has an epiphany. “Can I, as a filmmaker,” he asks himself, “tell the truth?” Then he answers the question with utter and unequivocal conviction: “My answer is clear. Yes.”"

"It is this truth of a filmmaker and human being that this book chronicles for the world. A truth that we Indians must pay special heed to. For what is India, what is Sanatana Dharma, itself if not for truth? Satyameva Jayate Naanritam. This Rg Vedic injunction and prophecy could well be the theme of the book.

"But in addition to the record of making a film, which is also the tale of his own reawakening, this book also tells the story of India. The story of India which, in a sense, is our own story – the story of each one of us. This is the story we all live through."

................................................................................................

"Urban Naxal is packed with analyses, reflections, and solutions. It is a thinking woman’s and man’s book. It is also brimming with compassion, consideration, and passionate concern for our poor, “suffering, conflicted, mediocre India.” How to turn our society from its addiction to mediocrity to a land of hope and possibilities? This is also one of the themes of the book.

"As Vivek puts it, “After poverty, inefficiency is the second biggest curse of Indian society.” In addition, there is corruption. Unrelenting. Endemic. As Suresh, one of his producers puts it pensively, “Forget Naxal areas, even in cities it’s not easy. It’s very difficult to do business in India. We have become an extortionist country.” From being broke, “Financially. Emotionally. Mentally,” from the point “where most people give up,” Vivek overcomes impossible odds to make his film. 

"In doing so, he learns about the real India. Not the India that we see from the safe mode of our comfortable, bourgeois city-bred security, but the gut-wrenching reality of our complicated, poverty-stricken, but still so uplifting India: ... "

"It is this defeated and real India that actually saves Vivek. He realises that when we recover the simplicity, beauty, and sincerity of our inner beings, the whole universe conspires, as it were, to help, support, and guide us: “My faith in goodness is reinforced. I learn that if the intent is right, the universe creates a new logic. A new reality.”

"Again and again, the common people from urban taxi operators to adivasis in distant Dantewada come to his rescue. So do a variety of film industry workers and professionals. His wife, the exceptionally talented Pallavi also does a major role in the film as does his niece. The former also sings the defining theme song, Faiz’s revolutionary anthem, “Chand roz aur mirī jaan faqat chand hī roz.” Students and faculty of the Indian Business School produce and inspire the movie.

"A big boost comes when Anupam Kher agrees to act in one of the lead roles, that of the B-school Professor and Dean, who recruits and brainwashes students, playing on their guilt, plying their idealism, to turn them into urban naxals. Vivek not only didn’t have the money to pay Kher’s regular fees, he couldn’t even afford the actor’s normal 5-star accommodation or meals.

"But Kher, graciously rises to the occasion. He tells Vivek after listening to the script, “I think you have found the purpose. You have found your song. Mark my words, this film will change your life. Thanks for casting me and all the best.” What is more, he lives in the ISB hostel like all the others, even eating the normal mess food. When it comes to the on-location shoot from a professor’s campus residence, Kher is completely in his element, taking over and owning both the role and space."

................................................................................................

"But the book and film analyse a special, specific subject, as indicated in the title, Urban Naxal. What is this? Simply put it is the nexus between India’s “Red Corridor,” our “poorest and ironically the most militarized zone … the nerve centre of the Naxal movement” and its urban cultural and intellectual support base. Who are the Urban Naxals?

"They are, in Vivek’s own words, intellectuals who “present this beastly and gruesome reality in a sanitized, romantic, and palatable packaging for which the media and its urban audiences have a weakness.” They offer the legitimating and camouflaging ecosystem for what is an open, if internal, insurgency against the democratically elected government of the Republic of India."

Is there really such a revolt, genuine? Or is it a poverty and illiteracy exploited by China that's taken for the real article by romantic idiots who have little truck with reality, being cocoons in upper middle class comfort securely enough to talk nonsense about leftist creed but not sacrificing personal luxuries to adopt, say, a slum next door temporarily. 

"Spread across several states and districts of India, this war has claimed many thousand lives, both of Indian security personnel as of Maoist insurgents. Vivek’s book is full of facts, figures, questions, and ideas about this menace to India’s sovereignty and integrity. 

"But we must never forget that both the book and the film are not expert reports or documentaries. They are original, creative works, literary and cinematic. India-haters, of whatever political or ideological stripe, have one dream. It is to capture power and install their own government in India. They hope to harness the disgruntled, some would say disenfranchised, members of our society, “the Adivasi, Dalits, Muslims, and other ‘forgotten people’, united under one common red flag,” to “demolish the State,” instead of including them in democratic process."

Also, they seem to glorify not only China but killings. Taking an extreme example, who has sympathy for a close knit family that had four sisters see one another more than once a year, whether surrounded by the clan of dozens of uncles, aunts and cousins, and a grandmother, but subsequently lost contact due to a war and murder of two out of the four sisters during the war? Not the leftists. 

And there's the inhuman side of all this, when it's romanticised. For the real life sisters that are mentioned here weren't specifically guilty, any more than, say, an Anna Karen inability or a Melanie Wilkes were, for their respective social systems. 

"Vivek warns us against this real and present danger. According to him, Naxals are waging a conflict in which “the lines between war and politics, combatants, and civilians” gets blurred.  Right in our midst, in our social circles and living rooms are people who support such dangerous and armed terrorists. Vivek believes that he has a story that “needs to be told.” It is the story of “the invisible enemy” in our midst, perhaps more dangerous than a known and identified terrorist."

They are neither invisible nor unknown, but merely not taken seriously, due to an appearance of merely talking. But that's insidious, and the atmosphere they have generated over last four, five or more decades is what has led to the rotten part of JNU et al sloganeering junta. 

"—Makarand R. Paranjape 

"Professor and Poet 

"Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi"

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July 10, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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Contents 

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Foreword 

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Book One : Buddha is Born 

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1. Bloody Fascist Brahmin, go back!  

2. A Film is Born  

3. Being Reborn  

4. An Encounter with the Real India  

5. The BIG Factor— A Twenty-thousand-rupee Marvel  

6. ‘Jesus is coming’  

7. A Hundred Owners  

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Book Two : In Search of Buddha 

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8. The Red Corridor: A Day as Usual  

9. A History of Violence  

10. Heaven and Hell  

11. Vanbala  

12. Zorba the Greek  

13. Comrade Vivek Agnihotri  

14. The New Big Idea: Urban Naxalism  

15. A New Angle  

16. Deep-Diving into Naxalism  

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Book Three : The Making of Buddha 

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17. The First Draft  

18. Prologue  

19. I am a Bitch  

20. The Secret Game  

21. The Potters’ Club  

22. Finding Buddha  

23. Freakonomics  

24. Left Out  

25. Lal Salaam  

26. Blink  

27. The Tao of Revolution  

28. Epilogue  

29. Casting: The Art and the Science  

30. Music: The Third Eye of Cinema  

31. Technology: The Second Pillar of Cinema  

32. Production: The Spine of Cinema  

33. The Shoot  

34. The First Screening  

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Book Four : The Struggle of Buddha 

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35. Who is Gudsa Usendi?  

36. The Intellectual Mafia  

37. A Fight Begins  

38. Kanhaiya, Azadi, and Buddha  

39. Vande Mataram at JNU  

40. Gandhi vs Mao: IIT Gandhinagar  

41. The Intolerance Debate: SPJIMR and IIT Bombay  

42. Rohith Vemula and Dalit Politics: NALSAR and Osmania University  

43. The Science of Resistance: NLU, IISc  

44. The Technique of Sabotage: IIT Madras  

45. Two Indias: Allahabad and Benares  

46. Roses and Thorns: Panjab University  

47. The New Politics: DU, IITK, IIM Indore 

48. The Left and the Right of Struggle: FTII, Pune University 

49. The Politics of Struggle: Jadavpur University  

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Epilogue – The Victory of Buddha  

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REVIEW 

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Book One : Buddha is Born 

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1. Bloody Fascist Brahmin, go back!  

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Agnihotri certainly knows how to grapple your guts with his very opening! 

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"6th March 2016 

"Black. 

"I am inside a mass of black. No earth. No sky. Just black. 

"And thousands of screams. 

"‘Bloody, Fascist Brahmin… Go back.’ 

"Hundreds of young students are baying for my blood. Angry. Vengeful. Armed with wooden sticks and hot blood.  

"They want me beaten up. Humiliated. And killed. 

"They are trying to break the car open to pull me out and parade me as a symbol of an upper-caste oppressor and punish me for exposing their nexus. 

"My guilt is that I am here to show my film. One of the smallest films of the decade. A film with no money, no studios, and no backers. 

"They do not agree with the film which has found resonance amongst students. They want the film banned. They want my voice killed.  

"I feel like a fetus about to be ripped out from the womb. Abortion by mob. 

"And none of them have even seen the film."

Reminds one at once of two separate accounts, one of Alexandra and her five children being shot dead by a fusillade along with her husband, before they were burned and buried in lime so as to destroy the very remains. 

And then there are two separate accounts by Amitav Ghosh of Hindus surrounded by mobs intending to kill, in East Bengal.  

................................................................................................

"An Hour Earlier…

"‘Sir, this is Kolkata, a giant, blocked drain. A gutter without an outlet. Can I take you through the inner roads?’ My chauffeur Prabhu asks me."

"Prabhu is a big built, bald man in his 50s, maybe 60s. It’s difficult to guess a hardworking person’s age as they jump straight from childhood to middle age. And in most of the cases, even the person himself doesn’t know his correct age. I think people in India age prematurely. A man who starts worrying about feeding his family pre-puberty will naturally age faster than others. Prabhu hails from a state which can put even West Bengal to shame - Bihar. His village is 100 miles away from Patna. He came to Calcutta to earn a living and feed his family back home. He did odd jobs, like any other migrant, and lived in a tiny room with 20 other Biharis. His life changed when a truck driver took him on as a cleaner, coincidently on the same day Calcutta became Kolkata. He has a better idea of India than those who have become millionaires just talking about the ‘Idea of India’. He decided at an early age that the safest way to make money in this city of sins is through honesty and customer satisfaction. It’s strange, how we find more honest and righteous people as we climb down the economic strata. More low-income people have surprised me with their honesty than the moneyed ones.

"The entrepreneur in Prabhu never liked highways. He wanted to start his own business. He started off by buying a small Xerox and PCO shop with some of his own hard-earned money and some borrowed. Within few years, he was running a chain of three Xerox/PCO shops in the same lane. Next, he tried investing in a call centre. Just a few days after he finalized the deal, the local retailers went on a strike against FDI in the retail sector. His shops had to stay shut for weeks. As a result, he couldn’t pay his EMIs and had to sell the shops. In West Bengal, you just can’t be not affected by politics: the ‘politics of the poor’, as Prabhu describes it. ‘This, perhaps, is the only place in the world where people hate development,’ he tells me. ‘Yeh bhadralok ki rajneeti kabhi Hindustan ko amir nahi banne degi’ He was talking about ‘Leftist politics’ as intellectuals describe it, and how the politics of the elite would never let India become rich. So, after this setback, Prabhu borrowed money again and bought a second hand Innova. He drives it as a private car, illegally, as he doesn’t have enough money to bribe the officials and get an All India Tourist Permit.

"Even so, everyone wants to feel confident and proud of something in life. Satisfied customers were Prabhu’s ‘confidence crutch’.  His Innova looked brand new. Polished and scented. He had newspapers in all three languages, Hindi, English, and Bengali. Plus, The Economic Times. He had the latest issues of India Today and Business Today. There were small Bisleri bottles, a tissue box and a map of Kolkata. Management gurus define it as ‘value addition’. He constantly smiled and doubled up as my local guide, providing me with historical insights on every lane. Intermittently, he brought in local politics and how due to it he is not being able to materialize his objective of owning a fleet of taxis and get his family to Kolkata. Ola and Uber have made it tough. But he isn’t willing to succumb to competitors’ games. He is convinced that he has to give quality to see a smile on his customer’s face, only then can he succeed—‘Seth khush hona chahiye… seth log khush hoga to hee paisa banega na, kyon seth?’ He was talking beyond customer satisfaction. He was talking about customer delight."

" ... India is full of enterprising individuals but has failed to exploit their collective strength. We have never recognized the value of individual merit. Prabhu, if given equal opportunities, could be the owner of an Ola-like taxi service. Ideologically, there wasn’t any difference between him and a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, Tata, that recently bought a stake in Ola.  Both believe in quality and consumer delight."

................................................................................................

"Women are chatting, filling utensils, taking a bath in the open. One of them is singing while a young man is prompting her with lyrics. It’s rare to see such condensed happiness, bonding, and rivalry in a space of 20 square feet.  A rickshaw-puller joins in and starts washing his rickshaw. A few women who are semi-naked, covered with just a wet, sheer sari request him to wait until they are done with their chores. Nodding, he takes out his mobile phone and starts playing a game. Soon in India, more people will have access to 4G telephones than water.

"‘What if there wasn’t a leakage, where would they get water from?’ I ask Prabhu. 

"‘They will create leakages,’ he replies, honking hard. ‘Don’t think it’s free!’ He moves his hand over his bald pate out of habit that hasn’t left him even after his hair left his head, and continues, ‘They pay the municipality guys to keep it open.’"

................................................................................................

"‘Whatever may be the situation, a good son must not lie to his father.’ He shows me his moral compass. For him, there is no difference between me and Raju Hirani. He, like most of the audience, believes that a film represents everyone in Bollywood. He has no idea that for the last 45 days, the only thing I have been fighting against is not being part of that Bollywood. I have suffered because my film speaks a political truth that nobody wants to be told. I have been struggling that my film be seen as an alternate narrative. I am fighting a new battle everyday just to show my film to interested students.  I have flown the entire night from Pune to Kolkata, changing planes, waiting at airports to reach just in time to screen my film at Jadavpur University."

"In the flash of a second, the car is surrounded by hundreds of students. They are banging on the car. They want me to come out. They are screaming in Bengali.  It’s a scene where I know for sure that if I get out they will cut me into pieces. They start hitting the car with the rear end of the placards. One student jumps over the car. One falls on the bonnet. Then one student starts hitting the side mirror until it breaks and falls down. 

"All of us imagine ourselves in various dreadful situations. We see ourselves being robbed, being a cancer patient, being killed, but this is one situation I could have never imagined, even in my worst nightmares. ... "

"‘Don’t make the mistake of getting down,’ Prabhu reads my mind. ‘Life is more valuable than a car.’ 

"‘I’ll have to talk to them. Let me at least hear what they want.’ I roll down the window a little bit to be able to talk to them. Before I can say anything, they push their hands inside. Some hands start forcing the window down.  Prabhu is in a dilemma. If he shuts the window, it hurts them and if he doesn’t, they will break the window. 

"‘Why are you damaging a poor man’s car?’ I try to talk to them. 

"‘If you care for him, come out.’ 

"‘I will if all of you move back five feet.’ 

"This makes them think. 

"Suddenly, from nowhere, a girl pushes herself in and bangs her placard on my window. I have never read such big letters from such a close distance. It was so close that I couldn’t even read the entire sentence in one go. The girl starts shouting what I gathered was written on the placard ‘Bloody fascist Brahmin. Go back Agnihotri’."

"Prabhu quickly rolls up the window. 

"The girl bends down. Looks deep into my eyes. 

"And then she spits on the glass."

" ... Through this abstract hazy foreground, I can see the distorted face of the girl still screaming. 

"‘There is no place for alternate narrative!’ 

"I can hear it in surround sound. I can read it on my window. In her spit. The venom."

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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2. A Film is Born  

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Agnihotri begins by describing dome of Taj Mahal with first rays of sun hitting the top, claiming he's atheist but felt this was a godly moment. It's unclear if he's trying to be subtle in assertion of his secular credentials. It's also unclear if he's aware of the wall that was built behind on side facing river Yamuna where reality of the building was exposed to anyone who saw, stated by P. N. Oak who got ridiculed for decades. 

................................................................................................

" ... It was obvious that both of us loved movies. But of different kinds. The only thing common between us was our last name ‘Agnihotri’. His name was Ravi Agnihotri. A hardcore Punjabi from Ropar.  

"During one of his Sunday calls, he asked me if I was interested in mentoring a short film on the Naxal issue. These were the times when I had just come out of a professional dilemma, after an overstretched phase of self-denial and deep introspection. I had made two back-to-back big, multi-starrer films, without much struggle. Anil Ambani’s Reliance, under the BIG umbrella brand, was setting up their film studio in a very big way. Reliance had signed me, along with five other reputed directors including Shyam Benegal, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sudhir Mishra and Madhur Bhandarkar, for multiple films, each at a vulgar price. I had arrived! But then, after spending two years on two scripts, the films never got made. I was out of work. Out of money. More than that, I was disillusioned with the film industry. What can an unemployed filmmaker do? ... "

"Ravi sent me a mail which had a short idea for a 60-minute film on Naxalism. He wanted to make it before his upcoming graduation in six-seven months."

" ... I had prepared a multimedia presentation. It worked well. I felt wonderful teaching at ISB, with its world-class beautiful campus. And started wondering if this was my new career. If this was where I should be."

" ... Ravi introduced me to three other students. Pritika Idnani and Sandeep Goel from Delhi and Abhishek Mohanta from Chandigarh. 

"They had formed a team to produce this short film on the Naxal issue. 

"‘Who will sponsor it?’ I asked, like a commercial director. 

"‘None. We have already created the seed fund. Each of us has contributed a few thousand and will put in more.’"

"The film was to be called ‘Break Even’. But what the students thought was a story, was in fact just a sketchy idea. It sounded more like a feasibility report full of complex jargon and data. Great presentations don’t make great stories. I didn’t want to dissuade them. I figured I had nothing to lose. If I mentored this film, I’d spend some good time with students at ISB. It won’t be typical Bollywood."

"‘Make it for a larger audience. Make a full-length feature film. It will be seen even after hundreds of years.’ 

"‘But we don’t have that kind of money. Maximum we can contribute is couple of lacs.’ 

"‘Don’t contribute. Raise the money. Show your enterprise. This will be your real MBA. Even if nothing happens, you will have a first-hand experience of raising funds and learning from it. And if nothing else, you can always make this short film.’"

"‘Why do you insist on making a film on the Naxal issue? Who cares? Nobody cares about the Naxal issue. Who wants to see some people in jungles? The new, aspirational India wants to see entertainers in the cozy sofa of a multiplex. Not some preachy film on issues with no solution.’"

"‘But our CEO finds a business solution,’ Ravi jumped in. 

"‘What solution?’ I asked. 

"‘That we will think of,’ Ravi spoke like a typical Bollywood producer. 

"‘If you couldn’t think of one for the last six months, what’s the guarantee you will find one before the release of the film? Even if you find a solution what will be its credibility? So many governments, agencies, corporates, economists, political scientists haven’t found a solution. Why should we look like fools? Giving a solution just because we have to make a film?’"

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" ... In their minds, they were not part of a suffering, conflicted, mediocre India. They wanted to be rich and successful. It’s sad that we teach enterprise, but not vision. This was a new, shining India. An India, outside of Bharat."

Isn't that true of film industry top layer, of Lutyens' Delhi and of many others?

" ... Pritika had suggested that everyone should do only what they specialize in. Ravi and Sandeep were given business and finance whereas production and logistics were given to Pritika and Abhishek. I was supposed to crack the script while they used their networks to raise funds. Assumption was that ISB would come at a substantial discount as location. But Abhishek warned us that the administration had refused to give the location to the 3 Idiots unit."

" ... We had a movie and a perfect business plan. The only things we didn’t have were the funds, and a story."

" ... Nothing unites people like having a common dream. It was only later that we learnt that everyone was seeing a different dream.

"When my aircraft took off from Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad, I had no idea that a few months later, on a Christmas vacation, lost in the wilderness due to the Gujjar agitation, struggling to find the tar road that leads to Jaipur, with no food and no water, I would find the idea that would change my life." 

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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3. Being Reborn  

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"December 2010

"The Agra-Jaipur highway is blocked. Gujjars are lying on railway tracks blocking Delhi-Mumbai route – the bloodline of the Indian Railways. There’s police everywhere and they do not let us anywhere close to the highway. Distantly I can see thousands of Gujjars agitating with all kinds of gaudy political banners. On the shoulders of the highway, food is being cooked. A lot of vendors are selling bananas, cucumbers, bidi, cigarette, cheap water. Agitations, dharnas and strikes are good business for some. Lots of children from close by villages are amused at the sight of ugly OB vans and wondering why these reporters are in such a panic when the agitators are relaxed."

"I fail to understand what kind of democracy allows damaging of State property and revenue losses. It reminds me of my student days in Bhopal, where at the smallest pretext we students used to stone buses and, in some cases, burn them.  Nothing has changed except that now it has become more dramatic, thanks to TV. The losses to the government will run into thousands of crores. We now know that the recent Jat reservation agitation costs the states Rs. 34,000 crores, as confirmed by the president of the PHD Chamber of Commerce. It would be interesting to see a comparative study between the State’s investment in infrastructure and the loss to the State exchequer on account of agitations and protests. It’s quantifiable. If we add loss of productive time, inconvenience to citizens, loss of education time and other intangible factors, the losses will out-value investments."

" ... The practice of wooing and appeasement of minority communities was started by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Prime Minister VP Singh’s politics of Mandal converted it into a competitive political mafia. Identity politics today has become India’s biggest socio-political malaise.

"Gujjars are a pastoral community. The name Gujjar is derived from the term gaucharana, meaning ‘to graze cows’. They are spread across India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rajasthan alone has around 70 lac Gujjars constituting around 7-8 percent of the population – more than enough to swing an election. 

"The immediate provocation for the agitation is that both the ruling Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party promised them a five percent quota in government jobs and educational institutions but the problem lies in implementing it. Since this agitation is near Delhi, media has covered it extensively. Otherwise we would have never known about it.

"It’s Christmas time and the Golden Triangle is full of tourist cars. I see some cars taking a diversion through mustard fields, towards the villages. Cops advise us not to take the risk and go back to Agra but I decide to follow the cars. If so many people are taking the risk, all of them can’t be fools. My adventurous family agrees. My wife and children are Mumbaikars. They have no idea how ugly political agitations can get."

" ... We follow a milk van for an hour only to realize later that we have driven some 30 kilometres backwards. The problem with small roads is that they have no signs. Local people remember them. If you don’t know the roads, then it’s your problem. Sometimes these roads will take you to a smaller road and then another smaller one and then stop at a farm. We have lost the other car with my NRI cousin and his daughter. My wife is feeling sick. The kids are hungry and thirsty but there is no food and no water. And no mobile network. My daughter is crying. I am trying to tell them what a memorable adventure this is. I am finding different creative ways of lying to them instead of telling them that we are lost. 

"The sun is setting. It’s getting chillier. And darker. The sky is painted in indigo. We have been driving for nine hours now. On a normal day, it takes four hours to reach Jaipur from Agra."

................................................................................................

" ... The bike stops. Three men start speaking to our driver in Haryanvi. I can’t fathom a word. Haryanvi doesn’t sound very friendly. Especially when the bike riders’ faces are covered with gamchas. They get down from the bike and move towards the car. 

"‘What’s the matter?’ I ask the driver. 

"‘They are coming to help.’"

"What has caste got to do with this? Social disparity in modern India is a function of economic disparity. We have been trying to find socio-political solutions for fundamentally economic problems. An economic problem needs an economic solution. ... "

"The three men push the car while our driver accelerates. One of them goes and gives him some instructions. This time the driver doesn’t pump the accelerator and the car comes out. The driver indeed knows his car but they know the earth. There is an India that runs on manuals and systems. And here’s this, the other India that runs on common sense."

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"I am sure if everything stops, these three men will survive; it might be difficult but they will find their way out. I bet my family will give in, in no time. My family is Systems India. These men are Common Sense India. And in between, there are middlemen. The middleman is the real connect between the two Indias. We had looked at these men from a Manuals & Systems point of view. The manuals of urban life picture such men as goons. Rapists. Murderers. They turned out to be our saviours. My children are still scared. What if they get the car out and then run away with the car? And all our belongings. And…What if something like this actually happens? Nobody will know until morning. We will be lost in the fog. Our screams won’t reach anywhere. We will believe and hold on to anybody who offers help. We will be at his mercy. At his command. We will be slaves to his agenda. How vulnerable will we be? How hapless will we be? 

"And, suddenly, I think of the Adivasi in the jungles of Bastar. A voiceless, faceless native that no one cares about. He is surrounded by middlemen who are working for a sinister design created by people who are hiding their greed behind the masks of a certain ideology. He is miserable. Suffocating in his own emptiness. He is struggling to come out of this vacuum. He holds every hand which offers help. He is at their mercy. He is the pawn in the game played by this nexus. This is the jaal the driver was talking about. He did not offer any logical argument; he was just telling me the way it is. The nexus siphons off all the natural resources and money that should rightfully belong to the Adivasi.

"The Naxals who claim to work for the tribal’s cause, know that there can be no revolution. So, what’s their motivation? They are the messiahs of the Adivasis; this is the only narrative I had heard so far. They are fighting with the State for tribal upliftment, empowerment and justice– fundamental rights of any Indian citizen. Is it possible then that they are also part of a nexus? Where do they get the money from? And arms?  Why do all our films justify Naxals? Where is the Adivasi in our films? Why is it that in a digital age he is not on the path of development? Why are we not told about the truth? And what is the truth? Is there another side to the truth? I want to explore it. Can I, as a filmmaker, tell the truth? There are moments when questions are raised only to reinforce the answer. My answer is clear. Yes.

"My mind is churning with questions, overlapping one another. For the first time, I feel I want to research a subject. I suddenly connect with the India I grew up in. And I am embarrassed of my mediocrity. Suddenly I am not hurrying up. I have slowed down. Hurrying is an internet and mobile age syndrome. We hurry when we are not interested. We hurry when we don’t care. This time I am interested and I do care. I remember telling my students at ISB that nobody cares for such stories. It’s true we don’t care when something isn’t important. We tend to take it for granted. But when more than fifty percent of India is Naxal-infested, this becomes a very important issue. What is the reason for calling someone, fighting with a gun in Kashmir, a terrorist and another man with a gun in Bastar, a revolutionary?

"After fighting mediocrity for a long time, I have found something which I truly want to do. This is the film I want to make. The crime thriller idea was only to sustain my mediocrity. This is a real idea to discover the truth. Explore Naxal politics and try to find out how the nexus works and present an alternate narrative."

" ... It is a paradigm shift moment for me. I was so distanced from my roots. ... "

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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4. An Encounter with the Real India  

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"While we wait for the others to climb up, I look at the gigantic building and wonder how they made it happen with just camels, horses and elephants. It’s an architectural marvel. An excellent example of defense, design, engineering, material science, structural design, water and waste management, cooling techniques, rich aesthetics, symbolism, lifestyle and comfort, and above all stability and durability. There is so much inbuilt art everywhere. On the gates, windows, floors, roofs, walls and the furniture.  We rarely get to see such optimum use of science, technology, and aesthetics in modern buildings. Our modern buildings are structural and design blunders; they are aesthetically challenged and weak. It’s a sad commentary that in independent India we have not built even one building which is an architectural marvel and which can stand the test of time. If these old buildings are a celebration of excellence and precision, our modern buildings are a celebration of mediocrity and corruption. 

"‘What are you thinking, sir?’ Raju guide asks me. 

"‘Just admiring the excellence of the man.’ 

"‘We built this city, janaab,’ he tells me with pride. 

"‘We?’ 

"‘Janaab, though it’s known for Rajputs, in reality, Amer was built by Meenas. I am also Meena.’"

"‘Just now you were telling me that Amer is the centre of Rajputana history.' 

"‘Janaab, don't go by what is told. Isn't all history wrong? We are taught a wrong history. We are told a wrong history. Jiski laathi uski bhains— ... There is history and there is truth, and the truth is that we Meenas ruled it before the Rajputs. It’s our land.’"

"Nehru judged history and filtered it to what should be told to an independent India and what should be hidden. He made sure that the history reinforced his ideology and made him look like a hero. His daughter Indira Gandhi and later her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi tuned our history to further their political agendas. In independent India, only a certain kind of narrative is allowed; the one that suits the ruler's agenda.

"The city of Amer is spread over 4 square kilometers and the fort is at top of a hill. This city was first built by Meenas and later it was ruled by Raja Man Singh. Meenas are an Indo-Aryan tribe with origins in the Matsya dynasty of Vedic India, ruled by king Virata. It is believed that after spending twelve years in vanvasa in forests, the Pandavas spent their thirteenth year of agyatavas, living incognito, here. In modern history, the Meenas ruled many parts of Rajasthan until taken over by Rajputs. Meenas are classified as a Scheduled Tribe in Rajasthan. They oppose the Gujjars’ demand for Scheduled Tribe classification, fearing that their share of reservations will decrease.

"The Meena tribe is divided into several clans and sub-clans like Ariat, Ahari, Katara, Kalsua, Kharadi, Damore, Ghoghra, Dali, Doma, Nanama, Dadore, Manaut, Charpota, Mahinda, Rana, Damia, Dadia, Parmar, Phargi, Bamna, Khat, Hurat, Hela, Bhagora, and Wagat. Bhil Meena is another sub-division among the Meenas. A sub-group known as Ujwal Meena seeks higher status and claims to be Rajputs, thus distinguishing themselves from the Bhil Meenas. Other prevalent social groupings are Zamindar Meena and the Chaukidar Meena. The Zamindar Meenas, comparatively well-off, are those who surrendered to the Rajput invaders and got settled on the lands believed to be granted by the Rajputs. Those who did not surrender to Rajput rule and kept on waging guerrilla warfare are called Chaukidar Meenas. 

"If a community of fifty lac people can have such a complex and competitive caste dynamics, how complex would it be to fathom the caste dynamics of India, with over three thousand castes and over twenty-five thousand sub-castes between one hundred and twenty-five crore people? Infused with politics, all these groups and sub-groups end up becoming interest groups and vote banks, fighting with one another endlessly without realizing that all of them have a common need – money."

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"I haven't made a film for the last three years. Not because I didn't try. I tried to mount four brilliant film projects but each time they were shelved just a few weeks before principal photography was supposed to begin. It's impossible for people who don't work in showbiz to understand the pain and agony of a film getting shelved. You give a film your blood and sweat. It takes so much from the maker. It sucks all your imagination, experience, physical and emotional energy. And leaves you empty. When a film is shelved, you start feeling demoralized and defeated.  You become desperate. You start succumbing to mediocrity. And mediocrity is very addictive. Anything which makes us escape from the challenges of life is addictive. The awareness that you are living a mediocre life is worse than being mediocre."

"I had failed four times. If a couple of films don't take off, the industry starts looking at you like a failed director. But four? That makes you a jinxed director. Like a manglik girl who is jinxed for marriage until she finds another manglik boy. I didn't understand then that I wasn't jinxed. I had become part of a jinxed game. Like the common man of India whose life is jinxed because he is a very small, inconsequential part of a big, jinxed jaal. This feeble common man is in the business of improving his life but the people who control his life are not in the business of improving his life. 

"The people who controlled my films weren't in the business of film-making. They were in the business of the stock market."

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"I thought I knew India but last night I realized I had been window-shopping. Last night I felt I was back to where I belonged. An India where success doesn't lie in money. It lies in surviving. The complex India. The difficult India. The corrupt India. The honest India. The oppressed India. The feudal India. A regressive India. A progressive India. It's poor. It's filthy. It’s hard working. It smells of struggle, of co-existence, of sweat. Its diversity, its disparity, the chaos, the conflict. The aspirational India, the ignored India, the defeated India… The real India."

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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5. The BIG Factor— A Twenty-thousand-rupee Marvel  

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"2008 - 2009 

"I have made two big multi-starrer films: Chocolate and Goal. They were never planned. They just happened. 

"I had made a telefilm for Zee TV called Chocolate. Kumar Gaurav, Pallavi Joshi, Nikki Aneja and Kay Kay Menon acted in it. I shot it in the Alps, Switzerland – a rare for Indian TV. The Zee programming team didn't want to be held accountable for their creative judgment, so they welcomed tried and tested 'foreign film ideas'. Plagiarism was in fashion. Chocolate was based on Usual Suspects, a DVD that was hot at the time. 

"Later, I was shooting another telefilm with Rajesh Khera and Rajeshwari Sachdeva when Khera asked to leave for an hour. He had to go to collect his cheque from a producer. While writing his cheque, his producer expressed her desire to meet me as she wanted to make a film with me. When Khera told me this, I couldn't believe it. Those days I was seeking funds for a film on Bofors called Aarambh. Rajit Kapur and Naseerudin Shah had agreed to act in it. I had done a few readings with them. Rajit Kapur, who was producing the film, backed out at the last moment. I waited for long but the money wasn't coming in. Nobody wanted to invest in a politically charged film. I thought this was my chance.

"My producer Raagini Sona had seen Chocolate and loved it, so she asked me to make it a full-length feature film. When I told her, I was interested in making the Bofors film, she said unexcitedly 'If you insist', but also laid out a condition that the film had to be shot in the UK, as they were getting a subsidy of forty percent from the UK government. Obviously, you can't set a Bofors film in the UK. In the next fifteen minutes, she convinced me to start my film career with Chocolate and make it into a multi-starrer film. And make it big.

"In those days, stars used to do films only after seeing the DVD of a Hollywood film. If it wasn't seen, tried and tested in Hollywood, they wouldn't do the film. I never had to give the script to any of my stars. All of them had seen Usual Suspects except Anil Kapoor whose son had seen it and spoke highly of the film. Since plagiarism was commonplace and to an extent a professional compulsion, I became a part of it. Moralities change with changing times. At that time, it wasn't an immoral thing like copying a south Indian film isn’t immoral now. All the respected and legendary writers, directors, music directors, action masters, choreographers, poster designers, trailer makers and even critics were copying from Hollywood films. In fact, a leading critic and trade expert Taran Adarsh lifted paragraphs from an American Usual Suspects review for the review of Chocolate.

"This was the copycat era. Costume designers were copying from other designers. Heroines were copying makeup and hair styling from foreign magazines. Music companies were stealing from other companies. Readsure DVD library was the most famous in Mumbai’s own Beverly Hills area – Juhu-Versova-Lokhandwala. The manager at the library used to recommend films this way: ‘Ramu has kept it for a week… this one is Gupta’s favourite… Maheshji has asked for this… Anurag has seen this one ten times... and this one has a long queue as every filmmaker is asking for it…’ That’s how we knew who was copying which film. One of the superstars whom I worked with told me ‘If it’s an original script, I won’t do it. Bring me a Hollywood DVD’, and before I could react, he justified it by saying ‘They have already done their R&D. It’s tried and tested. Why do we have to think again?’ I am sure today he will refuse to do a film if it even smells of a Hollywood film. Those were the times of underworld, extortions, and murders. Everyone wanted to play safe. In life. In business. In creativity."

Agnihotri means to imply the era is past? 

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"A few days after the release of Chocolate, I received a call from Ronnie Screwvala's office. Ronnie was the founder and chairman of UTV. He had seen success with Rang De Basanti and now wanted to start his own in-house production. He had seen Chocolate and wanted me to make a cutting-edge film for him. I narrated the Bofors film but there was zero excitement. 

"‘Can we make something brighter… entertaining… cutting edge… big?’ He asked me. He wasn't interested in a small film. 

"I was just back from London after spending a good time in Southall – the world’s largest Asian ghetto. I had heard the story of Southall Football Club which was on the verge of shutting down because no one was willing to pay the county charges. It was a meagre amount but everyone's ego had come in the way. I threw this as an idea at him.

"‘OK. Let’s make this.’ Ronnie is a very quick decision maker. He is a man of few words but when he says something, he means it. A rare breed in Bollywood."

"We shot it big. India's first football film, shot entirely in British football clubs, including Old Trafford, the home ground of Manchester United. It was a very difficult film to make. There were a lot of nuanced ego problems between John and Arshad Warsi. John and Bipasha. John and me. John and other actors. It worked for the film as John and Arshad were anyways conflicting in the film, but it cost the production house a lot of money. In Bollywood, people concentrate more on lifestyle, vanity and interpersonal equations than their craft. Though we made a big film, a Bollywood film remains only as big as its star. I was in Bollywood’s ‘big’ club."

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" ... Anil Ambani got telecom, power, entertainment and financial services. His new company Reliance Big Entertainment forayed into the untapped market of video rentals with BIGFlix. It simply didn’t work. They launched their film business in a big way, by signing six directors, including me. I signed a three-film deal. The money was big. 

"I had spent years working on a superhero subject. It was a simple story, rooted in Indian mythology. And that was its biggest problem. There is a mindset in Bollywood that doesn't let Indic ideas flourish."

"‘Yeah, I think we must make films like this.’ Prasoon swallowed some more tobacco juice. ‘But why don’t you change it to a Superheroine?’"

"My hero was based on the character of Karna, one of the greatest warriors and the only one who defeated Arjuna. Karna, it is believed, conquered the world. My film was based on the ‘conquerer of the world’ who derives his power from the sun."

"This wasn’t the first time some one had thought of this. I have been hearing this since my advertising days. A lot of Hollywood studios even made superheroine films. They didn’t work because the largest consumption of such films is amongst men and young boys and they like to see a superman and not a superwoman. I chose to keep quiet. I had learnt in my advertising days not to question a client’s bad idea as the idea would soon die its natural death and though he would forget about the idea, he would remember the questioning of that idea."

"As I walked out of the big boardroom, I knew this project was going to be shelved. They were not interested in the film. They were interested in something else."

"I started working on a new script. It was called True Story. It was set between the Emergency and Y2K. It was a story of a Madrasi boy, whose father is a clerk in the Customs & Excise department and maintains a journal of all corrupt officers, thinking that some day he would expose them and eradicate corruption. ... The film was mainly about the relationship between a cowardly father and an ambitious son set in a changing India."

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"Mahesh kept looking at twenty thousand rupees bill for the printing of the scripts. 

"When films go into creative ping-pong, the first thing that gets affected is your payments. BIG wanted us to sign the star first but we needed money to develop the script. Mahesh neither had the courage nor the skill to handle the situation. Who would bell the cat? 

"I was desperate but not enough to agree with a wrong idea. Most of the movies are made this way. They start with an honest, sincere and powerful idea, but on its way to the screen get screwed by so many middlemen that by the time they reach the audience they have no soul left. Sadly, my film on middlemen had to fight the middlemen. Tragedy of India. 

"Nothing worked for BIG.  Barring one small film of Shyam Benegal, no film ever got made. They started acquiring big films and lost big monies in all of them. BIG almost shut down. But by this time, a lot of middlemen had made lots of money."

" ... All I knew was that whatever they were doing, they certainly weren't interested in making films.  I felt I was in a wrong place. I felt Prasoon was in a wrong place. Also, BIG was in a wrong business.

"I didn't give up. I tried to make two more films with independent producers. They almost went to floor but then the recession impacted the film industry and the producers backed out. By this time, I was broke. Financially. Emotionally. Mentally. ... "

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"The whole day of going around seeing Jaipur following the ten-hour journey the previous day, had taken its toll on everyone. By dinner time, everyone was exhausted. As they slipped inside their quilts. I took out my laptop and started with the research. I didn't get up from the corner of my study couch until I discovered a unique and dangerous nexus between the Naxal mafia and middlemen disguised as intellectuals. Like Prasoon would have desired, I had inverted the pyramid of intellectuals. 

"I had found the theme of the film: Intellectual Terrorists."

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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6. ‘Jesus is coming’  

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"January 2011

" ... This film isn’t important because I want to make it or some kids at a B-school want to make it but it’s important because a truth like this hasn’t been told before. If it has any chance of getting financed, it’s going to be from someone outside of Bollywood. Bollywood can't finance this film for they have no clue about this dimension of India. It’s going to be somebody who is bold enough to disrupt the status quo of an agenda-driven narrative."

" ... The only problem is that I am carrying an absolutely different script idea with me. It’s not what the students sent to the potential investor. Since we are meeting directly in the investor's office, how do I tell the students? From a film that justified the cause of Naxalites, it has become an anti-Naxal idea. 

"The pyramid has been inverted."

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"‘Have you ever been extorted by Naxals?’ I ask Suresh, knowing that they have business stakes in mining and infrastructure, the sectors most affected by Naxals. 

"‘You sit with me someday and I will tell you,’ Suresh looks at Gopi and smiles. 

"‘Do you think it’s easy for businessmen to do business in these areas?’ I ask. 

"‘Forget Naxal areas, even in cities it’s not easy. It’s very difficult to do business in India. We have become an extortionist country,’ Suresh tells me pensively. 

"‘Why is it that our films only glorify the cause of Naxals? Why is that the other side of the story is never told? This film is a story about the other side. A point of view never told.’"

"Suresh looks at Ravi and Sandeep, then me and then at his son. Before he can question my premise, I add: 

"‘Do you think it’s possible for these Naxals to run their operations without sympathizers in the government, police or media? Do you know that they are planning to take over cities…our industries? It’s not me who’s saying it…it’s in their document. How can they plan this without installing their people in all key places? How do you know that the money these ISB boys are asking for is not going to be used to champion their cause, strengthen their position in cities?  Imagine someone in your own company, working for the Naxals… against you…and you will never know about it… Where will we go then, what will businessmen like you do then?’ I can see Suresh is shifting in his chair.  

"‘Don’t you think it’s important to tell the other side of the story and expose them before they attack us?’ I ask.

"‘It’s a very big problem. The real problem is that politicians use them for votes. Nobody cares about businessmen in India. Some people in media talk as if they are reformers…saints… I’ll make you meet my friend…he is an IPS officer. He’ll tell you what all goes on.’ Suresh looks at Gopi, speaks to him in Telugu and then continues talking to me. 

"‘Yeah, we will arrange your meeting this evening if he is here, else next time when you are here. You must meet these people and then only you will know how cruel and barbaric these people are.’ 

"I know he is engaged."

" ... I had produced a lot of TV shows. If nothing else, television makes you a budgeting expert. I put figures and explain them. I want Suresh Chukapalli to not just finance the project but also take its ownership."

" ... Between quality, time and money, one can choose any two. Only two. Ravi is a kind of manager who will always chose time and money. That exactly is the problem, with most of the B-schools: No emphasis on quality."

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" ... I have made big commercials, big TV shows and only big films. The post production budget of my earlier films was more than the budget of this film. I have no idea how I will make this happen. Like they say, God only knows. 

"As I drive towards the airport, I go past a long wall painted with advertisements of detergents, sexologists, marriage counsellors, local gyms, and private massage parlours. Somewhere in between this graffiti of various art forms is a bold graffiti that reads, 'Jesus is coming.'"

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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7. A Hundred Owners  

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"January 2011

" ... I have to make an entire film in less than the VFX budgets of my last film. It is possible only if everyone works for free, and locations and camera equipment are free."

" ... I try to escape behind Arnab Goswami's NewsHour. Pallavi hasn't yet understood how Arnab's shouting and screaming can de-stress me. He actually does de-stress me. I pick up the TV remote and increase the volume.

"Suresh Kalmadi is fired as the chairman of Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee in one of the biggest ever–a Rs 70,000 crores scam—under Sonia Gandhi's regime. Sonia Gandhi will go down as the most corrupt national leader in the Indian history.

"Over hundred people have died in a stampede in the Sabarimala shrine. ... "

"Bhimsen Joshi has passed away. ... I try to switch channels but I can't. I am stuck with him. I don't know if it's the remote or the TV's fault or something wrong with the Tata Sky set-top box. I want to switch over to Times Now to see what Arnab is up to on the CWG scam and Kalmadi's sacking, but I just can't. This is why I like mechanical devices rather than electronic."

" ... These are the times when I curse myself for giving up my application for the green card while studying in the USA. ... "

" ... I have to cast some seasoned and fantastic actors, get a crew of top-notch professionals, shoot outdoors (outdoor shooting is more expensive than a local shoot in Mumbai) for thirty-five days in Hyderabad, record music, finish editing, sound and final mixing and everything else in one crore fifty lacs. Plus, deliver it latest by April which is just three months away."

" ... By reducing the money, time and manpower needed to build cars as he refined the assembly line over the years, Ford was able to drop the price of the Model T from $850 to less than $300. ... "

"Nobody came from Tata Sky. 

"It’s been two days, and my TV is still stuck on the same Manohar Kahaniyan news channel. 

"I decide to tweet, tagging Tata Sky. 

"In some time, I receive a call from an engineer. He asks me if I am home, so that he can come personally to attend to the problem. 

"This is the first time that I realize the actual power of social media. Its usage for grievance addressal can open up so many horizons. Brands can't mess around with the customers. It can be so useful for public help, warnings, building public opinion, influencing policy, delivery of governance and above all as a check and balance for the narrative. 

"My hero has to be a social media influencer."

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"In the next one week, I meet all the heads of departments, technicians, and vendors for a cup of tea where I explain the importance of the subject, the role they can play, not in just making of the movie but also in the ownership of the film. In short, I talk to them from my heart with absolute honesty and sincerity. I make them equal partners in the creative process. My lighting vendor and chief electrician Barmu can't believe that I narrated the entire script to him and shared costume and set designs with him. I tell them why it is important for them to participate in the film. How they can contribute in filmmaking irrespective of their position and department. 

"Nobody has ever involved them in the filmmaking process. These people who work at the bottom of a hierarchy, as spot boys, light boys, setting boys, even the walkie-talkie attendants and many others keep working on film after film without knowing anything about the subject. They go outdoors but don't know the names of the city where they shoot. They keep moving shoot after shoot, following dead instructions without ever knowing what they are doing, and why. Did the workers on Sholay have any idea what kind of history they were participating in? 

"I involved everyone. Everyone. 

"In the end, everyone works for money but sometimes it takes a backseat when a film fulfils one's larger need. I am pretty clear on those larger needs, the motivations of each set of people. This note becomes my successful prescription. It becomes the solution to the budget problem."

" ... It sounds like a creative picnic. Everyone agrees to my terms. ... "

"I give them what they want and I get what I want. It’s a win-win deal. Everyone is hired on a fixed package and there is no scope for even a rupee to go up. But we are still fifty lacs over. Location, stay and food alone are costing sixty lacs. I resolve that if I have come thus far, it's in order to go further. I don't know how, but I have faith."

"For the first time, a film is going to have a hundred owners."

Does this last part remind anyone else of the Akshay Khanna - Amrita Rao - Arshad Warsi film Short Kut? 

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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Book Two : In Search of Buddha 

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"“Marxists say God is a fraud. But God has lasted thousands of years, Marx could barely last a hundred years.” 

"- Anonymous"

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8. The Red Corridor: A Day as Usual  

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"April is one of the most pleasant months in the forests of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region. The early morning breeze flowing from Indravati river and brushing along champa and chandan trees work as a perfect catalyst for meditation. In the evening, the same breeze brushing through tendua and mahua leaves works as an aphrodisiac. The Indravati river, which starts its journey from the Vindhyas, converts into a picturesque delight at the point where Chitrakoot Falls are located. 

"It is believed that due to its heavenly fragrances of chandan and champa forests, Lord Indra and Indrani came down from heaven to stay here for some time. One day during his regular walks, Indra got lost and reached a small village Sunabeda, where he saw a beautiful girl Udanti, fell in love with her and stayed back with her. After waiting for Indra for a long time, Indrani couldn’t control her patience and sorrow and went around asking people about Indra. Everyone knew about the Indra and Udanti; they gave her solace and gently broke the news to her. When she broke down, they suggested that she stay with them as part of their family. Unable to hide her scorn, she cursed Indra and Udanti that they would never meet again. It is believed that she transformed into a river and stayed with the local tribals. Indra and Udanti rivers flow there separately, without meeting each other due to the curse of Indrani.

"Spread all around Indravati is Dantewada. It gets its name from the goddess Danteshwari, an incarnation of Shakti. No wonder Dantewada’s population has more females than males. Dantewada is surrounded by the dense forests of Dandakaranya, full of aavla, bahera, harra, dhavala, kusum, mahua and tendu and many other medicinal plants. Besides deep forests, Dandakaranya, from the ancient times, has been a habitat for different types of Adivasi communities.

"Dandakaranya is spread over hundred thousand square kilometres, and it literally means ‘the abode of the Rakshasa Dandaka’. Aranya is Sanskrit for forests. It was the kingdom a Rakshasa tribe called Danda, and it was also a colonial state of Lanka, ruled by Ravana."

"The perennial river Sabari, which flows through forests, is said to be named after Shabri, a tribal woman who had offered berries to Lord Rama.  Shabri could have been from one of the many tribes like Gond, Maria, Bhatra, Muriya, Halba, or Dhuruva living here since the time of Rama.

