Mani Ratnam – The Urban Naxali who became an Urban Naxali before it was cool

Urban Naxals. Ideally, it should be one of the most dreaded terms in public space. The person perceived as such should denounce the ideological roots of their thought process. But, if that was the case, then the term should not have existed in the first place.

This class of intellectualism existed in India way before the term even came into existence. Let us talk about the filmmaker Mani Ratnam, one of the first flag bearers of the term.

Dravidian politics in PS-1 and Iruvar

Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan has now been released. The film has been directed and co-written by Mani Ratnam himself. It is a Tamil-language epic period action drama film. The movie is supposed to bring back the lost legacy of the glorious Chola Empire. It is considered as one of the most important Indic history based movies. However, allegations of historical inconsistencies have started to prop up.

People are claiming that through the movie, Mani Ratnam has tried to impose toxic Tamil political culture on the neutral audience. For instance, the tussle of ideas between Shaivism and Vaishnavism during the Chola times is said to have been represented in a negative light. The main reason behind allegations of showcasing a toxic version of Tamil Politics is that 25 years ago, Mani Ratnam made a movie glorifying Dravidian politics.

Remember Iruvar? This Tamil film, released in 1997, is still counted as one of the unforgettable films of India. In the movie, Mohanlal, Tabu, Prakash Raj, and Aishwarya Rai did excellent work. But do you know what it was based on? It was built on two strong pillars of Dravidian politics – Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran and Muthuvel Karunanidhi. Some parts of J. Jayalaitha’s life have also been depicted in the movie.

Sympathetic to villains

But, these controversies look childish if we trace Mani Ratnam’s filmmaking journey through decades. He is infamous for glorifying negative people in the public domain. Inspired by the Godfather of Hollywood, he went to make a movie named ‘Nayakan’ on Varadraajan Mudaliar, the original Don of Underworld. The movie name itself shouts over the rooftop that it was aimed towards depicting the Don in a positive light.

Narrative war in Roja and Dil Se

You see, Mani Ratnam has a thing or two about detecting the traces of good human character in one of the most evil ones. Otherwise, why would he go on to make a movie like Roja in 1992? A lot of terrorists shown in the movie were depicted as having rational minds.

Religious fanaticism as a base of people rushing in to join the terrorists in Pakistan was not shown in full light. One terrorist named Liaqat was in fact shown as what can be colloquially termed as “Bhatka Hua naujawan”.

Mani Ratnam’s research, or should I say his selective reading, only depicted the Indian Army as the root cause of every evil going on inside the Indian territory. This bias was clearly visible in his 1998 movie, Dil Se. In the movie, Manisha Koirala played the role of a suicide bomber who blows herself up as well as Shah Rukh Khan in the last scene. In the movie, her character was well connected with insurgent groups in Assam.

But it is the backdrop of her turning into a suicide bomber through which Mani Ratnam showcased the Indian Army in an extremely poor light. According to the plot of the movie, Manisha Koirala decided to join insurgent groups because she was a victim of rape by the Indian Army.

Not only that, the army is shown to have burned villages and raped multiple women in the movie. With so many charges of atrocities against the Army, it is natural that you would develop contempt for your own armed forces. Mind you, at that time, very few of us had the ability to differentiate between reel and real.

Movie ‘Raavan’ was nothing but propaganda

Even 12 years after the release of Dil Se, the situation has not changed in India. In 2010, Mani Ratnam came up with a movie named Raavan. As the name of the movie and Mani Ratnam’s trysts with the negative characters suggest, the movie was made to omit the negative impact of the original Ravan from people’mind. Even the character opposite to the so-called villain is named Dev, a word used to describe virtuous characters.

There are too many parallels with Ramayan. The movie shows that Abhishek Bachchan, supposedly the villain of the movie, kidnaps Aishwarya Rai to avenge the death of his sister. Aishwarya Rai’s character, Ragini Sharma, is depicted in parallel with Maa Sita. Through this justification, Mani Ratnam tried to give the message that Surpnakha’s story may be false.

Tried to humanise the character of Ravan

Ravan’s character has been humanised by showing him as a victim of circumstantial exploitation by the people in power. He is shown as Naxali and even in that everything has shown to be good among Naxal cadres. There is no depiction of how senior cadres in Naxalite movement sexually exploited their female members, kill those who oppose and run a Kangaroo Court.

Twisted archetypal facts to suit his agenda

Moreover, Maa Sita, who is Aishwarya Rai’s character, is shown sympathising with Ravan and what happened in his life, particularly his sister. By showing that Ravan’s sister was wrongly treated, the killing of Inspector Hemant, Dev’s junior, has been justified. Even Bhagwan Ram’s conquering of Ravan has been shown as Ravan’s sacrificial tribute to Maa Sita and not as a victory.

If that was not enough, Sita Mata’s commitment has also been subjected to black spots in the movie. When finally Aishwarya Rai is free from the clutches of Ravan, Dev, the lead character, asks her about her fidelity, an event comparable to Agni Pariksha. But instead of Agni Pariksha, Mani Ratnam shows Aishwarya Rai rushing towards Ravan’s character, played by Abhishek Bachchan.

Naxal sympathiser

Apart from distorting the history written in Ramayan, the movie was yet another attempt to justify the Naxalite. At that time, even the UPA2 government was planning to get strict on anti-India Naxals and Maoists. The movement had started with the stated goal of freeing farmers from the clutches of the zamindars.

But it was always a power grab technique by leftist intellectuals. Through writing a few stories about poor men turning into terrorists, they have been gaining sympathy points. This is the textbook technique that Mani Ratnam followed in his movie Raavan. Through the movie, he reignited sympathy in people’s minds.

The messaging in Ratnam’s movies is so ingrained in archetypal stories that until you possess deep knowledge of history, economics, Dharm, and most importantly, politics, it is next to impossible to decode the subtlety. But the people of India have started to decode them. That is why the word “urban naxal” came to the fore. Not every naxal stays in the jungle; a lot of them reside in intelligentsia.