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Fiza: a cop-out

Funny thing... last week, without having any such intention, I managed to watch three movies with the same basic theme: Good guy is pushed by the system into becoming a violent law-breaker. In Fiza, he becomes an Islamic terrorist; in Shool, he cold-bloodedly kills an MLA in the Vidhan Sabha; in Vaastav, he becomes a gang-land don. Funnier thing: I thoroughly enjoyed all three films. Funniest thing: In very varying degrees, I could justify their heroes' crimes.

Shool's honest cop, nicely played by Manoj Bajpai, was the easiest for me to identify with: He's extremely arrogant in his righteousness and his belief that the system will bend before Truth. It rarely does; he gets screwed. Vaastav's harmless-tapori-turned-into-deadly-don, with Sanjay Dutt's credible performance surprising me no end, was a bit difficult to excuse. So ok, my characteristic rage was with him through the first murders; my grasp of reality understood why he then moved to the dark side, but he lost my sympathy when he revelled therein and went from bad to worse. Even so, I was always aware that only my privileged position, including my education, prevented me from being one with the off-hero. All other things being equal, can't say how I'd have reacted: Fury is an awful thing to have in one's disposition.

Fiza's gentle-giant-turned-into-terrorist was the hardest for me to absorb. In fact, the movie set me thinking, not so much about the protagonists, but the predicament of its dialogue-writer, Javed Akhtar, and director, Khalid Mohamed: Both aren't nutcases and both knew they were walking a dangerous tightrope. To tell you the truth, I went to the movie with my anti-Sricrescent-report sword drawn and was shocked to find that I didn't quite need it. Shorn off its commercial compromises, Fiza is far more balanced and more rooted in reality than Gulzar's Maachis, which I perceive as a dishonest representation of Sikh separatism. Since the Bombay riots of 1992-1993 are aankhon-dekha haal for me (we even had a family of 9 living with us for a week), little in Khalid's film seemed far-fetched. But if he had had the courage to present the ideology of Islamic terrorism -- as was done by Mani Ratnam in Roja -- and juxtaposed it with the origins of the Ram Janmabhoomi issue and the situation to-date, Fiza would have been a formidable piece of activism and carried all hues of Indians with it.

Therein lies the rub. Just as Gulzar, a Sikh, ignored the communal actualities in Maachis, Khalid shies from the "Islam" in contemporary terrorism. Murad Khan (Manoj Bajpai) draws Amaan (Hrithik) into his unspecified terrorist unit by saying things like they are waging their gory battle so that never again will there be injustice against innocents "chaahe Mussalman ho ya Hindu." Huh?? Will anybody with even a modicum of brains swallow that? Fiza thus introduces a new brand of terrorists -- secular jehadis who target Hindu and Muslim politicians. LOL, a cop-out if there's one. Of course, had a Hindu attempted a make a film on the riots, we'd have had totally glorified Islamic terrorists and lectures in the mode of J P Dutta's Border, which, despite being based on the Battle of Longewalla -- a part of yet another Pakistan-instigated war -- ended with a bhai-bhai sermon on Indo-Pak unity. C'est la vie.

No matter what they may say about Fiza being one woman's search for her missing brother, the movie is nothing but a call to examine the Hindu-Muslim riots and bring the villains to book. And the villains are the politicians and policemen who've caused the gentle giant to turn to terrorism, and who now advise Fiza (Karisma Kapoor) to give up her quest for Amaan and let sleeping dogs lie. Whether it is politicians Syed Sahab and Singh Sahab or Inspector Prakash Ingle, the refrain is the same: "zakhm bhar chuka hai... hum aman qaayam karna chaahte hain (the wound is healed... we want lasting peace)."

Fiza, on the other hand, won't listen to reason, and it is she with whom no fault can be found. Her characterisation is justifiable: Yes, a Muslim would feel that saffron is only a part of the national flag "aur poora jhanda nahi ban-na chahiye." Yes, too many Muslims ask "yeh kaisa jehad hai," with the conviction that the Quranic concept of jehad is not that which is professed by Islamic terrorists. Yes, it is natural for a Muslim victim's kin to identify with a Hindu victim's. Even while keeping her Muslim maahaul intact, Khalid has managed to keep Fiza from sinking under the weight of the oppressed-minorities syndrome: She has the will to bank on her personal abilities and the fire to lug an acid-filled bottle for self-protection. Ultimately, the movie succeeds because the depiction of Fiza -- superbly played by Karisma -- turns it into a portrayal of an individual's pain at a personal loss and the resulting struggle for the truth. In every way, the movie achieves what our "secular" activists never could -- simply because Khalid got lost in his painting of Fiza and thus neglected his religio-political agenda. Ironic, isn't it?