"Tribes residing here have never travelled out of these jungles and have no exposure to the outer world. Till date, they do not have any reference to a civilized life and the modern world. They feed themselves on the abundance of forest produce and by hunting animals in the forest. 

"‘The jungle is our life. We exist as long as jungles exist,’ I was told by a young tribal man when I had visited Bastar in the late 1970s. In Bastar, traditions and rituals are closely linked to these forests and trees. The tribals believe that their gods and goddesses reside in this jungle and, therefore, every tree is sacred. The saja, the mahua, the semal, the mango, the karanji, the banyan, the peepal, the salfi trees are symbols of good fortune and prosperity. The number of salfi trees in a house is an indicator of the wealth and prosperity of the household. The drink that is made from its fruit is an integral part of their culture. If the drinks of salfi, chind, and mahua are not offered during ceremonies of birth, marriage, and death, the ceremonies are considered incomplete.

"People revere trees just as they revere their parents and their deities. For they have never seen anything other than these forests. They don’t know that outside these forests lies an India that has been to the Moon and Mars. An India that is the world’s largest producer of films. An India that has over one billion mobile subscribers making it the second largest user of mobile telephony. An India which has the second largest English-speaking population, after the USA; whereas, the India that some of these tribals belong to, doesn’t even have a language.

"Dandakaranya has long been isolated from the outside world, and accessible only via forest pathways. Even when the British Raj tried to connect India through road and rail networks, this region remained geographically isolated and constitutionally excluded. India got independence, but nothing changed here. Feudalism prevailed and the only reason outsiders came here was to exploit its rich mineral wealth of iron ore, bauxite, tin, granite, marble, limestone, and corundum. These tribals are isolated from the rest of India– demographically, geographically, economically, socially, culturally, politically and psychologically. India has many Indias within. But they are not on the radar of the mainstream narrative. This is the lost India. This is an India that no one cares for. Hence, no one tries to find it."

Corundum?????

" ... She has no idea that the India she lives in is the fourth largest agriculture producer in the world, producing more food than all the countries of European Union combined. She has not even the faintest idea that while she starves, India wastes as much food as the whole of United Kingdom consumes, which is over forty percent of its total food production. In her India, food means a fresh and delicious chutney made of red ants and drinks made from salfi, chind, and mahua."

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"BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. 

"She hears loud sounds. The entire forest fills with birds squeaking all over the sky. For the next half an hour or so there are lots of firing sounds. Then they become sporadic.

"The date was 6th April 2010. It was a Tuesday, an auspicious day for Hindus. Tuesday, according to Hindu belief, is dedicated to Hanuman, son of the wind god Vayu and an ardent devotee of Rama. Hanuman fought Rama's war against Ravana. It’s in these jungles that Shabri advised Rama to meet Sugriva – the vaanar king – who appointed Hanuman to find Sita.

"On this day, sometime between six and seven in the morning, a bus full of eighty Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was returning after opening a road for the troops, to begin an operation called Green Hunt. In 2009, the central government of India deployed over hundred thousand paramilitary forces comprising CRPF, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Border Security Force (BSF), and one of India’s most specialized, experienced and successful unit in fighting asymmetrical warfare, Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), supported with ten armed helicopters from the Indian Air Force, in Bastar, Odisha, and Jharkhand, in what is known as the Red Corridor, a Naxal theatre.

"Apart from the paramilitary, there were two hundred thousand State Armed Police Force (SAPF). The Indian Army is also present here under the pretext of training the paramilitary forces. The Army chief along with his seven army commanders made an assessment to induce around sixty-five thousand troops to battle the Naxalites in this theatre. The Indian Air Force’s Chief Marshall declared his ‘full support to Green Hunt operations’ with additional fleets of MI-17V5 helicopters, besides the already engaged MI-17 choppers. The government is also planning to send over a couple of thousand troops of Naga battalions of the Indian Reserve Battalions (IRB) into the Red Corridor."

Reminds one of another film, this one from Prakash Jha, with Abhay Deol and Arjun Rampal, titled Chakravyuha. Plot is copied from the sixties film Becket, yet once more, after Hrishikesh Mukherjee had remade it on a labour vs industry theme in seventies, titled Namak Haram. 

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"These forces come with advanced satellite phones and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) engineered and supported by the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO). To bring in sharpness and precision to this operation, the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has developed specialized UAVs with ‘lower frequency radars’ to track down the Naxals in these dense forests. The NTRO has imported about a dozen hi-tech drones from Israel for surveillance purposes. The central government is simultaneously working on cloning a new commando unit on the lines of Andhra Pradesh’s deadly Greyhounds.

"The Red Corridor, one of India’s poorest and ironically the most militarized zone of India, is the ‘nerve centre’ of the Naxal movement. According to the South Asia Terrorism portal, between 2005 and 2011, over two thousand Naxals have lost their lives along with almost the same number of civilians and armed forces personnel. This indeed is the longest, deadliest war in independent India.

"While the CRPF team was returning, Naxalites blew up the bus with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), commonly known as landmines. Though overwhelmed by the heavily armed ambush of Naxalites firing from the heights, the CRPF men fought back and the encounter lasted until all eighty men fell one by one and those who survived ran out of ammunition.

"The Naxals then climbed down and shot the wounded men and looted their weapons. Seventy-six CRPF men were killed by over a thousand Naxals comprising of a supporting cast of local militia and sangam village associations.  ‘It was a total siege,’ a police officer reported. ‘The CRPF men were attacked not just from three sides, but even from the open area.’

"Some defenceless surviving CRPF men pretended to be dead but Naxals searched bodies, shot the pretenders and looted all weapons and ammunition.  Only three rifles were found at the site of encounter. It was a swift affair and perhaps the deadliest in the history of independent India. Even at the Line of Control (LOC) and in Kashmir, where our forces have been fighting an unending battle with Pakistani forces and terrorists, we never lost so many soldiers in a single attack.

"This attack came two days after the Naxals triggered a land mine blast in Odisha's Koraput district, killing eleven security personnel of the elite Anti-Naxal Special Operations Group. And five days after India launched its new Biometric Census, the largest census in the world, with the ambition to cover the people of this area which has been isolated since Rama walked in these jungles."

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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9. A History of Violence  

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" ... In our films, so far, we have shown a terrorist or a Naxal as a product of injustice or oppression. But my research proves otherwise. It’s an ideological act arrived at either by total brainwash or a lure for money or power… or both.

"My assistant gives me seven hundred pages full of violent acts in Naxal-infested areas. She has marked some pages with red tags. 

"‘What are these for?’ I ask her. 

"‘I found them unusual as these are rarely reported in mainstream media and I had to dig into blogs, tweets, FB posts etc. to collate facts. So, I am not sure how authentic they are… so if you want you can ignore them.’ She tells me like a typical assistant who doesn't want to take blame for anything."

"When we think of violence in the Red Corridor, we tend to assume that it's always between Naxals and the forces. Because that's what we get to read in the mainstream media. Media, as a prerequisite, has to be anti-establishment, which is good for a democracy. Therefore, media always pushes a narrative which is sympathetic towards Naxals unless a sensitive and inhuman Dantewada kind of incident takes place. This file is full of Naxal attacks on the establishment.

"I flip through pictures of thirty-eight Greyhound commandos killed by the Naxals in a reservoir in June 2008 in Odisha. Sixteen policemen slain in the jungles of Gadchiroli. On 18 March 2007, the Naxals attacked a police camp at Ranibodli, killing fifty-five policemen, including Special Police Officers (SPOs). Naxals ambushed a joint paramilitary-police team in Bihar, killing ten, wounding ten more, taking four prisoners, and robbing more than thirty-five automatic rifles from the State forces. On September 2010, they killed three policemen and took four hostages in an ambush in Chhattisgarh and at gunpoint made them promise that they would never take up arms against the insurgency again.

"This is a never-ending list of Naxal crimes. Looting. Rapes. Murders. There isn’t anything new in these reports. People know their crimes and it doesn’t matter whether we illustrate one example or hundreds. ... we need something which people don’t know. A well-hidden secret from the public eye."

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" ... slowly, the immediate economic and social problems of the masses took a back seat and the battle for the supremacy with the State became the central theme. There has been a range of acts of violence inconsequential to the rights of people, but invariably end up harming the masses. 

"Naxals in Jharkhand have set aside their ideals and emerged as a mining mafia. A report claims that a multi-crore mining scam is being staged by the Naxalites. The Maoist extortion business is estimated to be around a whopping Rs 2,000 crore. All contractors have to pay five to ten percent of the project cost to Naxalites as ‘protection money’. Trucks that pass through the ‘Red Corridor’ pay Rs 1,000 each per month. There have been repeated incidents of Naxals blowing up schools, trains, and railway lines, apart from government buildings which harm the common masses more than the politburo of governance. There have been reports that Naxals physically torture police informers by gruesome acts like hacking off limbs and even gouging out eyes. In July 2007, a group of armed Naxalites extorted Rs65,000 from a poor farmer in Chikmagalur in Karnataka. Such atrocities demonstrate that the Naxals have lost the principles for which they once fought and are adversely affecting the lives of the people they once sought to help."

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"Latehar is a backward district located in the north-west corner of Jharkhand. Surrounded by natural beauty and forests, Lateher is rich in mineral deposits. Almost half of its population is tribal and the balance is Dalit. Enough to attract Naxals. Like in most backward and rural areas, the government runs its infamous MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) which guarantees a minimum of hundred days of employment per household per year. ... "

"Niyamat Ansari, a local activist, along with his colleague Bhukan Singh, used to help villagers access the benefits of this scheme. Soon, he realized that the villagers were not getting their due amounts. Together with Bhukan, Niyamat raised his voice against the looting of government funds by corrupt contractors. He had no idea that this whistleblowing would have fatal repercussions. From an unexpected enemy. 

"In February 2009, the Naxals, who are active in this area, held a so-called ‘people’s court’ and accused Ansari and Singh of acting under the influence of the police and being ‘involved in counter-revolutionary activities’. 

"When it became evident to Niyamat that the Naxals and contractors are working in tandem, he raised his pitch to expose this nexus. Naxals, guided by a local contractor, attacked Niyamat and Bhukan’s houses with a severe warning to the neighbours against informing the police or even providing any kind of help. Naxals also put up posters against them with ‘fatal’ warnings.

"On March 1, a formal complaint was registered by the police against several individuals. Niyamat identified and reported Naxals and also Shankar Dubey, a local contractor, as perpetrators of the attacks.

"On March 2, about twenty armed Naxals, led by their local commander Sudarshan, came back to the village and started beating Niyamat. According to Human Rights Watch, ‘When Niyamat’s sister tried to protect him, she was shown the gun and was asked to back off, with the warning that she would be shot. She sat nearby and cried. After brutally beating him with lathis and assuming that he was dead, a village woman was told to inform Niyamat’s family, with the statement ‘Take him wherever you want to take him.’ Niyamat’s father rushed to his son and realized that he was still breathing. He roamed through the village to collect people and ask for help, but no one came forward due to fear. ‘This was a scene from Dilip Kumar’s Mashal, where he screams for help for his dying wife but nobody helps,’ a student told me. 

"By the time he was carried on a charpoy and brought to Latehar hospital, he was dead.

"In no time Naxals released a pamphlet taking responsibility for Ansari’s killing. The pamphlet read: ‘You all know that our fight against imperialism, capitalism, and samantvad, that is against class enemies, is going on and Niyamat and Bhukan from both these viewpoints are class friends. That’s why we are also sad that Niyamat had to be executed. Despite his being under the influence of the police administration, carrying out anti-people, counter-revolutionary activities, and challenging the party, we gave him several chances to mend his ways in writing as well as verbally. He didn’t show any improvement, and as a result, we were forced to give him the punishment of death penalty.’"

This isn't fighting injustice, it's totalitarian system from China being imposed by so-called Naxalites. 

"In Latehar, all voices against corruption were silenced."

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"A friend of mine, Vijay Ganti, who works with the State Bank of India and travels in the interiors of Jharkhand and Bihar for financing tribals, tells me that the poor tribals who work on MGNREGS are always in trouble. On one side, there are corrupt contractors. On the other, there are the Naxals, who support contractors to get money. ‘While both the Naxals and the MGNREGS contractors claim to be working for the welfare of the tribal communities, in reality, they are engaged in a nexus to benefit themselves. Which is why they don’t want anyone to create awareness about people’s rights,’ says Ganti. To reinforce his argument, he sends me a story which was never investigated by the mainstream media and brought to its logical conclusion.

"Amrapara is a community development block in Pakur district of Jharkhand. This hilly area is rich in coal. It has a population of roughly sixty-six thousand out of which around fifty-five thousand are tribals.

"In 2006, PANEM Coal Mines Ltd started its mining operations in Amrapara. With the advent of mining came money, which empowered the population with purchasing power. ... "

"This is the moment the middlemen wait for. They soon started alluring samiti youth on behalf of company officials, government servants, and politicians. This was a perfect playground for the Naxals. Slowly, Amrapara descended into an abyss of criminalization. Sister Valsa kept trying to work against the criminal nexus led by the Naxals and she was seen as a stumbling block to their evil aspirations. On November 15, 2011, a mob of fifty armed men, out of which over thirty were Naxals, broke into her house and hacked her to death.

"According to a report in Mainstream Weekly, ‘the immediate spark for Sr. Valsa’s murder was provided by the rape of a girl working with her. Some days earlier, Surajmuni had been picked from Alubera, a weekly market by a group of young men, and gang-raped that night. The next day, her parents had reported the rape at the local police station and tried to file an FIR, but the police refused and chased them away. Thereafter, the parents had approached Valsa for help. On her advice, the victim and her parents had gone to the police station again. They had been rudely told to settle the case out of court and accept monetary compensation. But the rape victim had refused to compromise and demanded justice. At this juncture, Valsa had intervened and managed to get an appointment for the rape victim with the District Collector on November 16, 2011."

"Naxals admitted to their role in Sister John’s killing. In an interview with the BBC, Naxal spokesman Somnath said, without providing any basis, that Sister John was ‘working for the interests’ of mining companies. Because she had ‘let down the tribals,’ he said, the Naxals had to ‘resort to the extreme step (of killing her)’."

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"Niyamat and Valsa were from the minority who were fighting oppression, injustice, and corruption against the marginalized section of society. They were working for the same cause as Naxals. Then why were they killed? I can smell a design which is akin to the underworld's strategy for keeping their supremacy. I dig into similar stories. As I turn the pages, umpteen stories of barbaric, gruesome, and brutal killings start unfolding, leading me to dangerous motives and the sinister politics behind it. Every case I probe indicates that Naxals don't want any development in their area. They don't want the children to be educated, they don't want roads to be built. They want tribals to remain in the dark.

"And to achieve this perverse end, they can go to any extent of violence, even if it means killing an infant. A four-month-old baby was killed in a Jan Adalat in front of her mother as her father was a suspected police informer. Naxals burn mark sheets and transfer certificates of 10th and 12th students, so that they cannot go for further education and migrate from their villages. Families do not keep their children in the area as they fear that Naxals will induct them forcibly in the movement. I met some students in Nagpur who do not go to their villages and their families come to Nagpur to meet them. Naxals burnt fifteen vehicles of contractors who were building roads as they believe that roads will eventually lead to development. Dalit Patru Durge was killed because he was taking government help to get lift irrigation in his village."

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" ... For the last few months, I have been struggling to convert Naxal politics into a simple story. There are so many agencies involved. Today's Naxal movement is not the same as in the times of Charu Majumdar or Sitarammaiah or Paddi Shankar. Their story was simple. A Zamindar oppresses villagers, rapes their women, and takes their land. ... A central theme of many films.

"There are no Zamindars today, so who are they fighting in the tribal areas? Why is it that after four decades of struggle, neither have the rebels achieved their objective nor have the tribals been empowered? Why is the government not being able to stop this oppression? Where do they get money from? Are all those intellectuals who openly support the Naxal movement on national TV, righteous people? What is in it for them? This is a movement being fought in jungles inhabited by wild animals, snakes and, the tribals– is it possible for it to survive for so long? That too without financial, intelligence, strategic, and logistical support? It's impossible for a movement to survive for so long only on good intentions. So, who are the masterminds?"

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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10. Heaven and Hell  

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" ... discussions always remain at the circumference. Very rarely do we talk about the centre. The tribal, who everyone is fighting for. 

"I relook at the picture of the tribal girl. No clothes, no context.  I name her Vanbala after a poem by my father, of the same title.

"Ironically, Vanbala doesn’t even know her hell. This vast, lush and unapproachable jungle is her kingdom, of which she is the princess. I keep looking at her photo. I realize hell and heaven are such subjective concepts. What appeared heaven to me was hell to the rich maestro’s wife. What appeared heaven to her is hell to me. Hell is not a place. It’s a state of mind. A fakir walks barefoot in scorching heat, sleeps on a pavement and yet sings a song admiring the beauty of the world. Whereas a film heroine, living in a castle of fame, opulence and glory, drinks herself to death, escaping from her hell. 

"Vanbala didn’t know about her hell, until the Naxals came. 

"Mainstream media hasn’t done justice to this grave issue. Almost all the reports are mere copy-paste jobs. Nobody wants to go into the jungles to do real reporting. Which is why, the reports are only about the killings between the forces and Naxals, circulated by syndicates. There is a thirty-three page essay by Arundhati Roy on the issue yet it doesn't smell of the jungles. It smells of her. It stinks of her agenda. Why, I wonder? Why is it that most of the op-eds and essays from the so-called intelligentsia comprising editors, professors, historians, political analysts, social workers, NGO entrepreneurs, humanitarians, and civil society leaders favour the false Naxal narrative?"

"I am interested in understanding the psyche of Vanbala. And the psyche and motivations of that Naxalite who takes a conscious decision to spend his life in this hell in order to protect Vanbala from this hell. I find it in independent blogs. Where the mainstream media fails, citizens shine.

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" ... one fine morning, in Naxalbari, a group of hungry and exploited peasants, armed with crude weapons rose to fight for what was rightfully theirs – the land and the crop. They attacked landlords, seized granaries and stole paddy, burnt all land records and forcibly took the land. And gave it back to the landless peasant. 

"An uprising had begun. Illegal. And unconstitutional. 

"An editorial in People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, called it ‘spring thunder’ and declared it a successful rebellion ‘… a Red area of rural revolutionary armed struggle has been established in India.’ Thus, began India’s longest and most lethal social war. 

"Influenced by Mao Zedong’s political sentiments contained in his Little Red Book, Naxalism bases its ideology on the ’Historic Eight Documents’, a set of eight monographs written by Charu Majumdar, who was deeply influenced by Mao's ideas and believed that similar conditions existed in India wherein militant peasants and youth could be mobilized to overthrow the government through armed struggle.

"Charu Majumdar laid down four conditions for the aspiring Naxalite. 

"One: Acceptance of Mao Zedong as the leader of the world revolution and his thoughts as the highest form of Marxism-Leninism of that era. 

"Two: Belief in the view that a revolutionary situation existed in every corner of India. 

"Three: Area-wise seizure of power as the only path for taking forward the Indian revolution. 

"Four: Guerilla warfare as the only means of advancing the revolution.

"Majumdar wanted to bring the Indian State to its knees by attacking it with a web of underground organizations and thus bring about the revolution. Soon he found to his surprise that a variety of intellectuals like writers, artists, professors, journalists and almost everyone from the Bhadralok of West Bengal joined in as also a large army of moralistic, energetic and risk-taking students. ... "

Hence the complete lack of independent thinking, common sense, even decency in discourse and discussions, where they are soon ranting, abusive, screeching and filibusters. 

Those very conditions listed out by Agnihotri amount to reducing followers to somnambulist robotic entities with mind on hold, a la Chinese mobs. 

"Naxalism as an underground movement has mushroomed across fourteen states, which are recognized as dreaded dens of ‘Naxalite insurgency’. It is spread over Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. To a lesser extent, this trend is also visible in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. It is estimated that Naxalites are active in more than forty percent of India’s geographical area, which is known as ‘Red Corridor’. It is now spreading its tentacles in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Delhi is emerging as the centre of Urban Naxalism."

Recent years, those doing propaganda for congress were seen defending urban naxals who'd been caught by police in Pune!. 

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July 11, 2022 - July 11, 2022. 

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11. Vanbala  

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Agnihotri begins by recounting the story as he wrote it. 

A particularly disgusting detail reminds one of a US film about South, set in not too distant past, titled Help. 

"Vanbala becomes the new establishment. 

"Establishment has to survive. Survival requires funding and an ecosystem. Therefore, it becomes a compulsion to form a nexus with the politicians, police, and the middlemen. They also start looting contractors, trucks, and godowns."

"The localized movement takes a pan-Indian shape, to accomplish its real goal – to wage a full-fledged war against the Indian State. Slowly, the Naxals become successful in establishing an alternate State structure. Stretching from the border of Nepal to Central India and Karnataka in the south. It’s christened ‘Red Corridor’."

How did Tamil Nadu escape? 

Or did it?

" ... She starts appeasing the Dalit youths by invoking the name and images of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Sardar Bhagat Singh in Maharashtra and Punjab respectively. When above ground tactics fail, they create terror. They kill.  They kill those who don’t subscribe to their ideology. They kill to create a power and governance vacuum and soon they fill up this space. They attack schools because education promotes awareness and empowers youth with skills for a livelihood other than farming and forest-related jobs. This is how they keep the population in their area of influence out of the mainstream milieu.

"They form ‘Bal Dastas’, enrolling children in their fold with the purpose of brainwashing and conditioning these young and innocent minds with violent Maoist ideology. Exactly like the Taliban or the ISIS. 

"They recruit lots of women in their cadre by coercion and threats. Poor Adivasis part with their girl children. This inhuman practice is the reason for a large number of women in their cadres. They also use children and women in the forefront of engagements with the security forces.

"It’s not easy to enthuse, manage, and maneuver such large, widespread cadres, where it takes weeks of walking on jungle trails infested with snakes and scorpions, only to communicate. One thing that keeps them motivated is the power to kill innocent people with a promise to change their hell into heaven.  

"All the stories I read outside of the mainstream media lead to the missing links. But one theme which is common in all the stories is that a sinister politics is developing at the behest of Naxals. Be it from a first-hand account in a blog, a social media post, or the police reports. Only time will tell whether this is a fact or just a hypothesis, but it’s worth probing."

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"If police and other sources are to be believed, the Naxalites, with the help of Dalit youths and the Islamist terrorist group Indian Mujahedeen (IM), want to have their own government in the country by 2025. The revolution will emerge from the conflict of Hindus on one side and Dalits and Muslims on another. ... "

That explains much of the horrible, unreasonable conduct by opposition since 2014. 

" ... Two consolidated rebellious, energetic forces pumped with raw adrenaline, will go for each other’s blood. And then it will be opportune to hijack and change the narrative to oppressed, proletariat, and marginalized vs bourgeoisie, elites, and Brahmins. This attracts poor and intellectuals both. In this case, the Adivasi, Dalits, Muslims, and other “forgotten people”, united under one common red flag, will demolish the State. That’s the ambition. And they also have a plan."

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"‘How will they achieve it?’ I wonder. ‘How will they communicate with the students? Students don’t go to the jungles.’ I take a long breath. ‘There has to be someone, something, some system that connects the Dalit and the Muslim youth, from all the campuses of India, with the comrades in the jungles. But… then… you need time, organization, management, training, and funding for such a huge project… It’s a logistical nightmare… how can they undertake such a mammoth and complex operation without getting noticed?’ asks the Byomkesh Bakshi inside me. I understand that jungles are their home turf, where it’s easy to annihilate the enemy and exist; but how is it possible to go unnoticed in the government’s home turf, where the government machinery is omnipresent? 

"Naxals have a history with students. It had started with fourteen students of Osmania University, Hyderabad, who vowed to never marry and dedicate their life to the cause of people’s revolution.

"In 1978, the Radical Youth League was formed in association with Jana Natya Mandali and Radical Students Union, with 'Go to the village' campaign. Through these shows, youngsters would make villagers aware of their political situation, like how oppressed they were and the importance of an armed revolution for their empowerment and justice. They were the first political force that invaded the minds of villagers. This was the first political narrative introduced and with that one more decision taken, that no alternate narrative was to be introduced. Their leader Seetharamaiah, a sharp political mind and master strategist, created a network of these tough and fearless rebel students, who would integrate with the tribals and poor farmers to push their party’s agenda."

"They organized themselves and started annihilating all government machinery including security forces. Their justification for such destruction and killings of government servants and security jawans is oversimplified: ‘What work do they have in jungles? If they are in the jungles, it means they are here to obstruct our mission.’"

"I want to understand how have they organized themselves. What if they have sleeper cells in campuses? I look up the organizational chart of the Naxals."

"Then they have State Military Commission, State Committees, District Committees, Zonal Committees, Area Committees. 

"There are also Revolutionary Writers Associations and Jan Natya Mandalis to promote propaganda and forward misinformation to the young. 

"I am utterly confused and tired. Everything is becoming clinical. I remember in 1985, a Leftist friend of mine had tried explaining the Naxal organizational structure to me, and finally exasperated, he’d said, ‘Trying to understand the Naxal movement is like peeling an onion. In the end, you will have only tears in your eyes and many disconnected and scattered layers of the onion.’"

"It’s difficult for a militarily trained cadre to easily connect and communicate with a student on a campus. It’s impossible to mobilize students if one is not working with them day and night. It requires easy access.

"‘How are they connected?’ I ask. ‘There must be some underground channels. This connection can’t be ad hoc. It has to be a regular connection, disguised amongst the “real regular” connections.’"

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"I discover that the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has close fraternal ties with North-Eastern terror groups. Most of such outfits have linkages with external forces hostile to India. The CPI (Maoist) has openly expressed its solidarity with the J&K terrorist groups. These ties are part of their ‘Strategic United Front’ against the Indian State. The CPI (Maoist) also has close links with foreign Maoist organizations in the Philippines, Turkey, etc. 

"The outfit is also a member of the Coordination Committee of the Maoist Parties and Organizations in South Asia (CCOMPOSA), which includes ten Maoist groups from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, with the aim to create a ‘new South Asia’. 

"Slowly, I start to connect the dots. A plethora of front organizations starts revealing itself around which an Urban Naxalism is being woven. These front organizations are the offshoots of the parent Maoist party, which maintains a separate existence to escape legal liabilities. These Front Organizations (FOs) carry out a two-pronged communication attack—propaganda and disinformation. They raise funds for the insurgency and assist cadres in legal matters. These FOs are also used to provide safe houses to underground cadres and shelter to fugitives. They bring intellectuals into their fold who provide an intellectual veneer to the illegal, unconstitutional, and inhuman violence in the Naxal movement. In effect, these intellectuals present this beastly and gruesome reality in a sanitized, romantic, and palatable packaging for which the media and its urban audiences have a weakness. Such FOs exist in twenty out of the twenty-nine states of India. They are seeping into the strategically sensitive north-eastern states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh."

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"Lately, they have begun targeting India’s seat of power – New Delhi – and many other cities by setting up urban bases of these front organizations with the aim to penetrate and influence policymakers, judiciary, media, civil liberty, human rights, cultural, Dalit, women, and youth organizations. So far, the urban units do not indulge in violence but it is definitely a serious problem, posing a threat to our ambition of becoming the next economic superpower.

"Then, suddenly, something strikes me. 

"Why do they have to connect with the student if they can have their professors in the faculty? They can enter a student’s mind through this professor. It’s easier, faster, exact, less risky, and seems organic."

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July 11, 2022 - July 12, 2022. 

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12. Zorba the Greek  

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"There was a time when I was at the threshold of joining the Naxal movement. Today, it reads like a film script."

Hence the eagerness to establish atheism and otherwise secular credentials via God glimpsed in sunrise seen reflected in Taj dome? 

Wonder what Agnihotri thinks of films of Abhishek Kapoor. 

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"Flashback: My college days - Bhopal

"I have written a play for the annual function. The winning play will travel to various drama festivals. Before I start directing it, I want to take feedback from my dramatics professor, a middle-aged man who is also active on Bhopal’s theatre scene. He writes, directs, and sometimes acts in plays, performed at Bharat Bhavan and Tagore Hall."

Character that provides skeleton of a major one in film. 

" ... He dresses like a typical government college science professor but there is something very cowboyish about his style."

Almost description of leftist uniform. Seemingly casual but disdainful in some way that can't be ignored, yet not really simple in a normal way. 

"He lights another cigarette, from the previous one. I like the way he takes the first puff of his cigarette. He closes his eyes, takes a deep drag and holds it for a few seconds and then exhales, softly and smoothly, blowing out smoke rings. I don’t know what has impressed me more – the smoke rings or the satisfied expression on his face? I am going to try it the moment I leave from here. If I get the rings right, would it be an influence or an inspiration? Or would I be simply aping him? I try to decode his theory. If I make circles and make the same face like him, I would be copying him. If I make rings with my own expressions, I am influenced. But if instead of rings I exhale squares or triangles of smoke and have a sad expression, then I would be inspired. And if I just don’t smoke at all and blow no smoke with no expressions, then I would be called a revolutionary. An original revolutionary."

Leftist in India, spending on smoking for no real need, instead of feeding poor, typical leftist. 

"‘Here are some of my old manuscripts… I wrote these essays in college.  These are original. Neither influenced nor inspired,’ he confesses while throwing the files in front of me, letting the dust from the files mix with the smoke particles. Together, the dust and the smoke fill the entire path of a lone sunbeam, filtering from a hole in the window and falling on the overflowing ashtray sitting alone on the wrought iron table. If there was no dust and smoke, I would not have noticed the existence of the sun and its filtering rays inside this dark room."

Hole in the window? Wooden doors?

"I distinctly remember as I was leaving his house, a few students from different colleges were collecting outside in the lawns of his government quarter for chaupal - a forum for an exchange of ideas. Many years later, I learnt that some of them were arrested in the tribal villages of Chhattisgarh, on the charge of spreading Naxal ideology. I could have been one of them."

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July 12, 2022 - July 12, 2022. 

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13. Comrade Vivek Agnihotri  

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"Flashback: My college days - Bhopal

"I see myself in the shackles of many borrowed ideas. Ironically there is no ‘me’ in these ideas. No pain, no suffering which is mine. ... "

Oddly reminiscent of Rockstar, young Janardan being informed by his canteen manager about exactly this being the reason his music lacks success - wonder if Imtiaz Ali had met and heard Agnihotri and learned about his professor's talk about pain, suffering et al?

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"I start flipping pages and try to read quickly. This file is an assortment of the professor’s essays, plays, poems, and ideas. Ideas for the revolution. He is deeply affected by the caste system. His writings reek of hatred for the Brahmins. ... "

Wonder if they realized this is exactly as per Macaulay policy, who designed it with aim of breaking up India? Elsewhere, rebellion would be against kings, rich, landlords and title holders, aristocracy. 

In India, whoever heard of rebellion, or even a stray slogan, against a rich dynasty, whether Nawaz of Hyderabad or society circles of Lutyens Delhi? 

Brahmins, merely convenient targets, after over a millennium during which barbaric invaders targeted the priests and teachers of a culture that invaders sought to destroy, for the very reason they set fire to libraries at Nalanda and other universities, and institutions of learning, monasteries and temples, and killed scholars. 

Brahmins were always poor, even in ancient tales of India. Abrahamic-IV attacks against them far more than against priests of Abrahamic-II and Abrahamic-III reek, not of leftism, but of colonial mindset. 

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"I don’t know much about the current ragging scenario but anyone who has survived the ragging of the 70s and 80s can survive any hardship. For the next six months, we were ragged every single time we came across the seniors. Our movements were restricted. We couldn’t go out to the open ground, the lakeside, the main hall, the two-wheeler stands or the canteen, as all these spots were crowded with the seniors. Bus stand, canteen, and two-wheeler stands were their favourite spots. The reason was that there were few girls in our college, at the most ten or fifteen, who would invent new ways to avoid this bunch of ogling seniors. But using the canteen in free periods, pulling out their two-wheeler from the stand or to take a bus from the bus stand, was something they just couldn’t escape. The moment the girls would go to the canteen, it would get filled with the seniors. Hundreds of eyes would stare at them. Penetrate them. Analyze their anatomy, making their own short, mental blue films. The worst part was that the girls knew they were being filmed by these staring eyes but they were not in a position to stop their visual rape. 

"Yes, a visual gang rape. Some boys would even pretend to be lost in thought while walking and collide with the girl or brush their hand lightly on their breasts. Sometimes, while girls were returning home, after their evening tuition classes, seniors would find them in dark patches of the streets and grope them."

In Delhi, dark was unnecessary - a public bus crowded with commuters, mostly middle aged males going to work, did just as well for the said college boys groping girls who could only cry in shame and fury. 

When one slapped the grocery, he slapped her back, and the respectable umcles who were government employees criticised her, because they were too cowardly to reprimand the guy, fearing he'd hit them and then their respectability would crumble. 

When we got off, crowding in sympathy around her, she was still crying, and said " Does he think I don't have a brother, and he doesn't have friends? He'll be thrashed this evening." 

That was horrifying - not because we were Gandhian, 

but because it implied that those of us without an older brother, and a gang of goons he could call up to thrash someone on our behalf, were without any defense in the capital. 

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"A few years ago, in my Delhi barsati, on a cold night, I was narrating the situation of these girls to my female friends from Delhi. ... "

"One girl puked on my hand. Seeing her puke, another one puked, on my ZZ plant. Some moved to washrooms and some to the balcony to smoke. One short girl, short like really short, four feet something or maybe less, got so angry that she took a long puff and exhaled the smoke like she was a dragon, fuming fire on these boys. She started stabbing her cigarette in the ashtray as if she was hammering their skulls."

This would be the JNU crowd, not used to the fear and torture that was our everyday life unless we stuck to the college bus, which we did after a few first days, avoiding public buses if possible. Agnihotri must be much younger, and not merely junior. 

Funny, it's Pallavi Joshi whose birthdate is provided on internet with year, but not Agnihotri. And yet popular judgements indict women for hiding age! 

"One girl kept looking at me for some time and then held my hand and asked, ‘Who gave you so much pain?’ 

"My pain? This was the pain of an Indian girl. These girls were mostly from Delhi and a few from Bangalore and Mumbai. Normally, the story of an Indian girl’s pain comes from the victims, survivors, or the feminists. A regular girl's suffering in her day-to-day life doesn’t ever feature in the national feminist narrative. They have been conditioned to accept it as part of living, as an everyday struggle. A part of the culture that wants to crush their dreams. Their aspirations. Their confidence. 

"It shall remain a paradox that despite such suffocating, dark surroundings, these girls shine in their lives. As engineers, doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, managers, scientists, cops or as efficient housewives. Whereas, such boys end up doing nothing with their lives. Outside the college and employment market, they are left with no option but to join politics and earn by either extorting or mediating for commissions. This is a standard template."

Obviously, guys who amounted later to anything were as busy with concerns regarding future as those girls, suffering pains of not only going to college to study, sit for examinations and more, but doing it despite the horrible guys, when they could have taken the easier route of giving up education, suffering their parents to marry them off to a worthy candidate, and meanwhile being busy with fashion, cosmetics and such. 

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"Flashback

"College elections are on. Being a leader in cultural activities, I work with a large, cohesive group of creative, aware, and liberal students. These students are the most influential in such elections but they don’t go to vote. ... these fifteen-twenty girls are the focal point of this election. They aren’t just votes anymore. They are a status symbol. Both the parties want one of the girls to contest as their candidate. They want me to persuade them. Slowly, this pressure turns to threats. I want to change my college but my drama mentor convinces me that it's my purpose, my duty to fight such political hooliganism. 

"‘Politics is bad if you want to use it for power but it’s a remedy if you want to save the weak from exploitation,’ he advises. He prepares me to become a politician. With his mentoring, I start my own political party with a satirical name - ‘Jokers Party’. With a promise to empower and protect girls."

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"Present Day 

"I open my old college photo album and find a picture of all Jokers Party members. In checked bellbottoms and long-collared printed shirts, we look like a funny version of the Beatles. Or a derivative of the Klu Klux Klan."

Surely Agnihotri knows KKK dates back to end of US Civil War and occupation of Confederate South by military? They aren't recognised by bell bottoms, even if they wore them when in style. 

Bell bottoms came into fashion post WWII, copied from navy, where they were useful for wearing over long boots. In India the fashion dates to late sixties and early seventies, until jeans swept them out. 

"As soon as we announced our party, one of the most attractive girls met me and expressed her desire to contest from our party. She wanted to democratically wrest political power from the seniors and assert her right to stop the visual gang rapes. 

"She was a senior army officer's daughter, and however clichéd it may sound, the girls from an army background are smarter and more modern than their civilian counterparts in cities like Bhopal. Similarly, this girl was very modern and beautiful. She had short hair, played table tennis and wore short skirts. For a city like Bhopal, in the early 80s, this was a fantastical reality. ... 

"She never looked at me, but instinctively, I knew she was aware of my presence. I knew because her walk changed when she crossed me. An awkwardness would come in her body language, a concentrated self-consciousness would capture her persona, which any boy in that high-testosterone age can sense from any distance."

"‘I want to be friends with you.’ Something made me say this. I was possessed. 

"She took a pause and spoke to some other girls, her sisters perhaps, and then came back on the line. 

"‘Come and meet us at the club at 5.45. Don’t be late because my dad will be there by 6. See you then.’ She didn’t wait for my confirmation. 

"I found her ‘army-like’ behaviour very cute. 

"We became good friends. I genuinely cared for her. She was impressed with my debating and dramatic skills. Unfortunately, till date, I don't know what the status of our relationship was. If there was a Facebook then, I would have called it 'in progress'. Most love stories in small towns die while ‘in progress’ and are eventually found at the end of a notebook or a diary as a poem. We met every evening and played table tennis, gossiped about college and killed time."

"For the next half an hour I watched her tears falling on the TT table as she told me how a few boys from the opposing parties literally molested her, groped her, and humiliated her in a crowded bus. It's strange that in India most girls are raped, molested and groped in crowded places. She wasn’t angry because she was groped. She was furious because she couldn’t even react. 

"‘They were touching me, feeling me, rubbing their elbows on my boobs, laughing and blowing smoke on my face and I couldn’t even react. I kept looking down as if nothing was happening. Why?’ She broke down, ‘Why am I being denied to even react to my molestation?’ 

"I tried to console her but she shrugged and asked me, looking deep into my eyes, ‘Imagine yourself in my situation… what would you do?’ 

"Next day, she withdrew her nomination."

Judging by various public pronouncements by various leaders thereof, males leading opposition parties of post 2014 time have retained this mentality, regardless of age or community. 

"I stay awake the entire night and keep writing until dawn, with my Hero fountain pen, on the back side of the extra invitation cards of my sister’s wedding. By morning, I have a new play. It’s about discrimination against a Dalit woman. It’s not a satire. It’s dark. Hard hitting. Penetrating. Suffocating. And revolutionary.

"The play proves to be a success. I am the new hero on the campus. My fellow students believe that I will topple the establishment. I am invited to debates from remote corners of the country. All my dramatic, literary, and debating work for the next few years remains revolutionary and inspired by the Naxal ideology of armed struggle."

"In no time, I am burning buses and throwing stones at the Vidhan Sabha. And I am introduced to desi katta and rusted swords."

" ... my drama mentor congratulates me."

"‘And I am happy that you have won the game,’ he concludes."

"I didn't even realize then that I had become his new recruit. I had become an Urban Naxal."

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July 12, 2022 - July 12, 2022. 

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14. The New Big Idea: Urban Naxalism  

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" ... The story is about the professor. I am just the medium to reveal his sinister political ambition. I need to find the professor's ulterior motives, the modus operandi and the dynamics of a possible nexus between academia and Naxals. But I don't know where to go from here."

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"Flashback: My college days - Bhopal

"I am leading protests. I am throwing stones at the Vidhan Sabha. I am burning buses. I am part of rusted sword fights. Yes, in Bhopal, students would be delivered old swords which they would keep in water until it rusts. When you hit someone with a rusted sword, the rust infects the wound and causes tetanus.

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"I start questioning my drama mentor and subsequent professors in my post-graduation course in economics at the School of Social Sciences, Bhopal. Jana Natya Mandali, Radical Students Union, and Radical Youth Movement were recruiting students and thousands of them were joining. In the garb of a touring cultural group, they would amplify the injustice and glorify revolution. There is no one who hasn’t faced injustice. A friend who was fascinated with Naxalism had told me once, ‘Revolution is the only purpose of life.’ A Naxal army was getting built on the ground. A revolution had begun. A new India was taking birth in the minds of students. An education system rooted in the principles of utopian socialism, courtesy Nehru's fascination for the same, and the professors, enamoured of the Nehruvian dream, were feeding the young minds to wage a war against India."

Nehru did leave a chink in the armour. But the hidden villain is China. Attempting to break up India has been ambition of every jealous outsider, every outside institution that had nothing comparable. 

"Did they really care about me or was I just a pawn in a bigger game? What if I had not gone to Delhi and USA for further studies, would I have become a professional Naxal? Were those professors Naxals? Is this how they make inroads into urban India? Like a venomous, silent snake under your bed, getting set to attack and kill you? Was I helping that snake? Was I that snake? 

"My head spins."

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"‘Sir, I think this is precisely the time you must write, not when you are at your creative best but in such times of confusion. Especially when you are lost and have nowhere to go,’ she speaks confidently.  

"As she talks I feel surrounded by the ghosts of all those filmmakers and creative artists who worked out of nothing. No offices, no assistants, no money, no experience and yet they spoke the truth that took our civilization forward. Some were ridiculed. Some were punished. And some were executed. 

"‘It's not that I don't know where to arrive at. I know where I want to reach but I don't know if anyone would want to hear it.’ 

"‘Sir, why do we always think about what the audience wants to hear? Why don't we say what we want to say?’ 

"Sometimes life-changing advice comes from the least expected quarters."

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"I start making concept maps, trying to be able to see the entire methodology of Urban Naxalism. And what it leads me to and what it reveals, stuns me. If this is true, I think, then a grave danger is looming over the internal security and the social fabric of this country. Somebody has to warn the masses. 

"The Naxal movement is engaged in Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW).  This war is waged by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants, and civilians. If they have reached this stage, we have no one but our political leaders to blame, who have used Naxals for their political gains and shunned them when not required. ... "

"This fourth-generation war is complex and long term. It’s decentralized, small in size, and lacks hierarchy. The strategy is to make a direct attack on the enemy's (in this case, the Indian State) culture, including genocidal acts against civilians and wage a highly sophisticated psychological and cultural warfare, especially through media manipulation. All available pressures are used – political, economic, social, and military. For this purpose, legal professionals are required, media professionals are required, creative people, varied intellectuals and academicians are required, and civil society leaders are required, especially those who are connected with NGOs. It begins with low-intensity conflicts where all the actors attack from different platforms.

"I pick up the papers given by my assistant. It’s the summary of the documented vision of the Naxalites – vision and strategy documents under an urban perspective plan – a blueprint for their urban movement/activities. 

"Out of these, the ‘Strategy and Tactics’ document and ‘Urban Perspective’ document catch my attention. These documents take a long-term approach as they believe direct confrontation for quick results won't help. The document admits that the enemy is very strong in urban areas and, therefore, he should not be engaged with until the conditions are favourable. And to make them favourable, it suggests, exploring and opening of opportunities, organize people through front organizations. Target the 'vulnerable group' of minorities, women, Dalits, labourers, and students through influencers who work undercover for a long time and accumulate strength. The document stresses on uniting industrial proletariats, the weak and students, and use them as vanguards who can play a direct role in the revolution."

One is reminded of the so-called protests since 2014, in reality organised violent and destructive events with mobs incited to sloganeering, burning, even killing others, and all indicative of a series of provoking actions, so normal citizens are terrified and government might just roll tanks. 

The last hasn't happened yet, despite all the efforts by opposition since 2014. In fact the last time was in 1984, in Punjab, specifically, while subsequent genocide in Delhi was dressed up as riots, but the lie was only supported by lack of independent media, and exposed amply by personal testimonies from media and other persons who happened to be in Delhi and dared to step out. 

"The city becomes the money source, shelter for cadre as transit points, source of weaponry and legal protection, medical aid, media attention, and intelligentsia network.

"So, an invisible Naxal-intelligentsia-media-academia nexus works as strategic fortification with the ultimate aim of taking over the Indian State to achieve Maoist rule. They have identified Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad as the Golden Corridor. Delhi-Kanpur-Patna-Kolkata as the Ganga Corridor. And KKTs (Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu) Chennai-Coimbatore-Bengaluru as the Tri-junction."

Was this why they strove to take over Maharashtra, by temptation of support to a junior partner of winning combo, so they could scrap not only the proposed Shivaji statue in Mumbai, but also put on hold,  indefinitely, the proposed bullet train - Mumbai to and from Ahmedabad, promoting ease for commerce of India, these two cities bring a vital duo amongst all cities important in the context? 

Apart from, that is, general loot by controlling Mumbai, not to mention terroristic of the city and citizens of not only state but elsewhere too, in general, with tactics that included fraudulent cases, arrests, torture and even murders, by police officers deliberately re-employed precisely for the purpose? 

 on hold, 

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"‘Mass organizations are operating under the garb of human rights NGOs. These are manned by ideologues, including academicians and activists,’ the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has said in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, detailing the new strategy of the Maoist movement.

"The affidavit cites the 'Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution’ document as a blueprint of the Maoist plan to seize political power. The affidavit states that one of the strategies adopted by Naxals is to mobilize certain targeted sections of the urban population through its mass organizations which are otherwise known as 'front organizations'. The MHA filed the affidavit in response to a notice issued by the Supreme Court on a PIL filed by former Madhya Pradesh MLA, Kishore Samrite, that the Maoist problem was spreading rapidly. 

"‘The mass organizations mostly operating under the garb of human rights NGOs are organically linked to the CPI (Maoist) structure but maintain separate identities in an attempt to avoid legality,’ the MHA affidavit says.

"The affidavit further says that such organizations pursue human rights related issues and are also adept at using the legal processes to their benefit. According to the Home Ministry, ideologues and supporters of Naxals in cities and towns have undertaken a concerted and systematic propaganda war against the State. ‘In fact, it is these ideologues who have kept the Maoist movement alive and are in many ways more dangerous than the cadres of the People's Liberation Guerilla Army,’ the affidavit says.

"The tactics employed are extremely effective and media attention grabbing. These range from using aggressive agitations and propaganda provoking Dalits to take up arms to programmes on anti-capitalist policies to target controversies in history (e.g. Is this what Dr. Ambedkar wanted in the Constitution?). They work with feminist groups, atheist groups, anti-superstition movements, intellectuals, students, labourers, slum groups, farmers, journalists, competitive exam centres etc. They take up genuine issues with the aim not to solve it but to create unrest and anger against the system and make people believe in armed struggle. This is how the 'vulnerable group' unknowingly becomes their vanguard. Like I became, under the mentorship of my professors."

"Maoist documents stress on building a strong base in cities and mention three kinds of urban mass organizations: secret, open and semi-open, and legal; the last including cover organizations and affiliated activists. The forest-based rebellion survives mostly on what Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao calls the ‘movement in urban areas’. From the urban network come logistics, moral and intellectual support, and the ideological argument for violence. The network is in several cities and sympathizers occupy prominent positions.

"So far, the urban movement has served the Naxals in a number of ways. Take logistics support for example. In 2006, police seized empty rocket shells and rocket launchers in Mahabubnagar district, Andhra Pradesh. The kingpin, ‘Tech Madhu’, later surrendered to the police which led to the detection of an elaborate network the Naxals had built to manufacture rocket parts and transport them to different parts of the country. The network originated in the industrial centre of Ambattur, a suburb of Chennai where these were fabricated in separate foundries and stealthily transported in private commercial carriers to different parts of the country. The network spread across five states: Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.

"On many occasions, important top-level leaders of the CPI (Maoist) have been arrested from cities and towns indicating that front organizations in cities are used as shelters. 

"The detection of Maoist activities in towns such as Surat in Gujarat, clearly indicates that the Naxals are attempting to penetrate the urban working-class movements. Besides, there have been reports of the detection of Maoist activities in Haryana – in Jind, Kurukshetra, Panipat, Sonepat, etc. A closer look at these areas reveals that these are industrial hubs. In Delhi, the Naxals have reportedly infiltrated the Delhi Safai Karmachari Sanghatan (DSKS), a union of sanitary workers. In fact, according to a media report quoting unnamed intelligence officials, ‘the rebels, the sources add, have plans to strike in the industrial belts of Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad-Calcutta and Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad to take their battle into the heart of India.’

