BULLIED: Former film veterans like Mithun Chakraborty are being forced to join the BJP. Film stars cannot refuse to campaign for the BJP out of fear that they may raided by the Income-Tax Department or the Enforcement Directorate, which is why none of them supported the farmer agitation.

By Ali Peter John

Filmstars have had a unhappy experienced of joining politics! Amitabh Bachchan who was forced to join politics by Rajiv Gandhi called it a cesspool. Though Dharmendra is a farmer at heart he cannot express sympathy for the protesting farmers, as both his son Sunny Deol and his second wife Hema Malini are BJP MPs. Till the death of Jayalalitha Tamil Nadu was completely dominated by film stars, even in the coming election Kamal Hassan has formed his own party. Film stars are playing a major role in the West Bengal elections.

I DON’T know how the game of politics is played. I was last involved in real politics when my professor in college was the Congress candidate from a suburb called Andheri, and was so shocked by his activities, especially when he used to call up the senior police officers at the Andheri police station and ask them to beat up his rivals and their men and break their limbs to make them disabled so that they couldn’t campaign. That was the last day I spent as a trainee politician!
I quit politics and wrote about my experiences as a campaign manager which was published as a full page on the edit page of the Indian Express.’ I also had a brief stint with the Shiv Sena in its formative stages, my fascination for the speeches made by Bal Thackeray was the reason that attracted me to the Shiv Sena, which died down when he and his followers also used strong arm tactics. I was involved in campus politics and also was the assistant editor ofCampus Times,’ a hard hitting magazine that hit out at the establishment. I had written a rhyme attacking the then Vice-Chancellor whose name was T K Tope and he was against any activities that gave the Bombay University a bad name.
My rhyme read, “Our new Vice Chancellor is a man called T K Tope, and we hope that he is not a dope.” The magazine was banned by Tope and it marked the end of my life as a campus politician…
I have tried my best to keep in touch with politics, but I can swear that I still don’t understand and don’t want to understand what this dirty game called politics is all about. For the last six years I have been terribly disturbed by the way politics has been reduced to what my friend Amitabh Bachchan once called “a cesspool.” But I have never been as disturbed as I have been during the last few days since another of my friends, Mithun Chakraborty, shocked me and all sensible people in the country (do we have sensible people in this great country?) when he openly and without any twinge of conscience joined a party which he used to run down when he was sent to the Rajya Sabha by the same leader, who he is now trying to defeat with the help of his new leaders who are very happy about getting him into their net.
I don’t want to go into the politics of why Mithun has done what he has done, but what he has done has inspired me to go into a little flashback into Mithun’s colourful and controversial past…
Bombay was rife with rumours about a Naxalite joining the FTII in Poona to train as an actor. It was here that he was discovered by the well-known Bengali filmmaker who gave him his first break in Mrigayaa’ for which he won the National Award for the best actor. He had come to Bombay to look for work, but all he could find were bit roles in films likePhool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan’ and Do Anjaane.’ He had come to my office with his gold medal and the award with a PRO called Dinesh Patil, who had a flour mill of his own. They tried their best to create an impact on my seniors but nothing worked and Mithun looked crestfallen and was walking towards the exit, when I called him back, defied my seniors, talked to him and wrote about him. That was the beginning of our very long association. I saw him still struggling when he did B grade action films. But his destiny changed when he didDisco Dancer’ which was an all dance film. The release of the film made him a star, second only to Amitabh Bachchan, and he was called “the poor man’s Amitabh.” He was now a star in every sense of the word. He had his resort cottage at Madh Island where more than having a place to himself, he had a huge kennels for dogs he had brought from different parts of the world. He had a large number of staff to take care of them. When I once asked him about his affection for his dogs, he had said, “Aadmi bewaafa hotaa hain, kutta kabhi nahi.”
He had a number of affairs before marrying Yogeeta Bali, the former wife of Kishore Kumar. He had some differences with his “daddy” and within no time he and his family shifted from Bombay to Ooty where he built his hotel called The Monarch and also lived there. He started a parallel film industry in Ooty and refused to shoot anywhere outside Ooty, but there were filmmakers who were willing to follow his rules. He was declared the individual income-tax payer who paid Rs1 crore as income-tax.
His parallel cinema movement in Ooty came to a standstill and this prices together with his son Mimoh who wanted to be a star and this brought him back to Bombay. He was aging and only found character roles which he played with a class and confidence. The last good character role he played was in “The Kashkent Story.” There have been regular rumours about his failing health and sometimes even his death. He was doing another major role in “The Kashmir Files” with Anupam Kher as his co-star and Vivek Agnihotri, as the director and both these men were very close to the powers-that-be. And soon after he had finished shooting for the film there were strong rumours about his joining the party which was ruling (or is it ruining?) the country.
And finally, the truth was out before a gathering of more than a lakh of people in Kolkata, where the atmosphere is not very conducive to healthy minds. And what I had expected happened. He had sworn to be a part of the party he once used to ridicule and call all kinds of names. Aisaa kyon hotaa hain? Aisaa ek sharif aadmi apnaa hosh kyon kho detaa hain, aisaa karne se ek sharif insaan apne saalon ki kamaai hui shaan aur izzat kyon kho detaa hain? Yeh sirf mere sawaal nahi, yeh sawaal desh ke kahi karod hairaan log pooch rahe hain. Usko Kyaa kahete hain, nation wants to know.
Mumbai-based Ali Peter Johnis a veteran film journalist, former Editor who worked for Screen, the film weekly of the Indian Express Group, for over 40 years, and has seen the highs and lows of tinsel town.

HOW THE “COBRA” ENTERED THE PARTY

IT was expected to happen on March 7 in the presence of the mighty Narendra Modi at the Brigade Grounds of Kolkata. The grounds were packed to capacity with several lakh innocent (or is it idiotic?) bhakts. The hero who after staying in different “houses” was now to enter his new house which was saffron in colour. The Mighty M welcomed him like hero must not have imagined. The excited crowd kept clapping (they do very little otherwise) and cheering. The Mighty M makes one more speech which is nothing but a reputation of the promises he has been making for the last seven years. After his usual fiery speech Mighty M welcomes the hero to the party and embraces him and even touches his cheek like a long lost father would do to a son he was missing!
And then it is the turn of the to speaker. He thanks the Mighty M like he has thanked other leaders like Jyoti Basu, Mamata Banerjee and even Bal Thackeray on different opportunistic occasions. But what he says during his first speech at the saffron party is something that will be remembered as long as opportunistic politics is kept alive.
He tells the audience (while the Mighty M smiles in a way that has a million meanings). The hero thinks he is speaking lines for an action film and says, “I am an asal cobra and not a water snake. If I sting someone he or she will straightaway reach the cremation ground!” Not even the most dirty and power hungry politician must have made a poisonous speech like this one! His symbolic speech was received with thunderous clapping with the Mighty M joining the applause.
Will this cobra be successful in serving the people or the Mighty M in time to come? Or will he live up to his image of the “cobra”?