Urban Naxals: The Making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam

by Vivek Agnihotri

“My faith in goodness is reinforced. I learn that if the intent is right, the universe creates a new logic. A new reality.”

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.”

Vivek’s book is full of facts, figures, questions, and ideas about this menace to India’s sovereignty and integrity.

In 70 years of independence, we haven’t been able to provide water to our citizens. I fear soon the waterless Indians will turn into bloodthirsty savages who would kill their own kin for water. Not out of any ideology or politics. Not out of hatred or revenge. Only out of their thirst. And this is where the Indian State has failed. Miserably. I wonder what is stopping Shekhar Kapur from making his film on the subject – Paani. I wish he makes it before that watershed day.

I don’t believe in God but I do believe in Godly moments.

I realized that most of them wanted to take a job outside India with top MNCs. Nobody was interested in India unless out of family compulsions. It wasn’t like they were pissed off with India; they were just not interested. These students played poker, drank beer, smoked pot, attended standup comedy shows and dreamt of having an IT professional for a wife and driving a BMW in an American suburb. 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.

A world of gravity. Everything can come down like a pack of cards. But ambition, conviction, and confidence make a lethal gravity. Together they create such a pull that like-minded forces create an ecosystem that leads to the idea’s success.

Agitations, dharnas and strikes are good business for some.

Political parties, when in opposition, provoke communities, engage them in identity politics to put pressure on the ruling party. Our political parties are always in election mode and therefore they make promises to potential vote-bank communities without bothering to analyze their legal and financial implications. This forces the ruling party to shift focus from governance to political management. Interest groups get involved and the issue overshadows everything else. To score back, the ruling party starts appeasing other communities and identity groups. It’s a vicious cycle. 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.

He will spend all his life calculating, scheming, manipulating just to survive in this vicious economic cycle.

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.

History in independent India has been treated like the ancient tale about five blind men and an elephant. An elephant is brought before the blind men and they are requested to identify, recognize and give their own interpretations of it. Each blind man catches hold of one part of the elephant’s body – trunk, ear, leg, tail and stomach, and describes the elephant according to the part they are holding.

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.

as human beings, have conquered the world and now, a bit of the universe, because we explored. Without exploring, one can't find a new ground.