"Some instances of Naxal violence adversely affecting the trade and economy are damaging road construction machinery, shutting down and destroying bank branches, damage to railway lines, highways and telecom towers, thereby inhibiting communication and transport and destruction of the pipeline for transporting iron ore slurry in Chhattisgarh. According to reports, ‘power and steel industry projects in Chhattisgarh with investments of the order of rupees one hundred and thirty billion were stagnated due to Naxalite disturbances’. All in all, it’s a very grim economic condition which affects all sectors of industry and all classes of people. Micro-economic effects include lower tourist inflows, lower regional tourism market share, reduced usage of public transport, reduced long-term investments in agriculture and other potential sectors, reduced enrolment in schools, lower job availability and lack of substantial opportunities.

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"The Urban Movement has attracted students towards the Maoist fold in various parts of the country. In the 1980s, hordes of students from Kakatiya University and Regional Engineering College (now National Institute of Technology), Warangal, and Osmania University, Hyderabad, joined the then Progressive War cadres. Besides, according to one media report, ‘…security agencies believe that the front organizations have started a vigorous movement in the education sector, to rope in students from several reputed colleges for their cause… (they) warned the (Nagpur) city police about these student-oriented revolutionary organizations. People working under banners with hints of revolution, like “sangharsh” and “kranti” are under the scanner’.

"Following the arrest of Himadri Sen Roy, a very senior Maoist leader, and Somen alias Sumanand, West Bengal State Committee Secretary, near Kolkata, police claimed that ‘the CPI (Maoist) has initiated a drive to spread its network in the city (Kolkata) and its outskirts and the outfit has brought some youths and students from premier educational institutions like Presidency College under its fold in the last two years’.

"In Bengaluru too, Maoist activities in colleges have been noticed. According to a media report, the police suspected that a group, known as the Karnataka Communal Harmony Group (KCHG), a congregation of intellectuals and activists, is a Maoist front. Apparently, top police officials visited the famous Jesuit college – St Joseph’s – to investigate the involvement of students with the KCHG and the Naxals. In fact, in Karnataka, it was the urban movement that was stronger than the rural movement. Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad Central University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Allahabad University, IIT Madras, Jadavpur University are the citadels of urban Naxalism."

"The majority of the people in Maoist-affected areas and even their supporters and cadres have little to do with Maoism at an ideological level. They are only alienated and angered people with no real idea of the perceived sense of injustice, oppression, and loss of dignity. Naxals are cleverly exploiting this sentiment to their advantage – caste conflicts in Bihar, resentment against landlords in Andhra, discontent against forest laws in tribal areas, unemployment amongst youth and radicalism among Muslims are all given the prescription of capture of power through the gun as the ultimate solution of all their problems. While the local grievances need to be effectively addressed through improved governance and ruthless accountability, there is also a need for creating mass awareness of the ultimate designs and consequences of what the extremists stand for.

" ... Why isn’t our intelligentsia talking about it? What if they are part of this nexus? Are they the urban terrorists? Urban Naxals?"

"It's not a film any more. It's a mission."

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July 12, 2022 - July 12, 2022. 

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15. A New Angle  

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"The Naxalites sure did bring about some equity and relief for the marginalized category of rural India from the rampant feudal ill-activities, but that has come at a huge cost to the entire nation in terms of both economic development and safety of citizens. Moreover, this movement no longer holds its people-centric approach. It has more or less become a terrorist group with only one principle—to seize power. Development of these areas is a steep challenge; not only are they economically and socially stunted but these areas have people suffering from a much more unfortunate condition of not being able to exercise their fundamental rights. The policy for rehabilitating the affected areas should be to start development from the grassroots level.

"Masses have suffered from both ends, i.e. at the hands of the security forces as well as the Naxalites. Salwa Judum, which was a militia set up with the approval of the government to counter the Naxals, caused the displacement of more than fifty thousand families in Chhattisgarh alone. Security forces have also been accused of recruiting minors as SPOs (Special Police Officers) in the Salwa Judum. Salwa Judum has been alleged for practicing vigilante justice and their activists have been held responsible for heinous crimes like torture, rape, and non-judicial executions. In many Naxal-infested areas, there has been a visible nexus between Naxals, Salwa Judum, the police, and contractors."

"‘We have established a link between the Naxals and Manipur-based People's Liberation Army and the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA),’ a Home Ministry official said on record.

"Security and intelligence agencies suspect that Naxals have a new chain of supply of weapons and are not dependent only on the snatching of arms from security forces. Intelligence reports have also indicated a collaboration between the Reds and the Indian Mujahedeen. The recent seizure of bombs and explosives from IM men in Jharkhand, a Red bastion, point to a nexus between the two groups. It is suspected that the Naxals are providing explosives to the IM in return of arms and ammunition.

"Recent studies say that the Naxals have well-established linkages with other insurgent groups and a few Muslim Fundamentalist Organizations (MFOs), which are actively involved in India. These links provide the movement not only with psychological support but also material support in the form of money and weapons."

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"J&K Terrorist Groups 

"Naxalite spokespersons, on many occasions, have openly supported the actions and cause of the J&K terrorist groups. The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) terrorists who carried out the attack on the American Centre at Kolkata in 2001 had escaped to Jharkhand and taken refuge in a Naxalite sympathizer’s house in Ranchi. In return for this and similar other favours the J&K terrorists who are well trained in handling sophisticated arms, impart training to the Naxalite groups.

"The North-East

"Intelligence agencies have also reported linkages between Maoist elements and the insurgent groups of the North-East i.e. the United Liberation Front of Asom, Nationalist Council of Nagaland, and People’s Liberation Army (ULFA, NSCN, PLA). North-East insurgent groups like the PLA and NSCN follow the Maoist ideology and were even trained and supported by China in the 1960s and 1970s.

"SIMI

"It has emerged that the Naxals have openly supported the activities of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and both have been lately collaborating with each other.

"Nepal 

"Naxalite groups in India have tried to sustain their fraternal and logistic links with Nepal’s Naxals. The outfits of India, along with Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), have decided to work towards carving out a ‘Compact Revolutionary Zone’. The Indian groups have been extending moral, material, and training support to CPN (Maoist) cadres in guerrilla warfare, which has resulted in significant growth of Naxal violence since 2001. Cooperation between Naxals active in Nepal through Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, up to Andhra Pradesh, has provided the left extremists contiguous areas to operate, move, hide, and train.

"South Asia

"The Maoist groups of four South Asian countries, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, have joined hands to form the Coordination Committee of the Maoist Parties of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) to advance ‘People’s War’ in South Asia. The objective of the Committee is to unify and coordinate the activities of the Naxal parties and organizations in South Asia and spread protracted People’s War in the region."

Noticeable exclusion is Pakistan. 

WHY????? 

Because it's about loot, and there's nothing left to loot there, junta having finished it themselves? 

Or is ISI an integral part of maoist organisation's, like PLA, providing slogans and large stones where latter provides booklets and weapons?

Oh, here it is! 

"ISI Links

"The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been very active in Nepal and Bangladesh for long, especially along the borders, in their desire to encircle India and is giving support to numerous Indian militant groups based in Bangladesh. The ISI does not hesitate in providing moral and material support to these groups. This bond has been mutually beneficial to both the parties, as the left-wing extremists receive weapons from the ISI to be used against the Indian State.

"LTTE Links 

"The Naxalite linkage with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) dates back to the 1990s when it was estimated by the intelligence agencies that the PWG used to acquire weapons, especially AK-47 assault rifles, from this organization. In the present context, the Naxalites are actively involved in Tamil Nadu with the discovery of a training camp organized by former PWG Naxals in the Periyakulum forests in Tamil Nadu. It has led security agencies to suspect a renewed nexus between the Naxals and the LTTE.

"Revolutionary International Movement 

"The PWG maintains constant touch with the Maoist groups of 27 countries through the Revolutionary International Movement. A Turkish Maoist organization is known to have undertaken the task of publishing PWG activities through an Internet website.

"Linkage with Left-Wing Philippines Groups 

"A few media and intelligence reports from Southeast Asia state that the Naxalites in India have also developed links with the left-wing extremists of the Philippines, and through them, with other groups of Southeast Asia. The increasing expansion of Naxalism got further strengthened with covert support from other groups with a similar ideology in the Indian subcontinent. India’s ‘all weather adversary’ Pakistan has grasped the opportunity provided by Naxalism to further increase unrest in India and re-emphasize its dictum of ‘bleeding India by thousand cuts’."

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"The US State Department's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism has found that going by the number of terror attacks and the number of killings of innocent citizens every year from 2012 until now, the big-five terror group consists of the IS, Taliban, Boko Haram, al Qaeda, and the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

"I wonder why Naxals are called rebels or insurgents and not terrorists. I look for the most acceptable definition of terrorism ... "

" ... Naxals are terrorists and Urban Naxals are intellectual terrorists, a point the mainstream media and intelligentsia always love to ignore.

"The entire history of Naxalism is based on armed struggle. Their Strategy document clearly talks about an 'armed war' against the State and finally establishing their government in 2025 by toppling a democratically elected government through the barrel of the gun. For Naxals, socio-economic justice is just an instrument to cover up their terrorism against the State. They support everything that negates Indian nationhood, be it secessionists in J&K, insurgents in the North-East, radical Islamic groups or armed ethnic groups.

"In an interview in 2007, Ganapathy, the Secretary-General of CPI-Naxals asserted, ‘We see the Islamic upsurge as a progressive anti-imperialist force in the contemporary world. It is wrong to describe the struggle that is going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya as Islamic fundamentalism. Our party supports the Islamic upsurge.’ Commenting on the 26/11 massacre of Mumbai, Bimal, Politburo member, was quoted in Hindustan Times, saying: ‘We do not support the way they attacked the Victoria station, where most of the victims were Muslims. At the same time, we feel the Islamic upsurge should not be opposed as it is basically anti-US and anti-imperialist in nature. We, therefore, want it to grow.’

"Varavara Rao, referring to North-East insurgencies, stated on May 13, 2007: ‘This is a time for all revolutionary, democratic, and nationality movements, like the ones in Kashmir and the North-East, to unite and something will come out of this unity’.

"The Naxals stand against India’s sovereignty, unity, democratic polity, and civilizational values and hence, will have to be fought and defeated at all planes – ideological, political, and physical."

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"Ajit Doval, the current National Security Advisor, has written that the Naxals have targeted democratically and legally elected politicians to prove their vulnerability and to erode the legitimacy and credibility of the system. He writes, ‘Their attacks on police and para-military forces are aimed at demonstrating that the coercive power of the government is a myth as it is not even able to protect itself. Their holding Jan Adalats, imposing fines, and dictating terms for talks are calculated to undermine the government’s ability to enforce its writ and authority and give credibility to their propaganda that government is only a “paper tiger”. On the contrary, the State has been able to do little to demolish the contrived self-image of the Left Extremists as saviours of the people. The discordant voices within the government and display of confusion and indecisiveness immensely boost their morale. While the far-flung, tribal areas are in the news because of incidents of violence, what is lesser known is their fast-spreading influence in urban suburbs, among the trade unions, unemployed youth, students etc. much beyond the tribal areas.’"

Was this after 2014 that he said this? 

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"I have no doubt in my mind that Naxalism is the biggest threat to India, bigger than Pakistan and China. Such links are not possible to maintain from the jungles of Dantewada. Where is their strategic hub?

"All the research points to Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) as the most active urban Naxal centre. Some of the organizations in Delhi that are under the scanner are the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), Committee for Release of Political Prisoners, Democratic Students Union, Nari Mukti Sangh, People Democratic Front of India, and Mehantkash Mazdoor Morcha. Many of their members are said to be active in towns adjoining Delhi like Gurgaon and Ghaziabad."

Not JNU?

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"Intelligence agencies stumbled upon the Naxals' strategy of setting up urban bases in cities like Delhi in 2009, with the arrest of Kobad Ghandy from Delhi, allegedly responsible for recruiting people from urban centres. More recently, Hem Mishra, a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, was arrested by Maharashtra Police for allegedly helping Naxals. His arrest followed a search at the residence of G.N. Saibaba, a professor at Delhi University.

"Delhi being the media centre of India attracts all kinds of intelligentsia. Another reason for such high concentration of intelligentsia is that all central research and policy agencies are here and these agencies were used by the Congress government to employ intellectuals and use them to give an ideological endorsement to their political narrative. Since Sonia Gandhi's politics align with the left, it is but natural that most of these people are Naxal sympathizers. The 'ecosystem' that Sonia Gandhi has nurtured consists of such intellectuals, eminent journalists, historians, and above all NGO heads."

About the said leanings of congress or its president, the seeming left inclination us only a convenient pose. 

"The next big question spinning in my head is about the bloodline of this movement – money. Money is one of the most important factors helping extremists to acquire weapons and explosives, raise their cadre strength by recruiting youth on regular salaries and carrying out mass mobilization programmes. They are reportedly collecting sixteen hundred crore rupees a year, which is big money for carrying out armed insurrection in an impoverished area.  Where do they get it from? Is it possible that the money is routed through NGOs since no one questions them?

"To further the military objective of the revolution, the Naxals surely would strengthen their cyber-warfare strategy. This is where students are most effective. They are cleverly using universities and colleges, which attract students from weaker sections, as easy sanctuaries for insurgents to thrive in the cities. Panic buttons need to be pressed right now, else the spread of the invisible Naxals in the sprawling towns and cities of India could shape up as a major destabilizing factor in future."

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July 12, 2022 - July 12, 2022. 

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16. Deep-Diving into Naxalism  

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"Rohit and I fly to Hyderabad. We explore ISB from a new perspective, we explore Hyderabad, we meet Greyhound officers, we walk in tribal jungles, we talk to ex-Salwa Judum men, we listen to tribals. We learn about kangaroo courts. About beheadings, about rapes."

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"We see Naxalism in a new light. Thus far we had known about the clash between these two Indias intellectually. Now we have seen it actually. The poker-playing India will always choose Naxals over tribals as tribals have nothing to give. We are disturbed. And angry. 

"The days of the narrative that people pick up guns because of oppression and haplessness are over. Guns today are an organized business. With profits."

"The Times of India of April 11, 2010, reported: ‘The Jawaharlal Nehru University campus became a battleground on Friday night when members of disparate student organizations clashed over what was seen as an attempt to support the Naxalites and “celebrate” the massacre of 76 CRPF men. Members of Democratic Students Union (DSU) and All India Students Association (AISA) organized a meeting to celebrate the killing of 76 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh. They were even shouting slogans like “India murdabad, Maovaad zindabad”.’"

So JNU character isn't evolved post 2014, but was so in 2010, even 1986! 

"Inspector General of police, Bastar range, SRP Kalluri has gone on record, as reported by India Today, as saying, ‘I felt disappointed when I came to know that celebrations were held at JNU (by some students) after the killing of seventy-six jawans in the forest of Tadmetla in 2010.’ 

"Under the headline ‘Naxals have a new address: Jadavpur University’, The Indian Express of Dec 10, 2010, reports that ‘Kanchan, the arrested CPI (Maoist) state secretary, has reportedly told the security agencies that a recruitment process is on for the outfit's military wing and Jadavpur University has emerged as a major centre for the cadres. Also, the Naxals are believed to have a backup module among the university students. Kanchan has reportedly also said that 12 students from (Kolkata’s) Presidency College are working actively as CPI (Maoist) cadres in Lalgarh.’

"Hindustan Times of March 28, 2010, carried a column with the headline ‘1970s revisited? Kolkata youth back in Naxal fold’. The report interviews an IB officer, involved with tracking Maoist activities, who says, ‘This trend is alarming. Many student and youth activists in the city campaigning for Lalgarh have visited the jungles and undergone arms training.’"

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"The last few months have kept India occupied with shocking and repeated revelations from campuses of renowned educational institutes like Hyderabad Central University (HCU), IIT Madras, JNU, Osmania University, Jadavpur University, Delhi University, Bhagalpur University to name only a few. The common thread in all these institutes-turned-battlefields is a protest against the ruling government in India in the name of Constitutional principles and democratic values. A closer look at all these cases reveals that there is no suppression of ‘democratic principles’ by the government. However, a picture has been painted so. Some faculty members too tried to escalate these protests through their active participation or supportive roles. All this left the common man of this country wondering ‘How did students turn anti-India?’ ‘What is suddenly wrong with all these universities and institutes?’"

This was published in 2018, as per a beginning page. These eruptions had begun perhaps sooner, but certainly post 2014 elections brought fresh hope and breath to nation. It'd been clear even then that they were for creating circumstances forcing the new government to roll tanks, by provoking enough. 

In this, they'd failed. 

" ... a senior IPS officer from the Andhra cadre explained to us how urban Naxalism is seeping into our cities faster than we can imagine. ‘In the cities, the frontal “mass organizations” are generally manned by ideologues, who include academicians and activists, fully committed to the party line. Such organizations ostensibly pursue human rights related issues and are also adept at using the legal processes of the Indian State to undermine and emasculate enforcement action by the security forces. They also attempt to malign the State institutions through propaganda and disinformation to further the cause of their “revolution”. Whenever an incident like this happens, a sympathetic media protects them by blaming the forces. What they don’t know is that the forces are extremely professional now and do not indulge in civilian contact.’

"He details the mechanics of ‘Mass Mobilization’, ‘as it will consequently lead to “Party Building” for them which will be proletarian vanguard in the revolution and through which they can build a “United Front” and perform military tasks for the guerilla warfare in the areas surrounding cities where they have established their base or which are also known as “Liberated Zones”. Naxals form own organizations. Underground secret organizations which may not fit within the ambit of democracy, and open revolutionary organizations and legal democratic mass organizations, which can work within the ambit of democracy and law. They also infiltrate existing mass organizations and try to get into leadership roles to support their anti-State “revolutionary” agenda. They build several types of mass organizations simultaneously. From these mass organizations, individuals are selected, brainwashed into supporting and becoming members of the Maoist party. Mass organizations are the fodder for their party building in urban areas.’

"The Maoist documents have illustrated the hierarchy of mass mobilization in a compact flowchart."

Agnihotri gives a diagram, which includes writers' forums. Reminds one of the one in Delhi that is fraudulently and inappropriately named using the term algebra while having nothing to do with facts, truth or mathematics. 

Did they imply they'd bring enforced equality, somehow, using that term? Between facts and lies? 

"The IPS officer has spent a good time in the Greyhound force and has nabbed more than a dozen Naxalites. ‘I can smell them, irrespective of where they are hiding: in a forest or in a university,’ he says with a smile while relishing the smell of charcoal on the southern spices of the marinade."‘

"If you want to understand the smartness of their strategy, just see how seamlessly an individual converts from being a participant in a mass protest to a loyal party member. The most interesting part is that most participants don’t even know that they are part of the activist groups or party factions. The participants usually think that they are working for the betterment of democracy.’

"His insights were real and extremely useful for the film. We learn that the aggressive, enthusiastic and active candidates are selected for activist groups. They are indoctrinated and made party members. ‘Activist Groups’ is the first level of selection and a transitory phase, post which, selected activists enter the party cell and start working as Party Member."

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"The details of internal links within mass organizations in urban areas were found in documents seized from Delhi University English Language Prof GN Saibaba. In the year 1991, he was allegedly sent from Andhra Pradesh to Delhi to spread the network of Naxals in urban areas. In mass organizations operating in urban areas, there are two wings i.e. Strategic Front and Tactical United Front. Strategic Front does not directly deal with the mass population. It encompasses Central Committee and the Maoist Politburo. Tactical United Front deals with mass organizations directly. These mass organizations are internally categorized from A1 to A7 basis the role they play and target population they mobilize."

Another couple of flowchart or diagram accompany the paragraph above. 

"Out of this, Kabir Kala Manch is part of the A1 type of organizations which sing revolutionary songs and organize cultural programmes to mobilize people. A3 is Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) which has 222 organizations empathizing with Naxals and their ideology across India. RDF was banned in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. A4 to A7 comprise organizations targeting and working on women, tribals, project-affected people and for the release of prisoners respectively. Executive Body controls and coordinates these seven types of organizations. One representative from each type out of A1 to A7 is part of Executive Body. It decides types of programmes or protests to be organized and their locations."

"Urban areas are important for Naxals to get cadre which has the skill set to perform military tasks, plus they become critical in order to develop international network, local intelligence, medical aid to rural guerrilla force, transit facility and cyber warfare."

Another diagram or flowchart here. 

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"One more important dimension for the Naxals’ focus on urban areas in the last few years is the recruitment ebb they are facing in tribal areas as tribals understood the hollowness of Maoist ideology due to the violence and harassment they experienced over last forty years. Naxals are not getting recruits for their dalams, the units in their Armed Guerilla Force. The number of surrenders has gone up manifold. Migration is highest in Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra as the youth there do not want to join the Naxal movement and they cannot go back to their villages due to fear of Naxals."

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"The history of students’ and teachers’ association with Maoism is as old as the movement itself. Youth and labour are the backbone of the Maoist movement. The Strategy and Tactics of Indian Revolution mentions the following about students’ role in the Maoist movement. 

"‘Among the urban petty bourgeoisie, students and youth constitute an important category. They react to the events and historically from the anti-British movement they played a significant role. In the wake of Naxalbari, their role is exemplary. Our party has good experience in organizing them. While working in urban areas, we must pay necessary attention to organize them… There is a need to emphasize the necessity of uniting with intellectuals. We need to allot sufficient cadre to work among them and some special effort be put to unite and organize them.’

"‘Our forces are capable of defeating any enemy provided we can see him. How does one fight an invisible enemy who can be even your brother or your son?’ the IPS officer took a pause, emptied the last few drops from the bottle of Old Monk in his glass and said with a smile, ‘or even your wife?’ 

"I didn’t tell him that I have seen such invisible enemies and that I have been a part-time recruit."

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July 12, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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Book Three : The Making of Buddha 

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17. The First Draft  

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"I wipe the whiteboard, take a blue marker, and on its shining white surface, I write our scripting mantra, in big bold letters: 

"REAL. HONEST. FEARLESS. EYE-OPENER. 

"After setting these new rules, we now want to break some age-old rules of scriptwriting. I don't want the cliché style of narration. I want to change the format. After some discussions we realize that our biggest problem is that we have too many stories. Also, all our research is condensed in a book form in chapters, with no linear, seamless flow. 

"‘What if we narrate it like a book… in chapters?’ I ask Rohit. 

"‘Sir, who will see it?’ Rohit asks me. 

"‘The same people who always cry that Bollywood doesn’t experiment with new ideas and formats,’ I quip.

"This is not a regular film. It’s born in a B-school, with the initiative of students. A movie in a book form is an 'out-of-the-box' idea and very appropriate for a student's film. Their top-of-the-mind reference for any narration is always a book. Also, 'but nobody does it' becomes my motivation to 'do it this way'."

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"The cover

"I believe in the power of visuals. Words should be used only when visuals fail to communicate. I decide to tell this tragic truth of Bastar in just two visuals. My co-writer comes up with an idea that I like. He suggests that in the first visual we show '… a semi-naked tribal is cutting wood in front of a hut'. In the second visual we show '… a tribal cleaning a gun'. This will show that nothing has changed except for that the gun has replaced the axe."

"I am so lost in my thoughts that I end up typing the same description in both the shots. My co-writer starts laughing and points out the mistake and asks me to change the second line to '… cleaning a gun.' 

"I am about to change it but then, stop. What if we shoot it exactly like this, using the mistake as an opportunity? Suddenly, it makes more sense to me. With the tribal 'cleaning the gun', he becomes part of a violent system and therefore an aggressor. Whereas if he keeps cutting the wood, he would come across as an innocent tribal, who has no context of the world around him. The gun makes him a participant in a scheme, whereas the axe makes him a victim of the scheme. 

"I let the description stay with its mistake. 

"For me, it simply meant that for the tribal, nothing has changed."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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18. Prologue  

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" ... On one hand, there are Naxals who want this tribal to succumb to their absolute authority. On the other hand, there is Salwa Judum, who wants this tribal to surrender to their strategy to counter the Naxals. Then, there is the police which wants him to blindly follow their diktats. On the circumference of this nexus, there is a contractor who wants the tribal to stay mute to his exploitation. Together, they behave like an army. A force that is out to silence everyone. To take them to their camps and save them from an enemy that wants to take them to their camps. This nexus has become a killing machine. The forests of Dantewada have become the killing fields.

"We have many anecdotes recorded on my iPhone which narrate how Salwa Judum forced the tribal to go to their camps. We also have stories of how Naxals took away their young kids, trained them with guns when they had no idea why they were killing people. One uses violence to take them to the camps. The other uses violence to stop them from going to the camps. Thus ‘Camp’ is the dreaded word."

"‘The Salwa Judum leader burns the Naxal flag with his bidi.’"

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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19. I am a Bitch  

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"I am looking for an issue that can trigger off the spirit of activism in my protagonist. The humiliation of my table tennis friend at the two-wheeler stand in my college in Bhopal is fresh in my mind. To add to this, recently, in a Mangalore pub, a right-wing extremist group, Sri Ram Sene, led by Pramod Muthalik had beaten up some girls and pulled them out by their hair, for drinking and dancing and therefore violating Indian culture. 

"Subsequently, a consortium of 'Pub-Going, Loose, and Forward Women' started a ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign on social media. The novel form of protest was initiated by four women: Nisha Susan, Mihira Sood, Jasmeen Patheja, and Isha Manchanda. As the protest grew, pink underwear started pouring in from locations all over India in solidarity and thousands of pink chaddis were sent to Mutahilik's house, on Valentine's Day.  

"This campaign made an impression on me and helped me understand the power of social media. I want to use this real-life example to show how urban, modern, and educated girls are treated in our society. ... "

Anyone who highlighted that last sentence, is looking at things at the most superficial, shallowness level. Surprisingly, that includes Agnihotri, perhaps due to the trauma he suffered as a result of treatment of his friend. 

But anyone with slight distance from pubgoing crowd and familiar with India North of Vindhyas would know basic facts of life of females in India, and the huge difference between North versus South in that respect. 

In Delhi, the capital, college going girls weren't safe even in daylight in public buses and on roads. Not even with the said bus filled with "uncles", office commutrrs, most of them residents of out central government colony suburbs, colleagues and neighbours of our parents. 

If a boy bothered a girl in any way, they were silent, ignoring it. If she screamed and cried after he hit her back when she slapped him for groping, they spoke on his side. 

Later one saw lives of working women and housewives who weren't safe, either, whether going to work or simply through a neighbourhood market for necessary shopping for vegetables. This wasn’t limited to Delhi. Allahabad was worse, Lucknow the worst. Are other cities and villages North of Vindhya better? Perhaps, if at all, in erstwhile Maratha empire regions. 

But a clinching evidence here is Hindu weddings as routinely conducted, North versus South of Vindhya. 

A parallel example is the lightening speed with which hindu religious rituals are conducted in Gia, unlike the peaceful settled pace in Marathi or Tamil speaking regions, generally everywhere in regions of West or South India. This is result of centuries of Portuguese regimes oppression of Hindus, where police would arrive to disperse any such gathering and destroy the locale. 

Throughout the regions that were predominantly subjugated by islamic invaders, such weddings are conducted at night, and the bride departs early morning, with hardly one other female for company amongst the bridegroom party consisting chiefly or entirely of males. 

This speaks of a society used to abductions of young females by islamic invaders,  and need to conduct the wedding in dark, departing before light with dozens of msles protecting the few women. 

Weddings in South are, in extreme contrast, a feast for eyes of strangers, through the day and beginning the previous evening. In villages they used to be minimally week-long events. 

Bridegroom party does in South have all female relatives too, mother of bridegroom being of tremendous importance as someone to please. 

But one major ceremony is the previous evening procession of women, as friends and relatives of the bride, all decked with flowers on hair and sumptuous gold and diamond jewellery, carrying platters of fruits, accompany the bride to a local temple, to pray for success of this marriage beginning next morning with wedding rituals. 

And the wedding is conducted at first light with people waking up before dawn to bathe and dress up, with sunrise usually seeing the new couple married. 

But thereafter it's not a hurried departure a la North. Celebration continues through the day, guest arriving for a morning felicitation as per Indian tradition, staying for lunch if invited, or an evening reception a la West with a minimal offering of a snack, a drink, perhaps ice-cream. This is the tapering off, before departure. The big events are the wedding at or before sunrise and the feast at lunch. 

In Maharashtra it was routine to conduct a parade of the couple through town, in a flower bedecked automobile proceeding very slowly while rest of family - rather, Two families - walked with them. 

So before one sympathizes with plight of pubgoing rich females, one needs to know that poor and middle class females North of Vindhya are safe going out yo school, college, work, shopping and even just for a stroll. 

Before conducting sympathy sessions for the pubgoing, know this - one, it's not about "urban, modern, and educated girls", few of whom go drinking in pubs; that campaign was generated by support from the loss to business of sellers of liquor. 

Nobody profits by conducting a campaign for rights of women to education, work or freedom from attack in public. Hence the plight of most women is invisible. Unheard of. 

When we were discussing it a couple of times with a visitor from North, their reaction was almost identical. Why foes a Ekman need to go out, was the response from male from Allahabad, late 1970s. Younger female from Delhi in early years of the new millennium said Delhi was perfectly safe, she usually only went out with other girls who lived nearby. 

But she was working in Bangalore, not in Delhi. 

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"We get in touch with Nisha Susan and request her to let us use 'Pink Chaddi'. We promise her due credit. She isn't happy with the fact that a man would fight for the cause. And 'why not a heroine' is what she argued with Ravi, my co-producer, who was coordinating with her, and due to her feminist ego, she refused to let us use the name. For some feminists, the entire movement rests on hating men. I can't change their mindset. I change the campaign to 'Pink Bra Campaign'.

"The second challenge is how to introduce these students. They aren't ordinary students. They are future CEOs of blue-chip corps. In my mind these young boys and girls are urban tribals – the lost and vulnerable youth, going nowhere. Like the tribal, this youth has no context of India's real issues and all they are pursuing is a flashy job and a merry lifestyle with teenager-like freedom in some rich country. 

"If I have to pick up the most powerful images from my stay at the ISB hostel, it would be weed, beer, smoke, and cuss words. ... "

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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20. The Secret Game  

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"While doing my research at ISB, I made friends with a lot of professors. One of them played poker almost every night with the students. He was a sweet guy with radical ideas that he discussed with me at length. Two of his theories stayed with me. One, all CSR activities must result in profits. Second, that corruption in a developing economy, like ours, is good and works like a tonic. 

"Since the time I started watching movies, it has been professed that corruption is bad. What if the professor says that the 'corruption is good' and convinces the audience? This is a disruptive idea. Introducing an economics professor in a top B-school speaking in favour of corruption is a real, honest, fearless eye-opener, and a unique idea. It fits our mantra. 

"When the professor says, 'corruption is like tonic', the hero questions him, ‘Isn't it time to change this tonic?’ 

"'In a classroom discussion, Vikram Pundit questions the professor’s theory on corruption. Professor sees sparks of socialism in Vikram and invites him to his chamber.'"

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The next part was easy. All I had to do was write down my own experiences. Like my drama mentor the professor gives him a file titled 'Buddha In A Traffic Jam'. Zorba becomes Buddha but he is still stuck in a jam. 

"My hero Vikram Pundit doesn't sleep that night and keeps reading the professor's writings, doing his own research. What he discovers changes him. He discovers two different Indias within one. One drinking Coca-Cola and the other dying of thirst. One India is covered with gold jewellery and the other stripped off clothes and dignity. One is an India that's the beneficiary of reforms and the other India is full of socio-economic orphans, rejected by all the mainstream political parties.

"He starts writing blogs, speaking about a repressive State apparatus that helps keep this exploitative system going. 

"‘Vikram Pundit, with his revolutionary ideas, becomes a strong influencer and a strong anti-establishment voice on social media.'"

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"I still remember that an NSUI leader Saingar Bhai had caught me by my collar, in front of the entire college and threatened to cut me to pieces if I didn't stop my anti-establishment speeches in the garb of Jokers' Party. I remember all the girls looking at me, standing around an old banyan tree and holding its branches as if those branches were their shields. I could see fear in their eyes. 

"Fear has always provoked me. ‘You can cut me to pieces but can't stop what has been started by us.’ Saingar Bhai left my collar, combed his hair with an Ajanta comb, and spoke with a grin, ‘You talk too much. Let me start with stopping that first.’ Then he slapped me. Really hard. For the next few, weeks all I could hear was an annoying whistle in my ears. It wasn't a slap. It was fear injected into me. It wasn't a whistle. It was a siren against the freedom of expression.

"Vikram Pundit must also face resistance. While flirting with a lady in a bar, he is confronted by a man who threatens him with consequences. He orders Vikram to stop writing, speaking, and misguiding others."

" ... For a B-school student who has done his IIT, worked in a blue-chip Wall Street company, and has a price tag of seventy lacs per annum in the job market, such street-level goondaism can be nerve-wracking.

"Rohit wants him to react.  He wants him to pick up a fight. It's natural and obvious for a writer to think that way. But I have been in that situation. I am Vikram Pundit. I know how broken, how shattered, how demoralized, how scared and alone one feels. 

"Vikram goes back to his dorm and tears down all his research. He returns the file to the professor and tells him that the game is over. He had come here to learn business and not to become an activist. 

"The professor smiles. ‘You have won the game, Vikram,’ he says."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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21. The Potters’ Club  

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"As a CSR activity, the professor mentors a pottery club run by his wife, Sheetal. The pottery enthusiasts make pots which are purchased by the government and the monies raised are donated to an NGO working in Bastar for tribal welfare. The NGO is run by Charu, the professor’s protégé.

"This idea of the Potters’ Club came from my growing up days. I grew up in a colony of IAS and IPS officers. My father was the only educationist amongst them. I remember, many IAS officers’ wives used to run pottery or handloom workshops, where they would get poor potters or weavers to create products to be sold in exhibitions as a formality and the remaining produce, the bulk of the total production they would sell to their husband’s department. No other country can match us in inventing novel ways of corruption. Sheetal Batki is a similar middle-aged, bored housewife, who uses her husband's office for profit and to look empowered and busy. Ironically, her need to create a social space separate from her husband’s, depends on her husband's official position. Sheetal Batki is an arts graduate who worked as a curator in Delhi’s Modern Art Gallery and then married a much older professor, Ranjan Batki. To kill her time, she started pottery with the tribal artisans and using her husband’s influence she sells it to the government’s department of social welfare. The money raised is then donated to an NGO, Green Commando.

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"On the occasion of the inauguration of the yearly edition of the Potters’ Club, the professor introduces Vikram to Sheetal who turns out to be the same lady that Vikram was flirting with. They will establish an undefined, unexplained intellectually charged relationship. 

"Here, Vikram also meets an Inspector General of Police, based after a real-life hero, KS Vyas, IPS, the man behind the Greyhound forces. In 1993, Naxals killed Vyas. The hitman, Nayeemuddin, turned approver and helped the force to kill and nab many Naxals.

"In an informal chat with the IGP, Vikram learns that the casualties due to the Naxal insurgency are at least ten times higher than the casualties in the Kargil war.

"‘Now you tell me, where is the real war going on and who is our real enemy?’ the IGP asks Vikram."

"As soon as the exhibition is inaugurated, a senior government official informs the professor that the government has stopped all its grants. The NGO Green Commando works in the Red Corridor in Bastar and has been banned. Thus, his department will no longer be able to buy their pottery as the beneficiary of the profits is the NGO. Also, the existence of this NGO depends on the money generated by selling the pots to the government. The professor has already committed this money. He is in a dilemma. 

"He puts this academic challenge in front of his students, to work out a business plan to raise the amount committed to the NGO. 

"Vikram Pundit takes up the challenge."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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22. Finding Buddha  

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"‘Out of one rupee, not even ten paisa reach the tribals. ... "

"Where should Vikram Pundit go from here? ... "

"Rohit and I go out of the office. ... He tells me that there is a video clipping which is going viral. 

"A Pakistani TV reporter called Chand Nawab is covering the Eid traffic at a railway station in Karachi and every time he begins to speak, a passenger crosses the camera. Chand’s rendering is very unusual and funny. It cracks me up. And then suddenly something strikes me. 

"Strikes me? Or Vikram Pundit?  

"What if Vikram gets the idea while watching this video? It will be a great transition from the previous scene which is too verbose and serious."

"Vikram is in the shower, confused, while his friends are watching Chand Nawab’s video and rolling on the floor laughing. Amongst the laughter all around him, Vikram finds his Buddha.’ 

"Vikram rushes to the professor’s house and tries to understand the business part of pottery, where Sheetal tells him that these pots are unique as this art is unadulterated, uninfluenced by any other culture. In most of the world’s art, there are influences of other cultures as people travelled and picked up motifs, styles, and images from different cultures and incorporated them in their pottery. But the art of this pottery, which is believed to be from Buddha’s time, is untouched by outside influence. Not because the tribal protected it from any influence. Because no one ever went where these tribals live. No one. Ever. 

"‘‘It’s very difficult to sell these pots as in a world of adulteration, purity looks impure.’ Sheetal believes it's not possible to sell these pots as no one is interested in these pots. 

"But Vikram Pundit believes otherwise."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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23. Freakonomics  

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"Vikram works day and night connecting the dots to solve the Naxal issue and finally identifies that the middlemen are the biggest roadblock. He makes a presentation to the Executive Council where he proposes that the fastest and surest way to kill Naxalism in the tribal areas is to have a business solution which can be achieved by wiping out the middlemen who siphon off more than ninety percent of a tribal’s income. He recommends that the Pottery Club should connect the tribal directly with his consumers, by hosting his products on an e-commerce portal. 

"Rohit and I end up writing a ten-page monologue. I read the monologue and Rohit edits it. Then we do a role reversal. Finally, we have a short, crisp, and comprehensive presentation ready for Vikram Pundit. Interestingly, this didn’t come from the ISB professors or the scholars. This solution came to two film writers while eating golgappas from a street vendor, next to my office, on a dull afternoon. We sit till 3 AM to fine-tune the presentation.

"Sir, we do the entire marketing, selling, and transporting from IIB. By creating a perception value of 100 dollars, all we need is 10 dollars to execute it. We have everything here to make it happen. And the tribal will get the remaining 90 if we remove the middlemen from his life. Don't you think we can bring about an economic revolution? Yes, we can eliminate Naxalism by bringing this economic revolution! 

"(Vikram turns his laptop towards the dean) 

"Sir, I have created an entire application. I have tied up with eBay. They are ready to host us. It is just a click away. You click this tab and we go online. It’s a bidding process. I am sure the figure Professor Batki said can be achieved and even more."

"Vikram’s solution will become the professor’s problem. He isn’t ready for this. His interest lies in the NGO, whereas Vikram is proposing to eliminate the middlemen. The NGO is the middle agency. If the council approves his recommendations and the institute decides to transfer the money directly to the potter’s account, the NGO becomes redundant. How would this affect the professor, and eventually his wife, is what we need to develop.

"We are more than halfway through the film. It’s a big relief to be out of the web of research and being able to concise it in 60-odd pages. It feels like I was drowning and struggling to somehow come above the water and breathe. Just once. Breathe. But the real challenge begins now. One has to now swim across the ocean and there is no horizon in sight, forget a seashore.   

"'Professor rejects Vikram's ideas.'"

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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24. Left Out  

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"Vikram Pundit has also become one of them. He questions Charu's silence on the professor's rejection of his brilliant idea. Especially when she claims to work for the Adivasis’ cause. 

"'Wasn't it your fucking job to help Adivasis?' 

"Charu shows her helplessness. 

"Sheetal questions Batki's real motive. 

"‘After a showdown with the professor, she shuts down The Potters’ Club.’ 

"This shuts Vikram's hope. The professor questions Vikram and doubts his integrity. He tells Vikram that he was asked to make a marketing presentation but this had political undertones.  'I won't let you actualize your political ambitions.' Vikram is left cornered. Alone. Helpless. Like any disruptive idea."

" ... We decide that Vikram will go ahead with the eBay auctions and take on the system directly."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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25. Lal Salaam  

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"The Naxals do not tolerate critics. People who criticize them for killings, extortion or other abuses suffer threats and warnings. According to one local activist, ‘The Maoists kill people, saying that they are police informers. They killed one man, who was doing good work on health and education, because he had a cell phone, and was, therefore, a police informer. Everyone has a cell phone these days. Will they kill everyone?’ 

"So great is the fear of Naxals that most of the activists did not wish to be identified when they described threats and abuses. Said one tribal activist from Chhattisgarh: 

"‘This is a fight over tribal land. All of them, the Maoists, security forces, companies, and government are there for their own benefit. Why are the Naxals in our area? For us? No! Not for us. They want our jungles for hideouts. ... All they care about is what lies beneath our soil, the minerals. When we speak for the tribal rights, they get angry. They don’t care about the people who live on the land. They only care about money.’"

"A jeep arrives as the officer is shot. From the jeep steps out our professor and Charu. The professor, the Naxal leader, and Charu's NGO work in tandem to further their war on the State. The leader says that commissions have been committed and money has to be organized."

"The Naxal leader warns the professor that Vikram's idea of web auction will empower the tribal and that is against their strategy. He tells the professor about the Politburo’s decision. 

"‘Ask Vikram to stop it or kill Vikram.’

"Charu is assigned the job of kidnapping Vikram with his laptop and bring him to the jungles where the leadership will take a call. Obviously, kill him.

"This was the most challenging chapter so far. I am happy that we cracked it. I am proud that every single line in this chapter is authentic. It's so honest that after reading it, my assistant says that she can't trust anyone anymore. We know we have cracked it. 

"‘Professor gives his cap to a young tribal kid and says “Lal Salaam”. The naked kid salutes him back and screams “Lal Salaam”.’"

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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26. Blink  

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"We now know that the professor is an Urban Naxal who uses Charu’s NGO to route funds to arm Naxals in Bastar where they use it to run their mafia in tandem with the businessmen, contractors, police, Salwa Judum, and NGOs. The professor has used his wife and Vikram for this seditious act. Vikram's idea to empower the tribal has jeopardized their work of thirty years. 

"The plan is to kidnap Vikram and eliminate him.

"Sheetal is the moral fulcrum of the film. She gets to know about the plan. She reveals it to Vikram. 

"‘They are everywhere. Anyone can be a Naxal. If my husband can be a Naxal then your father can also be a Naxal. So, run. Run away.’"

"Kabir Kala Manch is the Naxals’ urban cultural arm. It's time to pay a tribute to it. I decide to use it metaphorically. We set this chapter in the background of a cultural evening where a revolutionary play is staged by the students who are all protégés of the professor.

"When Sheetal asks Vikram to run away he is faced with the biggest of human tragedies. He can't trust anyone. Should he run away from this deceitful, ugly, bloody world which wants to suck him up or confront them? If he confronts them what would be his weapon? A weapon or his courage? What if instead of running away, Vikram surrenders to Charu and thus, tests both his and her character to discover the truth at both ends? Humanity can't be fully dead. There must be some conscience. Some feelings. Some hope."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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27. The Tao of Revolution  

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" ... To Naxals, revolution is about hoisting their red flag atop Red Fort. Mao had believed that if in the process innocents have to bleed it's justified for a larger purpose of revolution. 

"What is the purpose of this film? Is it just to expose the nexus?"

" ... Charu believes in Naxalism because that's what she has learnt from the professor who represents India's biggest challenge – intellectual terrorism. 

"It's her moment of realization.

"‘Charu sacrifices her life to save an idea called Vikram.’"

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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28. Epilogue  

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"We know that Vikram has to kill the professor. Kill the revolution. But every idea we think of has been used in some film or the other. That's all we have done in the climax of Bollywood films, either made the boy win the girl or made the hero kill the villain.

"In the meantime, Mr. Anupam Kher's manager Bhaskar Shetty calls me and fixes up a meeting with Mr. Kher and I have no climax. I can't narrate the film without a climax."

" ... The metro construction, the traffic, the roads, the honking, and the heat. As I wait, I notice a blind beggar singing a Mukesh song 'Sajan re jhoot mat bolo, khuda ke paas jaana hai, wahan na hathi na ghora hai, wahan paidal hi jana hai’—we all go to God on foot. I am from the Kishore Kumar era. I never liked this song despite its wonderful lyrics. But this the beggar’s song has touched me somewhere. Is it his voice? His expressions? His involvement? His oneness with the song? Or my frame of mind? Or all of the above? I open the window. Hot air brushes against my cheeks. My SUV fills with blaring sounds – honking, screaming vendors, the metro's construction, azaan, and his singing. Slowly, every other sound fades off and all that remains is his soulful singing. I find my song."

"What will a hero who wants to disrupt a corrupt system do? What would a man of ideas do? 

"Only an idea can kill an idea. I have got my climax.

"He won't take out a gun. He would take out an iPad and with his app he will connect the tribal with the world market and bring in money to his doorstep. I had read that all value systems are functions of the economic system. Money in the tribal's hand will be an economic revolution which will destroy the Naxal armed revolution. An idea will kill an idea. A revolution will kill a revolution. 

"In the next twenty minutes, I type out a seven-page climax full of the professor's monologues on revolution and just one page of dialogues for Vikram who makes the professor surrender to his idea."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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29. Casting: The Art and the Science  

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"They say writing a script is half the battle won. Once you start casting, you learn that the real battle has begun now."

"I am going to cast the professor first – Anupam Kher. 

"Back in the late 90s, when I wanted to diversify from ad filmmaking to directing television shows, Kher saab gave me a platform. ... My first serial was called Yeh Kahan Aa Gaye Hum. It was a musical thriller, for almost all episodes had songs and it boasted of being India's first digital TV show (in those times U-matic and Betacam were in fashion) and a stellar star cast consisting of Pallavi Joshi, Nikki Aneja, Girish Malik, Renuka Shahne, Makrand Deshpande, Rohini Hattangadi, Tinu Anand, Sulbha Deshpande and many young TV stars. There was a tall boy who I had seen struggling to work in Pallavi's earlier serial Aarohan. I had liked him a lot, so I cast him in a leading role. He later became a superstar in the South. He was R. Madhavan."

" ... Home TV was headed by Karan Thapar, who had a concept of how a CEO of an entertainment channel should behave and dress up but he had no idea about the qualities a CEO must possess. ... In the several meetings that I had with Karan, I could sense that his reason for commissioning the serial had nothing to do with its content but with the fact that he wanted to use it as a bait for Kher saab to do a chat show for his channel.

"In those days, film celebrities weren't keen on doing TV and Karan was going out of his way to persuade Kher saab. These were my first learnings in the film industry. I learnt that the content is secondary and personal benefits are supreme. ... Once he got Kher saab committed to a chat show, Karan's behaviour changed. For one of the meetings, which could have been done on phone, he insisted that I meet him in his Delhi office. ... He made us wait for hours – the first sign of territorial assertion. Finally, we met him. He was dressed like a typical bada saheb from the colonial era with a twist in the colours. He wore a greyish suit and a bow with pink stars. His socks were fluorescent pink and yellow with parrot green polka dots. He spoke at length about how he wanted to revolutionize Indian TV. Every wannabe has a role model. In Karan's case, it was BBC. He told me that my serial was of BBC standard but it had a problem which he wanted to fix.

"‘Vivek, I like the serial but I have a problem with the casting,’ Karan took me by surprise. 

"‘But this is the best casting possible… it's like a casting coup.’ 

"‘Rest are fine, but I don't like Pallavi.’ 

"‘What? Really?’ 

"‘Yeah, change Pallavi.’ 

"‘Why? She is a TV star and national award winner. She is one of the best we have got.’ 

"‘But she is dark. I want someone fair,’ Karan said without hesitation."

"‘Goodbye, Mr. Thapar’. 

"As expected, Karan shelved the serial. In times like these, producers choose to side with the channels. Kher saab stood by me. And it was his unconditional support that helped me get the serial commissioned by Zee TV within the next few days. Yeh Kahaan came to be known as one of the most stylish serials ever. During that period, I learnt a lot from Kher saab, especially his positive attitude and fearlessness, and made a bond for life."

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"‘I have no issues with negative characters. Some of my best roles are negative.’ 

"‘Yes, I know, but it's not that kind of negative.’ 

"This catches his attention. 

"I narrate the script to him. He listens quietly. Narration is a very tricky task. In Bollywood, stars don't read scripts. They mostly listen to narrations. Narrating a film to a star is something almost every director hates. Stars are so bored, so uninvolved that every moment feels like death. I have never understood why stars are so uninterested in their core job. But actors like Kher saab are a delight to narrate the script to. ... They are involved. They react. They don't judge.

