Role of viewers in SRK’s subversion

The antidote to the heavy head a person may get after watching Jawan with its interminable chasefightkill sequences and unbearably loud music would not be an analgesic but a reflection over Shah Rukh Khanrsquos audacity to critique Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party Khan has stood up when other filmstars have either chosen to stay silent or fawn over Modi and propaganda films like The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story have become the seasonrsquos flavourYet credit is also due to viewers whose prior knowledge and political inclinations have them see beyond the ostensible in Jawan With free speech imperilled and censors petrified of displeasing the BJP the filmrsquos political double entendre every ten minutes invites viewers to enter into a surreptitious pact with Khan for a subversive seeing of Jawan In sharp contrast to them are BJP supporters and the apolitical who see the film as just a stylish thrillerWeaned on literalism and habituated to watching films without a subtext such as Gadar II the BJP belatedly woke up to the subversive viewing of Jawan afoot in theatres courtesy the writeups of film critics The party issued a press release applauding Khan for highlighting the corruption of the previous United Progressive Alliance governments hoping to nudge viewers to watch Jawan through saffrontinged glassesThe BJP failed to discern Jawanrsquos subversive quality as the film does not take on Hindutvarsquos pet peeves regarding Muslims Indeed Jawan imitates the politics of Opposition leaders who are reluctant to take on the Hindutva ideology headon out of their fear of alienating Hindus and forfeiting their votes Jawan too shies away from disenchanting Hindus who vote for the BJP but also love KhanThe stakes are extraordinarily high for both Khan and Opposition leaders to take risks And so Jawan like Opposition leaders prefers to focus on misgovernance hoping this strategy would coax BJP supporters into asking ldquoMain Kaun Hoon Who am Irdquo This question is asked by Jawanrsquos protagonist Vikram Rathore father of Azad who suffers from amnesia a trope for India forgetting its past Azadrsquos noble mission restores the fatherrsquos memory thus conveying to the ageing generation that the India they once knew could be returned to them by their childrenSure some of the examples of misgovernance that Jawan highlights could implicate the UPA as well But Jawanrsquos prioritising of issues unequivocally establishes its antiBJP credentials further bolstered by our prior knowledge of Khanrsquos politics For instance Jawan focuses on the distress of farmers an issue as old as the Hindi film industry but it juxtaposes their woes with hefty loan waivers granted to industrialists giving a novel spin to a trite theme When the richest among them is compelled to pay crores as a ransom the payoff is transferred to the accounts of farmersThose political are bound to conclude that Khan is critiquing Modirsquos indifference to the 2021 farmer protest and his jumla of crediting R15 lakh to every bank account after repatriating the black money stashed abroad But none can miss the unmistakable reference to Gorakhpurrsquos Dr Kafeel Khan who arranged oxygen cylinders for ailing children but failed to save them The person playing Dr Kafeel in Jawan is Dr Earam and the Muslimness of the names of real and reel heroes leaves viewers with no doubt that SRK wants them to connect the dotsThereafter every episode of misgovernance becomes a scream against Modi A syndicate of industrialists funding a party most supportive of big business becomes a pointer to the alleged ModiAdani symbiotic relationship The violation of environmental laws becomes a reference to the current regimersquos prioritising of development over ecologyIndeed the subversive pact has viewers asking questions even as guns boom lovers romance and a daughter chooses a man to marry her mother who birthed the child outside wedlock Why is the death tally in the Vikram Rathoreled antiterrorist mission which failed because the guns of soldiers would not fire a precise 40mdashdid I hear it rightmdashnot 26 or 70 Is this a reference to the 40 soldiers who perished instantaneously in the 2019 Pulwama bombing Are the dud guns a substitute to the charge of intelligence failure that former governor Satya Pal Malik made thenPerhaps itrsquos a case of overseeing overreading scenes in Jawan making the viewing hallucinatory a reflection of viewersrsquo frustration with Indian politicsBut this temptation to match scenes in Jawan with reallife situations reaches an apogee during Khanrsquos monologue on why people must think before they vote for a party Suddenly in this episode he flashes his palm fingers stretched and pointing skyward Friends and family saw in this gesture Khanrsquos call to vote for the Congress SRKrsquos fingers were not stuck together as closely as they are in the Congress election symbol I counteredSuch then is the power of subversive pacts often employed in totalitarian States to pull the wool over the eyes of censors as Jawan too does with the message a jawan is not just the person guarding the border but also the one who makes democracy meaningfulThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper