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By:

Abhijit Joshi

31 August 2024 at 10:09:24 am

The Pawar Paradox Never Ends

As speculation over Sharad Pawar’s equations with the NDA resurfaces, Maharashtra is reminded that its most enduring political constant has always been uncertainty. There is an old Mumbai saying that seasoned political observers have long enjoyed repeating: “Ghode ki laath aur boss ki baat par kabhi bharosa mat karna” (never trust a horse’s kick or a boss’ word; either can come without warning). If Maharashtra’s politicians were updating the proverb today, one more cautionary line would...

The Pawar Paradox Never Ends

As speculation over Sharad Pawar’s equations with the NDA resurfaces, Maharashtra is reminded that its most enduring political constant has always been uncertainty. There is an old Mumbai saying that seasoned political observers have long enjoyed repeating: “Ghode ki laath aur boss ki baat par kabhi bharosa mat karna” (never trust a horse’s kick or a boss’ word; either can come without warning). If Maharashtra’s politicians were updating the proverb today, one more cautionary line would surely be included: “Sharad Pawar ke siyasi faisle par kabhi bharosa mat karna” (never assume you know Sharad Pawar's next political move). Few leaders in independent India have reinvented themselves as often, confounded both allies and adversaries with equal regularity, or remained politically relevant across nearly five decades quite like Sharad Pawar. Every major realignment in Maharashtra has, in one way or another, borne his imprint. Backstairs Intrigue That reputation has once again set the state’s political circles buzzing. A late-night meeting between senior NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Jayant Patil and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, followed by indications that Pawar's party could extend conditional support to the Centre's proposed Delimitation Bill, has revived speculation that Maharashtra may be headed towards yet another political reshuffle. Supriya Sule has firmly dismissed suggestions that her party is preparing to join the NDA, insisting that any support for the Delimitation Bill would depend entirely on safeguards ensuring fairness for every state. Yet, the rumours persist. That, perhaps, is the enduring ‘Pawar effect.’ In Maharashtra, a single meeting involving Sharad Pawar is often enough to trigger discussions of an entirely new government. Pawar’s political career has consistently demonstrated that certainty is an illusion. In 1978, barely 38 years old, he engineered one of Maharashtra’s greatest political upsets. Breaking away from the Congress, he toppled the Vasantdada Patil government and stitched together the Progressive Democratic Front, or Pulod, by bringing together parties separated by ideology but united by arithmetic. He became the state’s youngest Chief Minister, a distinction that still defines his public image. That episode also revealed the two principles that have shaped his politics ever since. Ideology, for Pawar, has rarely been an immovable barrier. Political arithmetic has almost always mattered more. Equally, power has never been viewed as permanent. The pattern repeated itself through the decades. Pawar moved between Congress politics and regional politics with remarkable ease, served as India’s Defence Minister, broke away to establish the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 over Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, spent nearly fifteen years governing alongside the Congress, and then stunned the political establishment yet again in 2019 by helping construct the Maha Vikas Aghadi. Few believed the Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP could coexist under one roof. Pawar proved otherwise. Even the dramatic dawn swearing-in of Devendra Fadnavis and the late Ajit Pawar in November 2019 ultimately enhanced Sharad Pawar’s reputation. Within days, he had reunited most of his fractured party and succeeded in installing Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister. What initially appeared to be his biggest setback became another demonstration of his political resilience. Today, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP is no longer the formidable organisation it was before the split of 2023. While he retains considerable public goodwill, national stature and a respectable parliamentary presence, his legislative strength within Maharashtra has diminished considerably, prompted questions about the party’s future. Reports suggest that sections within the NCP (SP) are increasingly uncomfortable with the prospect of remaining in perpetual opposition and favour exploring some form of understanding with the BJP. Pawar himself is believed to have resisted such suggestions, while Supriya Sule has repeatedly ruled out any immediate shift. Yet the existence of internal debate appears difficult to dismiss. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has publicly asserted that there is no question of new entrants joining the Mahayuti. His statement reflects political logic. The BJP already enjoys numerical dominance alongside Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP. Bringing Sharad Pawar into the alliance may strengthen the NDA externally, but it could also generate fresh leadership ambitions, competing centres of influence and unnecessary internal tensions. Issue-Based Cooperation If there is any movement, therefore, it is more likely to begin with issue-based cooperation in Parliament than with an immediate formal alliance. That explains why the Delimitation Bill has assumed such significance. Supriya Sule has indicated that her party could support the legislation provided the Centre guarantees a uniform 50 percent increase in parliamentary seats for every state. The position differs from that adopted by several INDIA bloc partners and has naturally fuelled speculation. Yet issue-based support should not automatically be interpreted as political surrender. Sharad Pawar has rarely subscribed to the idea that opposition requires opposing every government initiative. Throughout his career he has maintained working relationships across party lines, often separating legislative cooperation from electoral competition. That flexibility has repeatedly helped him preserve political relevance even when his party's electoral fortunes fluctuated. If, despite present denials, Pawar eventually chooses to support or formally align with the NDA, the consequences would extend well beyond Maharashtra. For the INDIA bloc, it would represent perhaps the most damaging psychological blow in western India, depriving it of one of its most experienced strategists and consensus-builders. Congress would lose a veteran ally at precisely the moment it is attempting to rebuild its organisational strength in Maharashtra. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) could find itself increasingly isolated, forcing a reassessment of both alliances and political strategy before the next Assembly election. And for the BJP, it would amount to the political neutralisation of perhaps its most accomplished regional rival. Sharad Pawar’s greatest political strength has always been his refusal to close any door before absolutely necessary. Strategic ambiguity has been one of its principal instruments. At 85, he remains among the last practitioners of an older style of coalition politics, where negotiation often counts for more than confrontation, and where tomorrow’s ally may well have been yesterday’s fiercest opponent. (The writer is a political observer. Views personal.