"I finish the narration in precisely forty-five minutes. Experienced actors decide in the first ten minutes of the narration. As soon as I finish, he takes a deep breath and relaxes in his chair.  

"‘Kya aatma ki shanti ke liye bana rahe ho?’

"‘Don't know about soul but I am making it because truth must be told… that's all I know at this moment.’ 

"‘Marwaoge,’ he smiled in his typical style and added, ‘Punditji, I am doing your film.’"

"I have learnt that once someone buys your sales pitch, you should leave immediately. My problem is I want to request him to give me a discount on his price and I don't know how to approach the subject. Finally, I give in. 

"As I am about to leave, he stops me. 

"‘Vivek, don't worry about money. I'll talk to Bhaskar. You must know why I want to do this film. I want to do this film because I can see the hunger in you.  In every director's life comes a point when he finds his sur, his song. This film is your song. I can feel it.’

"I am speechless. Not because of the praise. I have no words to describe the feeling when a creative person understands your inner voice."

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"Bhaskar calls me at night. Instead of negotiating any fees with me, he asks me to give whatever we could afford. 

"‘In fact, Kher saab said that if there is anything we can do to help you make this film, please do not hesitate to ask.’ 

"Anupam Kher is a good man and such moments are rare in this industry. I am going to cherish it and miss him, especially at times when I am going to miss good men."

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"It's time to crack other casting options. We don't have money for a casting director so we start casting ourselves. My assistants are extremely resourceful. We audition Rajkumar Rao, Deepak Dobrial and many other young and emerging actors for the role of Vikram Pundit but none fit the bill. We need someone who looks very urban, US-returned and a bit un-Indian in approach but very believable and dependable at the same time. When in the climax, he holds the professor’s neck, people should believe that he is going to kill him instantly."

Wonder why they didn't think of SSR, Vivek Oberoi, or Madhavan? 

Prabhas?

" ... When I joined this industry, people used to say about stars, ‘Kya acting hai’. Now they say, ‘Kya body hai’. Most of these aspiring actors have the same body, same body language, same stance, and same mannerisms. They have the same routine: Get up, drink protein, go to a gym, drink protein, eat protein, run, swim, drink protein, eat protein. In the process, they have become proteins. A muscular mass of protein. They are muscular but weak. They are handsome with zero personality. They are trendy but style-less. They look dehydrated. They feel lifeless. ... "

Surely not all? Not ones mentioned above, and few others of best, despite the muscles? 

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"The ones who are great actors don't look like they belong to ISB. They fit more in a government college. Students in ISB have worked for a couple of years in big multinational corporations and their entire conduct is like that of a senior corporate executive."

" ... But time doesn't care about rules and we have no time. Just one week. It's almost midnight. I remember I have to go to a party. Bollywood parties begin after midnight. 

"In general, I don't like parties. Besides being too noisy and fake, they also screw up the next day. But in times like these, when I am failing to solve a problem, such parties help me de-stress and get a break from the problem."

" ... I turn around and find Shanoo Sharma. Shanoo tells me that she has started her own casting agency and she is casting for Sudhir Mishra, Dharma Productions, and Yash Raj Films. I had met her long back in a beach party of one of my assistants. She came across as a real Bohemian with tattoos, piercings and zero size hair. She struck me with her liveliness and laughter. She is Mukesh's granddaughter. ... "

"‘Let the money not stop you from great casting. You don't have to pay me anything. Just tell me.’ 

"I briefly describe my characters to her. 

"As soon as I finish she stubs her cigarette and her eyes light up. 

"‘I will send two people you can't say no to. They are made for this film.’ 

"‘Really, do I know them?’ 

"‘Perhaps not. For the hero, you trust me with your eyes closed… there is this boy, he is just back from the USA… Indian boy, did college there… he is a politician's grandson… he has done a film Yeh Saali Zindagi with Sudhir sir… the movie is releasing soon. He will do justice to this role… he is just perfect.’ 

"‘But I don't have…’ 

"‘Sir, don't bother about money,’ she interrupts. ‘That's secondary… whatever you can afford you tell me… he isn't money-minded… also, he listens to me.’ 

"His name is Arunoday Singh, she tells me."

"We move towards the door. She walks in but I stop at the door. 

"Suddenly, I don't want to party. I am feeling relaxed after a long time. I am hopeful. I know in my guts that this party can only disturb that. I call the valet and ask him to get my car. As I wait for the car I realize two things: 

"One, whatever quality this industry produces is because of people like Shanoo who want good films to be made. It's due to the indirect contribution of such people that we make some good films. When your intent to make a good film is firm, you start attracting such people in your ecosystem. The people we find in our lives are there to help us actualize an intent.

"Two, I have met Shanoo only outside bars."

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"For Charu's character, I need a face which reflects both; her buoyancy as well as the pain. She should be compassionate. She should be ruthless. Both require intensity. Maturity.

"I remember the face of a girl from Rakesh Omprakash Mehra's Dilli 6, who never speaks in the film but carries a lot of pain around her. She portrayed it with a kind of numbness which I had found very interesting. I ask one of my assistants to google her. He tells me her name is Aditi Rao Hyadri and he can reach her. Aditi is a vibrant girl and also a trained dancer. A background in dancing always helps as it brings in rhythm in the actor's movements. We do four-five auditions with her and with each audition, she appears better. I am keen to cast her but her managers have quoted a fee which is illogical, unrealistic and way beyond our budget. A lot of talented actors have not succeeded despite goodwill and critical acclaim because of wrong financial strategies. ... ""

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" ...When Arunoday enters my room, I keep looking at his height. There are tall people and then there are some people who stand tall. My second connect is that he is also from Bhopal. He is the grandson of Congress veteran, the late Arjun Singh, and son of the leader of Madhya Pradesh's main opposition party, Congress. ... "

"‘I am doing the film.’"

"‘I don't know if Shanoo told you we are working on a shoestring budget.’

"‘No issues. You pay me whatever you can afford.’ 

"I lean back in my chair and take a deep breath. I realize I have put all my cards on the table. 

"‘Is there anything you would want to ask?’ I ask him. 

"‘Yes, when do we start?’"

................................................................................................

" ... Satya, my associate director and editor, has auditioned more than a hundred people for the small but very important roles of the Naxal leader and the Salwa Judum official. Both the characters have to speak in their native language and must look like they haven't been out of the jungles in ages. He shows me shortlisted tests but none are working.  Most of them are too urban with big biceps. Those who are good actors look well-fed and successful. The film begins with both these characters and the actors will have to hold the scene for almost fifteen minutes. You can't just select anybody as the opening batsman."

" ... This fusion of styles is so funny that one can't just stop laughing. Other assistants also come in to participate in this laugh riot. I am feeling lighter after laughing for the five minutes of audition. Then, something strikes me. 'Why do we laugh when we meet real people?' 

"This man can easily be an RTO officer or a food inspector in a village in Chattisgarh. He is perfect for that role. Why can't he be a Salwa Judum official? A man who has always lived in the jungles and has no urban influence would look funny in an urban setting. I ask everyone to shut up and play the tape again. The 'De-stress' folder literally de-stressed me. I also find my Naxal leader in an actor called Gopal Singh. He is in the 'de-stress' folder too for he is very skinny and tall. Since the assistants see only well-built people for auditions, they found him very funny. The sad part of the film business is that we spend so much time with the unreal that when faced with the reality, we find it funny. His lanky figure is my asset. Normal thinking dictates a Naxal leader to be like a dacoit – well-built and strong. I know that these Naxals have to survive for weeks on red ant chutney. Gopal’s skinny frame becomes his asset. Indel’s ruralness becomes his asset. One never knows when his weaknesses can become his assets. I have found both my actors."

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"My next meeting is with Swara."

"She came across as a strong, energetic, and hard-working person. I remember, on the closing night, she sang revolutionary songs, which at that time I didn't know were propaganda songs of Naxals. In a night of unlimited drinks and music, everyone joined in chorus when Swara sang Faiz Ahmad Faiz's revolutionary song on freedom, now the anthem of Naxals, popularized by the Naxals’ cultural front in urban India, Kabir Kala Manch, and its arms: ... "

"Swara is here to be auditioned for Pooja's character. Pooja represents the urban tribal – the marginalized, lost and forgotten urban population which is exploited by everyone. She represents the majority of our girls who are constantly being bullied, shunned and exploited by everyone, irrespective of their financial strata. Pooja is a moneyed kid, who hangs around with MBA students whereas she herself isn’t chasing any career. She has no focus on her own life. She has no views, no opinions, and no direction. She is going nowhere. She is an urban tribal. 

"Swara is just the opposite of Pooja. Swara is strong, opinionated, focussed, aggressive and in control of her life. Though Shanoo has recommended her very strongly, I am not sure how she will portray the meek character of Pooja. Swara is very excited about the theme of Naxalism and believes that more films must be made on this subject. I ask her to listen to the script and send her to Rohit's cabin for a complete narration."

"We discuss politics for hours. She doesn't discuss the script with me but I can see that she is not very comfortable with our stance on Naxalism. It’s rare to meet politically aware actors in Bollywood and I love to discuss politics. Rohit's stress is my delight. She asks me many questions about the production, marketing, and the music. 

"‘I can introduce you to a very talented music director… his name is Rohit Sharma and he has already done music for an upcoming film called Ship of Theseus.’ 

"‘Sure, I am looking for offbeat music directors. Can you send him tomorrow?’ 

"She calls and fixes up a meeting with Rohit Sharma.

"‘Rohit Sharma, a few more of our friends and I run a small band called Swang,’ Swara informs me. 

"I figure out that this band mostly performs anti-establishment and pro-Naxal songs. Over extended meetings, I learn that Swara's mother heads the film department at JNU. She has grown up in JNU, listening to a certain narrative. Now it's easy for me to understand her stance."

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"I have to yet cast for Charu and the professor's wife's character. Who can be my Charu? ... "

"Why not Mahie Gill?

"Mahie enters with a smile, which keeps becoming bigger and more beautiful. Mahie's smile is innocent and her body language very sensuous. Her rawness is her sex appeal. She is a desi woman, simple and happy. Unlike most of the women stars who always look hassled and dissatisfied with life and irritated with people. Mahie tells me that she had been wanting to work with me and she had also auditioned for Goal. I feel guilty for not remembering such a talent. She likes the character; she is free on those dates and is willing to accept whatever money I offer her. For a moment I feel as if God is playing a prank on me. This perhaps is the easiest casting in a journey full of struggle, hardship, and hurdles. I know, in Mahie, I have found a friend for life."

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"We still have to cast for Sheetal, the professor's wife. For Sheetal, I had met a couple of reputed senior actresses but they were not willing to compromise on their fees. ... I wasn't surprised at all when this tall, sultry, award-winning actress who has done a lot of commercial films but is known for her arty roles, told me that all she cares about is money and if I could get her the desired money I don't even have to bother about narrating the story or the character to her."

Is Agnihotri refraining from naming a descendant of an Aligarh professor, mentioning the powerful names being taboo? 

"It's a nuanced role that deserves an experienced actor who can subtly draw the line between her outgoing, flirtish behaviour and her deep empathy for a cause. I don't have many choices. In fact, none."

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"I have many guests at home. My house parties are famous for long discussions on films, politics and spirituality, and Bhopali meat. Very often, these discussions turn into arguments. Today's argument is about the CWG and 2G scams. Like always, it shifts from politics to films. I am always at the centre of any discussion but today I am just not interested. It's like noise. I am thinking about my immediate problems at hand. How do I adjust the fifty-lac gap in the budget and where do I find my Sheetal? I excuse myself and shift to my study and start juggling with the budget on my laptop. Knowing well that this exercise won't lead me anywhere. I am dejected, frustrated and stressed. 

"I call Ravi and tell him that there is no way I can cut down the budget. 

"‘Should I stop casting? What's the point if we can't afford these actors?’ I share my worries with Ravi. 

"‘No, Vivek, we just can't do that.’ 

"‘How can you have the cake and eat it too? Either you can have these actors or the budget.’ 

"‘What do you think we should do?’ 

"‘There is no point making a film on this subject if the audience can't invest in the characters and therefore the actors become crucial for the film to communicate with the audience.’ 

"My problem is what should be the problem of any filmmaker: how to communicate through casting? All the research, hard work, creativity, scripting and money go waste if the cast is not right. Good casting can sometimes save even a bad film but not the other way around."

"‘Vivek, you go ahead with the casting, I'll write to all ISB alumni and more AIKYA families. I'll also try for sponsors but you go ahead, I'm sure something will work out,’ Ravi tries to assure me. 

"‘What if nothing works out?’ I ask Ravi.  

"‘We haven't come thus far to stop here. We have come thus far to go further,’ Ravi tells me."

"Suddenly, there is silence outside. I go out to check if everyone has left. I come out to find everyone engrossed in Pallavi's singing. She is singing Faiz Ahmad Faiz's revolutionary poem: 'Hum Dekhenge… Lazim hai ke hum bhi dekhenge, wo din ke jis ka wada hai, jo lauh-e-asal mein likha hai… hum dekhenge' We shall witness, it is certain that we too, shall witness the day that has been promised, of which has been written on the slate of eternity.

"This is one of my favourite nazms and it also has a nostalgic connect as it was introduced to me by a Pakistani girl whom I almost married. Besides being a poet and a great singer, she was a Communist and during Zia Ul Haq's tyrannical dictatorship she went underground and spent a lot of time with me in Delhi. When I had visited Lahore, she gave me a cassette with the live recording of this nazm sung by Iqbal Bano. Pallavi learnt this song from that recording I had saved despite the invasion of CDs. Pallavi notices me and smiles at me. Such moments, when a singer looks at you in the audience and without speaking, just with the eyes, communicates the highest form of sharing, are rare and beyond description. Such sharing is not just romantic, it's reassuring and soulful.

"I sit down and surrender myself to amazing lyrics of Faiz and Pallavi's soulful voice. Slowly, all my stress and frustration is disappearing. Long after the song is over and others have started singing, I keep looking at Pallavi and wonder why was I looking for the diamond all over the planet when it was in my own house.

"Why did I not think about casting Pallavi in Sheetal's role? After we got married, Pallavi decided to focus on our children and from working round the year without any break she cut it down to just shooting a day or two in a month. From a national award-winning actor and a busy star, she had chosen to become a wife and a mother. That was her choice but why did I choose to forget how fabulous an actor she is? In marriage, the biggest blunder we make is that we forget the core values of a person for which we marry him/her. I stand guilty.

"I call Rohit to share my eureka moment."

"‘Sir, I was wondering what if Pallaviji plays Sheetal?’

"I just can't believe it. Ideas float in the universe. People who are tuned on to a certain intent catch those ideas, often at the same time. Both Rohit and I were focused on a problem and, therefore, we could get the same idea at the same time. Coincidence? Or the unfolding of a design? 

"It's not easy to convince Pallavi. She asks lots of questions, not to judge you but in order to understand the subject and the character. I know Rohit hates it but we have no other option. She is also reluctant to leave the kids with the domestic help for a thirty-day-long outdoor schedule. It takes a lot of convincing before Pallavi agrees to make a comeback in films. After marriage, this is the first time I am going to direct Pallavi. A rare opportunity for a husband to direct his wife. And a great opportunity to work with such an accomplished actor. "

................................................................................................

"Finally, I have a cast in hand.  I call it a day."

"‘Sir, what about the Adivasi?’ Satya runs behind my car to remind me. 

"‘You don't bother about him. I have already found him.’ 

"'Who is he?’ 

"I remember Buddhe, the Adivasi who had been my guide during the research. Nobody can understand what he speaks. It's impossible to direct him as he doesn't understand what we speak. But there is one thing that only he has. His eyes speak. Like an uncorrupted Adivasi.  

"The real Adivasi."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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30. Music: The Third Eye of Cinema  

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" ... In fact, Bollywood has singularly contributed to the collective dumbing down, in collusion with the music companies. These companies are more thieves than music promoters, who have killed our rich music and replaced it with machine-made melodies. ... "

"The best barometer to test this hypothesis is the children’s reaction. Today’s children do not endorse such crappy work because they have choices on YouTube, iTunes, myriad TV channels, and various other social media platforms. Quality doesn’t exist in isolation. ... "

" ... It’s very rare to find memorable melodies which linger and unravel their layers, slowly, like matured wine. The lyrics are empty and the arrangement is desperate to make us dance. The so-called emotional songs are neither emotional nor musical."

Surprisingly, there are some good ones. 

"I have no scope for songs. Even if I want, I don’t have the money. ... I have only four lacs for the background music."

"I have always given a lot of importance to music in all my works and spent good money on recording songs. In my first serial, Yeh Kahan Aa Gaye Hum, I did over a dozen great songs with Pipi and the great poet Yogeshji. Pipi is Salil Chaudhary’s son and an extremely talented music director. He got his name because when he was born Salilda was composing in the hills and a PP (Person to Person) trunk call had to be booked to inform him. Pipi and I started our careers together. My first ad film as a producer/director was also his first as music director. When I made the serial, I brought him on board for the music. Together, we introduced a lot of talent.  Shankar Mahadevan used to sing jingles mostly and hadn’t got his big break in Bollywood. We did a lot of songs with him."

"Rohit Sharma is a very simple man and very non-filmy. Looking at his simplicity, I decide to lay all my cards in front of him."

"I start telling him more in detail about the bridges but soon I find myself narrating the entire script. The reason could be that he looks trustworthy and non-judgmental. It is not just a narration but a discussion. He is socially and politically very aware and understands poetry very well. After listening to the long narration, Rohit takes out a headphone and jacks it in his phone. 

"‘Please, listen to this.’ He plays a song on his phone.

"The song begins with beatbox, humming, whistling and abstract scanning until the vocals begin. The song which plays is a famous Faiz Ahmad Faiz nazm ... "

" ... Unlike Bollywood songs, here every word finds meaning. I know I want this song in my body of work. This is the first time in my career I have heard such an unusual composition. It’s so good, so ‘cool’ and so ‘zingy’."

"I need this song. I am wondering where to use it in the film. There is no space. No money. But I am greedy."

"‘But I don’t have space for songs.’ 

"‘But you have bridges…what if I create songs for those bridges which also help take the story forward and set the mood for the next chapter?’"

"‘I told you my budget. I can’t raise it even by a penny,’ I warn Rohit. 

"‘What if I do the songs in the same amount?’ Rohit tempts me. 

"‘I am not a novice. It’s not possible in this amount. You need an arranger, lyricists, singers, studios… impossible.’ 

"‘Sir, did you ever think that you can make a movie on such a shoestring budget? Still, you are making it possible because you want to do it badly, no? Similarly, I want to do it badly, so I will make it possible… I have my own studio, I arrange myself and most of the lyrics we write ourselves and we are a band so we sing also ourselves.’"

This Rohit Sharma isn't son of Shivkumar Sharma, was it?

................................................................................................

"Rohit meets me again but this time with a tall gentleman with a deep baritone. His name is Ravinder Randhawa. He is Swara’s live-in partner.  Their band Swang primarily creates leftist music, about the oppression of the tribals, jungle, and zameen, and other forms of class struggle. I have heard such songs in Kabir Kala Manch’s functions. Swara was singing some of these songs at the FTII golden jubilee function. After talking to Ravinder for some time, I realize that his politics is very clear in his head. He strongly believes in his radical leftist ideology and doesn’t care about another point of view. Strangely, the way Rohit and Ravinder have interpreted the film is not what I am making. My idea is to expose such people who support, overtly or covertly, the Naxal movement and here I am sitting with such persons asking them to do music for my film. I am stuck in a very delicate situation. 

"‘Look, I am not sure if you would like to work in this film as it’s opposite of the ideology you follow,’ I warn them. 

"‘This is our professional work and that is our personal belief and we won’t mix those two,’ Ravinder and Rohit both speak almost together.

"This is how we legalize hypocrisy. We write against the exploitation of women and at the same time we accept it in our workplace. The irony of Leftist intellectuals lies in its supporters like Ravinder. Here I am making a film to expose and crush Ravinder’s personal beliefs with a powerful medium like a film and he is willing to contribute to my cause on the pretext of professional ethics. Most of our Leftist leaders and intellectuals do the same. They fight for the weak and the poor and use this for their personal materialistic growth. It is this hypocrisy, disguised as professionalism, that makes them so rich."

" ... Rohit is a powerhouse of talent. So is Ravinder but I am not very comfortable with him as he is very reserved and doesn’t smile. I can’t trust people who don’t smile from their hearts. A smile is the most natural human trait. When someone doesn’t smile, he is behaving in an unnatural manner and one should be cautious of that. Leftists don’t smile much, as if it’s an ideological code. There are various codes that we follow. Some people stay away from non-veg food, whereas some avoid women at any cost. Nazis wore a stiff uniform and a stiff face. They never smiled. Similarly, I have observed that Leftists don’t smile. They have only one expression on their frowning faces – anger. Together, as a group, they give a sense of an army marching forward, in order to stop the ‘motor of the world’. They give an illusion of a mass movement for the empowerment of the weak but in reality, it is a mass movement against development.

"In the Naxal theatre, the antagonist isn’t the oppressor, it’s development. When they oppose development, the victim starts negotiating and that’s when they extort the victim to keep their bank accounts growing. If the ‘motor of the world’ stops, the Naxal movement will be the first victim. Gangsters use guns for extortion, Naxals use ‘anti-development’ protests. ... "

Naxals seem out to prove Ayn Rand correct to the last dot, unless she was just amazingly perceptive, especially regarding so-called leftists by any name. 

" ... Ravinder is reinforcing my findings with his ideas. He is making it sound as if the entire world is suffering. Yes, everyone is suffering, if you look at it from a pessimistic point of view. But if you look at the statistics of last fifty years, you will find clear indicators showing that poverty, hunger, famines, violence, discrimination have all gone down dramatically. Average lifespan has increased, man is more productive, people spend more on humanity. But these people paint a scenario where you feel helpless and in rage want to destroy the system. Exactly like media, which creates an illusion of mass outrage out of some stray individual, agenda-driven opinions.

"I narrate the script and ideology to Ravinder, who very patiently listens but again without a smile. Whenever ideological scenes come, he shifts his body weight. In the end, both of us sit as if a Hindu and a Muslim are sitting together for dinner and someone raises the question of cow. Or a pig. Ideological beliefs are stronger than religious beliefs. There is silence in the room. Before Rohit can break the awkward silence, in that short moment of stillness, I think about using his fire to my advantage. I decide to use ‘anti-thought’. I think whenever we transit to the chapters dealing with the Naxals, I can use his anti-State songs. But to ask him to write ten such songs for free will be absolutely unfair. What if I use Dushyant Kumar or Faiz poetry? Will I need to buy the rights? Aren’t they in the public domain? As I try to articulate these queries in my mind, Rohit smiles and leans forward. 

"‘Sir, what if we use a couple of Faiz songs, some folk songs, and rest Ravinder can write. In that way, I’ll be able to give you a song for almost every bridge.’

"‘What about rights?’ I ask immediately. 

"‘We had contacted Faiz Saab’s daughter in Lahore, we can talk to her again.’ 

"‘Great. Go ahead. But remember, I can’t increase the budget.’ I reiterate my financial limitation so that he doesn’t retain any hope of extra budgets. 

"We get the license from Faiz House for fifty thousand rupees. Instinctively, I want to go ahead even if there is no budget. In the worst-case scenario, I’ll pay out of my pocket and use it in some other film.

"‘Make it fifty-one thousand,’ I tell Rohit when he comes to sign the contract.  I don’t know whether to feel happy for getting such great literary work for so little or to feel sad that such heritage work of masters sells for such a tiny amount whereas trash sells for lacs."

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I fly to Hyderabad, one last time before the shoot, to resolve the suspense of fifty lacs.

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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31. Technology: The Second Pillar of Cinema  

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" ... I find myself walking to the Dean’s office with Ravi and Sandeep. On our way, we have a quick lunch at the canteen. The food is mostly south Indian but delicious. 

"‘How much does it cost you per meal?’ I enquire. 

"‘Dirt cheap…peanuts.’ 

"I make a quick mental calculation and figure out that if we can get the food for the unit at the same rate we will end up saving about two hundred rupees per person per day for hundred and fifty people for thirty-five days which equals a little more than ten lacs. 

"Ravi calls the contractor and we decide to meet after meeting the Dean and in the meantime, he will also work out his logistics. 

"‘Is it possible that we ask the Dean to not charge us for the location and the stay?’ I ask Ravi. 

"‘Impossible. Aamir Khan wanted to shoot 3 Idiots here but they refused. That they are letting us shoot itself is a big exception. Let’s not disturb that.’ Ravi tells me. 

"‘Something needs to be disturbed, if we have to make the film,’ I sigh."

................................................................................................

"‘Ok. Tell me. I have been very curious to know what these young men and women are up to,’ the Dean says with a smile. 

"I tell him the story, trying not to show the professor in a really bad light. He listens patiently with a child-like smile as if exploring a fantastical world of Disney characters. He asks some valid questions. His eyes light up when he hears me narrating how the hero wins the battle not with guns but his ideas. 

"‘Ideas… that’s what we need in this country. Nice, efficient, productive ideas.’ 

"‘Thanks.’ 

"‘Wonderful subject.  I also believe that the Naxal issue has only a business solution.’ He looks at Ravi and adds, ‘Great job. Let me know if you need anything from me. All the best.’"

"‘Actually, we need your help,’ I speak out of turn."

"‘Wait,’ the Dean addresses me. ‘Please tell me how I can help.’ 

"‘If you can give us a discount on the location fee and a rebate on the hostels for the crew’s stay, we can make the film without a glitch.’

"‘Absolutely no problem. I think this film must be made at any cost not because my students are involved in it, it must be made because it’s important.’ 

"He calls the administrative officer. 

"‘They will be shooting a film here. Let them use our facilities with no charge at all and if possible, provide them accommodation for a token amount.’ He looks at me, ‘Anything else?’ 

"‘No. Thanks a lot. I’ll remember this gesture all my life.’ 

"‘But I have one condition.’ 

"The next few seconds of suspense almost kill us. 

"‘I won’t allow generators, cables and lights on the campus.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Mr. Agnihotri, meet me when you are here to shoot. All the best, gentlemen.’ 

"The meeting has lasted only twenty-odd minutes but in these twenty minutes my faith in ‘good people’ has got reaffirmed." 

................................................................................................

"I calculate a saving of twenty-five lacs. If the caterer gives us food on subsidized rates we will save another ten. But we will still run short by fifteen.

"Ravi and others open beers to celebrate the financial assistance from the Dean but I am stressed as I don’t know how to shoot a film without lights and cables and generators. To make matters worse, my sound designer Girish is insisting that we do sync sound. He is assuring me that the sound quality will be substantially high with the sync sound. The only problem is that it costs a minimum of four lacs extra. Though I agree with him fully, my priority right now isn’t sound but the film itself. How to make it happen."

"It rained last night. Dry leaves of winter, burdened with dust and smoke, look washed off like a car looks after being washed off all the sticky dirt mud after a long drive. Leaves are shining like a bride’s skin just after her haldi ceremony. There is still some drizzle, so light that the wind is making it dance to its beats. The sprawling lawns look deep green under the cast of the dark clouds. Peacocks are singing. There is a small gap in the clouds through which filters the divine light of the morning sun. I wish I also find such a ‘ray of hope’. 

"I am impatiently drinking cup after cup of tea. ... Saini calls me.  

"‘Sir, I thought about it and if only we shoot on 5D cameras can we avoid the lights and generators. But we will need ultra-prime lenses,’ he tells me like nothing has changed between last night and now. Sometimes his simplicity is irritating."

"‘Saini, let’s rock it. If you are confident, so am I. I am back tomorrow, let’s meet in the evening and crack it.’ 

"‘Sir, if you are ready to do this, we will have to make some investment in equipment, like we will need a monitor, lens focus grid, a slider, and a grip for handheld shots.’"

"‘How much?’ 

"‘Approximately, eight to nine lacs but someone is coming from the US and if I get it from there we can get it in seven lacs. But he is leaving tomorrow so will have to tell him now. ‘"

"Ravi and Sandeep come from their class. Ravi informs me that they already had a long chat with the caterer and he needs some more details.  

"I give him details and he quickly does some calculations and puts a paper in front of me with some numerical values. 

"‘See, if you are not fussy about dishes, I can give you the same food that we give in the mess.’ He writes some figures and adds, ‘That way I can extend some further discount as I cook the same food with extra quantities so I have a marginal cost. I don’t want to make profits as Ravi told me it’s for a noble cause.’ 

"I am looking at his break-up. I am not interested in how much it costs me but how much the subsidy is going to save me. 

"‘If you don’t have a problem with eating simple food here in the mess,’ he continues, ‘I can save you one and half lacs,’ he takes a long pause and smiles. ‘Only if you have one full piece of prasad.’ 

"I take the biggest piece from the sweets box. 

"He writes 13.5 and circles it.  

"‘This is the best we can offer. That too because it’s for a noble cause and on top of that you ate full prasad.’ 

"From running over half a million short of the budget now I have an excess of one and a half lacs. These one and a half lacs sound more than a million."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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32. Production: The Spine of Cinema  

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"Swara has some questions. ... "

" ... she raises more doubts. As I try to answer her queries, she starts raising issues which I feel are beyond the scope of the script as they aren’t script-related but ideological disputes. ... "

"‘It’s our film, our ideology, our voice. She cannot piggyback her ideologies on us. If she is so convinced about her beliefs, she can make her own film,’ Rohit says and while getting up to leave, he adds, ‘I am not changing a thing in the script even if I have to fight with you forever.’ A convinced and driven co-writer is always an asset.

"‘It’s OK. You don’t have to think too much as I have decided to call her and tell her simply that no script-related changes can be considered at this stage. I am sure she will understand.’ 

"‘Sir, that exactly is the problem. She will understand for the time being as she can’t argue with you but later, while shooting, she will again raise them and she will keep raising doubts as she can never be convinced about a political stand that destroys the very premise of her political ideology.’ 

"This is the first time I have ever looked at an actor as an ideological entity. Aren’t actors supposed to act? Acting means pretending to be someone else and making people believe that you are what you aren’t. 

"‘Sir, if she continues to have issues with every damn thing on the sets, from the vanity van to what the professor says, then we are in big trouble,’ Rohit’s voice has an urgency and serious concern. 

"Deep down, I know that Rohit is making sense. ... "

"I call up my office and ask the production manager to stop Swara’s contract for some time. I have no idea who will replace her. I just can’t think of anyone who will fill into Swara’s shoes at such short notice, especially when I am not in Mumbai. I need to think of someone who will blindly follow me."

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"Rohit tells me that he will send the songs to me before the beginning of the shoot. This is the worst by-product of digital technology – late deliveries. He tells me that if I want another song for the lovemaking situation, it will cost me around three lacs more. 

"‘I just can’t afford it,’ I repeat myself. 

"‘Sir, please try to take out money from somewhere for I can guarantee that a song at that moment will take the film to a different level,’ Rohit pleads."

" ... Rohit suggests that he can sing for free if I want. But I am thinking of a female voice. A female singer who loves me unconditionally. Sometimes, we can’t find our glasses because we are wearing them, exactly like I couldn’t think of the only person who loves me unconditionally and is a great singer to top it. 

"‘Have you heard Pallavi sing?’ I ask Rohit. 

"‘Yes, on TV. But not in person.’ 

"‘You go and meet her today and listen to her. If you like her voice, let’s record it with her. If you have to pay someone for playing the harmonium, forget about him and request Pallavi as she can play the harmonium also.’"

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" ... Vikram Khakkar was trying to call me. He has recently got married to my niece Aanchal Dwivedi. I assume he must be calling from his honeymoon and would ask me to recommend some good eating joints. Wait, why didn’t I think of Aanchal? Aanchal is an established TV actress and that too of some calibre. She started her career with me. ... "

"‘Chacha, you have a blind follower in me. Tell me when do we start?’"

"Later, on the flight when the stewardess offers me a welcome drink, I ask her to give me a chocolate instead. I want to eat something sweet. Not because it’s customary to eat a sweet after a good act, I actually want to feel like those chocolate commercials, models who look ecstatic after eating chocolates. I want to feel like them. Happy. And ecstatic."

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July 13, 2022 - July 13, 2022. 

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33. The Shoot  

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" ... We are staying on the campus. Everyone is staying in dorms with four independent rooms and a common hall and a kitchen. Saini, the actors and I are living in independent one-room apartments. We are following the lifestyle of the students and most of their timings. Breakfast. Work. Lunch. Work. Chill on the lawns. Beer. Poker. Midnight parties. Sleep for a few hours. 

"My crew tells me that this is the first time they are working without regular shift timings. When you break the working norms, people become relaxed and work for their inner satisfaction. I can see the results. We are knocking off shots at a good speed and with better nuances. It’s more like a picnic. Some people have already started saying that this is the best shoot of their careers."

"Once ready, the shot looks wonderful. I am happy. Just for a moment. When Ravi and Sandeep called these students to be part of the crowd in the bar, he didn’t tell them it can take forever. They assumed that it will be a maximum of a couple of hours. These students work by the clock. They have scheduled stuff to do and now they are getting impatient. Despite a lot of pleading and persuading they aren’t ready to shoot. I use my ‘student’s mind’ and make an announcement. 

"‘Anyone who wants to have chilled beer and just have fun with us can stay and the rest can leave.’ 

"Only ten or fifteen students leave out of a hundred. The rest agree to stay back for two hours on the ups."

In Chhichhore, the gang gave milkshakes. 

"If the students have to be let go in two hours we can’t shoot too many angles. Also, they are not actors. We can’t have too much movement of characters as the focus is very critical and complex in 5D cameras. I decide to shoot the entire scene in one go. This is the advantage of digital technology. I have shot all my films on 35mm film where every foot counts. The band plays real-time. The audience reacts real-time. Aanchal dances real-time. We knock off the entire scene in no time. We still have one hour and a song to shoot. I decide to continue this style of ‘capturing the act’ rather than constructing it.

"It’s a film of students and I have real students whose real behaviour cannot be matched by extras. One of the reasons this scene is working out is because of amazing chemistry between the students and Arunoday. He spent the last couple of days in classrooms and evenings with the students. Also, he looks and talks like one of them. Aanchal is like water. She merges with the environment. I give her dialogues and ask her to speak the way she would speak in real life. The students actually start pulling her leg and the scene turns out to be outstanding. ... "

"Aanchal has no idea how to react to this unusual style of shooting. I say ‘Action’, she gets on the top of her act and dances so naturally that everyone forgets that it’s a shoot. Students are already high with the free beer and no one is performing anymore for the camera. When the camera stops existing in a performer’s mind is when he performs best."

" ... For the first time in my career, I am not thinking of shot division and camera angles or lensing. All I am doing is creating a real situation and asking the actors to behave like the character. It is creating an organic beauty and innocence. Nothing is manipulated. Nothing is forced. The simplicity of the shots is bringing me closer to the truth. The absence of cinematic tricks is making it become more cinematically real.

" ... No set rules, no timings, no discipline. Our film shootings are so stressful and chaotic because everyone is in a panic mode. This happens because of the shift timings. There is a day plan and one has to achieve it within that time so everyone is racing against time. Here, there is no race. No panic. No chaos. Slower is faster. There is only fun and when work becomes fun and fun becomes work, everyone is smiling. That’s exactly what Kher saab noticed when he arrived on the fifteenth day of the shoot. 

"‘Why is everyone smiling?’ Kher saab asks me. 

"‘Because you are here,’ I reply with a smile."

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"‘Kher saab, we always stay in five stars but this time we decided to stay here on the campus and believe you me it’s been such a wise decision.’ 

"‘Yeah… but I am not used to all this.’ 

"‘Why don’t you stay here just for one night? Experience the evening and tomorrow I’ll shift you to a five star. I know it’s not as comfortable but it is a once in a lifetime experience.’ After some thinking, Kher saab agrees. I have ensured that his apartment is in a location where peacocks hang out."

" ... Dattu, Kher saab’s personal assistant, informs me that he wants to meet me. ‘

"Vivek, there are two things I want to discuss with you.’"

"‘Well, first the good news, that I have decided to stay here,’ Kher saab says with a very serious face, and then smiles. I feel so relieved that I don’t wait for a moment before relaying the news to my production manager who sounds so happy that instead of saying ‘wonderful’ or ‘congrats’, he ends up saying ‘have a nice day, sir’."

" ... Good actors can make any camera angle look great but not vice versa. When the scene was being reshot, it felt like it was the professor’s house. Kher saab spent quite some time getting familiarized with every nook and corner of the house. He spent time with the owners and tried to understand how they behaved inside their house. Once I said action, he behaved as if he had been living here for decades and teaching these students for a long time. He owned the place.

"This scene has Pallavi speaking long monologues about the history of pottery. Pallavi was getting stuck at a couple of places because she was trying to put weight in few words. I asked her to speak it like she is narrating an ordinary anecdote without emotionally investing in it. After her take, Arunoday tells me that this is the first time he actually understood the history of pottery. Pallavi is a revelation to me in this film. She has never done a role like this where she is smoking, drinking, flirting with a young man yet has a wonderful relationship with her husband. Where she blindly follows her husband, yet is empowered. Pallavi is playing such delicate nuances with such ease that I feel the industry, including me, has never known her true potential. There was only one exchange of dialogues between Pallavi and Mr. Kher but both of them improvised it into a banter so common in a mature marriage."

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"A phone rings somewhere. Kher saab has left his phone on the table. It’s his dad. I run to give him his phone. When I give the phone to Kher saab, I think why not close the film on a shot where his father calls and the professor confesses his guilt to his father which he can’t do with anyone in the world. His dad is the only factor which hasn’t been resolved. 

"When everything is over for the professor and there is frightening silence in the empty hall, his phone rings. Professor tells his father ‘Sorry, dad.’ 

"The End. 

"One can’t have a better ending than this. Last minute ideas are the finest extract of creative juices. Just two words, ‘Sorry, dad’, resolve everything. The film ends on hope and a desire for forgiveness. Kher saab instantly agrees and we shoot it with such ease."

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"‘OK friends, since everything has turned out so well, if I leave now I won’t feel good. So, I am not going today and I will leave tomorrow and all of you are invited for a party from my side,’ Kher saab throws an open invitation for a wrap party which we had no money for. I owe it to him. 

"It’s 3 AM and the party is still strong. Kher saab pulls me to a corner and puts his hand on my shoulder and smiles. 

"‘Punditji, in my three decades of acting and after doing over 450 films, I have learnt one thing that when a director finds his true calling it starts showing in his work, in his body language and in his eyes. Throughout this shoot I have noticed that spark in you. I think you have found the purpose. You have found your song. Mark my words, this film will change your life. Thanks for casting me and all the best.’ 

"I try very hard to control my tears. As soon as Kher saab leaves, I hide behind a tree and I cry. I don’t know if the tears are flowing because someone finally understood my quest or because I am going to miss this shooting experience or because I have no idea what will happen in the future. I feel like a Buddha, in a traffic jam."

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July 13, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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34. The First Screening  

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"The Times of India group has a division called MediaNet. Under this, they sell editorial space in their newspapers. Yes, they sell the editorial space. One can pay and get whatever one likes printed. If you really want to know what is wrong with India, I'd advise you study the MediaNet model of the Times of India Group. 

"They have started a new vertical where they give free coverage to your film in most of their editions and in return they come on board as co-producers, taking fifty percent of the profits. This business is focussed only on small films. Their executives have been chasing me for my film. They are putting a lot of pressure to partner with us. It's a tempting offer for we won't have to spend money on the advertising of the film. It is exploitative but then beggars can't be choosers. Making a non-starrer film in India instantly makes you a beggar and open to exploitation. Like the father of a dusky daughter.

"Right now, I feel like the parent of that dusky daughter and MediaNet appears like that exploitative groom who is only interested in the dowry and not the bride. They are trying every tactic possible to take my film. They are showing me dreams and pretending as if this film is the best thing that happened after the advent of Times of India. Why are they so desperate? Because they are getting fifty percent ownership of the film for doing nothing. Also, they want a 'last in, first out' deal which means they will recover their investment first and then share fifty paise with us from every rupee earned.

"Ravi is after my life to tie up with them. I ask TOI to wait until the first cut is ready but they insist on signing the contract just after seeing a few scenes as a formality. If you are proud of your product, you want people to buy it only after understanding its features. I have been warning them that it's a different kind of film and I do not see any brand fit with TOI's image. But they won't take no for an answer. Also, they smile too much, as if they are pleading."

"One of the executives who wants to write films calls me to say that they haven't taken the film because of its political message. It doesn't surprise me at all as it was obvious. This is how films are commissioned and acquired by the studios. These executives didn’t even see the full film to know what it says. They didn't bother to ask themselves how this film will connect with the audience. They aren't concerned about the people who will eventually pay for the tickets and make them richer but instead, they are concerned about only one person's reaction who happens to be one of the owners of the Times Group: Vineet Jain. If there is corruption and incompetence in thought at such a preliminary stage, then how does one expect these studios to deliver great films? Vineet Jain can become the world's richest and most successful man, but in my eyes, he will always remain the destroyer of the fourth pillar of Indian democracy. He and his elder brother Sameer Jain single-mindedly corrupted and crippled Indian journalism."

"Bombay Times isn't a gossip tabloid. It's a symbol of everything corrupt in our system. If you have money, you can buy space every day and slowly people will start believing that you are a star. That's why people who appear in Times supplements fall flat when their stardom is tested at the box office. Vineet Jain's Medianet is an extortion business, aimed at desperate people who want to be in the news, hiding behind maxims like 'Profit, profit, profit', which is the media equivalence of Bollywood’s 'entertainment, entertainment, entertainment'."

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"We run the film in one go. Slowly, the audience is getting segmented in their responses. Some people react to nuances and some don't react at all. There are very awkward silences at times. Normally, you get to hear a lot of rustling and coughing in theatres but here it feels like everyone is stuck to a posture. I like Arunoday a lot. Aanchal is fantastic. Mahie is awesome, Pallavi is outstanding and Kher saab has anchored the film brilliantly. I make mental notes of parts to be chopped. There is nothing we can touch in the last thirty minutes of the film. 

"I go out the moment Kher saab says sorry to his dad, to receive the guests outside where refreshments are served.

"You know the impact of your film by the energy that people exude after the trial. The energy is very encouraging. A young couple is so moved by the film that they have too many things to discuss. Instead of the film, they want to discuss the politics of Naxalism. Like most of the youngsters in metros, they didn't have much idea about Naxalism before seeing the film. What else can be the purpose of a film? Nobody feels that it's long. The Indian audience is very patient with film lengths but international audiences don't appreciate films that are longer than a hundred and twenty minutes. There is a legend that this length was invented by Alfred Hitchcock ..."

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"It's been more than ten minutes but Suresh, Gopi, and the students haven't come out. I go inside to check and find all of them in a serious discussion. As soon as I enter, I feel wrong energies. When they see me, their expressions change.

"‘Vivek, there are some very serious issues with the film,’ Ravi tells me as if he is the judge and I am the judged."

"‘Vivek, we will think and get back to you but my first reaction is we can't be associated with this film. We are business people. We have to work with everyone. I hope you understand. Whatever is spent is spent, I have no problems and if you want to get funds from somewhere and finish and release the film, please go ahead. But we can't do it. Still, we will discuss and let you know.’"

" ... Gopi hugged me and said, ‘I loved the film. You have made it brilliantly. I am there for any support.’ I know he means it. He adds, ‘I have some connections in a few studios, I'll connect you with them.’ I am experienced enough to understand the real meaning of his last sentence.

"Technically the film is shelved. It is shelved because it worked. It hit them hard. It made them realize that it's a very risky film for their business empire. Their faces had dropped because they knew that their decision was selfish. They were scared to associate themselves with the alternate thought that the film presents. They are mainstream businessmen working with the establishment. They can't upset any groups like politicians, Naxals, Leftists, intellectuals, and media. ... The film scared them. If I had made a cliché film, they would have invested more. Now I have nowhere to go. The shelving of the film would mean all the emotional and intellectual investment that I made goes waste, plus I have no money in the bank. I don't even know how I'll pay my bills.  My heartbeat stops for a moment. I feel I am sinking. I rest on a chair and take deep breaths.

"The lights go off as the booking time is over. 

"I stand alone in the preview theatre feeling exactly like one feels after everyone leaves the cremation ground for you to mourn alone."

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July 14, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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Book Four : The Struggle of Buddha 

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35. Who is Gudsa Usendi?  

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" ... a particular news item, in the ‘States’ page, catches my attention. 

"‘Noted Maoist leader Gudsa Usendi and his wife surrender to Andhra police.’ 

"In another paper, the same news has a different headline: 

"‘Who is Gudsa Usendi, the “invisible” Maoist?’

"I know this name – Gudsa Usendi. I had first read about him when in May 2013, the Naxals killed twenty-seven Congress leaders in one of the most barbarous attacks in the modern history of humanity, in Darbha Valley of Sukma district in the Red Corridor. Some two hundred top Congress leaders including former minister, Salwa Judam founder and an aggressive anti-Naxal activist, Mahendra Karma, Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, veteran Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla, and prominent lady tribal leader Phulo Devi Netam were travelling through the thick jungles of Darbha Valley in a convoy of twenty-five vehicles when they found the road blocked by trees, felled by Maoists. When the cars stopped, the Naxals triggered a thirty-kilogram IED, completely blasting one vehicle and leaving a five-metre crater in the ground. In a panic to escape, vehicles collided with each other. 

"As soon as the vehicles jammed, over two hundred and fifty Naxals opened fire from hilltops on all sides. With no way out, the Congress leaders surrendered. The Naxals made them identify themselves. When Mahendra Karma identified himself, they beat him up, stabbed him repeatedly and sprayed him with bullets. They beat in his head with gun butts. Seventy-eight stab wounds were found on his body. Then they started firing at random, killing most of the leaders. Nand Kumar Patel’s son was also with him. They broke his son’s head with an axe in front of his eyes, stabbed him mercilessly and then kept firing bullets on his corpse. Vidya Charan Shukla’s personal security guard couldn’t bear the beastly killings and shot himself. The survivors have recounted how after the killings, the Naxals, who had a large number of women cadre, danced around the mutilated bodies.

"The Naxals used automatic weapons, a bomb and modern wireless communication throughout the operation.

"A four-page statement was issued by the Naxals, taking full responsibility for the attack and justified it as the punishment for Salwa Judam founder Karma.

"The statement was signed by Gudsa Usendi. 

"Gudsa Usendi was closely in touch with the media, sending audio clips, press notes, updating them about attacks. But no journalist ever met him. No wonder he was also known as the ‘phantom spokesperson’ for the Maoists.

"What really interests me is a statement of Usendi to a reporter, Suvojit Bagchi, in 2010, ‘We have to kill informers. If we don’t kill them, we will not be able to survive.’"

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"An article in the magazine Governance Now says, ‘Gudsa Usendi is just a name: the person using that name changes from time to time. Usendi, those in the know of Naxal operations in the region say, is the title used by the spokesperson for the Dandakaranya special zonal committee.’

"There is a legend that in June 2000, in Potenar village in Abujhmarh, Chhattisgarh, in the middle of the night, police surrounded a hut while hunting for Naxals. Five ultras were killed, of whom one was identified as seventeen-year-old Gudsa Usendi. As if to pay back the compliment, a year after his death, the Naxal spokesperson of Dandakaranya took on Usendi’s name to keep his memory alive. The practice has continued ever since.

"‘Gudsa Usendi is always in the picture but never seen, only read and heard,’ says a former Naxal. ... "

"Gudsa Usendi is the invisible enemy."

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"Three years ago, when I exposed the ‘invisible enemy’ in Buddha In A Traffic Jam, the people who initiated the project dissociated themselves from the film, killing an idea in the womb. They left me alone to struggle with the film. The idea of ‘invisible enemy’ was my interpretation of Urban Naxalism, which they didn’t understand. Instead of encouraging it, they got scared. No wonder. All innovations first scare people. But they weren’t just any people. They were the producers of the film. After two years, once again, I feel convinced about the film’s theme of ‘invisible enemy’ and my belief in the film stands reinforced.

"Suresh never spoke to me after that. The students graduated and took up jobs in multinational corporations. Everyone else I understood, but why did Ravi try to sabotage his own baby? This kept baffling me until I found out that after graduating from ISB, he had started working for Suresh’s LANCO group.

"Two years is a very short time in a filmmaker’s life if he is in the making of his film. But the same two years can feel like a lifetime if he is waiting to release his film. When Suresh refused to fund the film any further, the first feeling that hit me was of denial. Then defeat. Then depression. On the one hand, I was so broke that I was planning to quit films, sell off everything and move to Bhopal. On the other hand, I had invested everything I had in the film – my time, my savings, my experience, my ambition, my thoughts, my feelings and above all my future and my conscience. I was totally spent. Emotionally. Morally. And financially."

