What comprise of Establishment, in present day democracy? Ideally, values, ideology, bureaucracy, and administrative machinery. (While the last two do not change with the party in power, each party voted into office brings in with it its owns hues and colors and tries to paint the system in its own image.) But practically? The term Establishment has a negative connotation to it, suggesting an inherent resistance to radical change, citing rules, regulations, and overall cynicism that has waylaid the system. The system calls it with an officious sounding "continuity of governance", implying the old order needs to be respected and observed and that any change or deviation from its norms would bring about chaos and therefore should be religiously avoided. These rules and norms and other codes of conduct, though have been framed with the best of intentions in mind, have over a period of time burdened the very system that they are aimed to serve and protect, holding it back from achieving the true potential of the collective - all this in the name of protecting the society from its own fickle nature. Features like "Due Process", "Peaceful transition of power", even Elections, which appear to be the hallmarks of a free society, have been subverted where the guilty can tie up the court process in appeals and adjournments rendering the delayed justice entirely moot, where elected representatives, entirely peacefully, can hopscotch parties tipping the scales at will, where parties (and even people) can be bought, threatened, manipulated and coerced into not exercising their will at the ballot boxes and act in a way that is completely against the spirit of electoral politics. But all these policies are sacrosanct and cannot be touched, even if they are bent beyond recognition. In this scenario, what does it take to shake up the system and wake it up to realize its own best interests?
It would seem a fantasy when a citizen is handed the reins of the government for a single day and he goes about trying to bring into a runaway system a certain sense of accountability. It would appear as pure fiction when a leader goes against his own interests and tries to be the leader of the people than just be a leader of his party. That which should be the very foundations of the administration, good governanance and proper accountability, have now become figments of imagination and any story involving those are treated as too good to be true. Electoral system, which is the bedrock of democracy, has become a millstone around its own neck neck, preventing the peopl in power to look past their own chances of getting re-elected and so confine themselves within the safe boundaries of "continuing of governance", in effect biding their time till the next election. Just as peace is considered to be a brief respite between two wars, governance has been reduced to become an avocation between two elections. So the concept that someone can rise above the (re-)election politics and can set about to change a system that has gone so far beyond its own self-interest, even if it means dragging it back on its bleeding knees, is not just radical, it is plain suicidal. Ultimately the question becomes, can people look past their short sights and set aside their petty politics and vote back to power someone who doesn't mind administering a healthy dose of bitter pill, in the name of greater good? Has there been any precedent in electoral history that such a transformation of electorate has indeed happened, where people didn't mind suffering in the short term to have a better prospect of life in the long term? Until that question is answered, movies like "Oke Okkadu", "Leader", and the latest entrant, "Bharat Ane Nenu" continued to be filed under wishful thinking.
"Bharat Ane Nenu" is not a knee-jerk reaction of the maker to the ills currently plaguing the society. It is not idealistic, which "Leader" was to a certain extent, nor it is too fantastical, which "Oke Okkadu" was to a large extent. It has its feet firmly planted in the cynical reality of the present day, where the art of deal making is considered a pre-requisite study for any politician, where continuity of power has a greater precedence than continuity of governance, where people's interests becomes an after thought to party's interests. So where does one start getting back the system that has long been derailed back on the tracks? Siva lays forth his own vision of a soceity running on the twin tracks of "భయం - బాధ్యత" (a stronger version of "విధేయత - బాధ్యత"), a system run on reverence and responsibility. Get the residents of the house in order first, and the house is automatically brought to order, is his precept. For a society that is drunk on the sweet nectar of unfettered freedom, cracking the whip on it and declaring that freedom is never free and it always comes at a little cost, is not just fair, it is required. If individual (ir)responsibility is costing the soceity, it is only just that the individual is assessed the cost of his damage. The unholy nexus of business and politics, and the natural order of its evolution, where business directly entered politics instead of supporting it from the sideline before, causing it to always place its interests before anything else, is the second shock crippling the current political system. And the only way to treat it is, accountability. If business wants to enter the political realm, sure, join the fare, there's no rule preventing it, but it cannot hold the society to ransom, simply because it has the ears of the administration. It would be subject to greater accountability, answerable to both administration and the people, requiring the business to prove at every step how it doesn't stand to benefit from the policies of the government. And lastly, if an individual aims to change the system sitting from atop, he should be willing to walk away from it at the drop of the hat. Whether the seeds of change he has sown in his time would take root to create a self-sustaining system depends on the will of society to nuture it and keep the ideals alive, it is in best interest of the society, howevermuch the temptation to continue with the good work, that the breeze of change blow away after the moment and not settle and become stale. "Bharat...." rightly checks on all these three counts, responsibility, accountability and the ability to walk away. That it does all this within the commercial confines of telugu cinema, without sacrificing logic, without losing the sight of reality and without undermining the intelligence (of its own and the audience), is indeed a remarkable achievement. At last, a smart telugu political thriller!
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