ArpitGarg's Weblog

I just saw the trailer of movie Indu Sarkar, a movie about the atrocities of Emergency, a black chapter of lust for power. I came to know about emergency quite late in my life and have always wondered why? The dark chapter of our history should have been part of our school curriculum, but it never was. It was as if it never happened. A reason why such a movie was never made before today is simple, the dynastic rule never ended. The more I read about emergency, the sad I felt that judiciary, intelligentsia and media of the day knelt down in front of what they called Iron Lady, and they still do.

I always wondered why people voted her back post emergency and continued with the dynastic rule. Maybe we needed to grow as a nation to get out of bonded mindset. Maybe the internet and free knowledge needed to reach to deep interiors of our country to bring people together. I feel we have almost reached there. Movie like Indu Sarkar, if trailer is anything to go by, is bound to change the manufactured history of our nation. Couple of hard hitting dialogues stood out. Dialogues which should have been the part of our national psyche, but they never were.

“Bharat ki ek beti ne desh ko gulam bana ke rakha hua hai, doosri beti se ummed hai azaadi ki” (One daughter of India has kept the nation enslaved; it is up to the other daughter to free the country). Chilling! It took the nation good 40 years to reach here. But I am happy that we finally have strength to say it out loud. We were enslaved. Struggle against emergency was nothing short of Third War of Independence. It should have been celebrated like one, but it never was.

“Tum log zindagi bhar maa bete ki gulaami karna” (You continue being slave to mother and son, your whole like). I couldn’t control my emotions hearing this. So relevant even today! It makes me sick and sad watching septuagenarian leaders bowing to mother and son just to keep their position. Mind you, we as voters were equally culpable, coz we as a nation were ready to serve mother and son, then and now.

But the time seems to have come to say it out loud. Time has now come to absolve ourselves of the sin of electoral mistakes we made. Time has now come to absolve us of the slavery. Indu Sarkar might not turn out to be as hard hitting as its trailer, but it is a step in right direction nonetheless. A step towards mainstreaming the atrocities the nation faced.

I don’t expect the movie to be celebrated by the media and intelligentsia. I don’t expect the movie to be celebrated by the nation as large, as we all were culpable in our choices last 40 years. But I expect it to be a start for a brighter future. Only after accepting and internalizing our failures and mistakes, do we become better.

The story needed to be told. I’d say it came not 40 years late, but it came on time, whenever it came.