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"In such moments of utter dejection and agony and darkness all around, a little ray of hope came from Vikram Bhatt who offered me Hate Story, an erotic revenge drama. I had mentally resigned from Bollywood and was already contemplating taking a teaching job somewhere and spending my life peacefully. Vikram was desperately seeking a stylish director for his story of revenge and sex. And I was desperately seeking money to explore my new career options. There was a strong compulsion for me to meet him. 

"Vikram narrated the story of a woman journalist whose lover, a tycoon’s son, in a barbaric act, gets her uterus removed, to settle scores with her for exposing his company’s malpractices. The girl pledges to destroy him, brick by brick. The twists and turns were interesting and the theme was modern. He wanted to shoot immediately. The money was less than what I deserved, but I was to get it immediately. It was enough to clear all my liabilities and loans and still be left with some. I was not very comfortable with the erotica genre because in Bollywood people label you. But erotica was an integral part of the film because when the girl realizes she can’t conceive, she uses her sexuality to her advantage and destroys the hero’s empire."

"When you are defeated, your risk-taking ability also dies. I almost decided to say no, but then Buddha In A Traffic Jam kept flashing in my mind. With some of the balance money, I could finish the film and show it to studios. 

"I said yes.

"Hate Story, with an absolutely unknown cast of Paoli Dam and Gulshan Devaiah, no songs, no publicity on TV (we didn’t get censor approval for TV), turned out to be a sleeper hit. 

"I still remember the exact feeling, at the Director’s Association (IFTDA) meeting, attended by the who’s who of Bollywood, ranging from Ramesh Sippy to Ashutosh Gowariker, David Dhawan to Vipul Shah, Madhur Bhandarkar to Sudhir Mishra, when everyone stood and applauded the success of Hate Story, I smiled at the irony of life that a film that was a cakewalk for me was being celebrated but the film that took everything out of me was lying in the cans. A film that tells the truth that impacts our lives was struggling to survive whereas a story that has been told a million times was getting accolades."

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" ... When Kishan asked me to direct this film, I could see an opportunity to make some money to pay my debts and market Buddha. I signed the film with the condition that I would rewrite the entire script. He agreed, she agreed and Bhushan agreed to produce this love story with me, instead of a hate story. I started writing the film and it worked as a detox after an intense film like Buddha, and Hate Story. 

"While I was working on the script, Anubhav Sinha, the director of Ra.One, who used to visit his estranged wife, our neighbour and a very dear friend, asked me if I could help him by directing a film for his new production house. He told me that he had bought the rights of a German psychological thriller which was a very subtle and nuanced film about a homosexual man who gets attracted and then obsessed with his new neighbour. The film explored human emotions, new worlds and the mind of an obsessed person. 

"To suit the Indian market, Anubhav had already changed the protagonist to a girl. ... "

"After I finished a short schedule in Goa and came back to Mumbai, I saw a huge poster of the film standing at the reception of Anubhav’s office. I was flabbergasted to see Barbie standing almost naked in the poster."

"I was stunned. It’s not that I had anything against erotica but I just didn’t want to repeat the genre. Also, I had agreed to make a psychological thriller and not an erotic thriller. I couldn’t believe that a director who never got tired of narrating incidents of how his work in Ra.One was sabotaged by the star-producer and his coterie was doing exactly the same thing."

"I am told Anubhav shot the rest of the film. During its release, he sent a cheque of eleven lacs through the Film Director’s Association’s (IFTDA) secretary Ashwini Choudhary and president Ashoke Pundit. They gave me a single page gagging contract which basically asked me to shut up if someone asks me if I had directed the film or not. Though Ashoke tried a lot to persuade me to take the money, I refused. He said that people forget rifts but money always comes handy. I wasn’t convinced but I promised to keep quiet as my fight was about a principle and not with the film. My fight was with the Gudsa Usendis, the invisible enemies, disguised as producers.

"I got busy with the love story for T Series. It was titled Junooniyat. I signed Pulkit Samrat and Yami Gautam. I shot the first schedule in the Kashmir Valley and Amritsar. When Bhushan and others saw the rushes, they were spellbound. Bhushan told me that he was very ambitious about the film and wanted to market it uniquely. Everyone was very happy. The word spread. Everyone at T Series started talking about the chemistry of the lead actors, the emotions, songs, and photography. I started to prepare for my next major schedule in Patiala and Shimla.

"At the same time, Bhushan’s wife Divya Kumar, fresh from the fluke success of her film Yaariyan, was mounting her next film and was struggling to cast some decent actors. Then came the news that she had signed Pulkit and Yami for the film and my dates were allocated to her film’s schedule.  Same actors, same genre, same production house, same music directors, same locations and same marketing people. How was this possible? When I confronted Bhushan, he told me without any guilt that it was his wife’s birthday and she asked for her film to be released before mine on Valentine’s Day and he couldn’t say no as ‘how can I say no to madam… it’s my birthday gift to her!’ Bhushan’s birthday gift to his wife became my film’s coffin.

"I want to walk off this film but everyone advises me not to. I have one film stuck, another I have left and now leaving this also will seal my career forever as no one likes directors who take stands against a producer’s corruption. The film got postponed indefinitely. Again, I had no money. No work. No hope.

"I sit for a long time looking at the headline ‘Who is Gudsa Usendi, the “invisible” Maoist?’ When I had invested everything I could, to expose Gudsa Usendis, I had no idea that someday I would be surrounded by so many of them – the invisible enemies. They control the narrative here and just won’t let me create an alternate narrative. I feel blank. But this blankness isn’t of defeat. It’s of determination. If I really have the burning desire to tell my story, if Buddha In A Traffic Jam is my purpose, then I’ll have to fight the Gudsa Usendis. I’ll have to tell the story and expose these invisible enemies of India, so the people of my country can finally see ‘Who is Gudsa Usendi?’"

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July 14, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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36. The Intellectual Mafia  

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"When you don’t have a regular job and feel low and confused with life, you tend to indulge yourself in something to escape. Some find comfort in alcohol, some in watching movies, some in overeating, some in excessive shopping, some in depression. I found myself diving into politics. I took to Twitter and Facebook for politics and social commentary. I belonged to a club which is the secular club of Bollywood. Like them, I also hated nationalists and loved Leftist activists. I also believed that in Kashmir, the Army is the real villain. Naxals are fighting for the oppressed lot. Media is a responsible fourth pillar. And the intellectuals are always right. Slowly, I learnt that they are a country of their own, with their own constitution. They are well connected and work with precision to manage a fake secular narrative. Their narrative is fake because their constitution is fake. 

"They mislead people by talking about secularism as an antidote to communalism. I could see through this fakeness. Slowly, I started seeing their hypocrisy and realized that a lot of these intellectuals were directly or indirectly connected with ‘invisible enemies’, working for the same purpose. I started speaking against their constitution. They started avoiding me.

"I could see their hypocrisy because in these two years of desperation and despair, I had travelled a lot. I had decided to write a book and travelling in small towns in India is very cheap. I had got disconnected from my roots and felt secure in the intellectual bubble of Bollywood. I was proud of being creative but I had lost touch with the basic element required to be creative, the earth. Far away from the la-la land of Mumbai, I met a new India and her people, struggling to survive the scorching sun and mammoth corruption. This Indian doesn’t want to leave India because his life is hell. He is in hell because the mainstream narrative is always talking about intangible issues like secularism and never about the education, health, jobs and security of this common man of India. The people I saw on TV and films were not the people I met in real India. The more I travelled, the more real Indians I met and with this new understanding, I reached where I belonged – outside the club.

"Whenever I met people from Bollywood, I felt like a failure. Maybe it wasn’t coincidental but after Hate Story, people’s perception of me got divided. Commercial minded producers, directors, actors started loving me, whereas film-wallas who thought they were here to change the world started avoiding me. Commercial film makers have only one god – Audience; one temple – Box office; and one religion, one ideology – Money. Despite being in a majority, their voice doesn’t find any credence because like other businessmen they don’t want to disturb their equation with their God – the Audience. They believe in destiny and follow the maxim never to underestimate anyone – ‘You never know when someone’s fortune will start shining.’ Till date, I don’t know what caused the club members’ boycott; was it because of the genre of the film or was it due to my rebellion against their fake political ideology?

"The club members are different. Their religion is socialism and secularism. They claim to want equality and justice but their ideology is founded on intellectual discrimination. They start with hating and condemning commercial filmmakers. By increasing the scope of their condemnation for “social evils” and humanitarian issues, their voice finds resonance amongst other intellectuals. They praise, support, and promote one another. They have an impeccable networking system. This system finds its strength by condemning a common Indian’s choices and confronting his beliefs. If he wants to feel proud of his jawans they will accuse the army of atrocities in Kashmir. If he wants to feel happy about his festivals, they will raise the issue of drought and farmer suicide. On Diwali, they raise the issue of pollution and on Karva Chauth, they paint the festival as regressive.

"Through their control over the narrative, they hold common people responsible for disturbing the social fabric and thereby, keep them in perpetual guilt. They create and revel in moral one-upmanship. But life isn’t all about ideological correctness. Ideology is always culture, civilization, evolution, economics, social structure, and geography-specific. They want to deny this fact. They want to be the custodians of a universal moral charter and profess a narrative that protects their elitism.

"We have moved from nationalization to liberalization to globalization but our narrative remains stuck in the 1960s-70s. They hide their regressive ideology behind a fake humanitarian concern in the name of art or indie cinema. All film festivals are their properties. If you are not part of the club, you’ll never be invited to these festivals. David Dhawan, Rohit Shetty, Feroz Nadiadwala and other commercial filmmakers, whose one film makes more money than the films of all the filmmakers of this club put together, are never seen in such festivals. The media loves this club because it helps the media’s agenda. The media gets intellectual support and in return, they get good reviews. They have become the voice of Bollywood. When I started questioning this unfair equation, they started unfollowing me. Then they started blocking me on Twitter. And, slowly, from their lives."

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"Discrimination isn’t always gender, race or colour-based. The most damaging discrimination is of the mind and ideology. I was discriminated against by almost all my Bollywood friends, whom I used to hang around with because, like them, I also believed in a certain ideology but found it fake and alienated from reality, and elitist.

"Everyone needs a villain and Narendra Modi became the media’s and the intellectual gangs’ main villain as 2002 was tailor-made to suit their agenda of secularism. Secularism was nothing but a ploy to attract Muslim votes and keep a control on Hindus from asserting themselves. In order to give it sanctity, the Congress regime under Sonia Gandhi patronized every creative and intellectual voice that helped her further her agenda against a potential contender, Modi, by giving them alms.

"Since I always believed that development is the only solution for India’s economic and social evils vis a vis secularism and that’s what Buddha In A Traffic Jam also professed, it was natural for me to be aligned with Modi’s agenda of development than the Congress’ agenda of secularism. Also, Congress was drenched in the politics of favouritism, sycophancy, and corruption.

"I was the first filmmaker who openly started supporting Modi and this hurt many. Modi was looking very strong and a lot of indicators were predicting his victory. This is when I found a letter signed by some Bollywood personalities, led by screenwriter Anjum Rajabali, that warned Indian citizens of a fascist invasion if they elected Modi. I could not fathom how a democratically elected leader could be called a fascist. Fascism exists when there is no other side of the story. In Modi’s case, only his opponents’ side of the story was in circulation. I could see through their divisive strategy. They were trying to reduce the debate to secularism vs communalism instead of the real issue of development vs corruption. When I raised questions about the intent of the petition signed by the liberal and Leftist filmmakers of Bollywood, out of whom most were non-practicing filmmakers cum activists like Anand Patwardhan, they started labeling me as communal, bhakt and Sanghi. This was that critical point when I should have withdrawn. But I decided to fight and take them on. I called up some journalist friends to write an article against the petition, only to realize they weren’t friends anymore. In these changing times, where mainstream media ends, social media begins.

"With no avenue left, I published a blog titled ‘15 Communal Questions to The Secular Bollywood’, which went viral. The response came from unexpected quarters – the real India. People who couldn’t articulate their thoughts but felt strongly against the intellectual discrimination and fakeness of secularism started connecting with me. Mine was the lone Bollywood voice of dissent against a very powerful cabal of Leftists who wanted Modi’s head. They say that big fires start with small sparks and that you climb Mt. Everest by taking a small step. ... "

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"Here is the blog which started the fire and paved the way to change my social life forever:  

"15 Communal Questions to The Secular Bollywood April 17, 2014 

"Yesterday, certain Bollywood personalities led by my very dear friend and renowned scriptwriter Anjum Rajabali, issued an appeal to the public at large. 

"In their appeal, simply put, they have warned us that India is in grave danger from divisive and communal forces led by a ‘man-they-won’t-name’ (read Modi). These A-lister personalities have reaffirmed their faith in secular nature of ‘their’ India. They have appealed to all Indians to stop these communal forces by voting for only secular parties. In order to save India’s cultural diversity, its pluralism and above all ‘secularism’. 

"Suddenly, it reminded me of Indira Gandhi’s era where she always cautioned us about looming dangers from CIA conspiracies. Then Rajiv Gandhi started warning us against foreign elements trying to destabilize India. Sonia Gandhi led UPA has brought us to this. Where Indians are pitted against Indians. 

"Armed forces and Bollywood are India’s two most secular institutions. Mr. Anjum Rajabali and his ilk, in their obsession with Modi-hate, have betrayed the film industry. I am sorry your appeal has obfuscated us more than enlightening. I have few questions and I am sure you would like to answer to help me help India.

"1. I am going to vote for Modi. Am I secular? Or communal? 

"2. I have decided to vote for the only man who says repeatedly that India is his religion and her Constitution is his holy book. If I vote for ‘that man’, how will I threaten the secular fibre of India? Pl. enlighten. 

"3. Millions of Indians (read Hindus) love Modi. They respect him. Adore him. And some also worship him. Like many worship Shahi Imam of Congress. By hating their leader, calling him a grave danger to India, aren’t you playing a communal card? Aren’t you questioning the judgment of millions? Aren’t you hurting the sentiments of millions? How is your appeal secular?

"4. Secular, as I understand, means that religion should not play any role in governance. If it’s true, then why were you quiet for last 10 years when the ruling party was continuously giving alms to Muslims? Did you and your fellow signatories utter a word when PM M.M. Singh said that minorities have first right over natural resources?

"5. You say India is vulnerable. Yes, I agree. India is vulnerable to poverty, unemployment, corruption, crumbling institutions, terrorism and Naxalism (Coincidentally, I see a lot of your signatories have certified Naxal leanings). What’s your hidden logic that you find ‘secularism’ as the only threat to India and not the above evils? Pl. enlighten.

"6. Do you want me to believe that India will collapse if ‘the-man-you-won’t-name’, Modi, comes to power? You write – ’The need of the hour is to protect our country’s secular foundation’. Some of you are learned men. Where does this ‘secular foundation’ come from? India was always a Hindu nation. Until it was invaded and looted by Moguls, British, and Congress. India has survived that. India is secular because of its Hindu culture. With its millions of gods and goddesses and millions of reincarnations, no one understands secularism better than the natives of this country. If Hinduism wasn’t secular in its DNA, it wouldn’t have survived for thousands of years. It’s the very secular nature of Hindus that it never ever invaded or attacked any other country or civilization. Hinduism encompasses all other faiths and religions and not the other way round. Hindus have let Muslims and British rule us. It’s the Hindu sensibility that has let an Italian run this country for 10 years. There is a Shahi Imam who also appeals to vote against communal forces. Who are these communal forces? Hindus? Or a party which believes in Hindu secularism and is led by ‘the-man-you-hate’ who says 10 times a day that his only mantra is ‘Justice for all. Appeasement for none.’ So whom are you pointing your fingers at? Who is threatening India?

"7. Your representatives, in a Times Now debate, said that they are not pimping for any party. But you are asking us to choose. If it’s not Modi-led BJP, then who do you want us to vote for? There are only two national parties. BJP and Congress. Who is secular, according to you? Unless you meant SP, BSP, AIADMK, LJD, TMC, NCP etc. What is compelling you to talk in cryptic language and not naming ‘the-man’?

"8. Mr. Robin Bhatt, your spokesperson, at Times Now admitted that Modi is secular. Mr. Hansal Mehta, on the other hand, in the same programme, confessed that he hates Modi. How is it that even before the ink dried on the letter, your signatories are distancing themselves with ‘personal’ and ‘official’ positions? Are you a political party? Like AAP? Or is it that AAP is speaking through you? How can there be two opinions if some passionate ‘saviours’ of ‘art & culture’ have come together for a cause they believe in, so passionately? Is it possible that some people like Robin Bhatt and many others have signed it blindly because of your deep association with them in the Writer’s Association?

"9. Why is it that most of the signatories also happen to be part of the same association that you have very constructively nurtured? I happen to know some of them closely. Are you sure they feel neither obliged nor compelled? Is this their absolute free and conscious voice? If they felt so strongly about India’s vulnerability, how come they have never ever uttered a word about politics of any kind? How come they never spoke on social issues at least?

"10. If your fellow ‘secular’ filmwallas feel so strongly about the ‘secular foundations’ and its preservation thereof, how come they never uttered a word against the Muzzafarnagar riots? Or against Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav? Or Azam Khan? Or Abu Azmi?

"11. I have an observation to make. Why is it that the Leftist crusader of truth, Shri Anand Patwardhan, while speaking only looks down, never looking in the eyes? You are a genius scriptwriter who studies characters. Is this how men with convictions address the most sensitive issue which can shatter the secular foundations of Hindustan?

"12. You know Bollywood is the biggest brand India has. People follow Bollywood more than cricketers and politicians. Your appeal has created an impression that entire Bollywood endorses your views. Have you written a disclaimer in your letter that these are your personal views and have nothing to do with Bollywood? Maybe not. But when media called it Bollywood’s stance, did you try to call the same editors to deny it with the same enthusiasm? Or are you taking advantage of a position that was never to be misused for political or personal gains?

"13. Do you seriously want us to believe that secularism is the sole issue in these elections? And not development? Are you telling me that hungry, jobless people will ensure more communal harmony then well fed, employed people? Do you seriously mean that a corrupt India, lawless India, uneducated India and a weak India has better chances of preserving ‘secularity, inclusiveness & pluralism’ than a modern, educated and strong India? Or is it that like many Maoists/Naxals/ Leftists, you also see development as the biggest threat to your own existence and political agenda?

"14. Shrimati Sonia Gandhi also issued an appeal a few days ago. Is it a coincidence that your appeal is reinforcing exactly the same? Can you vouch it for yourself and the other signatories that none has ever been a beneficiary of Congress’s alms? And that none of you have any vested interest, no political agenda? And no one is firing from your shoulders? If not, where was the need to get organized and send an appeal in such a hurry? Did you send this mail to all listed film professionals or just to those who you knew will sign blindly?

"15. Last but not the least, I have two young kids at a very impressionable age. Next time if we happen to meet what should I tell them… ‘This is your secular uncle? Because he did not vote for Modi.’ Is that the only thing you have reduced yourself to be called a ‘Secularist’?

"In conclusion, my fellow filmmakers, I’d like to make a small correction in the mission statement of your appeal where you write: 

"‘However, one thing is clear: India’s secular character is not negotiable! 

"Not now, not ever.’ 

"I find it narrow and rhetoric. Hence, I’d like to make a small correction to suit the aspirations of millions of Indians: 

"‘However, one thing is clear: India’s United character is not negotiable! 

"Not now, not ever.’ 

"And also add: ‘Jai Hind.’"

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"The blog became so viral that I was invited to my first political panel discussion on TV by Barkha Dutt for her iconic show The Buck Stops Here.  

"When I reached the venue, Anand Patwardhan was already there. I said hello with a smile to which he gave a very cold response. He asked me why I had opposed the petition. I gave him my reasons but he wasn’t willing to listen and instead kept telling me how bad the Gujarat model was. He was confident that Modi could never win. Every pore of his body was oozing hatred for Modi and his supporters. 

"‘Don’t they have a right to choose the leader they like?’ I asked Patwardhan.  

"‘They don’t know anything about Modi,’ he replied. 

"‘How can you say that?’ 

"‘Because I know.’ 

"In his tone, manner, and content, there was so much authoritarianism, entitlement, arrogance, hatred and contempt for these common supporters of Modi that he did not realize that he was professing exactly what he condemned – fascism.

"‘If Modi is so bad why are people connecting with him?’ 

"‘Who connects with Modi? I don’t know of any.’ 

"‘The poor man who sells mangoes on the streets connects with Modi.’ ‘

"I don’t care about the man who sells mangoes,’ Patwardhan got angry and almost screamed, ‘Modi must be stopped. He must lose.’ 

"I kept looking at him and wondered how his frail body could contain so much hatred and anger. His aura was dark and negative."

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"The other panelists were Nandita Das, Alyque Padamsee, Sam Balsara. All urban, sophisticated, English-speaking elites and Barkha was making it sound as if entire Bollywood was against Modi. I told her that this letter wasn’t the voice of Bollywood but of an ‘intellectual mafia’. I could sense that Barkha was rattled. Nandita gave me a dirty look and Patwardhan got furious. I could see what they felt about me. The way an orthodox caste-conscious Brahmin feels when touched by a sweeper. Barkha got a bit upset at my remark and though she asked me ‘What do you mean by intellectual mafia?’ she didn’t let me answer. A patent trait of liberals. This is when, for the first time, the liberal gang started hating me and trolling me."

Except, the "intellectual" flatters them but is incorrect. If they thought, they'd have realised they aren't secular, as Agnihotri did a few pages ago, but Hindus are. 

"I knew at that very moment that I would never be invited by Barkha on NDTV again and that is exactly what happened, but ‘Intellectual Mafia’ became legitimate jargon in social media."

Did Agnihotri thank Gods for the former part?

"In the meantime, I was in advanced stages of discussing an independent release for Buddha with established distributors and both promised to release my film only after the elections.

"But after this show with Barkha, they stopped taking my calls and till date, I don’t know what made an advanced negotiation stop without any further discussion. I found it strange and I had no idea then that suddenly I had created lots of Gudsa Usendis who didn’t want me to succeed with this film. They were using all their tactics to destroy me. I had only two choices: speak up or shut up. I spoke up."

Perhaps they received calls? If not from Delhi, then from another city formerly of India and in India, across an ocean West? They have bosses, obviously. 

"I wrote another blog which again went immensely viral. With this blog on ‘Intellectual Mafia’, I went for a frontal attack and discovered an audience for my voice."

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"Intellectual Mafia

"To cover up his illicit romances, rising corruption, the undercurrent of a revolt and massive defeat and humiliation by the Chinese, Nehru nurtured an ‘intelligentsia’ which justified his impractical economics and failed politics to the masses. The coterie of intellectuals he created was immoral. Historians know that whenever a king has surrounded himself with immoral thinkers, debauchery has begun. These short-sighted and opportunistic intellectuals justified ‘socialism’. Socialism has corruption in its very DNA. Nehru chose Big State over Big Market. More State-sponsored programmes meant inefficient system, red-tapism, favouritism, weaker economy, and corruption. It meant bigger disparity between masses and policy makers. More subsidies, doles, freebies meant more arrogance of rulers for they were the ones distributing alms. They became the givers. And us, the obliged masses, the takers.

"Thus, India arrived at State vs Masses. Corrupt vs Masses. Intellectuals vs Masses. Givers vs Takers. 

"Emergency was declared. Sanjay Gandhi took over. He created an army of morally corrupt, foreign-educated intellectuals with no track record. Their biggest strength was their unconditional loyalty to the Gandhi family. This tradition has continued. Loyalty over merit. Scheming over competence. Loot over contribution. Corruption grew. Guilt grew. Fear grew. With every scam, the family started making the intellectual wall bigger and bigger. Today this wall is full of scammers, crooks, agents, brokers, pimps, lobbyists, character assassins, land sharks etc. disguised as lawyers, journalists, NGOs, feminists, advisors, professors, socialists etc. Simply put, beneficiaries of Congress’s largesse.

"Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia. 

"And the hell broke loose."

Anyone with truth in mind would look for roots of the defeat of the first person he blames above for the phenomenon, which aren't that far distant historically. They are in the mentor who dethroned democratic choices more than once - thrice, at the very least - to ensure his choice was the first PM of India. 

But pointing at him would get Agnihotri in waters much hotter, and it requires far more courage to allow oneself to even see beyond Jawaharlal Nehru for the ills which Agnihotri speaks of that India has suffered, for well over a century now.

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July 14, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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37. A Fight Begins  

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"In 2014, after my blog on ‘Intellectual Mafia’, I started losing friends in the film industry but started gaining lots of fans and followers outside the industry. These people started putting pressure on me to write more. They also started showing interest in Buddha. When Bhushan Kumar abruptly junked the T Series film, I sat and reflected on my life. 

"I picked up some old canvas, cleared the dust and started painting. I made many paintings and instead of selling, I gifted them to friends, I wrote more articles. I started teaching. I travelled. I started meeting all my old friends who had nothing to do with films. A new ecosystem started building up and slowly, I started connecting with people. I found my voice. And my lost confidence.

"This is when I received an email from the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI), India’s number one film festival, then chaired by Shyam Benegal, that Buddha In A Traffic Jam was officially selected in the India Gold category which features five or six best films of the year. I couldn’t believe it at first. And I didn’t know if we would be able to send it for the screening as we didn’t have the censor certificate which was mandatory, and I was sure of not getting it without major changes. Thirdly, the cut required background music, post-production, and some publicity material. I neither had the time nor the resources to send the film to MAMI. ... "

"I decided to at least show the rough cut to as many studios as I could. I met Siddharth Roy Kapur, MD of UTV, who instantly agreed to do a screening. Very strangely, he didn’t come for the screening and instead sent a creative director who had just joined, and a young girl who had no idea of Indian politics. They loved the film and told me that this was one of the finest films they had seen in a long time and it should get a well-planned release. I wasted a lot of time with them and in the end, was told that ‘as a policy, we can’t be associated with a film of this kind’.

"I went to Viacom but almost the same story was repeated there. Viacom has also done many films which were ‘different and bold’ like Gangs of Wasseypur. Another thing that bothered me was that these studios can afford to lose hundreds of crores on mindless films which help neither the audience nor the producers, have no archival value, nor do they help society at large but when it comes to standing up for Buddha kind of films, they have a policy. I showed it to all the big studios, small studios, studios which were not studios, producers who wanted to become studios but after showing extraordinary appreciation, all of them backed off. How can you love something so much and still not invest in it? It happens only in Bollywood."

Agnihotri isn't mentioning in writing what a younger artist did in court. Perhaps he had no personal evidence. 

"It’s really strange but true that the films which win national awards or are selected by MAMI and other international film festivals, which deserve to be celebrated by the country and the studios, go through spine-breaking struggle, agony, humiliation, and hopelessness. Studios, producers, actors, and the entire film fraternity should invest in them and showcase them to a large audience to promote good cinema and develop audience taste for them to be able to make better films. We have invested large sums, time, and emotions in dumb cinema and by and by the audience has stopped appreciating any movie which has logic or reality. The industry makes you feel as if you have committed a cardinal crime by making such a film. This is the reason that in a social function you can identify the makers of such films with droopy shoulders, under confident body language, standing alone in a corner, and getting drunk, whereas the maker of a mindless comedy loaded with double entendres would be surrounded by top stars, producers, and media. We are a defective film industry.

"We had only seven days left when I sent the film to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) on a Friday. In the meantime, I got to know that CBFC needs clearance from the Animal Welfare Board which is based in Chennai. On Monday morning, the agent threw a bomb at me. He asked for two lacs to get the clearance within the deadline. I failed to understand why a certificate would cost two lacs to which he said that officers would have to be bribed. This was blackmailing and a film that is anti-corruption can’t be made by bribing people. I was so angry that I immediately called up the Chairman of the board and asked him on what basis his people could take such huge bribes. He told me very cordially that they charged only five hundred rupees, and in order to protect filmmakers from such touts, they had gone digital. He said the board meets every Wednesday and any application that is received by Tuesday evening is reviewed at the Wednesday meeting and the decision is immediately uploaded on their site. So, in effect, clearance is given in less than twenty-four hours and that too for just five hundred rupees and a simple e-application. I was in shock. Not because of the transparency and efficiency of the authority but because of my own ignorance. Somewhere, some good work is taking place which will eventually transform India, but the media never lets the goodness be part of the main narrative.

"‘Please file your e-application today and on Wednesday by noon we will list you.’ 

"On Tuesday morning, I drove to the CBFC office. 

"The small CBFC office in the Malabar Hill area of Mumbai doesn’t look like it has anything to do with films except that its name has ‘film’ in it. I was expecting red tapism and someone to ask me to come only after taking an appointment, but I was treated with a lot of dignity and I got to meet the main officer immediately. I explained to him why it was crucial to certify the film within the deadline.

"‘Why didn’t you inform us about the film’s selection in MAMI? You would have got the certificate on a priority basis.’ 

"‘I had no idea that you guys consider such things.’ 

"‘It’s really unfortunate that our filmmakers go to any length for their films, but nobody ever comes to meet us with their problems. They just criticize us without even meeting us once. In modern times of negative media, government servants are always the suckers as nobody listens to their point of view. Everyone needs villains and filmmakers have found it in us. May God bless them all.’ He then looked at me as if he was about to ask me to leave. ‘I’ll organize your screening tomorrow early morning and if you get the animal clearance by noon and make the desired changes by the evening I can issue the certificate by Wednesday evening.’ 

"‘Thank you very much. I really mean it.’   

"‘Thanks for what, sir? It’s our duty. We also like it when our films are selected for prestigious awards. All the best.’

"When the film ended, I was called by the screening committee in the semi-dark hall of Liberty cinema. There were four men and a lady, all from different strata. One gentleman who looked like their leader because he had some forms in his hand, smiled and spoke softly. 

"‘Congratulations for making such a daring film. All of us just loved it. This film requires at least a thousand cuts…’ 

"I exhaled all the air from my lungs and waited for the bad news. 

"‘But we discussed and have come to the conclusion that we will certify it with no cuts because we believe this is a very important film of our times and it must be released in its true form, else it will lose its meaning and impact.’ 

"‘You have made a very good film. I learnt a lot,’ said another member.

"‘There is a small correction you will have to make because it’s a constitutional obligation, else we would have passed that too as there is an abusive word used with 26th January, which you will have to change… as it’s a constitutional requirement.’

"I immediately calculated that this would take a lot of time and I would miss the deadline. But if you really care about something a lot, you also find quick solutions. Luckily for me, the character who had said the lines was a Telugu actor and the way he had said it sounded more like ‘chhaaabbeees januaree’ than ‘chhabbis january’. I saw an opening and agreed instantly. 

"Instead of reworking the scene, I just punched ‘chaaaubbeees january’ and changed that bit which matched his lips perfectly. By noon, we got the animal clearance and by 5 PM we submitted the corrections and by seven in the evening I got the adults category ‘A’ certificate. A few minutes before midnight, we submitted the film to MAMI. Just a few minutes before the deadline.

"With this exercise, I learnt two major lessons. First, never go by hearsay and always check out the facts yourself before accusing anyone of corruption or dishonesty; and second, corruption takes place mostly when you are ignorant, desperate, and seek shortcuts."

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"The first screening of the film at MAMI was attended mostly by film industry colleagues. A lot of them came to check it out as they just couldn’t believe that my film was in MAMI. In the film industry, they want you to fail both commercially and critically. For some, it was indigestible that I could be present in both the spectrums. The screening was so formal and the reactions so controlled that it made me nervous. People weren’t laughing at the right places. There was no rustle of clothes on the seats. No coughs, no uncivilized mobile phones ringing. It’s a torture for film people to see a colleague’s good film. When the professor’s true identity is revealed, they started getting a bit itchy. Sitting behind them, watching their response, it seemed as if their true identities were getting revealed. By the time the film ended they were confused about how to react. Some of my very good friends left without meeting me. Overall, the response wasn’t very encouraging; as a matter of fact, it was depressing. Pallavi always understands my confusion so she came and stood next to me, to comfort me. For a wife to see her husband’s creative pain in waiting for four years for his movie to release can be very heartbreaking.

"‘Mark my words, this film, hundred kilometres outside of Mumbai, will find its real audience,’ I told Pallavi, holding her hand tight. 

"We didn’t have to wait that long. The next two screenings, on following days, were more informal and full of young students and non-filmy people. The response was encouraging. In the third screening, the Q&A went on for a very long time and it wasn’t restricted to only the film but national politics. Fenil Seta wrote a very good review on his blog. On social media, genuine appreciation started pouring in. The common thing amongst them was that all of them called it an ‘eye-opener’, which later became a cue for my marketing plan.

"Reliance’s Big cinema had backed out as sponsors of MAMI as it was going through a massive financial crunch and there were rumours that it might shut down. That is when elder brother Mukesh Ambani came in as the sponsor and the festival was taken over by Aamir Khan’s wife Kiran Rao and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s wife Anupama Chopra. From down-to-earth, genuine filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, the festival now was in the hands of corporates, critics, powerful people’s wives and their admirers. This was the year when MAMI officially transformed from a cinema lovers’ festival to a corporate club festival. I learnt this when I reached Chandan cinema with Pallavi for the closing award ceremony. We were official nominees, yet we were asked to sit in a corner seat in the tenth or twelfth row whereas the front rows were all occupied by commercial stars, star wives, their friends and people who are inconsequential to indie cinema. I was officially nominated; my wife Pallavi, besides being a senior actor is a national award winner and has been on the jury of the national awards, but nobody was ready to recognize those who did not make great press.

"I met Anurag Kashyap, the self-proclaimed messiah of indie films, and asked him to see the film once and help me with its marketing but he pretended to listen to me while looking for someone more powerful and left the moment he saw Anushka Sharma. This was the time when he was also cozying up with the same stars and star directors whom he had condemned all his life. It’s understandable why indie filmmakers give up and become sycophants of stars to survive in this industry. I found it very funny and tragic at the same time that the festival was organized to promote the best cinema of our country, but their makers had no place of dignity in either the auditorium or their hearts. That day I saw the change with my own eyes. The MAMI organizers’ agenda wasn’t to promote these films anymore but to promote themselves. MAMI is just another club of the elites.

"A dead film had been resurrected. With the honour and dignity it deserved. There was a tweet from a very close director friend whose films I had promoted blindly, without even seeing them, where all he wrote was about Pallavi’s song. It was a very diplomatic tweet. He was monkey balancing between our friendship by doing lip service without saying anything about the film, good or bad, and also managing his high ratings with the people who wanted to kill the film without even seeing it. In this moment of happiness, his tweet hurt me.

"MAMI did two things for me: it gave the film the respectability it deserved, and it made me realize that my journey from here on was going to be lonely as Bollywood would only pull this film down. I had to find my audience. My market. My space. And my voice. All alone.

"The film started getting invitations from film festivals. We won the Best Original Screenplay award at the Madrid Film Festival. The response was overwhelming. I had heard about ‘standing ovations’ but never received one. The response was way beyond ‘standing ovation’. It was the connection. Instead of clapping and taking selfies, people engaged in discussions about Naxalism and other related politics. Almost every time, the discussions became intense with the audience getting into arguments with each other. The film was evoking a definite response. It was stimulating and engaging the audience. 

"‘How did you know that the film will work outside Mumbai?’ Pallavi asked me after a tremendous response at Delhi. 

"‘Because I know that the India Bollywood sees is not the India we live in. And this film is about the real India, real Indians and real Indian issues that impact their lives.’

"It’s true. The adulation, the connection, the support was coming from non-English speaking, small-town youth; the most ignored people in the national narrative. Bollywood filmmakers and other intellectuals have a fantastical idea about Naxalism. They are so isolated from the reality that when they saw the film, they perceived truth as a lie. 

"A senior film journalist who works with India’s largest Hindi media group and is also involved with the group’s film festival, which primarily encourages the spirit of indie cinema, came to my office to request me to send the film to their festival. He told me about his Leftist background and how he hates Modi’s regime. I connect with Leftists very easily as I have been in their shoes. He kept pushing me until I sent the film. Then he saw the film at a screening at MAMI. 

"‘I don’t agree with the film but that is your freedom of expression,’ he told me after the screening. 

"The film was never shown at his festival. It hurt me a lot.  

"That day I decided to fight. I decided to not rest until the release of Buddha In A Traffic Jam."

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July 14, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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38. Kanhaiya, Azadi, and Buddha  

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"I am watching a viral WhatsApp video where a group of students is screaming these slogans. I think it’s some students in Pakistan displaying their extreme hatred for India. But they don’t look like Pakistanis. Their accent is also different. Is it Kashmir? As the video progresses, I realize it’s neither Pakistan nor Kashmir. In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have ever imagined that these are the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), shouting anti-national slogans, inside the campus, right in the heart of India’s capital. Fifteen kilometers from the Parliament, the temple of democracy."

" ... It was beyond my understanding that the students whom I hold in such high esteem are passionately seeking the breakup of my motherland, my karmbhoomi, my love – India. How can they celebrate a dreaded terrorist who attacked our Parliament?"

Reminds anyone else of the children wielding guns, shooting the teacher? 

"A couple of days ago, on the cold night of February 9, 2016, an official cultural event had turned into a political rally. The event was against the hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri terrorist convicted for the attack on Parliament on 13 December 2001 and hanged on 13 February 2013. The event was led by the president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Student’s Union (JNUSU), Kanhaiya Kumar, Kashmiri students Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid and other student leaders of Leftist parties that are sympathetic to the Naxal movement. Kanhaiya Kumar and his fellow students shouted anti-India slogans including the prayers for India’s break-up and eventual devastation.

"Kanhaiya Kumar and his gang get arrested on February 11th on charges of sedition. A ‘war of narratives’ begins in India. Rohith Vemula, a PhD student at the University of Hyderabad, had committed suicide a few weeks ago, leading to widespread Leftist protests around the country, because he was supposedly Dalit – the insinuation was that he had been driven to his death by caste oppression. Anybody who saw these protests in isolation is politically naive because it was just a scene in a screenplay.

"It connects now with the Kanhaiya episode. The screenplay started with the Film and Television Institute (FTII), where a section of the students went on strike over the appointment of a new Director; then the IIT Madras row over the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (IIT Madras had de-recognised the students’ association after a complaint that it was creating hatred against Hindus. The ban was later lifted.); then Vemula; and now it looks like it is culminating at the citadel of Urban Naxalism – JNU.

"Looking at the modus operandi, I can very easily see that Kanhaiya Kumar and the gang is just the front organization for the Naxals. Kanhaiya is being used by the faculty as an ‘intellectual terrorist’ to wage war against the State. They assume that the Modi government is new and not settled as yet, and therefore it’s the right time to strike. In no time, the usual suspects like Barkha Dutt, Arundhati Roy, and all other Naxal sympathizers come out openly in support of Kanhaiya. A civil war-like situation is being created, the government is attacked for suppression of dissent, curbing freedom of expression and for being anti-Dalit. It’s a full-fledged war between the Leftist forces and the State. All front organizations and supporters have come out of the closet. JNU is the battlefield and Kanhaiya their puppet.

"In the chaos of the Kanhaiya episode, the media keeps a vital development in the Red Corridor hidden from us. In the last quarter, security forces have achieved greater success than ever in tackling left-wing extremism and there was over a thirty per cent decline in violence perpetrated by Naxals this year.

"Seventy-six Naxal cadres were killed in the first few months of this year in comparison to fifteen in the same period last year. According to the Home Ministry, as many as six hundred and sixty-five Naxals were arrested and almost the same number surrendered as compared to just above hundred last year in the same period.

"Almost at the same time, the Home Ministry cracked down on a number of NGOs which got foreign funding in the past couple of years. In the second half of 2015, the Indian government cancelled registrations of more than ten thousand NGOs across the country, including Greenpeace. With the increasing fatalities, arrests, and surrenders of the cadre, the tightening grip of the security forces, decrease in funding through NGOs, the Naxals have been feeling the heat, hence FTII, Vemula, and Kanhaiya seem obvious and logical tactics."

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"I heard Kanhaiya’s speech and it took me back to my college days when student politics wasn’t as sophisticated and well-oiled. When media professionals had not become brokers. ... there were speeches and sloganeering by the student leaders and their mentors from either Congress, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) or Leftist parties.

"Those speeches were mostly about how to make the university a better place for students. Only leaders from Leftist parties used to gives speeches which were about a utopian social engineering, and freedom from the State. Listening to Kanhaiya, I felt as if I was listening to a pop version of speeches I heard decades ago. Barring Kanhaiya’s personal mannerisms and dialect, his speech was straight out of a Communist template. A narrative which hasn’t changed a bit with the changing times."

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"I won’t go into the details of Kanhaiya’s speech as it’s a function of his political agenda, but I’d request him not to mention Manu Smriti without studying and understanding it. Manu Smriti doesn’t speak of the “caste system.” It talks of Varnas. Varna is not caste. Nor was “Manu Smriti” a “law book” enforced by the State. Hardly anyone reads the Manu Smriti in popular Hinduism. It’s time Communists stop using Manu Smriti as a polemic to exploit uneducated, poor people. Their strategy is to use innocent people to further their agenda, which is why I do not agree with Communists.

"I’d also advise Kanhaiya and his supporters not to talk of freedom of speech as JNU is the last place where dissent and freedom of expression (FoE) is practiced. People with ‘If you aren’t anti-State, you are an enemy’ kind of attitude must not give us sermons on FoE. FoE is part of an Indian’s native intelligence. By native, I mean Hindus like Kanhaiya and me. It’s native Hindu civilization’s strength and openness that Muslims and Christians are accepted in mainstream culture. Dear Kanhaiya, if you chose to blame one hardworking chaiwala for all the evils, just because he represents Hindu aspirations, it shows your lack of understanding. It shows you have thoughts but your mind is not azad. To understand what I am saying, you may have to consult Manu Smriti."

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"Another reason I do not subscribe to the Communism of Kanhaiya is that Communists practice violence. Tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed in Naxal-infested areas and millions remain poor and oppressed. Your comrades do not allow TV in tribal areas as it can instill greed in the Adivasis. They would want to make money and the only antidote to your poison is money. Communism is not an ideology, it’s an economic system, but the mentors of Kanhaiya fool people by projecting it as an ideology. Liberalism and even Fascism are ideologies but Communism is not. That’s why I don’t subscribe to this erroneous politics.

"Communism is really good only as textbook material. In practice, it destroys societies and their spirit. Look around the world and you will find that wherever Communism reached, people lost their freedom. Their voice. Their lives. First, it makes you angry, then hapless and then a victim. It does not allow dissent or debate. Communism’s only contribution is that it has encouraged poverty, mediocrity and violence. I shun such hypocrisy."

One has to question that beginning of the last paragraph. There are a great deal too many platitudes that are accepted as ideals and truths because of words strung together for sounding good, but they are false all the same. 

Such platitudes, fed India especially since Gandhi, include "all religions are same", or about equality of people. In reality any religion that seeks to convert usually promises heaven and hell exclusively to its own adherents and others, respectively. 

As for equality, few believe that a slum dweller is no different from pope, else there would be archbishop cleaning slums; but most people are only too willing to believe that every woman is lesser than every male, with an unspoken reasoning that can be applied with equal validity to a male buffalo being superior to a human male. 

There are a great deal too many platitudes that are accepted as ideals and truths because of words strung together for sounding good, but they are false all the same. 

Communism is mostly that, and cannot work without violence in any society setup that isn't an ashram of ancient Hindu tradition, with a strongly rooted spirituality of India's ancient traditions. 

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"The Dalai Lama is a living example of how much azadi Communism allows. He has been living in free India as a refugee, away from his motherland, because of Communism. West Bengal is another living example of how Communist ideology destroyed the entire region. Today, Kolkata is a monument of poverty and failure. I can bet you will never meet anyone who has been benefited by Communism or terrorism. In modern India, Communists have acted as intellectual terrorists.

"So, people who are excited and want to portray Kanhaiya as a hero or a youth icon aren’t in love with Communist ideology. They have nothing to do with JNU. They don’t want any azadi. They are supporting him because they don’t want Modi to grow. Because Modi means azadi from corruption, sycophancy, and middlemen. Public relations czarina Niira Radia’s phone conversations with senior journalists became public knowledge in 2010 and showed how compromised our media persons are. But even she will vouch that most of our media men and women don’t want this azadi. 

"Hence, Arvind Kejriwal. 

"Kejriwal fails. 

"Hence, Kanhaiya. 

"It’s as simple as that.

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"Kanhaiya represents aspirations of just a few thousand students of JNU. Even they will flip once they have to earn their bread and butter. India is too big and has millions of real students who actually want Azadi from such negativity, pseudo-intellectualism, and broker-ship. Students who want to be proud of their nationality, their Constitution, their government, their people, and their culture – Kanhaiya does not represent their aspirations. He is not a genuine youth icon. He is a trained, well-funded student leader on hire. By calling him a youth icon, you are insulting millions of Indian youth/students who at this very moment are studying hard and getting prepared to create wealth and repay their motherland by getting her Azadi from poverty and ‘traders of poverty’.

"I feel as if someone has taken the script of Buddha and is playing it in real life. The only difference is that in the end, unlike Kanhaiya Kumar, my hero Vikram Pundit, instead of destruction of India, professes the idea of reconstruction of India."

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July 14, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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39. Vande Mataram at JNU  

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"The first institute we wrote to was JNU. Kanhaiya and his gang’s anti-India sloganeering and his subsequent arrest on sedition charges triggered an intense nationwide debate on the suppression of dissent and therefore curbing of freedom of expression. JNU became the symbol of freedom of expression. What could have been a better place to screen Buddha than this projected ‘Mecca of dissent’? What could be better timing than this when the entire nation was discussing the role of Urban Naxalism?" 

Why are they so blind? Obvious places would be IIT and related centre's of research, high education etc al. Not pretentious empty headed centre's of sloganeering seeking to destroy India and, thus, all human civilisation, an agenda of Abrahamic-III and Abrahamic-IV. 

"So, I wrote to Ira Bhaskar, dean, cinema studies, JNU. Once. Twice. Thrice… Naireeta called her several times. Messaged her many times. She returned the call only once, to tell Naireeta that—‘Abhi mahaul theek nahi hai.’ The atmosphere isn’t conducive? We explained to her why it is so important and relevant to show the movie now, and she promised to get back, ‘I will speak to the faculty and get back.’"

"Ira promises to get back, but she doesn’t get back. At all. She doesn’t answer calls. She doesn’t acknowledge us. 

"I need to think up a Plan B. An alternative strategy. 

"I am going through tweets and news. Everywhere, the intellectual ecosystem is trying to make Kanhaiya a youth icon. Kanhaiya has been exploiting his newfound fame and has been giving anti-State speeches, flying business class, attending seminars and raising questions about the government’s tactics to curb freedom of speech.

"I come across a tweet from a friend, a sensible director and a wonderful human being, Hansal Mehta, where he informs that his film Aligarh, based on the life of a homosexual professor, will be shown at JNU the day after."

"I take out my phone and write two tweets addressed to the leader of the FoE movement, Kanhaiya Kumar, who is also the elected president of JNUSU."

"Around 11 AM, I start getting several calls from unknown phone numbers. At about 11.45 AM, Anupam Kher calls me to find out why the media is calling him. He wants to know if we have any documentary evidence to substantiate that JNU indeed discriminated against our film. I brief him and mail him all the documentary evidence. By 12.30, Rahul Shivshankar of NewsX breaks the news and soon, almost all TV news channels start beaming the news on how Buddha In A Traffic Jam is stuck in the JNU jam. Calls start pouring in. News channels insist on talking to me live.

"Almost every channel and newspaper cover it in their headlines. Social media is abuzz with the controversy, deciding the balance of power between the left and the right. Only two channels, who have been extra vocal about JNU and the FoE issue, never mention it – Barkha Dutt’s NDTV and Rajdeep Sardesai’s India Today. Also, as expected, nobody from the film industry, not even the champions of FoE, stand up in my support."

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"March 15, 2016 

"I am back in Mumbai. My inbox is full of people extending their support, requests for interviews, and abuses. In this chaos, I get a call from a student of JNU. He asks me if I would be interested in screening the film at JNU. Without any hesitation, I say yes. He says he will figure it out and get back. Oops, I have forgotten to ask his name. 

"March 16, 2016 

"I get a call from him again. He says that he has got the permission for 18th March between 5.30-8.30 PM from the student’s body, JNUSU. 