Bollywood’s Annus Mirabilis

Author Pratik Majumdar’s latest book argues that 1975 transformed Bollywood in ways memory has flattened.


Sadly, whenever we go into a flashback to 1975, all discussions boil down to Sholay, a milestone in the history of Indian cinema and perhaps also, across world cinema. “Sadly” because, few are aware that 1975 can be defined as the Golden Year of Bollywood cinema. Did you know that not less than 80 full-length feature films were released across theatres in India and some of them were big hits too? Few might have kept a count but film buff and author Pratik Majumdar reminds us of these milestones that mark the history of Bollywood.


Watching films has been Majumdar’s passion and he has been actively pursuing it from the time he was ten or eleven. A couple of years ago, Pratik decided to record his passion for cinema, especially Bollywood. The result is in the 197-page extensively researched book published by Hatchette-India last year. The book is titled 1975 – The Year That Transformed Bollywood with a colourful collage for a cover with an image from Sholay dominating the cover. 


The most outstanding quality of Pratik’s selection of around 30 feature films in the study is the underlining of the fact that Sholay might have been the best but this in no way signifies that other good films that hit the box office in a big way or landed on the wayside had not released in theatres.   


The most important function of Bollywood – its cinema and the people who inhabit the film industry is its ability to act as an interface between traditions of Indian society and disturbing modern or Western intrusions into it. The Hindi film is a means of giving cultural meaning to Western structures superimposed on society, demystifying some of the culturally unacceptable modern structures now in vogue and ritually neutralizing elements of the modern world that must be accepted for sheer survival. Are Western intrusions into the Hindi mainstream film ethos really disturbing? 


Not really, because the emphasis is not on the inner struggle between modernity and tradition. Nor is it on any deep ambivalence towards the West. The function of the Hindi film according to Shyam Benegal is to externalize an inner psychological conflict and handle the inner passion generated by social and political processes as problems created by events and persons outside. These events and persons are both ideal types and representatives of different aspects of a fragmented self. These fragments are separately controlled.


Bollywood seeks to sustain this control by sharpening the focuses of these differences - the hero and the anti-hero, the heroine and the anti-heroine, the large-hearted father-in-law and the middle-aged don. Hindi cinema does this because integration of these separate fragments into a unified whole would highlight the gray elements of characterization that it does not wish to adhere to. The cinematic influences of a foreign culture cannot uproot the cultural roots of a nation dotted with a largely illiterate mass population nurtured on a steady and generous diet of mythology, folklore, theatre, folk arts, music, all of which are reflected, represented, interpreted, distorted and questioned in and by popular cinema.


Pratik sheds light on films lesser-known than Sholay that were released the same year. Those films that were mainstream but had distinctive individual traits of the director are – Feroz Khan’s stylish Dharmatma, Shyam Benegal’s innocent filmization of Habib Tanvir’s famous play Charandas Chor, Rajshri’s super-duper hit Geet Gata Chal, Randhir Kapoor-directed Dharam Karam which is perhaps the first film in which the director directed his illustrious father Raj Kapoor, Brij Sadanah’s Chori Mera Kaam, three films of Gulzar, Shakti Samanta’s Amanush, Basu Chatterjee’s Chhoti Si Baat and many more.


There are five analytical essays also which sheds light on special areas of Bollywood cinema such as ‘The Impact of the 1975 Emergency on the Hindi film industry.’ Majumdar’s writing style is fluid, completely devoid of technical jargon and academic theorizing which enhances the book’s readability.


An outstanding feature is his dissection of  Jai Santoshi Maa, which was released the same year. This film led to a kind of mass hysteria among Indian women throughout the country trapping most of them in a fiery fervour of rituals, fasting and prayers for 16 consecutive Fridays to seek her blessings through fulfillment of their vows. Interestingly, it is this film which created this Goddess which did not really exist before. Thanks to the film, the worship in temples dedicated entirely to Santoshi Maa sprung up right across India and women still pay obeisance to her.


This is a must-read book for everyone interested in cinema with special focus on Bollywood cinema.


(The author is a film scholar. Views personal.)

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