The History of politics tells us that intellectuals drive the masses towards the idea they are passionate about. But don’t you think there could be exceptions to it? Or it may be an absolute lie? Intellectuals switching sides after Dr Manmohan Singh’s demise do offer us some clue regarding it. At the latest a verbal fight surrounding the bollywood men erupted following the demise of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that involved actor Anupam Kher and filmmaker Hansal Mehta. Recently, Vir Sanghvi, an intellectual hero of many generations took Singh’s death as an opportunity to engage in some political whataboutery. Naming the movie ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, he termed it one of the worst Hindi movies. Additionally, Vir Sanghvi also thinks that the media was used to tarnish Singh’s image.
For the unversed, Vir Sanghvi is one of the biggest names accused in Nira Radia tape controversy regarding corporate media in cahoots with UPA administration when Singh was Prime Minister. A more problematic thing is that a famous X handle exposed Sanghvi’s 2016 assessment of Manmohan government. Sanghvi had termed Singh as worst Prime Minister for India – worse than even Deve Gowda.
No comments. pic.twitter.com/hPXtjHKgcq
— Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) December 28, 2024
Sanghvi’s latest flip on late Dr Manmohan Singh was endorsed by flimmaker Hansal Mehta. Ironically, Hansal Mehta was one of the most active persons involved in making the movie. When the movie was being shot in England, Mehta was present for the entire occasion to provide his creative input as part of his job as creative director of the movie. All this was revealed by Anupam Kher. Anticipating that Mehta may lie and say that he was not part of the movie, Kher revealed that he also has videos and pics of them together. Netizens then dug up Hansal Mehta’s own tweets appreciating the movie and Anupam Kher, who was lead actor in the movie.
The HYPOCRITE in this thread is NOT @virsanghvi. He has the freedom to not like a film. But @mehtahansal was the #CreativeDirector of #TheAccidentalPrimeMinister. Who was present at the entire shoot of the film in England! Giving his creative inputs and must have taken the fee… https://t.co/tkr3H1ChyX
— Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) December 27, 2024
Without comments! 👇 https://t.co/cVwvOS9sf1
— Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) December 27, 2024
Ultimately, mehta had no other option but to state that he owns his mistake of participating in the filmmaking. Mehta could have chosen to apologise for endorsing Sanghvi, but did not do so. It is clear that the 56 year old man with decades of business interests sees tide turning in opposite direction.
When the movie was released in 2019, the political and public space was dominated by pro-Modi or anti-UPA faction of the academia. Even the media waves defining public perception was on this side. Few months later, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) turned it into electoral victory with 303 seats in general elections. Kher is assumed to be on BJP side, so siding with him would bring perception of power, prestige, position and off course money. That kind of behaviour is on expected lines, specially with movie maker who have tendency to remain in good books of the establishment.
That tendency has been caused by decades of misuse of the power to ban books like Satanic verses and singers like Majrooh Sultanpuri and Kishore Kumar by Jawahar Lal Nehru and Indira Gandhi respectvely. In the past, these people have submitted to regimes of their times and borne benefits out of it. Many of them who did not succumb became legends while those who maintained a semblance of their independence did not climb much up the ladder.
That is why when Narendra Modi took charge in 2014, a wave of loyalists shifted towards this side. Many anchors now termed as part of Godi Media narrative were clearly having a stonewall of Darbari Media surrendering their professionalism to vested interests.
And then there were people like Anurag Kashyap who suddenly became vociferous for particular ideology because state stopped succumbing to established big boys club of industry. This may sound absurd to us but it is normal in the interplay of politics, cinema, media and money.
Virtually everyone agrees that Dr Manmohan Singh was a fantastic human being and a well-acclaimed economist. But scratch his admirers about Singh’s politics and ‘puppet and ruthlessly undermined by Gandhis’ will be most common phrase. Even Hansal Mehta seemed to be fully subscribing to this point of view.
Nothing else explains his active presence in making of the movie. The man must have done his research and believed the project to be fact based. However, the movie did not do well on box office.
Failures turn friends into enemies and that is exactly what seems to be happening with Mehta. When the movie was released, it was easy to speculate a grand success and a great addition on Mehta’s CV. Since, it was not a good hit, some negative points were accumulated.
After Dr Singh’s demise, few neutralising points were up for grabs and Mehta wasted no time in taking them. The tide is in Dr Singh’s favour and majority of people like him will be financnialy hurt if they are seen on other side.
Ultimately, it is the direction of the crowd which decides loyalty of majority of public intellectuals.