"‘How many students are you expecting?’ I ask him. ‘

"Sir, approximately hundred. We will also get a few friends from outside so say, hundred and fifty,’ he tells me.  

"‘What’s the capacity of the auditorium?’ ‘

"About two hundred to two fifty.’ 

"‘Won’t it look empty?’

"‘Sir, more students want to come but they are scared of the faculty. But we will try to convince them. Please don’t say no now. It’s a matter of our prestige.’

"‘Let me think.’ 

"‘Sir, since you said yes we got the permission.’ 

"Oops, I again forget to ask his name. I don’t want to call back to know his name and sound desperate.

"But his proposal has also put me in a real dilemma. JNU is at the centre of national news. Our film is in the news. All political groups are watching the controversy keenly. If we go, it may appear that we are trying to milk the situation. If we don’t go, the film doesn’t get the platform I have been fighting for, for so long. What if we go, and there aren’t enough students? What if it becomes political? What if they try to sabotage it? What if they write bad things about the film? What if it’s a ploy by those whom the film exposes? I have been wanting to show the film at JNU and now when the opportunity comes knocking on my door, I am worried about how many people will come to see the film. In testing moments, it’s always the sceptic mind that takes over.

"I call Kher saab. He takes a long pause after I inform him about my fears that there may be a chance of not many people coming to see the film, and media and opponents of the film, who suddenly popped up from nowhere, will try to show pictures of an empty hall to suggest that no one is interested in the film and therefore justify Ira’s discriminatory action. Anupam Kher listens to me patiently and then he says something I needed to hear most.

"‘Vivek, our real job is to make movies and show them to our audience. Even if ten students come, we must show the film to them. Just because ninety people don’t want to see the film doesn’t mean we can take away the right of those ten people who want to see it. A film is successful even if it changes just one heart. I think your film has that power. In the end, you will get what you deserve.’ 

"‘Will you come?’ 

"‘Yes.’"

"In the evening, I again get a call from the JNU boy. This time I ask his name. He is Saurabh Sharma, joint secretary of JNUSU. 

"‘Sir, now everything is fixed, we students have contributed ourselves and raised money for the projector and a screen. There are over hundred confirmations. Sir, everybody thinks JNU means only Kanhaiya and anti-national students, so no one cares about students who love India. We may be small in numbers but we do exist. For their sentiments please don’t say no.’ 

"‘But who is saying no? We will come.’ 

"‘Is it a yes?’ 

"‘Yes.’"

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"March 18, 2016 

"I reach Delhi, guarding the hard drive which has the film’s digital print. I have no idea what is in store. 

"The organizing boys come to meet me and try to understand from Naireeta the various technical requirements. 

"‘Sir, we will start the screening at 6 pm sharp as we have permission only till 8.30 pm. After that, the students start leaving for dinner.’ 

"‘That’s OK. We can start even at five or five thirty.’ 

"‘Sir, five may be too early as there will be a lot of sun.’ 

"‘What has sun got to do with us?’ 

"‘Sir, the screening has been shifted outdoor at the admin bloc.’ 

"I am blank. 

"‘What? But, why?’ 

"‘Sir, they refused to give us the auditorium saying there will be too few people. So, we decided to screen it outdoors but admin gave permission only from 5.30-8.30 PM.’

"No filmmaker worth his salt would allow his film to be shown outdoors before the theatrical release. That too with bad projection, bad sound. That’s not what we work so hard for.

"‘But how can we screen it outdoors? You can’t begin until it’s dark and it doesn’t get dark before seven. Why can’t you make another request to the admin to give you the auditorium? If you want I can come or I can request Mr. Kher to speak. That may make the difference.’ 

"‘Sir, firstly that will never happen. Secondly, after the auditorium’s cancellation, there has been an amazing response from the students who were silent so far and now they are coming out in open and committing to attend the screening and I have a feeling that the auditorium won’t be able to take five-six hundred students.’ 

"‘What? How many students did you say?' 

"‘Sir, five to six hundred.’ 

"For a filmmaker like me, who has shown the film to a maximum of hundred and fifty people in one screening, this feels like heavy showers in the desert of Jaisalmer.

"Never in the life of this film had I imagined these kinds of numbers at JNU. But this is also true that never in my life had I imagined that someday I would be forced to show my film outdoors, prior to its official release. For everyone, it has become an event. For me, it is the future of the film. Inside me, there is a conflict between a filmmaker who wants a perfect screening and a man desperate to tell the truth. Naireeta can quickly make out whenever I am confused.

"‘Sir, you always say that in the moments of confusion never follow your fears but follow the design of things.’

"Five hundred students won’t even wait for the film to get over and will start posting comments on the film on social media. One bad word and that would be the end. These aren’t just five hundred students but they are five hundred live cameras ready to broadcast to thousands of people in an instant. If life is about taking chances, this is that chance. I am taking this chance.

"I quickly write to Ira Bhaskar, inviting her for the screening. ... "

Hence, subsequent troubles?

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" ... Kher saab is insisting that he wants to go half an hour early just to walk around and interact with the students. So, we leave at 5 PM to be there at 5.30.

"When we reach JNU, we feel like we are in a different world. Definitely not the world we were promised. The entire arena outside the admin bloc is jam-packed with electrified students. The car can’t move further so we are forced to stop about four hundred metres before the venue. 

"‘You still want to walk?’ I ask Kher saab. 

"‘Only if I can get out.’

"Kher saab’s desire to walk gets crushed instantly by thousands of students shouting ‘Vande Mataram’. This is not the JNU I had known. The cop-in-charge whispers in my ears ‘Kam se kam paanch chhe hazaar ladka hai.’ Five to six thousand students?

"We try to walk towards the stage but it’s impossible to move even an inch. It’s not that we have never been amongst charged up fans but this seems like an unregulated crowd of uncontrollable students. That too in JNU. This is when more than two dozen girls come from somewhere and form a human chain around us and help us walk to the screen.

"When the organizing students want to start the film, the other students won’t let the film begin until we speak to them. I look for Saurabh but I am informed he has gone to an NDTV debate with Kanhaiya. This is when someone announces my name to speak to students. I go up on this makeshift dais and I choke looking at the sea of students, charged and exhilarated like sea waves on a heavy monsoon day.  I am a little overwhelmed. I didn’t come here to give a speech. ... "

"I have been a debater but never ever gave an impromptu speech and that too in front of so many politically motivated students and a battery of media cameras looking for a political controversy in a politically volatile institute. I know students want me to speak on the current political controversy. What do I say? Do I talk about the film? Or just say a few good words and hand over the mike to Anupam Kher? I am holding the mike but my mind is blank. I look around. There are students on the ground, on the stairs, on the terraces, on trees and on top of cars. The sun is setting behind the redbrick admin bloc, and entire JNU is filled with the chants of ‘Vande Mataram’. It seems like a historic moment. Then I see some twenty-odd students raising back flags and screaming ‘Agnihotri wapas jaao… Sanghi wapas jao…’. Why are they protesting against me? They haven’t even seen the film.

"Rejection has an amazing quality. It gives you strength. I don’t know if it was the chanting of Vande Mataram or the sloganeering against me. Or both. I am taken over by some force. And I speak. From the heart. Like I have never done before."

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"‘Vande Mataram. Jai Hind.’ 

"The arena explodes with ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. 

"While watching the screening with the students, I am thinking about the people who are against this film. Why were some faculty members not letting it screen? Who are this faculty? I am amazed at their political power. Are they running these institutes at their whims? Are these educational institutions or political madrasas? Is the faculty Taliban and are the students jihadis? Why is it that the Barkha Dutts of the world did not even bother to cover this historic moment? Or have they taken an oath to cover only the anti-national news?

"The politics, on which I had based my film, and which up until now I only believed and felt intellectually, was slowly revealing itself in actuality. Conviction of thought is stronger than any other power. I can see this as the students laugh, clap, cheer at the right moments, which the Bollywood friends of mine missed at the MAMI screening."

"When the film ends, there is a huge roar of applause that makes a standing ovation redundant. For the next two hours, we are hounded by an unruly media and a selfie attack by our newfound fans and supporters. 

"As I head back to the hotel around midnight, some fifty-sixty students are taking out a victory march for Umar Khalid, who has just been released on bail. 

"Victory march? Really?"

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July 14, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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40. Gandhi vs Mao: IIT Gandhinagar  

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"Soon after the JNU screening, we start getting invites from various universities and institutions for the screening of our film. Naireeta shows me the emails and is super excited. 

"‘We have got an invite from IIT Gandhinagar, sir. Isn’t that great?’ 

"I am busy reading a text message on my phone."

"Just a few weeks before the JNU screening, I had met with an executive at PVR Cinemas, India’s largest chain of multiplexes, because they run a project called ‘Director’s Rare’ under which they support award-winning yet unreleased films on limited screens ranging between ten and twenty-five. To the producer it costs two to five lacs and his film gets a technical release for him to be able to sell satellite, overseas, digital, and other rights, and recover some of his costs. If one is really lucky, some indie lovers also come to see such films. I have been to some screenings and never found more than ten-fifteen people watching it, including the director and some actors. It’s a tragic state of affairs but I wasn’t complaining. The system brings down the maker of small indie films to such a level that even one screening feels like winning an Oscar.

"I met PVR COO Deepak Sharma and showed him the screener. Deepak understands politics pretty well. When he saw the screener of the film, he got excited and told me that it’s a very powerful film and asked me to go for a full nationwide release with hundred and fifty prints. A few meetings later, I realized that what Deepak had proposed would require nothing less than thirty-forty lacs for the digital prints. This is exactly hundred percent more than what we had. I did some quick mental math. I thought I would release it without any conventional TV or print advertising. Digital is free, which I can manage. I may need some money for travelling and print material. This would cost another ten lacs. I need fifty lacs. PVR charges fifty lacs to release a film and here they were offering to release my film for free. I didn’t want such an opportunity to go away.

"I called several people who finance films but they weren’t interested in a non-starrer film and that too one which had been stuck for so long. Some people did not understand how a film could be released without publicity. The powerful people didn’t want to touch it after the JNU screening. I requested Anurag Kashyap to see the film since he has major clout in distributing such films but he didn’t respond. I even pleaded with Manish Mundra, founder of Drishyam Films, who has produced several small indie films, to invest any amount from five lacs to fifty but by and by I realized that it was going to be impossible to get film industry folks to invest in a controversial film. Also, it was impossible for anyone to understand how a film could create awareness without spending big bucks in conventional advertising. We don’t have an innovation culture nor do we understand disruptive ideas. No wonder we are surrounded by mediocrity. After a lot of humiliation, disgust, and hyperacidity, I decided to meet Deepak and tell him my real situation. It’s not easy to stand naked in front of people who put you on a pedestal."

Was Rajshree too out of box for Agnihotri to occur?

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"As I was about to enter the swanky elevator of the PVR office in Andheri, someone called my name and he turned out to be an old friend and a trade consultant who had worked at Sony Pictures and is well connected with the distribution networks. He told me that he was looking for me as a childhood friend of his, Jay Merchant, wanted to contact me. Jay Merchant runs a theatre group in Vadodara and also teaches theatre. Jay was planning a play on the Naxal issue and while doing the research he read somewhere that I had made a film on Naxalism and since then he had been trying to find me. ... "

"‘I have a student in my theatre group who wants to invest small amounts in Hindi films. He wants to invest in a ready product. Would you be interested in meeting him?’"

"In Vadodara, I met a wonderful couple, Sharad and Shreyanshi Patel. Sharad had invested some money in a Gujarati film which turned out to be a blockbuster. He wanted to invest small amounts in irregular cinema. He is apolitical and just by seeing the screener, he agreed to invest the required amount. I had reached his house at ten in the morning and by one PM, the deal was locked.

"A tripartite contract was drawn up with PVR and all marketing plans and logistics were confirmed. It was decided that the film would release on May 6 on hundred and fifty-odd screens. 

"I was supposed to sign the contract today.

"‘What happened sir? Aren’t you happy with the news?’ Naireeta asked me again. 

"‘No, I am happy with the news… it’s just that we have the film, the audience, an investor but no distributor.’ 

"‘What do you mean no distributor? We have PVR, no?’ 

"‘No. They have backed out.’ 

"‘But why?’ 

"‘I don’t know. And I think we will never know.’"

"The first thing the film industry does to a free-willed filmmaker is that it makes him believe that there is no life without the producers, distributors, and money. Actually, it’s the other way around. There is no life for the middlemen without the creators. Since the middlemen have the money, they have set the rules of the game which make them more powerful and rich and the filmmakers weaker. This is the reason filmmakers give in and start playing by their rules to fit in and survive, and in return, the truth and the creative quotient of the film become natural victims. I shall not give in to the middlemen."

Do Bigha Zameen - of art. 

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"The IIT Gandhinagar campus is new, the amphitheater-style indoor auditorium is big enough to take over a thousand people.  The screening is at 6 PM. It’s 5.50 PM and there isn’t a soul except for the organizing students. My heart is pounding as, like any greedy filmmaker, I don’t want to run the film in an empty hall after the blockbuster screening at JNU. 

"It’s 5.55 PM and there isn’t anyone in the hall. 

"‘It’s OK, we can’t expect engineers to come and see a political drama,’ I tell Naireeta who is very disheartened. 

"‘Maybe they haven’t informed students properly. Looks like a flop show.’ 

"My phone rings. It’s Akshay Rathi whose family owns the Rathi group of cinemas in the central province of India. He asks me if I would be interested in screening the film at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai. It’s one of Asia’s top management institutes and there is no reason why I shouldn’t accept the invitation. They want to screen it the day after tomorrow as the students will be going on preparation leave.

"I notice there are four missed calls from Naireeta. ... "

" ... I rush to the auditorium. When I enter the hall from the rear door, I just cannot believe what I see. The hall is jam-packed with students. All eleven hundred of them. 

"‘Where have they just come from?’ 

"‘Sir, they had a class until 5.45.’ Naireeta informs me. 

"‘This is the real test of our film,’ I tell Naireeta, looking at a concentrated pool of India’s top technological and scientific minds in a dark auditorium. 

"I introduce the film. 

"‘How many of you know about Naxalism?’ 

"Very few hands go up. 

"‘Well, in that case, this film is for you.’

"The film begins in complete darkness. In the first scene, we see the Adivasi cutting wood in 2000 BC, and as the shot changes to 2014 AD and we see the same Adivasi cutting wood without a thing changed around him except for the leaves of mahua, the students clap. Some laugh. Some whisper. Some smile. I know the film is making a connect. Students are reacting at the right moments. I am keen to see how they react to the climax.

"When the climax comes, I go and stand near the exit door. From here, I can see everyone, in the flickering beam of the projector. As soon as Vikram Pundit takes out his iPad and says ‘Yeh hai naye Bharat ki nai soch, the new thinking of the new India’, some students clap. Then more join in. And more. This applause is coming from the heart. As an emotional response. I never expected this reaction. A film which is made to intellectually stimulate the audience ends up stimulating them emotionally. Slowly, the applause starts echoing hard enough to break out of this newly-built auditorium and its high ceiling. I want them to stop clapping and concentrate on the dialogues. If I had the faintest idea that this dialogue would generate such an overwhelming reaction, I would have created some silence in the moment.

"When the professor says ‘Sorry, Papa’ in the end, everyone laughs. This laughter isn’t the same as the way one laughs upon hearing a joke. It’s a laughter emanating from the satisfaction that evil has accepted defeat. This is the intended payoff of the film. And it has delivered.

"The Q&A begins with some general questions related to the film, but slowly it becomes intense, shifting from Naxalism to caste issues and exploitation of the Dalit. A girl from Kerala asks me why I have not shown caste-based oppression as she is a victim of this social evil. She is angry and very tense. She tells me how Dalit power is rising and Naxalism is the only support that they have.

"A very insightful discussion follows. What I gather from these small-town middle-class students is that they have a deep desire to rid India of its social evils, disparity, and inefficiency. They want to build India. They want change. Not by fighting the State but by fighting with ideas that do not let us grow. When I ask how many of them want to go abroad after graduation, very few hands go up. Student aspirations are changing. India is changing. The film has connected with them because it reaffirms this aspiration and the faith that the real revolution will come from ideas, and not war.  While the students of JNU want to bring about transformation with a political fight, these students want to use innovation as a tool for social and financial justice. They are Buddhas."

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"If we had followed Gandhi, we would have been a very different country. Kutir and Gram Udyog was built on a strong principle of entrepreneurship at the grassroots level. Native innovation is always more beneficial to the economy than imported technology. It’s cheaper, more effective and useful to local needs. It took almost 65 years for us to package amras, jaljeera juices and market them nationally. But by this time, the market was already saturated with foreign brands. We made engineers but not builders. We made doctors but not medical scientists. Teachers but not educators. We had neither a blueprint for villages nor any urban planning. Our growth story has been haphazard. Every year, regional, social, economic and political disparities are increasing and creating new, unexplored and complex webs of caste and class conflicts."

Oh they did follow. In political context. Where else could this so-called secular that is absurdly defined come from! From nehru siblings slapping, hard, a Hindu monk on fast, to every other concession and pronouncement that was either specifically anti-Hindu or pro-minorities at cist of Hindus (but never pro smaller minorities at vodt of minorities associated with ex colonial regimes!), has been progressively exaggerating, until throats of innocent have been cut with little action other than arrests, for heated words in a debate that fid not lie, in response to sustained campaign of lies after desecration of Hindu Deities - and a major one at that - was discovered. And the ridicule included cartoons on social media with questions supposed to further humiliate Hindus. 

Funny,  they rarely realize they bring out profound truths while doing thus. Such as when in 1990 or do a major newspaper asked if next on agenda was the Mumbadevi temple that had been demolished to build VT by British. Or even more do when someone questioned, with a photograph, if Hindus claim Bhabha Atomic reactor as a Shivalinga representation. 

What could be more true that the Atomic reactor representing Shivalinga, the Power of Shiva the Destroyer? Claimed it isn't, not so far, but a higher Truth it certainly is! 

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"Mao is the antithesis of Gandhi in that he believed war and armed conflict were necessary vehicles to drive a revolution forward. Gandhi explained that non-violence is crucial to a revolution. For Mao, political power comes from force and violence. For Gandhi, political power comes from cooperation and consent."

Has it occurred to them that Lincoln and FDR are a valid alternative team? 

"In independent India, much after Gandhi’s death, two revolutions began almost at the same time and for the same purpose: redistribution of the landlord’s land to poor peasants. While Mao’s disciples were killing people to redistribute land, Gandhi’s disciple Vinoba Bhave was walking all over India to request zamindars to donate their lands for the peasants and received over six lac acres for redistribution. One came to be known as Naxalism/Maoism and the other is known as Bhoodan. That we do not acknowledge Bhoodan but glorify Naxalism is a failure of our country’s conscience."

Colonial slave mindset, available for sale to every traditional buyer of slaves, whether China or anyone geographically West of India. 

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July 14, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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41. The Intolerance Debate: SPJIMR and IIT Bombay  

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"Back in Mumbai, I show the film at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research and India’s leading engineering institute, IIT Bombay. The film receives an overwhelming reception, followed by intense Q&A sessions. 

"At IIT Bombay, I meet Professor Bapat and his colleagues. This is the computer science department which most toppers of JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) opt for. These are some of the best professors in India with several innovations and patents in their bags. It’s said that when these professors walk, instead of footprints they leave behind innovations. Despite such achievements and contribution to India’s technological growth, the head of the department and his colleagues aren’t happy people since Narendra Modi won the elections.

"Professor Bapat tells me that all his life he has been attending the Indian Science Congress and various conferences to speak on Vedic science, but since Modi became PM, wherever he speaks on Vedic science, people start calling him Sanghi. He is worried about such intolerance. He has been able to overcome the biggest of the scientific challenges but sees himself failing in front of this emerging political intolerance of an idea that is rooted in Hindu traditions and history. He feels an organized campaign is being run to demoralize such citizens who take pride in Hindu civilization and its traditional knowledge systems.

"IIT Bombay is not like any other institute. After a quiet screening, I am bombarded with questions ranging from Naxalism to Artificial Intelligence and Vedic knowledge. This, perhaps, is the only institute where research scholars have strong faith in ancient knowledge. This isn’t a Q&A anymore, it has become an event to share ideas, aspirations, and concerns. I am observing that at each screening, the film intellectually stimulates the audience and engages them. Normally, Q&A sessions are mostly restricted to the film but in our case, students ask all kinds of political questions as if I have all the answers. In the end, all points of views merge and create one main flow of debate, a debate that every student, every professor is involved with: The Intolerance Debate."

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"A few months back, I had an opportunity to meet Prime Minister Modi at his residence at 7 Race Course Road, over an informal chat filled with humour, ideas, and positivity. And of course, there was chai along with chaas, dhokla, idlis, and veg kathi rolls which were literally forced on me and the rest by the Prime Minister himself.

"It was a time when both the intolerance debate and award wapsi was at its peak and the media was loving to portray Modi as the root cause of the increasing intolerance. They wanted Modi’s head but he kept silent. Munnawar Rana, a popular Urdu poet, was leading the attack on various channels.

"I remember Prime Minister Modi sharing his belief that the cultural space shouldn’t be ‘rajya aashrit’, government-dependent, as it takes away the voice of reason but it should be ‘rajya puraskarit’, awarded by the State. And without ‘fearless cultural evolution’, we would be a robotic society. He clarified that he never received any request from any ‘kalakar’ to meet him. ‘One day I saw on TV that Shri Munnawar Rana was saying that if PM invites us, we’ll go and tell him about our concerns, so I immediately called my secretary and asked him to invite Shri Rana at his convenience but till date no one has come. As a PM, I can’t go beyond this. Home Minister Rajnath Singhji has publicly extended the invitation, twice, but no one has responded.’

"On the murder of rationalist academic Kalburgi and the lynching of a Muslim man at Dadri, he said that no one has met the governors of the states and lodged their concerns in order to be channeled to him as he can’t interfere in state issues. He had asked the Karnataka government to send him all the files on the Kalburgi murder but they had not sent them as yet.

"PM Modi gave an example of administrative intolerance. During the last days of the Vajpayee government, it was decided to build six All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). The then health minister Sushma Swaraj named the Patna AIIMS Jaiprakash Narayan Institute, and similarly, the other five were also named after non-Congress national leaders. Vajpayee’s government lost the elections and the Congress-led UPA came to power. The UPA passed a Bill in Parliament and ‘banned’ these names to be used for any government project. That was the level of intolerance, he said.

"He was concerned about ‘political concern vs national interest’. He told us that fifty-four heads of African countries were in India for the Indo-African summit. ‘So many heads of state don’t even attend a state funeral,’ he said sarcastically. ‘One-third of the world’s population, its concerns, and aspirations were represented, yet in our media and public discourses, this event was absent.’

"He said emphatically, ‘If there is a loss to the country due to my mistake, please criticize me which you must… punish me… but just to oppose me or any other political rival, one shouldn’t forget national interest. This much intolerance is not good.’

"He quoted how Galileo was nearly killed for opposing a belief but in India, when Charvak, an atheist, challenged the Vedas with logic and rejected the idea of reincarnation, he was given the title of ‘rishi’. Indian thought isn’t about tolerance, it’s about acceptance. He reminded us that societies which champion the cause of human rights are the ones who started two world wars whereas India has been the most peace-generating country in the global context. He said, ‘I have absolute faith that the tapasya of thousands of years can’t be destroyed by you and me.’"

WWI and WWII were started by Germany, not known to champion human rights until end of WWII. Germany, or rather, the naxis blamed England of course, for WWII and possibly the one before. That merely meant, if only Britain hadn't meddled while Germany was merely enslaving Europe, looting it and conducting genocides, there wouldn't have been any war. 

Indeed. 

World might have been a nazi colony, instead. 

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"Why is everyone talking about intolerance? Are we really intolerant? 

"How come we have so many political parties ruling so many different states? This means there is political tolerance. In industry, we have equal opportunities for all kinds of enterprise. Malls exist in the midst of local bazaars and street vendors. Sikhs have shops in the heart of Srinagar. Biharis have farms in Punjab. Which means there is no financial intolerance. In administration, education and health, we never question the religion or political alignment of the practitioner. If people can openly criticize the prime minister, ridicule religious leaders, question social taboos, debate issues ranging from FTII to bar dancers, return awards, make fun of regional leaders, it proves that there is no media or FoE intolerance."

Except by those claiming it and accusing Hindus fraudulently. 

"Why aren’t sane, rational voices heard any more? If you invite sane voices, voices of reason, the lethal game of boutique activism stands exposed. Boutique Liberal Activism feeds on the misery of others. Schadenfreude is the oxygen of their business. That’s why they show only the miserable side of our society. The evolved, enlightened and reasonable voice of India is absolutely absent from the national discourse. Who has divided us?

"Our society is divided into ‘overclass’ (as described by Michael Find) and ‘underclass’. Overclass has systematically siphoned off the national wealth, leaving the underclass to fight for two square meals. They either inherited or, in collusion with corrupt regimes, appointed themselves to positions of power and influence. With strong control over information, they kept the underclass in the dark. Their word was the final word. The biggest trick the overclass played on the underclass is keeping the hope alive that only they can get them out of this abject poverty. That we have problems and they have the solution. ... "

"Two phenomena disturbed this status quo. One, the advent of social media, and second, the rise of Narendra Modi. With easy access to social and digital media, the underclass started questioning the authenticity of information provided by the overclass. Suddenly, their statements are scrutinized, their credibility is questioned, their sinister campaigns and lies are exposed. Their dilemma is that if they quit social media, they lose their relevance, and if they stay, they lose their credibility. This war of intolerance isn’t between HDL (Hindu Defence League) and MDL (Muslim Defence league). This isn’t between the left and the right. This is between the overclass and the underclass. The intellectual hierarchy has been demolished."

It never was intellectual, in the first place. It was a dynasts vs SSR, always. 

Latter, suddenly - after he was so horribly finished off, and to those his roots belong to, the middle class striving for education - came to represent the society he came from. Striving and dreaming. 

Unlike the Doon school club.

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"Media czars have lost their access to the corridors of power and to people’s hearts. It’s the overclass’ space that has been taken over by the underclass. Their discomfort is with the new order where the others are also heard. Hence, the feeling of shrinking space. They are intolerant of this new phenomenon – the emergence of the underclass. They try to devalue this new, empowered underclass by associating it with Modi and, therefore, Hindutva, and that’s a grave mistake. The universe that was full of their voice has expanded to accommodate this new voice. This is what they call an attack on FoE and growing intolerance.

" ... Social justice, if it has to come, will come only from a free and fair market. Why didn’t our liberals tell us this simple truth? When agendas, vote banks, and self-delusion take over, reasoning and sympathy are needed to keep up a common conversation. Without it, there is aggression, deafness, and an obsession with purification; hence the divisive politics of Boutique Liberalism. Boutique Liberalism is an Indian tragedy and a very damaging detour into the quicksand of communalism. Indian Liberalism has come to mean the colour opposite of saffron. That’s their failure. In a desperate attempt, their new mantra is – ‘We don’t care if you are a murderer, we want to know whether you are a liberal or a Sanghi murderer?’ 

"This is where the real intolerance lies."

No, it far more sinister. 

It's fraudulent accusations against innocent Hindus to prove that Islamic terrorists are cuddly teddy bears. It's torture of innocent Hindus arrested fraudulently by cops not shy of physically and mentally torturing them, threatening rapes of females - and of female relatives- by dozens of them, and forcing fraudulent confessions via these and worse tortures, at instructions from "high up" during the UPA regime. 

It's a bill almost passed in parliament to the effect that any Hindu, if accused by someone non-Hindu, loses all civil rights including habeas corpus. 

It's public statement of denial of Hindu Deities and assertion of non-existence thereof, by the said regime. 

Worse, it's constant fraudulent accusation against a state CM as one responsible, while witnesses to Delhi riots who knew role of  congress henchmen in 1984, were living in fear, if living. 

Worst of all, it's never asking if the Gujarat riots were an Islamic jihadi agenda from johafists who considered their victory against USSR led to another in Kashmir enforcing Hindu exodus, and were therefore encouraged to conducting an ethnic cleansing of yet another border state, a prosperous one. 

A UPA minister conducted an inquiry about the pilgrims burnt alive by muslims in Godhra, designed to conclude that the pilgrims dud it to themselves  so the attackers were pronounced not guilty. Victims included even, children and old. 

This whole onslaught is an attempt to return to the era when Hindus were slaves to invading barbarians, never equal. 

And they didn't ask, is paki design to conquer behind this flurry of attacks against Hindus, and against PM Modi? Perhaps they knew it was, and were silent because they were paid. 

Was 2002 a paki attack, foiled, and therefore the maligning of the then CM?

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July 14, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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42. Rohith Vemula and Dalit Politics: 

NALSAR and Osmania University  

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"We are flooded with requests from top institutes to screen the film.  Naireeta informs me that if we do two institutes a day, we will be able to finish all requests only in three months. We try to organize ourselves and select institutes which are on main trunk routes, easy to fly to and are politically relevant to our film’s theme. We have to drop places like Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, Roorkee, Dehradun, Agra, Nagpur etc. We have to cover approximately forty institutes or universities in the next forty days. Everyone thinks it’s a logistical nightmare. I wonder how politicians manage to give five to six speeches a day in scorching heat. Modi’s politics aside, one can always be inspired by his relentless campaigning. We lock our schedule. 

"I land in Hyderabad. The city where this idea was fertilized. I am supposed to screen the movie at the prestigious National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) and at the Naxal nursery, Osmania University.

"The NALSAR campus is world class. Bold, earthy architecture, stunning landscapes. It can pass off as a high-end luxury resort. It’s got space, design, and vibes. I am taken to the vice-chancellor’s office. It’s a swanky office with lots of golden trophies on display. Faizan Mustafa, the vice-chancellor, receives me with utmost humility. Mr. Mustafa carries his minority card on his sleeve and wrongly assumes that I am close to Mr. Modi and the then HRD minister Smt. Smriti Irani, as I am anti-left in ideology.

"My father was a vice-chancellor and I have met numerous vice-chancellors of that era – the pre-sycophancy era. They used to have wisdom, knowledge, integrity, and above all, fearlessness. They were the real intellectuals who shaped universities with value systems and because of their inspiring leadership, even governments feared them. Then something changed. Indira Gandhi started appointing only loyalists in all major institutions. Slowly, almost all appointments became political and the institutions started behaving like extensions of the Congress (Indira) party. Sonia Gandhi knew that she was a weak leader and, therefore, she not just wanted loyalists but also weak people with no spine, no real qualifications. They wore their sycophancy as a medal on their blazers. Now with the advent of a new government under Modi’s leadership, the entire ecosystem feels threatened. NALSAR is no different, as it’s very obvious from Mr. Mustafa’s unabated requests to give good feedback to the PM and the HRD minister of his leadership. In the last forty years, we have made our educational institutes hollow."

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"When we reach the auditorium, it’s packed with future lawyers and lawmakers of India. I introduce the film and tell them why it’s an important film for them to see. Because so far there has been one kind of argument and mostly in favour of Naxals. This film is the other side of the argument. I tell them that the real purpose of the film is to ignite a debate which presents a third side and eventually a constructive, fair and judicious argument which strengthens India rather than breaking it apart. I can see most of the students reacting to what I say but a few faces have an inscrutable expression; these students are more keen to grill me during the Q&A. They are sitting apart from one another yet connected by the same expression. I am getting trained in identifying interspersed Leftists in a crowd.

"While the movie plays in the auditorium, Naireeta and I sit outside to fine-tune social media activities. Social media is all we have. It’s quick and viral and, above all, free. Today, media picks up all news from social media, so we also save on PR cost. The success at JNU had made us realize the potential and power of social media but to what extent, maybe we have to yet learn."

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" ... After an hour or so, I see a tall, lanky boy in a kurta and jeans with unkempt hair and uneven beard, walking towards the auditorium. I call him to ask where to find tea. 

"‘Thanks. In case, you are going to see the film, you are already late by an hour,’ I tell him. 

"‘I don’t want to see the film,’ he replies. There is contempt in his body language. It intrigues me. 

"‘Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. I am the director of the film – Viv...’ 

"‘I know you are Vivek Agnihotri,’ he says with a cold look. 

"‘Great. May I ask why you don’t want to see the film?’ 

"‘Because I have already seen it.’ 

"‘Where?’ ‘On the net.’ 

"‘That’s impossible.’ 

"‘Everything is possible on the net.’ 

"‘You mean the full film?’ 

"‘Yeah, we have seen the full film. Not just once, but several times. Last we saw it this morning.’ 

"‘And what did you think?’ 

"‘That we will tell you in the Q&A.’ 

"I have never met anyone who can look into your eyes and offend you with his honesty. 

"‘Since there is an hour for the Q&A to begin, why don’t we sit down and chat? You tell me what doesn’t work for you and if I can make you understand my reasons, maybe we can discover another truth.’ 

"We sit on one of the concrete benches, overlooking the lush green garden. 

"‘It’s not about liking or disliking the film; this film is dangerous.’ 

"I find him interesting. I want to indulge him. After all, that is the purpose of this journey, to debate and learn from a new perspective. 

"‘The intention behind this film is to begin a debate,’ I try to set the tone. 

"‘You are not starting a debate; you are creating a narrative. And that’s dangerous.’ 

"‘You sound like a logical young lawyer. Why would you say it’s dangerous? It’s just a film.’ 

"‘That’s why. As a film, it will create a new narrative.’ 

"‘What’s wrong with a new narrative? It’s based on facts.’ 

"‘I don’t care about your facts. We just don’t need another narrative.’ 

"‘You hate the film so much?’ 

"‘I don’t hate the film. In fact, the film is really good. Perhaps, one of the best. We just don’t want the film to be released.’ 

"‘How can you even say that?’ 

"‘That’s true. We have seen it several times and we have decided that we will rip it apart and ensure that it’s not released.’ 

"‘We? Who are we?’ 

"‘We are everywhere. You will meet some of them in the Q&A. Today is going to be your worst day.’ 

"‘Why are you telling me all this? You could have just attacked me directly in the Q&A.’ 

"‘True. But when I met you, I wanted to hurt you. I want you to suffer.’ 

"‘Just because I have a point of view?’ 

"‘For the revolution to come, we must destroy any narrative which is against Naxalism. Including your film.’ 

"‘Why are you doing this?’ 

"‘Because we want an India which is free of Brahmins like you.’"

Agnihotri goes on here to equivovate, either not realising or not daring to point out, that the anti-Brahmin agenda was vital to Macaulay policy to destroy India - and its a colonial slave mindset that accepts as gospel truth the completely fraudulent blames and accusations heaped against Brahmins, which in reality were copied from realities of church, but untrue of Brahmins. 

Regardless of the source of this hatred, whether Abrahamic-II or Abrahamic-III or Abrahamic-IV, Macaulay policy it is they follow, forever the crystallised form of hatred for India from outsider, lesser cultures of barbaric invaders. 

" ... These vulnerable students are then brainwashed with a false argument against Brahminism and gut-wrenching stories of oppression and class struggle. In a few months, they are trained to hate everything about Brahmins, upper class, the rich and successful, and money. All this anger is consolidated in one enemy: RSS. Since RSS’ agenda is to create a Hindu nation, these young people end up hating everything related to Hinduism, including Hindus."

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" ... As a student, I was as angry and as honest. But our dreams were different. This boy is not a hardcore Leftist yet. He is trying very hard to be one. He is a good boy. He has the sincerity, character, and passion. He has a dream for India and the energy and desire to accomplish it. These kinds of young men and women got us freedom. These are the kind of men and women, if used tactfully, can be instrumental in building a nation. Or breaking it."

" ... In public life, appreciation builds slowly but opposition builds exponentially.

"A bright spotlight is turned on and its bright beam falls straight on my face. A few girls stand up and start clapping. Slowly, everyone stands up and claps. As the students give a standing ovation to the film, I try to identify those who are not clapping and these are the same students who had poker faces when I introduced the film.

"‘What do you think about Manu Smriti?’ a boy from the last row asks me. His body language is defensive but his eyes are aggressive.  

"I am not prepared for questions outside the scope of film’s theme. I have to take a call whether to engage in a pre-decided strategy of the Leftist students or escape it with humour. I decide to counter-argue. 

"‘I haven’t read Manu Smriti. But I have read versions of it and I think maybe it had relevance in its time but in today’s context it has no relevance,’ I reply. 

"‘Why are you avoiding the question?’ he asks.

"‘No, I am not. I am not an expert on it and I feel it’s irrelevant in my life so I don’t care much.’ 

"‘That’s because you are a Brahmin.’ 

"I don’t like it. I have never liked casteist discussions. If there is any one thing that is alien to my entire being, one thing that I detest, it is casteism. But I know where they want to lead me. 

"‘The only time I was called Brahmin before this was when I went to study at Harvard. There we were called Boston Brahmins. But Brahmin there signified meritocracy. You are here in India’s top institute, in a top profession, so in my eyes, you are also a Brahmin.’

"‘You are again running away from the issue.’

"‘I hope you realize that neither Manu Smriti nor Brahminism is within the scope of this film. The film is about Naxalism, about intellectual terrorism… feel free to ask anything around the theme.’ 

"‘So… you want me to shut up. OK, say so.’"

"A French-bearded management professor, sitting next to the VC, asks the students to be quiet and he rises to speak. 

"‘I think it’s a democracy and we follow absolute freedom of speech, so I think students should be allowed to ask any question,’ the management professor makes a point.

"‘OK. After seeing the film, you can’t question my commitment to absolute freedom of speech. I just didn’t want to digress.’ I point at the VC and continue, ‘Whatever VC saheb says.’ I know I have put the VC in an awkward situation. He desperately wants to see the students corner me but he also wants me to give a good report card to his bosses. He has a tough job.

"‘I agree with Agnihotri saab that the questions should be around the film,’ he turns to address me, ‘But Agnihotri saab, you are not just a filmmaker. You write on politics, so it might be a good idea if you took some other questions from the students.’ He smiles at me and then turns towards the students and smiles at them. Law schools teach you how to take a stand in favour of one of the arguments and here the VC wants to appease both sides.

"They aren’t interested in listening. They just want to attack. They throw questions on RSS, Godhra, Dadri, intolerance and of course on Rohith Vemula’s suicide. For them, I represent the enemy. And now it seems, I am the enemy. 

"‘What are your views on Rohith Vemula, Mr. Agnihotri?’ a student with a long beard asks.

"‘It’s very sad. Except for that, I have no views on Rohith Vemula.’ 

"‘Just sad. A Dalit student was forced to commit suicide and you have no views. Isn’t that sad?’ 

"‘First of all, we don’t know if he was forced or he did it of his own free will. We don’t even know if he was a Dalit but his being Dalit doesn’t make his death sadder. In my mind, a young bright boy lost his life. So, I feel as sad as I feel for any other young student.’

"This makes them furious. In this mini-battle, their attempt is to corner me with personal attacks as they know film is my home ground and they can’t win an argument there. Hence, this strategy to raise sensitive issues of Dalits, minorities, feminism, homosexuality, Ram Mandir etc. which have become sentimental issues. They want to cash in on the Dalit part of the story and put the blame on Hindu aspiration.

"‘What are your views on reservations?’ 

"‘I think reservations should be for FBC – Financially Backward Class.’

"This makes the bearded guy furious. 

"‘You know what is your problem? You are an oppressor. You have no right to make such a movie… you are a liar!’ He starts using the most unparliamentary language. 

"I look at the VC and the professor. The VC avoids my eyes but the management professor keeps staring at me. He is keen to see my reaction. He wants to see me break. They let him speak his insulting language. I am in a very positive frame of mind. I don’t want to get into an argument that leads nowhere. My film is my argument. I think I must navigate the session in a different direction.

"‘Why are you so angry, my friend? I empathize with your frustration as I have also been a student like you who has expressed his anger by burning government buses but as I grew up I realized that a little sense of humour helps,’ I say, addressing the other group. The majority of the students agree. 

"‘You want to see sense of humour?’ He charges towards me.

"All heads turn towards him. He charges through the aisles from the last row, yelling at me. I can feel an aura of violence around him. He is going to attack me. I prepare myself mentally. I look at Naireeta. She looks scared. I look at the VC and the professor who are not responding, as if waiting to see how the event unfolds. He picks up speed and comes running towards the podium. He climbs the podium. In the next four steps, he is going to catch my neck, or pounce on me, or spit on me. He takes the first step and the second…Naireeta jumps from somewhere and stands in front of me. The boy stops. Collective sigh. 

"He stares at me as if trying to do with his eyes what he couldn’t do with his hands. He is gasping for air. His hands are trembling. He gives me a hateful look. Hate is very hurtful whether expressed by a physical attack, or words or just a look.  

"‘How can you discuss money when so many people are dying? There is no point talking to you, Mr. Agnihotri,’ and he walks out of the auditorium with the same speed, banging the door behind him.

"After a long, suspended moment of awkward silence, the management professor raises his hand. 

"‘I want to know your views on capitalism since your movie shows capitalism winning in the end,’ says the professor. 

"‘It depends on which side of capitalism we are looking at. Capitalism means innovation, excellence, wealth creation, empowerment, conveniences, quality of human life and so on. Capitalism also means greed, ambition, conflict, corruption, exploitation and so on. I believe in the former. I believe every facet of life has two sides: good and bad. I believe in balance. But if I have to make a choice, I’d always want to choose the good part.’

"‘So, you are pro-money?’ 

"‘I love money. I am sure you love money too. If not, then you should, because a great economist said, “Money is the most creative invention of humanity.”’ 

"‘Who said this? Economics is my specialization but I have never heard this,’ he says with arrogance. 

"‘Kautilya,’ I reply. ‘Kautilya who?’ 

"‘Chanakya.’ 

"There are murmurs interspersed with laughter in the audience. The VC looks at his professor and realizes that it’s time to close the proceedings.

"Later, as Mr. Mustafa comes to drop me off to my car, after a delicious Hyderabadi dinner, he requests me that if I meet the HRD minister I must tell her about his achievements and his desire to implement the vision of the new government."

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"Our car runs through a dark highway. We are late for our next screening at Osmania University. Naxalism has attracted many students of Osmania. It has always been a hotbed of radical politics. It was in Osmania in 1974-75 that fourteen students renounced family life and vowed never to marry with the purpose of devoting their entire lives to the revolution. ‘Overground’ organizations were formed. The first state-level conference of the newly formed Radical Students Union (RSU) was held in Hyderabad to formalize strategies to integrate the student movement with the armed revolution. It was attended by an overwhelming number of students whose enthusiasm and collective efforts gave impetus to the Naxal movement.

"A huge screen has been put up in front of the main building under which many freedom fighters had found their resolve, many writers had written classic poetry, ideas of so many revolutions were seeded. If an orthodox politician Asaduddin Owaisi crossed this sanctum sanctorum, then the architect of liberalization, P.V. Narasimha Rao and the astronaut Rakesh Sharma also walked here."

" ... The screening gets a tremendous response. People laugh, clap and go silent like a statue. People clap very hard when the nexus between the professor, the NGO, and the Naxals is exposed towards the end of the film. After my experience at NALSAR, filled with negativity, pessimism, hatred and violence, this screening with its positivity, optimism, and hope feels spiritual.

"The Leftists are too eager to latch on to anything that gives them an opportunity to publicly attack and defeat pro-India voices intellectually. Whereas these students at Osmania want to move away from the days of disturbance and conflict and are ready to latch on to any positive, optimistic and hopeful idea. At NALSAR, they had a plan, a strategy, and an agenda. When they saw themselves and their strategies getting exposed in the film in front of their ignorant colleagues, they got angry at me. They wanted to kill the messenger. That exactly is the reason they keep failing with their revolution.  I will relish these contradictions all my life.

"We have to catch a flight the next morning for Bengaluru.  We have screenings at the National Law University and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). We decide to leave at 9 AM. Sleep evades me.  A mass of questions is whirling inside my head."

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" ... Political masterminds never look at it as a loss of life. They look for political plugs like religion, caste, regionality, economic status etc. A Muslim death is always more beneficial than a Hindu death. A lower caste death, a farmer’s death, a slum dweller’s death always has the scope to be spun it into an emotional saga of the oppressed and thus maintain a fake narrative of class struggle."

"Here is a man who fell for a utopia and joined the Communist student body, the Students Federation of India (SFI). When he realized that the ‘people’s revolution’ is a facade for the sinister and ruthless politics that is against every principle of humanity, his faith shattered."

"Instead of being led to social justice and people’s empowerment, he found himself being exploited just as a political pawn in a dangerous, inhuman game."

Agnihotri does not include facts that were then out. 

Vemula had been suspended for reasons more than adequate. He had physically assaulted another, dalit student, who was in a serious condition, hospitalised, and hence their was a serious police issue (because the distraught widow, who was mother of the student hospitalised, wasn't forgiving of Vemula merely out of a political consideration for his being dalit as well?), so Vemula took the last step - if he did! There's no evidence that it wasn't a murder, perpetrated by left, for political convenience. 

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July 14, 2022 - July 14, 2022. 

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43. The Science of Resistance: NLU, IISc  

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"‘Saar, Ram Navami is never a holiday but our professor wasn’t happy with the screening of your film… he asked me many times to cancel it…  he can’t cancel the permission for the auditorium because students will get angry… so last night he sent the mail to our network declaring today a holiday. Tomorrow and day after are Saturday and Sunday; so, as the students got a long weekend, all of them left. Saar, I was waiting to meet him, the professor, that’s why I got delayed, sir.’ 

"We take a deep breath and let it sink in. It’s not easy to understand his accent and construction of sentences. I process whatever I understood. 

"‘So, what’s the status now?’ 

"‘Saar, if you want to show to ten fifteen students, it’s fine but now he may not give the auditorium as he will say there are no students, why are you taking auditorium.’ 

"‘How do you know he declared a holiday just so that students don’t attend the screening?’ 

"‘I know saar, he doesn’t want screening.’ 

"‘But he hasn’t seen the film.’ 

"‘Saar, but everybody has read about the film. Your film is very popular amongst the faculty.’ 

"‘You think it’s a sabotage?’ 

"‘I am sure saar. Very positive, saar.’ 

"‘Why would he do that?’ 

"‘He doesn’t want any alternate narrative saar.’ 

"I don’t have to ask him anything. I guess the rest. 

"‘Can I tell the press? Will you stand by it?’ 

"He looks at me as if I have pulled his tongue out. He starts crying. 

"‘Saar, please don’t tell anyone my name. He asked me to keep quiet. If they get to know I tell you saar, they will suspend me and my other colleagues in the organizing committee. I am very poor saar, my parents very poor, we can’t go back home. We are research scholars… all our marks depend on professor saar. Please, saar.’ 

"‘I’ll never say anything unless you agree. So, relax. But I am curious to know his name.’ 

"‘Sir he is Prof. Mathew. He is a very strong Leftist. He also contested the election on AAP ticket in 2014.’

"I know we have lost the battle. There is no way we can question such a perfect and technically foolproof sabotage. I am not worried about our loss but I am worried what will happen if India ever loses this battle."

AAP, in other news, when denied ownership of Delhi police, stopped paying cleaners in Delhi. So sudden holiday for Ram Navami was quite in AAP style. 

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"The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) ranks number one in India and it is one of the top ten specialized universities of the world. Once, the father of Indian industry, Jamshedji Tata, while travelling in a ship, had a chance meeting with Swami Vivekananda and they discussed various ideas, including Tata’s plan to bring the steel industry to India and Vivekananda’s quest for bringing scientific research to India. Many years later, Tata wrote a letter to Swami Vivekananda: 

"‘I trust, you remember me as a fellow traveller on your voyage from Japan to Chicago. I very much recall your views on the growth of the ascetic spirit in India, in connection with my scheme of a research institute of science in India.’ In the letter, he requested Vivekananda to guide him in this endeavour.

"Jamshedji Tata conceived of a university in 1896 that would work for India’s scientific development and at the behest of Vivekananda, the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, donated three hundred and seventy acres of land in Bangalore. Since then, IISc has been headed by some of the best scientific brains of the world, such as Nobel Laureate CV Raman, Satish Dhawan, C.N.R. Rao, just to name a few. IISc’s contribution in the fields of science, space technology, advanced computing and nuclear science is unparalleled.

"After I failed to get into engineering, I tried to get admission in IISc but couldn’t make it. Today I am being invited to screen my film there. This makes one wonder about the concepts of destiny, luck, and intent."

Reminds one of SSR  speaking at IIT after, or was it before,  shooting for Chhichhore. 

