Lesson from Adipurush: Cynical use of religion will backfire

Something strange happened on June 16, when Adipurush, the new big screen adaptation of the Ramayana starring Prabhas, Kriti Sanon and Saif Ali Khan, finally hit theatres and the early audience reactions began coming in: Reports of theatre audiences laughing at what were supposed to be poignant scenes, tweets and posts poking fun at the film’s botched CGI and raging against poorly-written dialogue (which is now being revised). Surely this was not what the makers of the film had expected in the days leading up to the release of the film, when all one heard of was how much bhakti has gone into the making of the film, that there would be a seat “reserved” for Lord Hanuman in every movie hall as an act of reverence and that actors Ranbir Kapoor and Ram Charan had bought 10,000 tickets to donate to “orphans and old age homes” (based on what one is hearing about the film, the last probably counts now as an act of cruelty against our most vulnerable)?

With threats of violence and calls to ban what he has described as his labour of love and devotion, surely director Om Raut is feeling most put upon. Consider the groundwork he had laid for the film to make the most of the current political mood in the country. The only reason he felt confident enough to make Adipurush, he said in an interview, was “Prime Minister Modi” who, he said, “gives us the power to come out and tell the stories that we want to tell…the confidence, the sense of being protected…the way we feel strongly as an Indian, Bharatvasi hone ka garv (the pride we feel in being Indian)”.

The political patronage he sought was evident from the credit roll of the film, where the BJP chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Assam and Maharashtra were thanked for bestowing their “blessings” on the project. This is now being used by the Opposition to demand accountability from the BJP for supporting a film that has allegedly “hurt the sentiments” of Hindus across the country.

The sad, we-told-you-so truth is that this was a fairly predictable turn of events. Fire, once lit, is hard to control, and could very well burn even those who had first set it. Ironically enough, this is one of the lessons we learn from the Ramayana’s Lanka dahan episode, where Hanuman, whose tail had been set aflame on Ravana’s orders as “punishment”, proceeded to burn his aggressor’s glorious capital with the very same fire. Fire here is a metaphor for hate and aggression — an apt one in this case.

Also read | Adipurush row: Protests break out in different cities; Nepal bans screening of Hindi movies

It was, after all, the fire of majoritarianism that was fuelled when Sanjay Leela Bhansali was assaulted on the sets of Padmavat (its name changed from the original Padmavati, like the epic poem by Malik Mohammad Jayasi on which it is based) after being accused of depicting a romance between the Hindu queen Padmavati and the Muslim invader Alauddin Khalji. The same fire spread to the sets of Prakash Jha’s Ashram, which was vandalised by a mob demanding that the director change the “offensive” name of the series. It burnt the makers of Tandav, who were forced to apologise for daring to get a Muslim actor to dress up as Lord Shiva for one scene, with an FIR even being registered against one of the executives at Prime Video. And it was this same fire, whose flames licked at the edges of Pathaan, for the colour of actor Deepika Padukone’s bikini, and sought to derail its release.

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There are several lessons to draw from the Adipurush debacle: That the cynical use of religion can and will eventually backfire; that no amount of devotional fervour can cover for a poorly-written and executed film; that your audience, not political patrons, are the ultimate arbiters of your fortune. To use the much-reviled line from Adipurush — sabki Lanka lagegi.