From my fundie point of view, there were many images -- some may even call them subtle -- that bugged me. For instance, why was the 'Phijaji'-spouting Hindu ("apne parivar ko main samjha doonga") politician so obviously inferior to the dignified Muslim one? Why did the former leer lasciviously at Fiza, while the latter was paternal? When the wounded Amaan is running helter-skelter on the streets, Murad drags him into a van and expresses his empathy; but how does he know Amaan is a Muslim...? Is it to suggest that every helpless, bleeding person at that time had to be a Muslim? Still, all such are minor hiccups and nothing over which to start Hindu naare-baazi.. In truth, I oppose the mindset that seeks to make any piece of any branch of the arts conform to one's ideological beliefs. If you don't like it, produce a movie, or a painting, or a play, that sets forth your stance: Fight art in its own arena.

All said, I do believe that it isn't Fiza but Amaan who's drawing the audience to the cinema halls -- even while being the weakest link in the tale. Like Delhi CM Sheila Dixit, I'm unable to understand why Amaan returns to terrorism after two goondas attack him. Is that a convincing reason to pick up an IED? Unlike Dixit, who resented Amaan's inability "to reintegrate with his family," I can't understand why Amaan should live happily-ever-after with his family -- dues unpaid -- after committing terrorism. But then, such differences between a vote-banking politician's views and mine are bound to exist. Bottom-line, had there been no Hrithik, the movie would have come a cropper. People go to watch him, not Amaan, and that's that.

Are people affected by the movie? I don't think so. I was pretty much shocked when there was laughter during a heartrending scene wherein Fiza breaks down and mourns her mother's death. It was enough to make me question whether people are worth the trouble...

However, what I resented most was the continuous and direct attacks on the police. In four words -- as in all contemporary Indian movies -- all cops are bad. During the riots, when Amaan seeks Inspector Ingle's help, the reply is, "Ja, Pakistan bhaag ja." When Fiza questions Ingle's behaviour, the reply is, "Ek ko bachaane jata to chaar laashein aur girti. Woh time sentiment dikhaane ka nahi tha." Finally, just to introduce a totally irrelevant dance sequence, with a glam babe of a banjaaran in harem pants (!) wriggling around in the Kutch-Rajasthan desert, an inspector asks the cowering villager for his "regular" girl... The police have become such soft targets! Every film-maker or novelist or whatever feels free to lay the whole bundle of sins on this arm of law-enforcement!

Those who agitated for the repeal of TADA, and have now drawn a bead on the Criminal Law Amendment Bill and the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, work on the basis of human rights. They are the ones who blabber on about how society is to blame for the rise of crime and why murderers should be given a second chance. Then, why isn't the same yardstick applied to cops? Aren't they, too, products of the same society? Why is it that in all our films, the murderer is romanticised and the policeman debased? Why don't these sods shed the same tears of sympathy for the police? Why is there such a hysterical distaste in the media for the police? Whenever the mounting cycle of crime turns into organised terrorism, it's never the corrosive and continuous influence of a criminalised polity, a compromised bureaucracy, and an irresponsible elite, that comes under scrutiny. Instead, it's the inadequacy of the police and its occasional and inevitable failures that are put under a microscope.

None of these pontificating goody two shoes is even remotely interested in creating an efficient and effective police force in India; have you read any serious and sustained analysis on the subject...? Upright police officers -- a group that simply does not exist where our ultra-liberals are concerned -- are forced to protest the rape of their departments by the civil administration, which, in times of crisis, simply disowns all responsibility. What have we, as a people and as a government, done for the upgrading, equipping, retraining and empowerment of the police? Have any of those who regularly moan about the sorry lanes of "minority" areas -- whence justifiably springs the don! -- ever seen the police barracks?! What investment has this nation made in the mechanisms that uphold the law and ensure order...?

Naah, no need. The idiots seem to think that by heaping calumny on cops and showing sympathy towards the offender, crime will take care of itself. It doesn’t work like that! It’s high time that those who choose to sit in judgement on the police arm themselves with a better understanding of the system as it operates on the ground before they vent their spleen against the only civil security forces that have at least some brave men who are willing to risk their lives and sacrifice their comforts to protect others. It is the terrorist who produces police brutality -- not vice versa.

Varsha Bhosle