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"We reach half an hour before the screening. Students meet us outside the auditorium and inform us that the venue has changed and take us to a hall near the registrar’s office. There isn’t anyone here except for some workers trying to fix a generator for an uninterrupted screening. When I reach the hall, I just cannot believe that common sense is so scarce in one of the world’s best science schools. The hall has long French windows everywhere without any curtain or blind cover. It’s already very hot and the hall is not air-conditioned. The whirr of fans is very disturbing. There is an LED screen but the sound is pathetic. The noise of the generator can be heard easily inside the hall. A few people have come but they aren’t enough to fill this ancient hall with lots of windows. I look for Naireeta who is crying in a corner. I am always chilled out but just can’t take anyone tampering with my work. I lose my temper.

"‘What do you think we are doing here? Who organizes a screening in a hall with windows? Do you collect water in a sieve? Are you a science student?’ 

"‘Saar, we were allotted a screen in the main auditorium but some Leftist students raised serious objections and at the last minute we had to shift the venue.’ 

"‘Do you call this a venue? It’s a godown with a hundred windows.’ 

"‘Saar, Dr. CV Raman used to conduct lectures here. It’s of historical value.’ 

"‘Of course, I can see that in the last fifty years, since Raman, no one ever entered this hall.’ 

"‘Saar, we tried our best but we are small in number. We knew what happened at NLU and that’s why we decided that whatever happens, we must do the screening. This is a victory for us, saar.’"

" ... When I reach the ‘hall with a hundred windows’, to my surprise, it’s jam-packed. People are sitting, standing, squeezing themselves and trying to fit into this extremely hot hall which is now stinking of sweat.

"The front rows are taken by the professors who have come in large numbers. There are some outsiders from other institutes. I have no idea if they will be able to sit through this heat. I am felicitated and asked to speak."

"‘I know it’s hot, noisy and uncomfortable. I have sacrificed a lot to be able to reach this far and I am ready to sacrifice more as this is the most important issue in my life, to be able to see a truly shining India and that isn’t possible until we get rid of “invisible enemies” who want to break us. I would suggest that only those commit themselves to see the movie in bad projection, muffled sound and extreme heat who also share my dream and are willing to sacrifice something for it.’ 

"Nobody moves. Then some students get up. More join and then some more. My heart sinks. Slowly, the entire gentry gets up and they scream together ‘Vande Mataram’. The film begins but the chant still echoes in this ‘hall with a hundred windows’.

"The student leader takes me around the institute. We sit under a tall statue of its founder Jamshedji Tata and chat about the politics. 

"‘Saar, there is not much politics here. It’s just some students who want to create a rift between Hindu and Dalit students. They don’t want any work related to nationalism, culture or heritage to be discussed or displayed. Like for your screening, if the faculty and administration had helped us, we would have screened it in the main hall but sometimes the administration listens to them.’ 

"‘But why? You aren’t doing anything wrong. It’s your right to screen a film. You are also a research scholar like them. Then what is the basis for this discrimination?’ 

"‘Saar, they have created a perception that they are intellectuals and we are emotional buggers. They have convinced everyone that talking about our country or parents or rakhi for sisters or anything that is Hindu and Indian is regressive but talking about revolution, free sex, protest and Mao are progressive things. That’s why, saar.’ 

"The film ends amidst thunderous applause and chants of ‘Vande Mataram’.  I speak.

"‘I am a bit emotional thinking about the hardships one has to go through in our country to excel, to innovate, and to express oneself. A lot of people choose to escape to foreign universities and jobs. A lot give up. Just two hours ago I was about to give up. I dedicate this evening to those who stay back, fight and dedicate their entire lives to make India a better, stronger place. Normally, we have a Q&A after the film but today I want to hear your experiences, after seeing the film, which you may want to share with me so that I can get more inspired, more determined to take this fight all across India and expose these invisible enemies.’"

"For the next hour and a half, I listen to lots of experiences, some scary, some painful. These are some of the most valuable insights. The common theme is intolerance of the Leftist community to accept them as intellectuals. It’s true that most of the students from here go on to work for government institutions that work for India’s development and scientific progress. It’s clear that life is really hellish for a development-leaning, non-English-speaking, small-town student. He is considered to be a right-wing person. What can be a sadder commentary than this, where the world’s top-class scientists, the real intellectuals, have no place in the national intellectual discourse. Today, I understand why. Because the entire Naxal/Left/Maoist movement in India is based on an illogical venom against the country and any kind of scientific and logical discourse works like an antidote to their destructive ideology."

And until, these are the real intelligentsia, not the leftists who really are what Indian languages know as Padhatamourkha. For they go strictly by text, whether it fits or not - as befitting Abrahamic-IV.

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July 14, 2022 - July 15, 2022. 

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44. The Technique of Sabotage: IIT Madras  

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" ... Open-Air Theatre of IITM where the film is to be screened tonight. It’s huge and accommodates around six thousand people. Naireeta tells me that the organizers are confident that it will fill more than the capacity. ... "

"Before I can ask Naireeta anything, she receives a screenshot of a tweet from Sumeet. 

"@Sumeetroy red elements at IITM tried their best to stop us. They removed our posters last night. However, we again kept posters today. 

"Sumeet belongs to a middle-class Bengali family, but he was born and brought up in the tribal-dominated district of Betul, Madhya Pradesh. He has seen Naxalism first hand. He has traveled extensively in sixteen states of India and has spent time on our international borders with China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Sumeet loves exploring new places, writing articles, and reading. He runs an organization called Vande Mataram at IIT Madras, an independent initiative by IIT Madras students. Along with other students, he created this Vande Mataram group with the vision of making the youth socially aware. To achieve this objective, they arrange talks, discussions, screenings and also do selfless service like teaching, tree plantation, cleanliness drives.

"If you take out Vande Mataram from his resume, he is an ideal candidate to join the Leftists. But for his group, Vande Mataram is not just a name. When someone asks them, what is the difference between them and the Leftists, they say, ‘Vande Mataram.’ 

"Vande Mataram invited us to screen our film because they felt Buddha In a Traffic Jam is the most relevant movie in recent times which reveals the nexus between NGOs, the Naxals, and the academia. IIT Madras is a fine example of it, where many professors and students of the humanities department openly support terrorists like Yakub Memon, Afzal Guru, Abdul Nasser Mahdani etc.

"When we land at Chennai, the Vande Mataram team is waiting for us with flowers. Nobody speaks until the car picks up steady speed. Sumeet informs me that they had to face lots of problems for the screening of the film. ‘First, they delayed the permission, without giving any reason, then they gave permission for the programme but not for the venue. Then just three days ago they gave permission for the Open-Air Theatre. Then they cancelled that yesterday. We were told by the Dean that the film secretary doesn’t want to give Open Air Theatre for the screening of this movie.

"‘Whereas, we have a screening every weekend. Just a few days ago, Aligarh was shown because it’s a film supported by the Leftists. But I know unofficially that the film secretary who is a Leftist got scared when he realized that the OAT will be jam-packed. When we protested, the Dean gave us permission for SAC (600 capacity). When more students signed up for the screening, they changed it at the last minute and finally, they gave permission for ICSR hall (capacity 300). Last night we put up posters of the movie but Leftists removed them overnight. Now the problem is that there are too many students, at least 800, who want to see the film, but the capacity is only 300.’

"‘Ask the rest of them to sit or stand in the aisles. That’s how it has been wherever we screened,’ I try to find a solution.

"‘No sir, we can’t do that. They aren’t allowing anyone to sit or stand in the aisles, whereas last week there was a talk and we were all standing in the aisles, shoulder to shoulder.’

"‘Is that a new rule?’ I ask.

"‘No sir. New tactic.’

"A pattern is emerging. The Urban Naxals are installed in top institutes. Institutes which matter, which engineer the narrative. They are using these campuses as ‘intellectual training zones’. Like in the military, no point of view other than the combat is allowed to enter a soldier’s mind; in these campuses, no narrative other than theirs is allowed to pass through the minds of their intellectual soldiers."

That this includes IISc, IIT is the shocking part. 

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"I am taken to their professor’s home for high tea before the screening. A few more professors have come for an informal interaction. The professor’s wife has made lots of Maharashtrian snacks. Their families turn out to be big fans of Pallavi. As we relish these delicacies, I discuss the problems students faced for the screening and how it is possible in one of the world’s most respected institutes. All of them express their regret and helplessness. They admit that the institute is indeed infested with left ideology. They sound like they have given up and that’s why they are so eager to see this film.

"It’s a compact auditorium filled with students and their enthusiasm. After I introduce the film, the lights go off. Slowly, the future engineers, innovators, researchers and scientific thought leaders immerse themselves in the film and its characters.

"‘Because of our name, our ideology, we face lots of problems from the IIT administration and faculty, which is mostly captured by the Leftists. Most of the top management of IIT Madras openly favour Leftists. Leftists are allowed to distribute hateful pamphlets and anti-India substance whereas the voices of common students, who love the country, are being suppressed.’ Sumeet is explaining the politics of IITM as we sip our tea in small glasses, sitting under a lamp-post.

"‘During Independence Day in 2015, the Dean didn’t allow the ‘Vande Mataram’ song. Can you believe it?’ He laughs at the irony of it. ‘The slogan which has given independence to India?’

"This is what I call intellectual terrorism. ... "

Wrong. 

It's terrorism by lumped against intellectuals. There's nothing better than Hinduism in intellectual arena, and Abrahamic-IV is as mindless a thug as any other fascist. 

" ... In the Kashmir Valley, they do not let anyone raise slogans like ‘Vande Mataram’ or ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. In the rest of India, the Leftists take extreme steps to curb such sentiments. He tells me how during March-April 2016, the IIT administration blocked all the venues when Vande Mataram tried to organize a programme and pressured their volunteers to eventually cancel it."

Letting it continue is the mistake. 

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"‘In almost every instance, they deliberately delay the permission to the last minute leaving us with hardly any time to organize the programme. Many times, they give permission for the programme per se, but don’t give permission for the venue. This is their standard strategy. Never give in fully to your needs. Create hurdles. Change venues at the last minute. Make your life so miserable that you finally give up. They kill you without using arms.’

"Sumeet narrates many incidents which are a sad commentary on our education management. He sounds very perturbed with Dalit politics.  

"‘Leftists present themselves as rational, liberal and supporters of equality; however, they support irrational things like caste reservation and Muslim Personal Law Board. Leftists mostly use the fraud Aryan-Dravidian theory to divide the people on the basis of region and skin colour. Leftists refer to Ambedkar and Periyar to justify hatred against upper castes and Indic religions.’

"‘In an engineering college, how do students get attracted to an unscientific and irrational narrative? By temperament, shouldn’t they be apolitical?’ I inquire. 

"‘Many Leftist activists, mostly from Kerala, have taken admission in the Humanities department. Many of them are associated with SFI, DYFI, CPI. Most of them are from non-engineering backgrounds and have taken admissions through tests and interviews conducted by department faculties. The admission process is highly questionable as it is mostly based on department faculty recommendations rather than any open competitive exam score. They haven’t taken admission through JEE, GATE, CAT or any other tough competitive exam.’

"One of the observations he makes is that the faculty members, who are also alumni of JNU, are trying to divide the students in the name of caste and religion. Distribution of pamphlets and sticking posters of hate speeches and anti-India substance are now becoming common on the IIT campus.

"‘You know sir; this is a very successful strategy. Leftists always try to spread their message through educational institutes which are the best places to brainwash young minds. That’s the reason the Leftists captured all the influential posts in educational institutions. It is a long conspiracy which was started in the 1970s when Leftists demanded influential posts in universities in return for their support to the Indira Gandhi government,’ he explains. 

"‘Why do you oppose the Left?’ 

"‘Because Leftists don’t believe in borders. This campus has a border. States they fight for have borders. Their houses have borders. But they don’t believe in national borders. They are violent in nature and want to take control with the use of arms. I am against violence. Leftists always play the victim card, cry in the name of human rights, minority, lower caste etc. I am against identity politics. Leftists have a common agenda all over the world. They want to overthrow the democratic set-up and want to take over the control of the country. For this, they use the principle of divide and rule, where they try to spread hatred among the people in the name of caste, religion, community, region. They want to prepare a chain of anti–democracy and anti-national forces to overthrow the system. I am against any kind of polarization.

"‘Leftists have great sympathy for jihadis, which is a part of their international agenda. India is not the only country, US universities like the University of California are also affected by Leftists. Many student bodies are working there to reveal the nexus between Leftists and jihadis. I am dead against terrorism. I want a strong, successful India, and they want to break India. They believe in Lal Salaam and I believe in Vande Mataram.’ He pauses and then adds, ‘I am rational. I have reasons. But they call me bhakt as if I am blind to reason.’

"‘What kind of students join them?’ 

"‘Students belonging to SC/ST are attracted to Leftist propaganda because of the fraud theory of Aryan-Dravidian divide. Leftists have also misrepresented Indian epics like Manu Smriti and manipulated Indian history books to brainwash students. Students from Kashmir with a jihadi mentality easily get attracted towards Leftists as they both have a common agenda of weakening India.’

"‘If you are right, you must follow your conviction. Never give up.’

"‘That’s what we are doing. We don’t fight. We just do the right things. But unfortunately, in India, “what is right” is decided by Leftist ideology. All debate is decided by the Leftists, there is very little space for an alternate narrative. The greatest gift of India to the world is the capacity to debate. India has given shelter to people of all religions including Jews and Zoroastrians. India is the country of Lord Buddha, where ‘Ahimsa Paramo Dharma—non-violence is the greatest dharma)’ is preached. It is the country of Lord Rama which believes in Janani Janma-bhoomischa Swargadapi Gariyasi—mother and motherland are dearer than Heaven. He starts getting emotional."

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"I open the newspapers but there is no news about the sabotage. It would have been national news backed up with protests if I were a Dalit or a Muslim or a Leftist or a liberal. 

"Indian media, especially the metro-based English media, is the most dishonest institution of India. They are always in a hurry, their questions are statements, they have no courtesy, they are arrogant, rude and humiliating.  They are always running late for something and, therefore, have no concentration. I am not talking about those hundreds and thousands of hard-working young girls and boys who are running from one breaking news to another. I am talking about those who instruct them to twist the news. Or who twist it themselves to further their or someone else’s agenda.

"And it’s no rocket science to understand the design of this parallel politics. They have become victims of their own agenda. For the last 70 years, English media has loved to paint any rightist organization, especially RSS, as regressive, uncivilized, aggressive and fundamentalist. Any organization connected with RSS e.g. ABVP is considered a party of goons. Whereas the student members of left-wing parties are considered rebels, revolutionaries, progressive and intellectuals. It’s more like a perception battle. The media has created a ‘group of somebodies’ and a ‘group of nobodies’. Those raising slogans against the State of India are painted as The Superiors and the ones singing ‘Vande Mataram’ as The Inferiors. This is the reason why people like to associate themselves with the left – The Superiors.

"Some people like to believe they are liberals. Liberals are those who do liberal things, not the ones who are against the right. If you look at the reporting of the Jadavpur University crisis after the seditious JNU incident, they always wrote ‘left-wing students’ and ABVP goons or outsiders. I realized this when a journalist asked me at JU, ‘What do you have to say about the presence of some outsiders, ABVP goons?’ I wondered, ‘Aren’t they students here? Aren’t they called Akhil Bhartiya VIDYARTHI Parishad? Vidyarthi means student.’ She was taken aback and said ‘But…no… yeah… But…’ I knew she had no answer, only biases. I again asked her, ‘Aren’t they students of the same university? What do they need to do to be recognized as students? Raise anti-India slogans?’ She got upset and left me to cover the protesting students – the real students, according to her."

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July 15, 2022 - July 15, 2022. 

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45. Two Indias: Allahabad and Benares  

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" ... Some students with black flags are opposing my screening. Some ruckus is going on between the organizers and the opposing boys. I can’t see any girls anywhere. Conflict is in the vibes. It seems like a workshop of Indian parliamentary politics."

"When I enter the hall, I can’t believe the atmosphere. People are screaming at the top of their voices, some are laughing, some are running around as if tackling an emergency, some are fighting with the protesting boys. It’s chaos everywhere. There is a stage where already six-seven people are sitting and all of them are busy with their smartphones. As soon as I enter, an announcement is made which is appropriate for a singer making an entry into a Durga Puja pandal. Seven people give speeches. Provocative speeches. Long speeches. The super energetic students are loving every moment of it. I want to run away. I have a screening tomorrow at BHU (Benaras Hindu University). I leave as soon as the screening begins without waiting for the Q&A. There is no point. I can’t relate to them."

"As we approach the Allahabad-Benaras highway, I go through all the papers. The news is on the front page with a common theme ‘Vivek Agnihotri exposes Naxals’. As I go through the other news I start to realize I have not been exposed to this kind of journalism in a long long time. The papers are full of news that concerns the common man. Common themes, good news, constructive articles, and a lot of local events. There are no semi-nude girls and no Bollywood. The writing quality is exceptionally good. Unlike a manipulative and isolating English national media."

" ... Communism was seeded in the Allahabad University campus somewhere between 1940 and 1945. Communist ideology flourished unchallenged until in 1964, its sister ideology socialism emerged to complement it. At the same time, nationalism also started showing its signs but it didn’t really get adopted by the students, until 2013, when for the first time in the student’s union election, ABVP emerged as a serious contender. Communism also lost its sheen due to the Communist Party’s unconditional support to Indira Gandhi’s Emergency."

" ... Communists don’t want a middle class because they are not programmed or equipped to deal with the middle class and that is the reason they don’t work with the middle class.

"‘Now, the rural Communist is closer to socialist ideology. You will never find a rural Communist criticizing rural culture or their gods and deities because they know that for a rural person, the gods and the deities are the masters of his livelihood. He will never agree for a revolution at the cost of his gods or culture. That is the reason that, in villages, Communists talk only about poverty, exploitation, atrocities of the system and their rights,’ Manish speaks with passion.  

"‘But as soon as you enter a university, we witness a radical and communal face of Communism. Here, they propagate the weaknesses and evils of Hindu culture. They manipulate and twist ancient books to misrepresent them and provoke students. For example, they use Tulsidas’ chaupai, without mentioning the rest of the Ramcharitmanas, which is the real context."

"“ढोल गंवार शूद्र पशु नारी, सकल ताडना के अधिकारी.” 

"Dhol ganvar shudra pashu nari, sakal tadana ke adhikari."

"‘The above lines are spoken by the Sea Deity Samudra to Ram. When Lord Ram got angry and took out his weapon in order to evaporate the whole sea, the deity appeared and said the above lines in the context of boundaries that are created by God himself in order to hold his creations.  

"‘What Leftists do is that they very cleverly translate it literally in Hindi, ignoring the fact that Ramcharitmanas is written in Awadhi and the same word means one thing in Hindi and another in Awadhi. While the literal meaning of the line in Hindi is ‘Drums, the illiterate, lower caste, animals and women deserve a beating to straighten up and get the acts together’, its real meaning in Awadhi is different. In Awadhi, tadna means to take care, to protect. Whereas, in Hindi, the same word means punishment, torture, oppression. Samudra meant that like drums, the illiterate, Shudra, animals and women need special care and need to be protected in the boundary of a social safety net. In the same way, the sea also needs to reside within the boundaries created by God. And hence, Samudra gave the suggestion to create the iconic Ram Setu. 

"‘Here, Shudra doesn’t mean lower caste or today’s Dalit. It meant people employed in cottage industries.’"

"‘What Leftists do is that they very cleverly translate it literally in Hindi, ignoring the fact that Ramcharitmanas is written in Awadhi and the same word means one thing in Hindi and another in Awadhi. While the literal meaning of the line in Hindi is ‘Drums, the illiterate, lower caste, animals and women deserve a beating to straighten up and get the acts together’, its real meaning in Awadhi is different. In Awadhi, tadna means to take care, to protect. Whereas, in Hindi, the same word means punishment, torture, oppression. Samudra meant that like drums, the illiterate, Shudra, animals and women need special care and need to be protected in the boundary of a social safety net. In the same way, the sea also needs to reside within the boundaries created by God. And hence, Samudra gave the suggestion to create the iconic Ram Setu.

"‘Here, Shudra doesn’t mean lower caste or today’s Dalit. It meant people employed in cottage industries.’

"I remember there is a book by R.C. Dutta, Economic Interpretation of History, in which he has said that when the Indian economy was based on the principles of Varna, handicrafts accounted for over twenty-five percent of the economy. Artisans and labour who were involved in the handicraft business were called ‘Shudra’. If there was so much caste-based discrimination, why would Brahmins use their produce? Both Dutta and Dadabhai Naoroji have written that the terminology of ‘caste discrimination’ was used by the British to divide Indian society on those lines."

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"‘Communists spread lots of unfounded theories which provoke students against the system. They exploit women on the pretext of women empowerment and propagate free sex. I am not against free sex but it should be out of free will and not a condition to be part of their revolution. Most of them come from orthodox backgrounds and sex works as an incentive and a bond. That’s how they create a large intellectual ecosystem."

"‘Though Communists say they don’t spend any money to attract the poor, in reality, they organize seminars very frequently. They put up posters everywhere. Now, if one poster costs nine to ten rupees, for five hundred posters it costs five thousand rupees. Where do they get it from when if you ask an individual worker to buy you a cup of tea he will start telling you how poor he is? And what are the themes of their seminars? “The Economics of Riots”, “We are also Kalburgi”, “Understanding Naxalism for a Bright India”. They deliberately organize them in the open spaces because at any time at least five to six hundred freshers roam around. These freshers start listening to these speakers and when they find someone listening curiously, they target those students and introduce them to senior research scholars who introduce them to senior professors who further influence the student."

"‘Concepts of free sex and free drugs also attract freshers who have never seen such freedom. The fresher thinks that if intellectuals are supporting them, then they must be right. Slowly, they start attending all their seminars and private meetings where they are further brainwashed. Is there anybody bhaiya, in this world, who thinks that injustice has not been done to him? Slowly, the fresher becomes their loyalist and he starts brainwashing others. Most people don’t really want the truth. They just want constant reassurance that what they believe is the truth. They choose comforting lies over unpleasant truth.’

"When Manish speaks about these things, he comes across as very different from his appearance. He has things sorted out in his head. He talks more like an observer and I am happy that he is not hateful and bitter. 

"‘What stops you from exposing them, debate with them?’ I ask.  

"‘Prashant Bhushan came to our university in 2015-16. He was invited by the president of the Student’s Union, Richa Singh, who is elected under the coalition of socialist and Communist parties. The topic of Bhushan’s seminar was “Employment for the youth”, but he used the occasion to abuse and ridicule Hindu culture and nationalism. We asked him if lawyers would force courts to open their gates at three in the morning, to free a terrorist, how is one supposed to feel safe amongst them? At this, Bhushan got really angry and there was big chaos and we were forced to leave the hall. They never reply, never answer. Theirs is a one-sided communication, like in the army. Army kills enemies outside our borders but these people want to kill their own brothers and sisters.

"‘Then there was a programme after Kalburgi’s murder: “I am also Kaburgi”. One speaker said, “What can happen if I piss on a Shiva lingam?” He compared Bharat Mata with a witch. The students who felt hurt at such provocations started questioning their theories. Soon, everything converted into mayhem. They started beating up those students who were questioning them. Police came. They have a very smart tactic. Whenever a clash happens between them and ABVP students, their girls start saying that they were molested. Bhaiya, you read reports about any incident, you google, in every single fight between them, the Communist girls always accuse ABVP students of molestation. Now even the police know it. One journalist even told me that you don’t have to tell me what happened because the headline is ready that girls were molested by ABVP students.

"‘But in the last couple of years, their hold is becoming weaker. Maybe, due to social media, now they are not as strong. This has rattled them and they have become active differently. At this moment, all I know is that these students work as underground agents of CPIM and Naxals. They secretly go to Shankargadh, a nearby area which is declared Naxal-infested. I have a feeling they are up to something. Something is going to happen. Because there is silence, and their silence means danger.’ Manish takes a deep breath. I can feel he is exhausted."

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"As we approach Benaras Hindu University (BHU), I ask the driver to stop at the entrance, next to Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya’s statue, the founder of BHU, which is the largest residential university in Asia and one of the largest in the world. I get out of the car to salute the man. 

"The huge Swatantra Bhavan in the campus seats over a thousand people each in its two levels. Professor Mishra informs me that there are over two thousand students inside. As I enter, struggling to find a way in between the tightly squeezed students sitting on each step, the entire hall fills up with the chants of ‘Har har Mahadev’. They felicitate me and give me Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya’s books. I am going to read them as soon as I am done here. I am forced to give a speech. I ask the audience a question.

"‘India has given some of the finest political brains to the world. Not just political thinkers but also political innovators. A country which gave Krishna, Chanakya, Ashoka, Gandhi, Ambedkar to the world, I fail to understand what Mao is doing in India?’

"The hall fills up with ‘Har har Mahadev’ and ‘Vande Mataram’. I sit through the screening as with their reactions I am seeing my own film in a new light. Some nuances which even I had ignored come alive and fills my eyes with tears."

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"In Varanasi, Ganga Aarti is a daily ritual, and for the visitors a must. Sitting on the stairs of Assi Ghat, watching the flames against a serene Ganga, slowly, I get lost in my own world and the mesmerizing sounds of the chanting and the manjiras become the barrier between my thoughts and the world. I am somewhere between the meditative state and tranquility. The many sides of India are appearing in my mind, in slow motion. There are many realities of India hidden in one large Nation."

"We are the world’s least innovative country, yet we made the cheapest journey to Mars. We are world leaders in unorganized recycling and repairing. We are champions of multi-purpose usage of devices. We call it jugaad. The best example is how we use our railway tracks for mass sanitation and use the excreta as fertilizer for growing vegetables. We are the world’s oldest country with the world’s first planned cities in Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. Paradoxically, we have the worst planned cities with appalling quality of sanitation, drinking water and hygiene today. We built the world’s first global university at Nalanda and today, we have a pathetic education system. We have given holistic wellness sciences such as Yoga and Ayurveda to the world but have high rates of malnutrition in our society. We are the world’s second most populated country and ironically also have a history of forced sterilizations."

" ... We do not just tolerate cows sitting in the middle of the road; we accept them as part of our urban landscape. In a lot of Indian cities, monkeys live freely. Tourists find them menacing and throw stones at them while locals live with them with an inexplicable understanding and reverence, treating them like descendants of Lord Hanuman."

" ... We love our malls and five-star hotels for their cleanliness but spit out our gutka the moment we are out on the street. If you want to see our civic sense, just take the staircase of any building in any part of India and look at the corners; if they aren’t painted red with paan spits, you aren’t in India. We pick up filth from private properties and throw them on public properties."

" ... Nobody has a clear view of whether not standing for our national anthem is our right or throwing the defiant viewer out of the cinema hall is our right."

" ... We are victims of intense terrorism, yet we take decades to convict a terrorist and then fight for his right to live. We hang terrorists and also mourn them as martyrs. Liberalism is defined by attacking and ridiculing the majority while secularism is practiced by appeasing the minority."

"We are a loud noisy, melodramatic, and over-the-top society. Be it a wedding or a funeral, an election or a selection, traffic or TV, everything in India is larger than life. Amidst all this, people travel here to find peace."

"For a visitor, India is a mess. For an inhabitant, India is the cosmic truth. When foreigners arrive, India is a question. When they leave, India is the answer. They come to discover India but end up discovering themselves.

"India is ‘Vasudaiva Kutumbakam’—one world family. It’s a home. Home is not a building. It’s a feeling. Our roots are in the joint family system. Joint families don’t run on tolerance. They run on understanding and acceptance. This kind of coexistence doesn’t come from tolerating. It comes from understanding the reality of our world, our potential, and our limitations and by accepting them. We believe in universal acceptance and unconditional surrender to cosmic reality. It’s in our nature. It’s our DNA. This is the real ‘Idea of India’. 

"Sitting on the steps of Ganga, in the world’s oldest city of moksha, as I probe India, I also discover my own reality and the purpose of my life."

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July 15, 2022 - July 15, 2022. 

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46. Roses and Thorns: Panjab University  

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"When we land at Chandigarh’s new swanky airport, Harmanjot Singh Gill receives us with a huge bouquet of flowers. Looking at the size of the bouquet, his smile, and the car, I know we are in Punjab – the land of big-hearted people. He wears an immaculately tied turban in psychedelic pink matching with the piping on his shirt. Punjab is an ALL CAPS state.

"‘Sir, I must thank you for exposing Leftists. I have been following you on Twitter and I RT all your tweets,’ 

"Harman opens the conversation. Harman is from Bhusla, a small village in Kaithal district of Haryana. He is passionate about reading books on various subjects and is an ace tennis player. He supports ABVP over AISA and SFI as he believes that ABVP is the only organization among students which is constructive, positive, and dedicated to nationalist causes.

"‘The Leftists have a habit of spreading false propaganda. First, they tried to label me as anti-Sikh and failed. But after the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a lot changed. When I questioned Rohith’s caste and motivation for his suicide, they tried to frame me as anti-Dalit. They know it’s a very sensitive issue and whatever you say, it is bound to be used against you,’ Harman describes the local politics with fervour. ‘I am very passionate about India and I just don’t like it when someone wants to weaken it.’

"‘Someone?’ 

"‘I mean parties like SFI, AISA. That’s why we invited your movie because we wanted to expose these Leftist organizations. But they tried their best to cancel the screening. Because I am involved, they even said the movie is anti-Sikh and anti-Dalit but this time I had decided to fight. They tore up our posters, I made new ones and pasted them again, at night. They tried to influence the faculty to cancel the screening, but I fought with the faculty. Sir, I am a Sardar. We can give our lives for what we believe in and I believe in One United India, not its divisions, which Leftists want to do.’

"He gets a call and speaks in Punjabi. 

"‘Sir, we have information that there are going to be some unruly elements from the Left. They will try to ridicule and humiliate you. I have to rush to ensure they don’t come at all.’

"‘Please don’t stop them. This film becomes relevant only when someone challenges it,’ I tell him honestly. ‘And I like to engage with most opposing views.’ 

"‘Sir, you don’t know them. They are dangerous. They get Dalit students with them and start asking Dalit-related questions and whatever you say they counter question and finally start raising slogans, labeling you as an anti-Dalit. I must stop them.’

"‘No. Don’t. I know I am not anti-Dalit, so I have nothing to be afraid of. Please let them come.’ 

"‘No sir, I’ll have to go. You don’t understand, this politics its very dangerous.’ 

"He drops us at the hotel and leaves in a jiffy."

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"Two senior journalists want to have a long chat with me. I invite them for the screening. One of them is Vandana Shukla, associate editor of the arts section of The Tribune. I am very impressed with their line of questioning. These are the real journalists of India. While they work their ass off to maintain high standards of journalism, fearlessly and honestly, a few corrupt journalists of Lutyens Delhi have brought such shame to the entire profession that even honest journalists are called ‘presstitutes’. The brokers of journalism have created a perception that the entire media is corrupt.

"‘They must rot in the hell of democracy for such disservice to the noble profession,’ one of them tells me."

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"The film finds a new meaning in the context of local politics. Dalit students of this university aren’t as poor, backward or oppressed as in other parts of the country. Here, the Leftists have strong ties with Khalistan activists. In the rest of the country, they are trying to unite the radical Islamists and Dalits to create a bloc, here they are trying to connect Dalits with the separatists of the Khalistan movement.

"As the movie progresses, the jam-packed auditorium starts getting divided. I can see a set of students have slowly stopped responding to the film, unlike their counterparts. There is tension in their body language. When the film ends, I am called on the stage for the Q&A amidst thunderous applause and scattered booing, I know in my bones that I am up for some surprises other than the serious grilling by the Leftist students.

"‘Dear friends, I have flown thousands of kilometres, not because I want to hear your applause. I am here to understand what is bothering you, what are your concerns, aspirations and whether this film portrays them rightly. I am here to discuss, debate and learn. So, all those who don’t agree with the film raise their hands.’

"Two hands go up. They ask me questions on ‘intolerance’, cow slaughter, Hindutva and slowly a few more hands come up and the line of questioning shifts to its intended issue: Rohith Vemula and Dalits. 

"‘If you are talking about Dalits because of Rohith’s suicide, then I must say you are not doing your job well,’ I reply, which irks some. ‘I am against using Rohith’s suicide as a crutch to win an argument. I believe your politics should be such that it helps empower Dalits rather than using them as a bait to settle scores with your political opponents.’

"By and by, more sensitive questions are hurled at me but my outspokenness and fearlessness come in really handy. The biggest weakness of the Leftists is that they lack facts and logic. I use facts and logic. When the angry students who have come with the purpose of not letting me succeed, start getting entangled in their own hate and violent ideology, some professors come to their rescue. A professor rises up and starts giving me a lecture on the language of the film.

"‘I am very upset and ashamed to have seen this film. You have characters abusing and speaking all kinds of filthy language which is not appropriate for the students and especially in such an esteemed University of Punjab. If I had known, I would have never let this screening take place.’

"‘Sir, I thought this is a University and not Aastha Channel. When I came here, I thought I am coming to a University which has led the fight for freedom of expression. A University which has given us radical thinkers and leaders like Khushwant Singh, Manmohan Singh, Kalpana Chawla, Balraj Sahni, Romila Thapar, Kiran Bedi, Sushma Swaraj, and Shankardayal Sharma. And of course, Hargobind Khurana and Prem Dutt, Bhagat Singh’s comrade. But if that is the thought process, then I am afraid soon we will bring a lot of shame to the legacy of this University.’

"‘I take very strong objection to what you say.’ 

"‘Sir, even I take strong objection to your views of censoring reality, for interfering with my freedom of speech. What the film shows is the reality and if the University wants to isolate its students from the reality, then I think it’s for the students to decide whether they want to fight for freedom of speech or not.’ 

"This starts a cross-argument between the student groups. Another professor gets on stage and orders to shut the event. Harman says he has the permissions and asks him the reason for stopping it, to which he says he has the right to shut anything if he fears indiscipline or any kind of conflict. 

"‘But it’s a debate of ideologies, sir.’

"‘There is no place for such films on our campus.’ 

"‘Is that the reason?’ I butt in. 

"‘Yes.’ 

"He snatches the mike from Harman and announces that the show is over, asks everyone to leave instantly and orders to shut the lights. The Leftist students leave like a victorious team leaves the field. The other students who are in the majority, protest for some time and then leave, saying ‘nothing is going to change here’."

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"Vandana Shukla is stunned and surprised by the professor’s behaviour. 

"‘Aren’t universities supposed to be nurseries of ideas? Shouldn’t debate and disagreement be the very foundation of our campuses? How can he stop the function? Is this a primary school? Why doesn’t anyone protest?’ the journalist in Vandana raises some tough questions. 

"‘Madam, protests will not change anything but films like these will. The problem with India is that our wise men, good men, the knowledgeable men don’t speak. Our media never speaks in favour of students who want to build India. In a deaf and dumb society, you don’t need protests, you need awareness, education of poor unaware Dalits and Muslims who are being used as pawns by the Leftists. We need films like these. And we showed it successfully… it’s a victory,’ Harman tells Vandana.

"Later, while dropping me back to the hotel, Harman shows me a WhatsApp message, from an article by Professor Chaman Lal, a retired professor from JNU, New Delhi, and Fellow of Punjab University Chandigarh. 

"‘… Sadly, Punjab University, Chandigarh, has not even put any plaques in the university in memory of Prof. M G Singh, Prof. Brij Narain, who became victims of Partition-induced hatred and were assassinated in their offices in PU, Lahore, nor about Bhagat Singh’s comrade Prem Dutt Verma, who taught in Punjab University, Chandigarh, after his release from jail. Whereas, the Lahore website of the university proudly claims Pakistani scientist Abdus Salam and Indian scientist Hargobind Khurana as its alumni, Nobel laureates of 1968 and 1979 with photographs and brief biographies, the Chandigarh website does not even mention Hargobind Khurana.’"

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"I get up at 5 AM and go for a run in the famous rose garden of Chandigarh, before leaving for Shimla. ... "

"When I look at my watch, I realize I have been jogging for an hour. In Mumbai, I hardly do three kilometres and think I can never do more. I can feel a new energy in abundance. I can run more but I have to leave for Shimla soon. ... "

"As I start to walk slowly to cool down, I start becoming aware of the fresh scent of roses mixed with the fragrance of the grass, wet with dew. As the rays of the morning sun, filtering through thick trees, fall on my body, every pore opens up. Perhaps for more energy to get in. I start noticing beds of roses and slowly my focus shifts below, at thorns, and I notice that the bigger the rose, the thicker the thorns. More beautiful the rose, sharper the thorns. When our heart truly seeks, Mother Nature provides the answers. Mother Nature is the real guru.  

"I take a picture of a rose and its thorns and tweet with the caption ‘Roses don’t come without thorns’."

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July 15, 2022 - July 15, 2022. 

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47. The New Politics: DU, IITK, IIM Indore 

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"It’s after some twenty years that I am travelling by train. The Shatabdi Express to Kanpur is a fantastic train. Wide seats with a work table and plug points, efficient service, delicious ethnic food and noiseless. 

"We screened the film last night at Delhi University. They had fixed an LED screen at the main arena of the Arts Faculty, under the statue of Swami Vivekananda. The vast arena was filled with students who watched the film with concentration. The Q&A was loaded with ideas to improve our democracy. These are serious students who take their roles very seriously.  They understand politics, society, and the economy. They have an ‘idea of India’. It’s very different from the ‘idea of India’ I saw in JNU. They are hardly 20 km apart from each other but poles apart in vision."

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"‘Sir, have you shown your film to Kejriwal?’ an IAS aspirant asked me. 

"‘No. Never thought about it. Also, why would he see this film?’ 

"‘Sir, he will definitely see it. He is a regular Bollywood critic. He sees every movie and writes about it. If you can get a critic for free, and that too a chief minister, then why not?’ 

"In the last few weeks, a lot of people have asked me to show the film to Arvind Kejriwal but I never took the suggestion seriously. During the Anna Hazare movement, I left all my work, travelled to Delhi and invested my hopes, emotions, thoughts and money in Kejriwal’s campaign against corruption. Slowly, a lot of myths shattered and I found him utterly selfish, shallow, and pretentious. He became hungry for votes. The end became more important than the means, so he started using all sorts of unethical means.

"But I feel that a lot of youth with contrarian views listen to Kejriwal. His tweets reviewing Bollywood movies go viral, so if he reviews the film, it will benefit the movie. I write a mail to him quoting 15 reasons why he must see the film: ... "

"I never got a reply to the mail but when Buddha in a Traffic Jam released, the AAP would take note. Negatively. But more of that later."

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"Nothing has changed in Kanpur. If someone threw a cigarette packet on the road many years ago, there are chances that he may still find it there. But it’s my hometown and I love it the way it is. The moment we step out of the train, I feel a certain belonging. For me, it’s some sort of a milestone to screen the film at IIT Kanpur, which as kids we only dreamt of as the highest body of knowledge. 

"The screening is at 10 PM in their Open-Air Theatre. It’s been deliberately kept late so that students can finish their dinner before the mess closes at ten. Some three thousand students are expected. The Director has invited me to be the chief guest at their annual cultural evening where the faculty and the staff present various acts on stage and students are the audience. Senior professors and their wives perform skits, songs, dances, stand-up comedy and it’s obvious that they are enjoying their performances. There is a sense of openness and maturity in the atmosphere. 

"I reach the venue fifteen minutes early to check the arrangements and am surprised to see it’s one of the most hi-tech, state-of-the-art setups. The screen is huge, the sound system exceptional and the seating is like a large amphitheater. Students have started coming in in small groups. Around 9.55, the groups become larger and slowly the entire theatre converts into an overpowering sight of thousands of heads over one another, rising above the ground like a sea wave in a storm.

"The film gets a long-standing ovation. Here too I see some students still sitting and not clapping. They have a frown and their eyes are cold. Taking a bow in all humility and gratitude, I am also preparing myself for the storm. Not the one I saw before the screening but the real storm."

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"As expected, after a few questions from the happy students, the angry students raise their hands.

"‘Who is the professor based on?’ 

"‘My professor.’ 

"‘Tell us the name.’ 

"‘I can’t.’ 

"‘Why? Are you scared?’ 

"‘No. It’s unethical.’ 

"‘So there is no professor.’ 

"‘That’s what you are saying. I never said that.’ 

"Happy students start booing him. Angry student stands up. 

"‘Did you live with Adivasis? Or with the Naxals?’ 

"‘No. But I have interacted with them.’ 

"‘So, you never lived with them but you find yourself competent to make a film on their problems.’ 

"‘I am sure most scientists never went to the moon but they created machines that sent man to the moon.’

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"Happy students boo. Angry students start abusing them. Slowly, tens of students who were raising their hands start coming on stage and a group of about twenty students gherao me and start pushing and heckling me. Naireeta tries to disperse them along with the organizers who are too hesitant to intervene. One boy takes my arm and starts twisting it. I decide to stay cool. I know they need a reaction and I am not going to give them that pleasure. I also want to see the extent to which they can go. 

"‘What you have shown is not true,’ one young man screams. 

"‘I don’t know the truth but whatever I have shown is absolutely real,’ I stand my ground.

"‘No. It’s not real.’ 

"He is furious. The veins on his forehead are on the threshold of exploding. He starts screaming at the top of his voice.  ‘You have no shit idea about Adivasis. You have no right to make a film about Adivasis. Naxals are right. You are wrong. Your film is a lie!’ He is running short of breath. He starts pushing me, twisting my arm. If there was any background sound it would be people screaming ‘Kill Agnihotri, kill Agnihotri!’ From somewhere a girl screams and enters inside the cordon. 

"‘Talk to me. I have lived with Adivasis in Bastar. Every single thing shown in this film is true. If anyone of you has ever lived the way I did, then challenge me, otherwise shut up.’ And she starts crying. Naireeta holds her. 

"The guy who was twisting my hand, stops, stares me in the eye, gasps for air, pushes me and leaves. With him, all the others leave.

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"Students apologize to me and one by one start telling me their stories of discrimination by some of the faculty. Naireeta uses her presence of mind and starts shooting all those testimonials on her phone. I know we have captured invaluable sights and evidences to support the film’s theme. I am looking for the girl who came to my rescue. She is nowhere to be seen. Sometimes God sends messengers to help you at moments when you are helpless and least expect them. As we start to leave at 2 AM, a few boys chase our car, calling for Naireeta. Car stops. I roll down the window. Two boys literally touch my feet and start pleading. ‘

"Sir, please ask madam to delete our video recordings. We told you all that in emotion. We can’t antagonize our professors.’ 

"‘But we will never show it to anyone. It’s only for our eyes,’ Naireeta tries to take them in confidence. 

"‘Sir, we trust you fully but please delete it…sir, please… if our professors ever get to know about it, they will ruin our life.’ 

"I keep looking at their terrified faces as Naireeta deletes the recordings. Where fear ends, terror begins."

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"The sun is rising and we are speeding towards Lucknow airport. We have to be in Indore this evening, for the screening at IIM Indore. I open my phone and go through all the messages and mails. I stop at a mail which is written to Naiteeta and a CC to me.  It reads: 

"‘Hi Naireeta, 

"I just saw Buddha In A Traffic Jam today at IIT Kanpur and wanted to appreciate the whole team who made such a realistic movie.

"First of all, I would like to make it clear that I am not an Adivasi…I was born and brought up in Jagdalpur which is a city in Bastar. I always wondered why national media seriously never reported the atrocities done by Naxals on the tribe of this region. This movie had clearly depicted the dilemma of a tribal who is stuck between the government and Naxals. I understand how difficult it is to convince people from the other parts of the country to and make them believe that the situations shown in this movie are real. This is because nobody else has ever brought up this issue before. The condition of Bastar is fairly complex and it’s really difficult to put whole scenario in single movie. There are both, bright sides and dark sides. This movie highlights the dark part of Bastar which has been ignored for a long time.

"I occasionally visited village in Bastar and I always felt sad that the people who live in the interiors are fighting for basic amenities. Moreover, the Naxalites are destroying schools and other public and private facilities in villages and this made me even more sad because this way they ensured that the tribals do not get educated and empower themselves. There are various incidents which are really disturbing.

"I had no intentions to watch this movie because it would bring back many sad memories but after watching this movie it gives me a hope that the situation could be changed. I strongly believe that technology and education is the key to development in any part of the world. There are numerous ways in which technology can improve the situation in the Naxal affected regions. I really appreciate that this movie is being shown at prominent educational institutes to catch the attention of the new generation and give them a message that there are some parts in our country which are in immediate need of technologists and entrepreneurs. 

"Looking forward to see more such fantastic movies from your team. 

"Best regards.

"(Name withheld on request) 

"(I have not made any changes in the email. Exactly as received)"

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"IIM Indore is located on a height. Some places have vibes. When I am asked to speak to students, I tell them what my heart is feeling at this moment. 

"‘Hello everybody. Good evening.

"‘I love talking to B-school students because you are the guys who love money and I love money too. I am going to tell you the reason why I love money and why you should love money too. Chanakya, the great political thinker, the great economist of India, said, “Money is the most creative invention of human beings.” Unfortunately, in our country, we never celebrated money. We always celebrate mediocrity. I have always seen in Hindi movies that a rich man’s son is always a rapist or a bad boy. A rich man’s daughter has to necessarily be a bad girl. We have always shown that it is good to be poor and it is bad to be rich.

"‘If you travel to UK, US or any of the developed countries, you ask a young boy, “What do you want to be in life?” and nine out of ten will say, “I want to be rich.” Unlike us, they do not feel guilty about money. It’s not a moral issue. And why should it be a moral issue? Can we imagine life without money? I am deliberately using the word money here because whichever institute I go to, wherever I talk about money, people think here comes a capitalist bastard. In fact, one student came to hit me at NALSAR. This is the reason I am discussing money.

"‘This is the reason this film was made…because we have been told in a very clever political narrative that it’s not good to celebrate success. This has been done systematically to cover up the government’s own failure in delivery. Mediocrity has become the central narrative, the central theme of this country. And this is the reason why despite being number one in jugaad…like, if anything goes wrong, a tap is not working, a bulb is not working, there is a traffic jam, the kind of traffic jams we have in this country, imagine if this kind of traffic jam happens in London or New York, trust me people will be on the streets for 30 days.

"‘It happened in London when there was a heat wave which led to a traffic jam and people were on a highway for several days, a lot of people died. Jugaad means how effectively and quickly we solve our problems with minimal resources and expenditure. We are smart people. We are a country of young, struggling, middle class people. And this is our asset. Struggle gives you a lot of ideas. If we are so smart in solving problems with jugaad, any problem of any magnitude, be it a Mars mission, or expeditions to the Antarctic, having the largest number of IT professionals, and yet we are not the innovation hub of this world, it’s because we do not let merit succeed.

"‘We do not celebrate merit. Whenever somebody talks about business, people think he is a bad guy as he trying to earn money. I believe if you want to change something, obviously you have to have new plans, new strategies, new systems in place, you have to have a different kind of systems thinking. Also, what you need is to change the conversation from a poverty mindset to a rich mindset; from scarcity to abundance. Once you change the conversation, in favour of innovation, the country will automatically start making money.

"‘The intellectual space of this country has always supported the Naxal movement which is why they are anti-rich, anti-success. If Tendulkar, with his merit, becomes rich, you find the same people starting to criticize and belittle him. They want to confuse people and want to blur the difference between people with talent, who work hard and have ideas and innovation to make money and people who became successful by corruption.

"‘This film is a start-up in the true sense. After our film was made, people who were financing it backed out. Whoever saw this film, ran away; they ran away because a lot of people didn’t understand it. They said how is it possible that academia is brainwashing our students and converting them into intellectual terrorists. The second kind of people who ran away said we understand but it is so bloody controversial that you know it’s not good for us, and the third set of people obviously were against the film because the film exposes those very people. A lot ran away because they wondered how can we show a capitalistic idea as a solution. How can we celebrate private enterprise, profits and money?

"‘So, we were stuck with a product which we believed is one of the best products because it not just exposes the truth, it also shows the might of Indian students that they are capable of telling a story which has not been allowed to be told in the last 70 years because of a corrupt system, corrupt administration, corrupt government who kept blaming rich people, successful people and criticizing money.

"‘We were alone. We tried to show it in some universities but unfortunately there also the faculty was hand in glove with a lot of anti-national activities and they also rejected our film. Then some students said we want to show this film outside on the street. On 18th March, in JNU, some five thousand students watched this film sitting on the ground, on the street actually, on trees, on terraces and on rooftops. Since then we have not stopped for a moment. This is the first time in the history of world cinema that a film has been shown to so many students and people before the release. Does any manufacturer go out sampling his product, free, before the formal launch of the product? People are generally scared…What happens if my film gets badmouthed, what if people criticize it on social media, then I am doomed. The biggest of the stars will never do that. Second thing, any filmmaker worth his salt will never allow his film to be screened in halls, auditoriums, in amphitheatres, outdoors on streets with thousands of mobile phones ready for piracy. We’ve had screenings with bad sound systems, we’ve shown it right on the wall of a university because there was a lot of wind and the screen was flying like a kite. We have shown this film in places where one channel had conked off.

"‘Why are we doing this? Why are we showing this film to whoever that invites us? In every institute, university? Because it’s not about the box office, trust me, I am not lying, the mathematics is not on our side. Even if every single person watches this film, this film cannot make the kind of money big films make. Then why are we doing this? The purpose to show this film is to make people realize, to make young students realize that the time has come to work in the direction of innovation. You have to work in a direction where this country can be an innovation hub of the world and that must happen now because we have a golden opportunity.

"‘We have brought this film thus far without spending a penny. Have you ever seen any film in your lifetime which has been marketed without any TV spots, press ads, hoardings, radio spots etc.? We have not spent any money. Because nobody is giving money. But slowly it is finding its own audience. It is making people discuss, debate. If you go to social media, you will find angry comments saying, “Kill these people”, “Destroy this movie”, but you won’t find anybody saying bad things about this movie. Nobody will say it’s away from reality. And this is success. This is the success of an idea. Of marketing. Of disruption. I have learnt a lot from this and three learnings I want to share with you are: 

"‘a)​Believe in the power of collective conviction of thought. If four or five of you think of an idea, an innovative idea, you can make it work. ‘

"Sometimes the dips which come, the failures which come, they are just the testing times, of how strongly you feel and believe in the idea. Sometimes you have an idea before its time has come, like we made this film four years ago. Nobody understood; if the Kanhaiya episode had not happened, nobody would have understood the film. I lost money and my sleep but never the belief. If you have belief, the time will surely come.

"‘b) Every product and service which you create has to contribute to people’s lives so that people are emotionally invested in it and that, I think, is the key to success. Be it an Apple, be it a Google or Ola, or any product or service, if it does not genuinely satisfy or gratify some human needs and doesn’t connect with them emotionally, it’s very difficult to make that work. This is the reason why this film is working today, without any marketing, without any stars. This is happening because somewhere we have been honest, we have really been struggling to be heard and people can see that. The film must be contributing to their lives and connecting with their concerns. The film has given them hope.

"‘c)​There is nothing wrong in marketing your ideas. Be ruthless. Because ultimately the purpose of our lives is to communicate our ideas to as many people as possible. Marketing is not a bad word, like money, if you are honest about it. If you really believe in something, go ahead and market it shamelessly. Don’t care whether people are listening to you or not. A time will come when people will listen to you. Like you are listening to me now. (Laughter). 

"‘So, here’s a film which we have marketed without marketing it. In marketing, there is a push factor and a pull factor. This film has worked with the pull factor which you know is better than a push factor. Push involves lots of money. Pull builds on quality and word of mouth. Consumer reviews. Consumer satisfaction.

"‘The last thing I want to share with you is that very often you may find your professors or leaders asking you to think out of the box. I have been trying to think out of the box all my life, and I have been failing. Honestly. I felt that everybody was thinking out of the box, and I was one of them. So, I said, what do I do? I demolished the box. I just demolished the box. I said there is no box and then I got freedom and liberation. You should try it too. Imagine you are box-less, become a bubble. 

"‘You know the difference between a box and a bubble. A box is always opaque, a box has sharp edges and a box never changes. But a bubble is always transparent and because a bubble is round, it doesn’t hurt anybody. And when a bubble meets another bubble, it becomes a bigger bubble. So, these are all the insights I can share with you and I believe tonight my bubble will meet yours and we will have a bigger bubble. And if we truly want a revolution, we will have to meet more bubbles and keep growing into a huge bubble which can change the destiny of India forever. So, here is a film made of the students, for the students, and marketed by the students. So, I am presenting your film to you.’"

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July 15, 2022 - July 15, 2022. 

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48. The Left and the Right of Struggle: FTII, Pune University 

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"The attempts to cancel our screenings have reached a figure where now I feel there is a conspiracy behind this pattern. Verbal attacks, ridicule, heckling, resistance, sabotage have been the attractions of this journey. A friend from the US called after reading some FB posts on the attack at Kanpur IIT. 

"‘What are they are fighting?’ he asked me. 

"‘A film,’ I replied, to his utter shock."

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"I am on the last leg of the campaign. The film is releasing in one week. The last week has been extremely hectic. We have been to so many institutes that I have lost count. After Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mumbai and many other universities, I am in Pune, before I fly the entire night to be in Kolkata tomorrow for a screening at Jadavpur University (JU). I have some time before the screening and I want to visit FTII. I always do so whenever I am in Pune, as it never fails to give me a new perspective. The film was supposed to be screened at FTII but as expected, Leftist groups did not allow it.

"The last few months have kept India engaged in ruthless campus politics in institutes like IIT Madras, JNU, Osmania University, JU, DU, Bhagalpur University, HCU, and FTII. The fire was ignited at FTII and it led to all the other agitations. These agitations were centred around an argument that the new government is crushing the constitutional rights of free speech and dissent. In reality, no constitutional right was ever curbed or can ever be curbed. But the losers of the 2014 elections created a fact-less story, amplified by the media. The political masters, in order to embarrass Modi, made these students mouth anti-India slogans. This left the entire world wondering ‘What went wrong with these institutes that they have started churning out anti-national students?’"

................................................................................................

"For small-town middle-class kids, Bollywood is a secret dream but most of them don’t have the liberty to express their ambition. Bollywood is perceived as a closed-door castle where family and friends keep making movies. Which door does the kid knock on, for an entry? For an outsider, FTII is that door.  He knows that a lot of small-town middle-class unemployed graduates made it big in films because FTII trained them. There are several IITs, IIMs, AIIMSs. But there is only one FTII.

"When an aspiring graduate fills the FTII form, he does not have much money in his pocket, not much support from family, not much understanding of the world of cinema, no idea about the functioning of an industry he is being trained for and, very often than not, not much fluency in English. All this guy has is a dream to become a part of this magical world called Cinema. To be able to tell stories, in his unique style. 

"Most of them don’t even know what specialization they would want to go for. I don’t think anyone specifically wants to join Sound Design or Production Design. How many have even held a camera before joining Cinematography? So, a lot of aspiring actors get into direction, directors into cinematography or editing. For, their dream is to become a filmmaker.

"Then these minds are cultivated. They get a perspective, a context and a deep understanding of the art and science of filmmaking. FTII has had a tradition of being headed by some excellent filmmakers. The people who come out of that FTII gate are exceptionally trained, passionate and determined filmmakers. My crew always has a majority of FTII graduates. 

"When a student graduates from IIT, he becomes an engineer. When a student graduates from AIIMS, he is a doctor. When a student graduates from any IIM, he is the future CEO. But when a student graduates from FTII, he becomes a struggler. A struggling actor, struggling director, struggling cinematographer and so on.  Which other government-funded premier institute produces strugglers? Have you ever heard of a struggling IITian? At FTII, the struggle begins from day one. Struggle to be in sync with modern filmmaking. Struggle to finish the course—some students have to spend four to five years to finish a three-year course. Struggle to join the film industry, struggle to make movies, struggle to financially sustain themselves in ‘Mahanagri Mumbai’.

"Times have changed. The world of films has changed. Technology is changing every six months. Trends, narrative, logistics, and marketing strategies are changing constantly. Audience tastes are changing every minute. Stories are changing. Aspirations are changing. Ethos and social realities are changing. Unlike a privately-run film institute, FTII is not being able to cope with the changing times. FTII isn’t aligned with the industry. If you are doing an MBA, your institute is aligned with industry, which does campus interviews and picks up students according to its requirements. A catering college is aligned to the food and beverages industry. A travel course or a fashion course is aligned to their respective industries. But FTII?  You finish your course and then become a struggler."

................................................................................................

"In Pune, I meet two wonderful people, Nikhil Karampuri, the organizer from Think India and our host, and the disruptive blogger Shefali Vaidya, the chief guest. Nikhil isn’t a stereotyped bhagwa flag holder or temple goer. He is an atheist who questions everything, besides being an Apple freak who loves his gadgets more than anything, a person who watches TV series like Suits and The Blacklist and enjoys reading the RSS’ Hindi magazine Panchajanya as well. 

"Nikhil is from Ahmednagar and studies at MIT, Pune, the Oxford of the East. He comes from a family which is religious, rooted in Hindu ideology and sympathetic to RSS. Despite this background, Nikhil, at an early age, worked with some left-leaning NGOs, and found himself in alien territory. So, he joined Think India. 

"Think India was set up in 2007 to inculcate the value of thinking that could nurture the growth of India. With its maiden national convention in Bengaluru, Think India started its work in premier national institutes like IIT, IIM, AIIMS, NIT etc. Since then, Think India has spread across all the national institutions to bring the youth together to collaborate for realizing the dream of National Reconstruction.

"‘At some point, I was disillusioned with the left and their inhuman ideologies, and I was planning to quit both my studies and my job when Think India gave me the courage and confidence to do both at the same time,’ Nikhil tells me."

"He cites many examples where injustice was done to their group just because they talk about national integration and development. What catches my attention is one of their recent issues with the Leftist students at FTII.

"‘Think India activists were eager to interact with the protesting students but were denied initially by the student association of FTII,’ says Nikhil. ‘Finally, after a long dialogue with the authorities and the student association, our activists were allowed to interact with the student community which didn’t want the strike and they outnumbered the protestors. When we started speaking to students who wanted the institute to function, the Leftist students stopped our interaction and booed us out. I was shocked at the muzzling of our voice in a flagship institute for freedom of expression. The students who wanted to study were threatened and boycotted by their seniors and were forcefully dragged into the whole lockdown of the institute. These students were openly working on the instructions of Leftist and AAP leaders.

"‘The film industry has always portrayed only one side of the story, creating an illusion about Naxalism. As they say, “It’s better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.” We wanted the students to know both sides of the intellectual discourse. In Buddha In A Traffic Jam, we see the dawn of a different narrative and we decided to screen it at FTII. More for symbolic reasons. What could be a better place for a filmmaker, who faced resistance everywhere, to screen his film in one of the world’s best film institutes? But to my surprise, FTII denied an open screening of the film, just because it portrayed a perspective that was contrary to a few students’ ideological belief. We pursued the administration but even then, the permission to screen this movie was denied, citing some petty and baseless reasons.

"‘With no option left, we then decided to screen it at Savitribai Phule Pune University. When the event was finally organized, the authorities demanded a pre-screening for censoring the movie. The movie was subjected to scrutiny, unlike any other movie or documentary that has been previously screened on the campus. A movie carrying a new narrative of Naxalism in India as never portrayed before was seen as a threat for reasons that are still unknown to us.

"‘The left in India is just an NGO, which only seeks grants for doing nothing. We all know about the problems that we are faced with and the Indian public is interested now to find solutions rather than indulging themselves in cribbing. The leftists are supposed to be the champions of the oppressed classes and Dalits, but there is no representation of Dalits in any of the Communist politburos of India. The worshippers of non-violence have been known to indulge in extreme violence in Kerala and West Bengal. A very interesting term was introduced a decade ago by a few investigative journalists – The Golden Corridor. This acts as a furnisher of the Naxalites’ monetary requirements. These forces act as middlemen between Naxalites and Maoist supporters spread across the world.

"‘There needs to be clarity on the concepts of modernization, Westernization, globalization and liberalization. But Leftists oppose everything without any logical reasoning. A lot of them are pure vegetarians but they want the cow to be slaughtered because the right wing wants to ban it. They even try to convert basic tenets of social and cultural life into an “intellectual fight”. The world today is dominantly run on capitalist and socialist/ Communist models. India has created a very intriguing model by amalgamating the two models and extracting the best from both to serve its citizens. What India has done is the most amazing example of setting up an alternate narrative to these pre-recognized models. Another indigenous example of an alternate narrative was presented by Deen Dayal Upadhyay in form of Integral Humanism which he has described perfectly in the book with the same title. Integral Humanism has human development at the core of it.’"

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"The India that we are talking about here is not the India that won her independence from the British in 1947 but the one that has existed for thousands of years. Be it Chandragupta Maurya who along with Chanakya tried to form a unified India or Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj who did the same against a different resisting force. India is not a modern concept but an age-old belief that has been passed on to us over the generations. It is not merely an idea but a reality that has existed well before any other civilization. I dream of an India which is the ‘Guru’ for the world, a role model that the world looks up to for setting all wrongs right, a teacher that teaches them to create a harmonious co-existence of thousands of communities under a single unified belief. 

"India has been a habitat to a spectrum of ideologies for centuries and it can continue to remain so but the crux of them all should hold the Nation-first attitude. 

"Nikhil quotes an apt line from our beloved Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his own words, 

"भारत जमीन का टुकडा नही,  जीता जागता राष्ट्र पुरुष है। 

"India is not a piece of land, but a living entity. 

"It’s been an enriching interaction and I am so glad that finally, India is arriving."

Atal Bihari Vajpayee actually diluted it, by not paying attention to the very term Bharat Mata. 

Sri Aurobindo and Mother had said it was a Living Reality behind India. ................................................................................................

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July 15, 2022 - July 15, 2022. 

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49. The Politics of Struggle: Jadavpur University  

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"We travel overnight from Pune to reach Kolkata. Naireeta is very sick. As soon as we reach the hotel at 5 AM, I call for a doctor only to learn that Naireeta has chicken pox. I feel handicapped without her. She has been my navigator through this struggle. Moreover, it’s her city. As I am making arrangements for her to go to her parents’ house, she receives a mail from Pritam Duttagupta, the head of the student body which invited us. Some mornings start with a bundle of bad news. This is that morning.

"‘We want to inform you with sadness that the Jadavpur University authority has cancelled the screening of the film in the Dr. Triguna Sen auditorium at the eleventh hour. It is a deep shame, they invoked that the screening of the film violates the model code of conduct of Election commission. It is the deepest blow to the Freedom of Speech in the country…  It has been proved again and again that the dominant intellectual hegemony of the Jadavpur University is silent on this regard and even passively or actively supports the decision of the authorities, much for their great talk on dissent and the Freedom of Speech. It is established that we have not violated any rules. Political slogans and posters are regularly put on in the campus by the left political parties without being censored. So how can a non-political platform be denied entry into an auditorium at the last minute for screening a film passed by the censor board? We have also consulted the legal experts and they have also agreed with us that this doesn’t violate any code of conduct because this is a cultural event."

"The JU students who got inspired by the previous successful screening of the film in different campuses are willing to screen the film in the campus of JU. But the dean orally transmitted that the film needs to be censored by an internal board. The students dissented and due to the shortage of time for the whole process to get completed devised other ways. 

"Some of the students being part of ‘Think India’ took the matter and approached the university through their platform and booked the auditorium for the screening. But the authorities at the last minute has cancelled the booking and left the students in dismay.

"It is to be noted that the VC has equivocally said that he stands for freedom of speech and even allowed the anti-national posters to remain. There has been much protest on the campus without even informing the authorities. 

"But we, fortunately, maintained all due process but unfortunately were ruthlessly suppressed because we don’t confront to the intellectual paradigm of the university nor we have’ comrades in the faculty’.

"But lastly, we stand by our freedom and our right to dissent and peacefully agreed to oppose the authoritarian fascist attitude of the authorities. 

"We also are surprised about the staring silence of the intellectuals and it proves their intolerance towards dissent. 

"We finally are peacefully organizing the screening in the campus in the open and will always stand by our fundamental right to our last breath. 

"N.B JU intelligentsia always speaks of critical thinking but it doesn’t give the right to be a critic of their critical thinking. It’s time to change it.’"

"Pritam Duttagupta"

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"The censoring and banning of and resistance to right-wing material in our educational institutions has been going on for a long time. Unchallenged. The right-wing has assumed that it’s impossible to fight the Leftists on their home turf. That’s why it had given up on institutes like JNU, HCU, JU etc. But somebody had to challenge this myth. I did it by making Buddha In A Traffic Jam. I did it by taking the film directly to students and that too in Naxal citadels like JNU, IITM, NALSAR, and now at Jadavpur. They hate my guts, my conviction and my fearlessness. I exposed the shallowness of their arguments on Manuvaad se Azadi, Brahmanvaad se Azadi. I explained to them how one has to innovate, make profits, create capital in order to find bhukmari se azadi, freedom from hunger. Challenged them in their idiom and with sound logic. 

"They hate logic because logic destroys their mythical world. They have been showing the poor masses and gullible students an ‘invisible end’ of suffering, ... and they protect this illusion by not allowing debates, dissent, and rationality to exist in their fortresses. And if one still challenges them with facts and logic, they collectively attack you in collusion with the media to destroy you. I have come to this conclusion only after visiting the top institutes of India and with over hundred hours of intense Q&A sessions, debates, and discussions, especially with Leftist students. Wherever the faculty and administration are left-leaning, attempts were made to cancel the screening or just sabotage it by creating inane hurdles.

"As Pritam explained on the phone, they kept making the rounds of the Administration Office without any movement on their application. They were sent from one desk to another. Then the administration started citing absurd reasons that many students don’t want this anti-Naxal film to be screened, though nobody had seen the film in this part of the country. The organizing students asked them why they allowed anti-India sloganeering, marches and graffiti when most pro-India students didn’t like it, and when the admin couldn’t win the argument, they put another condition – that film could be screened only after their ‘internal censor committee’ saw and approved it.

"Really? The students argued that the film is already censored by CBFC and they have no right to re-censor it. They told the registrar that when the decision of the ‘internal censor committee’ is already known, why didn’t they straightaway refuse to show it? This fight went on for over two weeks without any party relenting on the censorship issue. Finally, the students gave up and went to book Triguna Sen Auditorium which is managed by the alumni association and can be booked for a certain sum. They contributed money and booked the hall. 

"Pritam told me that it happens to them all the time, therefore this time they decided to not give up and go ahead with the screening even if it had to be done in a hostel room. There was genuineness in his voice. With anguish, he told me that there is a systematic ‘institutional minoritization’ of their voice.  Simply put, nobody hears them. They are labeled ‘Sanghi’ and aren’t considered intellectual because they speak against Naxalism. BTW, he is a research scholar in Physics. Yet, he is ‘The Inferior’."

That, right there, is reason why Calcutta university, once respected, is and has now been a dump for decades - mindless parroting of a text, coupled with violence against dissent, is revered as intellectual, while a research scholar in physics who thinks for a living, lifelong, is labeled with a tag that isn't derogatory, but is artificially branded so. 

Church did that to words like 'grotesque', which foes not mean ugly or hideous but only means alike grotto; once grottoes contained images or statues of worshipped Gods and Goddesses 

Congress and left have done it to words like sanghi, bhakta, etc, neither words nor what they refer to bring negative, but branded do by congress and left, relentlessly over decades. 

Imagine if Hindus did this, branding -say -'foreigner' to mean dirty, unwashed, etc; and then proceed to label urban naxals as 'foreigner-type'. 

It might be merely factual, at that. 

................................................................................................

"At 4.15, I leave the hotel in an Innova driven by a Bihari driver named Prabhu, hoping to reach JU at 5, to screen the film in an open ground. Only if we can manage to. We enter JU from Gate no 8. There are hundreds of students smoking, chatting and preparing placards and black flags. This is when some students see me and in less than a second, the car is gheraoed by an unruly and violent mob of students. They start raising slogans, hitting the car and trying to pull me out. A mob of journalists runs towards the car. We hear a big crash and realize that they have broken the windscreen of Prabhu’s taxi.

"Prabhu is really scared. He looks at me and then at the students. He wants to protect me. And his car too. The car, he can’t. Me, he can, perhaps. I don’t know what to do. I am not prepared for a political ambush. It’s getting claustrophobic. They are banging on the car. They are abusing me in Bengali. And then a girl spits on my window and screams: ‘Agnihotri, you bloody, fascist Brahmin… go back.’

"A student slides his hand inside and calls me the murderer of Rohith Vemula. 

"‘You killed Rohith Vemula, you murdered him.’ 

"‘Rohith wasn’t murdered. He committed suicide,’ I reply coolly.   

"‘You… you fucking liar. He was murdered. And you guys murdered him.’ 

"‘I have stronger reasons to believe Rohith than you,’ I tell him.

"He is angry. He tries to pull me out of the car. Anticipating violence Prabhu rolls up the window and in that jiffy my hand gets stuck in the window. This boy doesn’t leave my hand. He is pulling my hand out. My hand is stuck. I pull it hard and give up as I feel a shooting pain in my shoulder. Some students jump in front of the car. Like highway thugs. Some of them start kicking the car. I can see some major dents on the bonnet. I don’t want to think about other dents all over. One skinny student comes running and jumps on the bonnet. A few girls start throwing sticks on the car. Some start attacking the car with the wooden handles of placards. One boy kicks the side mirrors. A mirror falls down, crumbling on the hot tar."

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"I see a bunch of students running towards the car. They have badges on. Looks like they are the organizing students. Yes, they are. They are fighting with the protestors. A fight breaks out. Girls are hitting boys. After some time, some organizers find their way in by pushing the protestors away from the car. They form a human chain around the car.  In this half-hour, there has been no security, administration or police. It was a free-for-all.

"The car moves slowly, inside a human chain of over a hundred students. We are guided to the playground which is full of students who want to see the film. Behind them are hundreds of students with black flags and posters abusing me, Anupam Kher, and Modi. The car stops. 

"‘They could have killed us,’ Prabhu tells me before I get down."

................................................................................................

"There is a projection system and sound system but I can’t see any screen. 

"‘Sir, they tore apart our screen. We asked for a new one but they are not letting it enter the gates. I have no idea what to do.’ 

"The force that brings a crisis on us also shows us the light. I am not going to give up. 

"‘Does anyone in your hostel have a white bedsheet?’ I ask. 

"‘Yes.’ 

"‘Run and get it.’ 

"‘Sir, it will take ten minutes. The students are very restless and there can be a fight. So why don’t you address them for ten minutes?’ he pleads. 

"I have given speeches in closed auditoriums and in front of controlled audiences but never spoken extempore to volatile students, surrounded by violent protestors. On top of that, the shooting pain in my broken shoulder is killing me. Do I have a choice?"

................................................................................................

"I take the mike. The protestors raise their volume and start sloganeering, ‘Brahmanvaad se Azadi… bhukmari se Azadi…’ and so on. I look at them for some time and when I realize they won’t give me space to speak, I address them at an equally high pitch and ask them: 

"‘OK brothers and sisters, I agree with your call for Azadi, but this time you tell me how will we attain this freedom? Your biggest misunderstanding is that I am speaking against you. You love India and I love India too. You want to change India and I want to change India too. You want India’s name to rise so much that the entire world says “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, I too want the same. The only difference is that you carry black placards, whereas here some boys are carrying white ones. The difference between black and white is that black is the colour of death, whereas white is the colour of peace. You want India’s betterment with the colour black, we want it with the colour white.’

"Their protest starts slowing down. Students with white flags start chanting ‘Vande Mataram’."

................................................................................................

"‘Friends, for the past forty-five days non-stop, I have been visiting universities across India, where I have continuously been with students. and I have decided that the battle which started from JNU must end at Jadavpur University.

"‘This fight is not between the left and the right, neither is it a fight between Sanghis and Laal Salaam; this fight is between those who want to make India better and those who want to break India. The past forty-five days that I have interacted with students have convinced me that if a revolution is to happen, it will be brought by those students who want to make India shine with their ideas.’

"Protesting students again raise their slogans of ‘Azadi’. 

"‘Brothers and sisters, the question is from whom will you attain this freedom? Freedom is attained when you are a slave to someone. You are not a slave. Who are you seeking this Azadi from? Before asking for freedom, for once, question yourself and think about your parents who have sent you here after investing their blood and sweat for your education.

"‘Your fight should be with those people who are not efficient, who are unproductive, who are corrupt and dishonest. But if you will fight with your brothers and brainwash the gullible to hate other brothers, then this country will never change. 

"‘I cannot stand by the thought process of people who celebrate a terrorist, who speak about the destruction of India. And nowadays, there is a new fashion, a weird new attitude that is developing that the road to fame is through abusing the country. But this is wrong. On Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai’s channels, the ones who are called intellectuals are actually not intellectuals. Have you ever heard the names of those people in the list of intellectuals who sent a mission to Mars? What is the reason that only those people make the list of intellectuals who abuse all the traditions and festivals of India, who abuse everything related to India and speak about breaking India? Real intellectuals are those who quietly work hard, who want to study, innovate and take this country forward.

"‘Friends, I have lived in the freest country in this world, America, I have studied there too. In any American university, if ten boys stand up and shout slogans promoting Osama Bin Laden, within three minutes they will be sent to an undisclosed location. India is the only country in the world that gives us so much freedom. We must make good use of it. By expressing new ideas and not by breaking windows of a taxi.

"‘If you want freedom from starvation, then I will tell you how we can achieve that. Freedom will be attained because of your thoughts, because of your creativity. The next war will not be fought with guns but will be fought by entering the minds of students. And let me remind you that numbers don’t matter, quantity doesn’t matter, quality does. The Kauravas were a hundred. The Pandavas were just five. Today at Jadavpur University, the boys who speak in favour of building the country may be less in number. But they can. And they must.

"‘In the end, I want to say just one thing. If you will free Kashmir, free Meghalaya, free Bastar, free every place of the country, then who will be left to give freedom? You know that in China it is not possible to become a citizen, so you will not be able to go there. Then what happens? So now the time has come, no matter what your thought process is, to see a collective dream. Together we dream that by 2025 (by which time you will have graduated and started working someplace), India becomes the world’s “idea capital”! A global innovation hub! There is no country in the world where this kind of jugaad is possible. You need a lot of brains for jugaad and that is why our students are so highly respected wherever they go in the world. So, can we not decide that in the next ten to fifteen years, we make India the innovation and idea hub? This will happen with our ideas and not slogans, because slogans have no science.

"‘I would like to thank you all for inviting me here. It was very courageous of you to call me, I really liked it. When I was sitting in the car, someone asked me if I was feeling scared. I said, now I feel more determined. After coming to Jadavpur University, my courage has risen more, now nobody can stop this film, it will release on May 13, this is my faith. This is my truth. This is my Buddha.

"‘Thank you, thank you very much.’"

................................................................................................

"While I speak, a few students have got a bedsheet and have tied it on the grill of the playground. The projector turns on and the beam falls on the bedsheet… the screen. I can see the power of collective thought. Even the protestors have learnt that it’s never about the numbers; it’s about the conviction of ideas. As the projection falls on the bedsheet, a record of sorts is being created as no film has been ever been screened on a bedsheet, prior to its release. I take a picture. This is the mother of all dissent images. An alternative narrative has begun. History is being created.

"As the movie reaches its mid-point, amidst the sloganeering, I hear someone screaming. I get up to see and find that a short man is yelling at Pritam and his friends in Bengali. Someone tells me he is the registrar. I can make out he wants the screening to stop instantly. I run towards the screening spot and ask the boys not to stop it until the registrar speaks to me. Students don’t give up. Two masses of students are threatening each other. With abuses, hatred, and violence. The registrar senses that the situation is getting out of hand so he threatens the organizing students with dire consequences and leaves.

"It feels like I am in a war zone. Jadavpur, it feels like, has everything, barring education. This isn’t political activism. It’s goondagardi, hooliganism – supported by the administration and faculty. It’s an extremely sad commentary on the state of our education system. These poor students don’t even realize that they aren’t anti-establishment anymore. Slowly, they have become anti-India. What can I say about the students when our media also writes headlines like ‘Them vs Us’ (Indian Express headline on Yaqub hanging).

"Well, the film ends. I have to say it with deep anguish that Jadavpur is the only university where I didn’t have a Q&A session. Because they believe in only raising questions. Not willing to listen to the answers.

"Lights shut down. It is pitch dark. My driver Prabhu is trying to fix the bumper of his car. Students are shaking hands with me, congratulating me, hugging me, taking selfies with me. For them, it is a victory. For me, it is a shameful commentary on seventy years of democracy."

................................................................................................

"After an hour and half, while I am having dinner at the hotel, I get a call from one of the students and he tells me that they are being beaten up very badly by the Leftist students.

"I switch the TV on and the news is everywhere. On all the channels, I am the centre of the news. The fight started with a boy called Sandeep Das. He is a Dalit. Leftist boys asked him why he watched the film despite being a Dalit. He said he liked the movie and liked my speech as it made sense to him and opened his eyes. So, they started beating him up saying this was how he would learn to support them. Then riots broke out and the entire thing became political. The political sharks have hijacked the issue. ... I am advised by the security to stay in my room and not tweet until I leave Kolkata. I obey."

................................................................................................

"Before Prabhu dropped me at the hotel, he had asked me: ‘Why are they against you?’ 

"‘Because I talk about working hard, making money and being successful.’ 

"‘What’s wrong with that?’ He paused and then added, ‘What are they fighting for?’ ‘

"They are fighting for the poor.’ ‘

"But I am poor. Why did they have to break my car?’ 

"I put my hand on his shoulder and told him, ‘Even I am trying to figure that out. Let’s have a deal. Whoever figures it out first will call the other.’ 

"I knew pretty well that I will never have to call him because I’ll never have the answer."

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July 15, 2022 - July 15, 2022. 

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Epilogue – The Victory of Buddha  

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................................................................................................

" ... It’s been over seven months since May 13, 2016, the release of Buddha In A Traffic Jam. This was the first time I released a film on my own and I learnt that the night before the D-day feels exactly like your daughter’s bidaai. Once the film hits the theatre, the maker loses all control over it. You conceive, deliver, nurture, protect, give form, shape and a soul and finally it goes away to where it belongs: the audience. Normally, the release day is the most important day in a filmmaker’s life. But in my case, the journey after the release has been the most important experience of my life.

"I am so grateful to the invisible power, viewers, supporters, politicians, activists, critics, media, trolls, and the intellectuals for richly contributing to my life-changing experience. I am not the same person anymore. Today, I do not fear losing anything. I fear no one. Not out of arrogance but because of my complete surrender and understanding of the principle that eventually, only truth wins: Satyameva Jayate. Because of my realization that no sacrifice is as valuable as the discovery of truth. No opposition is as strong as the truth. For, the truth is the real enlightenment, the real Buddha. The created became so strong that it changed the creator. A film became so powerful that it changed the beliefs of its maker. This is the victory of Buddha.

"It was just a film. A small film, initiated by a bunch of students. It would have gone unnoticed. But they converted it into a political fight. In this fight, everyone left me. They were huge in number, might, and control. I walked alone. They tried everything to stop it but, eventually, it reached the audience and, in the end, the film won. The truth won. Buddha won.

"When the Jadavpur University incident happened and the media started building up the news, bringing the film to the forefront, a lot of Urban Naxals were rattled. It was easy for them to restrict the film on university campuses but to curb its spread into households was beyond their might. They had broken the legs of the movie and never expected it to release but they had forgotten to break its spirit."

................................................................................................

"The drama began on May 7th, a night after the Jadavpur incident caught fire. A group of people in Lutyens Delhi, led by AAP-supporter scribe Abhinandan Sekhri of newslaundry.com and other journalist accomplices started a campaign to ridicule the film. Sekhri tweeted:

" ... and while I think no matter how silly or mediocre your film, it must be screened, that doesn’t take away from your buffoonery.’"

"This was nasty and unnecessary. He was commenting on the film without even seeing it. But he was not alone. The cocktail circuit of Lutyens intellectuals started attacking me on social media, columns, blogs and all available public forums. A few days after the film released and found massive appreciation, and once the public opinion started building in favour of the film, Sekhri was forced to call me for an interview. When he came to my office with his camera team, I asked him if he had seen the film which he ridiculed so much. He admitted that he had not. I made him sit in my office and watch the entire film on my computer. After watching the film, he hugged me and said he was wrong in pre-judging me and apologized for the longest time. During the interview, he confessed at least three times to the camera about running a dirty campaign against me, apologized and praised the film extensively, and asked others to see it. Later, he tweeted:

"‘Thanks for that (interview and screening of the film) & I owe u an apology. I was disparaging about your film without seeing it I then watched it & enjoyed it’ 

"This was Buddha’s victory."

................................................................................................

"Well, how can Bollywood be left behind? Lyricist and stand-up comedian Varun Grover led the attack with a number of tweets: 

"‘Many versions of who got violent 1st at JU screening of VA’s film. But bottom-line – stopping a film from being screened is plain Talibanism.’ 

"He didn’t stop at this sarcasm and in a series of tweets, puked a lot of venom at the film. 

"‘So yeah, good for the film that some noobs (JU admin or students or whoever) considered it worth stopping. Shaheedi ka tamga, best tamga! (Martyr’s label, best label)’"

................................................................................................

"An ex-critic of The Hindu, Sudhish Kamath wrote several pieces, tweets on the film, ridiculing it, bashing it, ripping it apart, and raping it, trying to prove that the film is worse than Gunday, a film supposed to be the worst ever. "

By what criteria, it's unclear. It dealt with a good many unexplored issues related to recent history which hindi films never dared explore, even the 1971 war as far as Liberation of East Bengal goes. 

Any sane viewer and critic would opine the preppy-yuppy candyfloss dressed up as films by KJo far below the raw Gunday. 

But perhaps that's merely evidence that the industry is dominated by a jihadist narrative dictated from across border Northwest, perhaps from a city across ocean West that was in India, and 1971 is taboo unless one shows only a small battle West with the heroes of India depicted dead, even though living in reality. 

And another taboo, apart from victory of the whole war and of war in Eastern theatre, is the issue of illegal immigrants from across border, long after refugees fleeing a fascistmilitary regime out to conduct ethnic cleansing via genocide is abated. 

Gunday dealt with illegal immigrants issue, however sympathetically. Hence the condemnation? Dictated via a phone call? 

" ... This came from a man who has himself made a film. Ironically, these people take pride in calling themselves reformists, liberals, progressive. So far, they had opposition only from vernacular, sanskari people in kurta pyjamas, who they could label as regressive or Hindu fundamentalist. For the first time, one of them was exposing them in their own idiom, style, and manner. Nobody from their own community had called them ‘Urban Naxals’.  I did."

................................................................................................

"They started debating if my shoulder was actually broken or not. How could I hold the mike if it was broken? One journalist even wondered how I was alive without the backing of the ruling party. Not all, but some of them wanted me dead. Some wondered why my dad didn’t use a condom, besides hurling abuses at my mother, wife, and daughter. They sent me life threatening messages. I still sometimes revisit some messages from a pimp of a large corporation asking me to withdraw my film from the release. ‘You don’t know our power,’ he had threatened. By this time, a filmmaker should have chickened out. But I didn’t and this made them angrier and they employed all their weaponry to destroy me."

................................................................................................

"On May 13th, when the movie released, it found two distinct responses. One from Mumbai and Delhi-based critics and another from the rest of the world. The Mumbai/Delhi critics club was led by Raja Sen of Rediff and Suprateek Chaterjee of Huffington Post. If you were to read the reviews from Rediff to Huffington Post to Scroll.in, the movie is ‘a propaganda film’. Scroll.in’s Nadini Ramnath says ‘warnings about the “red menace” sound like direct quotes from the speeches of Baba Ramdev and Mohan Bhagwat.’

"Suprateek Chaterjee called it a ‘right-wing propaganda piece’, Raja Sen said Buddha in a Traffic Jam made him ‘feel sorry for Indian right-wingers’ because it was apparently not good enough propaganda. Sarit Ray, writing in Hindustan Times, called it ‘propaganda disguised as cinema’. It was a mere coincidence that all of them are Bengalis and they wrote exactly the same reviews as if out of a pre-decided template. Be it tweets, FB posts, reviews or blogs, all the paragraphs were in the same order with the same content with the word ‘propaganda’ spread out evenly.

"I had always believed that Huffington Post was a responsible publication and would never entertain personal grudges to become part of its editorial. Raja Sen refused to give the film any star. This was the first time in my memory when I saw a critic refusing to give any star to a film. How bad can a film be which won so many awards and was selected by MAMI under Shyam Benegal’s chairmanship as one of India’s best five films?

"These people didn’t write reviews. They wrote hate pieces. In some time, it came out that most of them had written those hate pieces without even watching the film."

................................................................................................

"Slowly, other reviews started coming from other, non-agenda parts of India and abroad where genuine critics, who saw the film in the theatre, and not just wrote reviews but essays on the politics of Naxalism and the points the film made. Those who live outside competitive and ambitious Mumbai and Delhi are more socially and politically conscious. While metro critics start with finding negatives, the non-metro and rooted critics try to find positives. One critic, Mayuresh, wrote:

"‘To truly appreciate the scale of the attack on Freedom of Expression (FoE) that the Jadavpur incident represents, you have to see Buddha in a Traffic Jam. I think most of the social media discourse about the movie is misleading as it refers the movie as anti-Naxal or anti-left, and hence the battle for its screening as a battle between red and saffron in a manner of speaking. Actually, the movie is neither of these. It is a microscopic, almost anthropological, look at how the poorest people of India are hard done to by evil corporates on one side and the militants on the other. As the movie cuts back and forth between the metro where college professors talk revolution, and the harsh, arid landscapes of rural India, we realize there are no heroes, only victims. That, argues Vivek, is the true tragedy of this conflict.

"‘The first strike against Vivek is, of course, his refusal to drink the Leftist concoction of ‘intolerance’ and ‘award wapsi’. Vivek was always going to be a target after that. Buddha shows the poor people in nothing but sympathetic light, it is the gun-toting maniacs that Vivek has problems with. The Jadavpur gang does not care for the poor people, or they would have allowed a movie proposing a solution for the poor to be screened. In this dispute, the Jadavpur gang is acting as bouncers of the armed militants. They are the bullies, trying to crush Vivek’s voice so that the armed militants can continue exploiting some of the poorest people on the earth."

Reminds one of the recent mobbing of Delhi by so-called farmers, in reality paid mobs agitating in interest of not farmers but middlemen, supported by all opposition until bills allowing freedom to farmers were scrapped and middlemen won. Lynching, rapes and more by the said mob were supported by the opposition in the process, in name of farmers, name used fraudulently. 

"‘The second strike is his balanced portrayal of the problem at the root of the Naxal terrorism, and his temerity to suggest that technology and trade may be the answer to the problem. For people who are used to terming modern business and modern technology as the villains of the episode, Vivek’s solution is damn near blasphemous.’"

And that exposes the true character nature of left, those supposedly striving for people, but in reality no different from fascists, only totally fraudulent. 

................................................................................................

"Slowly but steadily, the film started finding its cult. This is the victory of Buddha.

"Today, at the end of the year, Huffington Post has released a list of the ten best films of the year and they have rated Buddha In A Traffic Jam as the second best, ... Many other prominent listings have rated the film among the three best films of the year. Huffington Post writes in honour of our film, of course after watching it and understanding it:

"‘Buddha in a Traffic Jam is a powerful film about morality, corruption, and social injustice that forces us to think about things which we don’t usually pay heed to. The film was panned by the Indian left-wing lobby at the time of its release. The issue at the heart of Buddha in a Traffic Jam is the Naxalite crisis. But the film dares to show us a different side to the Naxalite movement – not as a struggle in the jungle but driven according to a sophisticated business model designed by high-thinking masterminds. Directed by Vivek Agnihotri, Buddha in a Traffic Jam is well-researched and extremely well made. It is a real pity that the film was unjustly censured for leaning towards the right at the time of its release when in actuality it is equally critical of both the extremes. Here is an important film that hopefully will find a cult following in times to come.’ 

"This is the victory of Buddha."

................................................................................................

"On the release day, some three hundred troll handles were opened with zero followers to troll the film. This was led by Arvind Kejriwal’s fans and the group of trolls was led by the queens of trolls – @Rajyashree and Swati Chaturvedi @Bainjal, who later wrote a book on trolls. The best part is that none of them had seen the film. Like they share articles without reading them only on the basis of the headline, they started writing pre-determined reviews and comments. One anonymous guy/girl with the handle @GabbbarSingh trolled the film and called it a shitty film. Reading the comments, I knew that he/she had not seen the film so I deliberately asked which chapter he/she hated the most, which was never replied to. This person had not seen the film but was either paid or motivated to write against the film, otherwise, how can anybody be so stupid?"

" ... Slowly, the appreciation started pouring in on social media. Support came from everywhere, from students, housewives, ex-Naxals, social workers, scientists, economists, sociologists, writers, painters, editors, religious gurus, soldiers, NRIs, and by and by, it became a people’s film. I can guarantee no other small film in recent times has received so much of appreciation, support and fan following like Buddha in a Traffic Jam.

"We started getting invitations from Oxford and Cambridge, Australia, Singapore and many American universities and associations. Random people started exposing the lies of people like Raja Sen and Sekhri. Slowly, an army of thousands of Buddha believers started protecting the film from Urban Naxals and started promoting it through unconventional channels. The film found its market, its audience and created an ecosystem. The film got sold to all major digital platforms. It got over a million organic views on YouTube in no time. This is the victory of Buddha."

"The same media which tried every trick in their bag to discredit me has been requesting me to write articles for them, which I do now on a regular basis. NDTV and India Today, which I had come to believe would never call me to their studios, have been regularly inviting me to their debates. This is the victory of Buddha.

"The Leftists, liberals and intellectuals and their sympathizers had panned the film as my fantasy. Journalist Saba Naqvi, in a TV debate, even went to the extent of saying that I oppose Naxals because I have no intellect and radical activists like Kavita Krishnan and Shehla Rashid called the film my fantasy. But once the film started getting ground support, their own organizations, forums started inviting me to their seminars, conventions as the main speaker. The doors of literature festivals opened up for me. Academic forums started inviting me to present my views on Urban Naxalism and Intellectual Terrorism. Since the release of the film, I have been travelling the length and breadth of the country for almost 15-20 days a month to give lectures at various prestigious forums.

"I was invited by TedX. I have been commissioned by the Forum for Integrated National Security (FINS) to make a documentary on Naxalism and the shooting is on in Bastar. Arvind Kejriwal’s left-hand man, Ashish Khetan of AAP, was forced on national TV to invite my film for a screening at Delhi’s secretariat. There hasn’t been a day when the national media hasn’t called me for a byte on national issues. They can condemn me but not the voice of Buddha. This is the victory of Buddha."

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"Suresh Chukappali, the producer who had abandoned the film midway to die, called me to his house after the release. Not only that, he requested me to send the awards and the trophies to him to be displayed at the reception of his new swanky office. This is the victory of Buddha."

................................................................................................

" ... as I start work on my next film, trying to discover yet another political mystery, there is news that has brought the film back in the limelight. Professor G.N. Saibaba of Delhi University has been sentenced to life imprisonment for colluding with the Naxals and working against national security. Along with him, the students whom he brainwashed and mentored to pick up guns and become Naxals were also arrested. The Inspector General of Police of the Nagpur Range, Ravindra Kadam, said that a few students of the university had joined the underground Maoist cadre at the behest of the professor. The students who joined the Naxal movement were members of the Democratic Students’ Union (DSU). It’s the same students’ body whose member Umar Khalid was arrested by the Delhi police, in relation to the Afzal Guru sloganeering case at JNU.

"‘Professor Saibaba had been active with Left-leaning students of both JNU and DU and had been indoctrinating and recruiting them for the Maoist movement. In course of time, Saibaba had prepared and recruited four students as Maoist cadre,’ Kadam said.

"‘Either these people followed your script in real life, or you are a clairvoyant who read their future script. Whatever it is, your effort to show the truth is worthy of a salute,’ anti-Naxal hero Inspector General Kalluri told me. This is the victory of Buddha."

Actually, Agnihotri interpreted his own past experience, correctly. 

................................................................................................

"Earlier, in November 2016, a Delhi University professor Nalini Sunder was booked along with other Naxals on charges of murder of an Adivasi villager in the insurgency-hit Sukma district of Chattisgarh. The government has identified hundreds of NGOs who have been working illegally and are suspected of helping anti-national elements. Many ex-Naxal women have reported sexual abuse, rape and oppression of women exactly like the film depicted.

"A few days ago, Naxals shot down twenty-five CRPF soldiers in a dastardly act of violence. In a quick operation, police nabbed some Naxals and some surrendered. One of the surrendered Naxals, Podium Panda, confessed to the police and later in the court that he was the link between Nalini Sunder, activist Bela Bhatia, and the Naxals. He used to drive them on his motorbike to the Naxal bastion.

"It’s been established beyond doubt that some members of academia have been helping Naxals in attaining their objective of toppling the democratic system of India with an armed revolution. Exactly like the film.

"Today, unanimously, the film is recognized as a prophetic film of our times. Even by its opponents. This is the victory of Buddha."

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"I was invited for a town hall at Facebook’s headquarter at Menlo park in Silicon Valley and this is where I realized that most of the Indians in the audience have been discussing ‘Urban Naxalism’ after seeing the film. I spent the entire evening with them discussing this red terror and almost all of them felt that they have been victims of Urban Naxalism while in college. One young IT engineer who has just joined Facebook hugged me and held my hand tightly and said, “Sir, your film is my story. I was also influenced by my professors to turn leftist and before I could realize I had started hating India. It’s only after watching our movie I realized how I was brainwashed and now I believe in India and will do anything to build a New India. Thanks for speaking up.” This is the victory of Buddha."

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"They tried to shut me up by painting me as a part of the Hindutva campaign. But it was never about Hindutva. It’s neither about freedom of speech or intolerance. This is a tactic employed to protect their castles. They confuse the issue by bringing in lots of counter news and views. They quote laws. They try to make it look like an anti-RSS, anti-BJP issue. This isn’t about any of the above. It’s about a war against India. In 2010, there was an intelligence report that terror groups were making inroads in Indian universities. Everyone ignored it exactly like when intelligence said Ishrat Jahan was a suicide bomber. They believe in intelligence reports only when it suits them. This is India’s real threat.

"The myth that sustains the Naxalite movement is that the ‘Indian State’ and the ‘government’ are outright evil entities, and every instrument of the State is, therefore, a justifiable target for violence and that the Naxalites themselves, in turn, are the only protectors of the people against the evil State. Far from Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal’s class war, today’s Naxalites are ‘guns for hire’, and exploit and oppress the very people they claim to be fighting for. Even schools in rural areas, which could help them break out of the poverty trap, have been blown up by Naxals, for whom every educated child represents the potential loss of a blinkered recruit. 

"The people who work as their mouthpieces also know very well but they succeed in spreading the lie as they have been controlling the narrative. We broke into it, challenged it and tried to introduce a new narrative. In the last six months, we have travelled in deep Bastar and recorded umpteen stories of Naxal barbarity and exploitation of Adivasis. The awareness the film created has given a lot of confidence to ex-Naxals who have been secretly wanting to share their stories with me. This is the victory of Buddha."

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"Today, I am at the nerve centre of the Naxal movement: Chhattisgarh. I have been invited by a group of ex-Naxals and anti-Naxal groups. There is a flood of innocent Adivasis who can’t even speak properly but they are here to acknowledge the dent the film has made to Naxalism. I am overwhelmed with their love. They have made me feel like a hero, a crusader.

"A couple meets me. Their story can make any sane person puke with disgust. They are ex-Naxals. While fighting the ‘revolution’, they fell in love but couldn’t marry as the Naxal law dictates that every man gets a vasectomy operation done before marrying a Naxal woman cadre. One day, after their colleagues killed an innocent villager, opened his chest, gouged out his eyes and mutilated the corpse with an axe, both of them fled and took protection in Jagdalpur. They married and now have children. They are crying. Not because of the suffering but out of the joy of meeting and sharing their pain with me.

"‘Sir, whatever you have shown in the film is absolutely true. Everything. We have come here to pay our gratitude to you for showing the truth behind the barbarity of savages like Naxals. Somebody had to do it. Thanks.’ 

"I have tears in my eyes. This is the victory of Buddha. The truth.

"There may not be a place for the alternate narrative in Naxal-infested jungles, campuses, media and minds but in the world of real, rational and sane people, there is always a place for truth – the only narrative one needs to know.

"Satyameva Jayate."

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July 15, 2022 - July 15, 2022. 

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Urban Naxals: The Making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam 

by Vivek Agnihotri  (Author)  

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June 28, 2022 - 

July 10, 2022 - July 15, 2022. 

Purchased June 24, 2022. 

Publisher: ‎Garuda Prakashan 

(19 June 2018)

Language: ‎ English

Kindle Edition

Format: Kindle Edition

ASIN:- B07DWC4WXS

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ASIN:- B07DWC4WXS

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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4811653893

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