Public debate became increasingly polarised in 1995 as a new conservatism took hold
When Mayawati made certain remarks about Gandhi, commentators asked whether the founding fathers should continue to be unassailable for those living in modernising India. And after the smash successes of Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (HAHK) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ), critics questioned whether Hindi film audiences preferred dishoom-dishoom to idyllic romance. In 1995, we have been straining at the leash of accepted truths.
Now that the economic certainties of the socialist economy have been abandoned, what sort of politics will follow? Perhaps the free market will bring fundamentalisms of its own: the fundamentalism of "openness" at any cost and that of "swadeshi" at any cost. Those voting for Manmohanomics may be casting their franchise for their own Cielo, but they are ignoring the fact that their purchases may never trickle down to Real India. Those opposing the entry of Enronesque multinationals in the name of "the people" may be ignoring the fact that people need better roads and more electricity. The debate is strictly bipolar, divided between those who want to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken and those who don't. But what about those who would like a bit of both? Or like to have a choice? They have no place in the debate and must remain consigned to shoulder-shrugging apathy.
Feminists argue that women must be allowed to enter a forbidden temple—the Sabarimala shrine—and to hell with tradition. The priests say that tradition must stand as it always has, and to hell with women. Nude Sapre and Soman in the Tuff shoes advertisement: Adam and Eve with attendant serpent in a consumerist Eden, evoke fury on both sides. "Obscene," shriek the conservative. "A work of art," shout the Bold and the Beautiful. A vocal homosexual casts aspersions on the parentage of the Mahatma on a talk show chaired by a blonde Indian, Nikki Bedi. "How dare he," fulminate the nationalists. "Why not?" ask the Alternative. "Ban the film Bandit Queen," say Those In Favour Of Phoolan. "Show it," say Those Not In Favour Of Phoolan. "Beauty contests deni -grate women," say Those Who Think. "There's nothing wrong with beauty contests," say Those Who Disco.
Where is the moderate middle ground? That unglamorous mundane political middle, that utterly boring tendency that looks at both sides of the picture, that errs on the side of compromise, that doubts ideological absolutes but which, as Isiah Berlin once said, keeps society sane? In 1995, the moderate middle is shrinking. Amidst consumerists and Gandhians, knickerwallahs and jholawallahs, 1995 was about controversies that saw implacable divisions. At a time when the middle class is the supposed figurehead on the triumphal car of new India, there is little place for a middle view.
But the presiding deity of 1995, the centre of a great deal of controversy and the North Star of our ship to the future, is the media, specifically television. The media creates what Nadine Gordimer calls a human mutation which substitutes vicarious experience for the real thing. Whether true or not, Hindi soaps tell us that middle India is full of extramarital affairs and liberated, short-haired Tara prototypes. That pretty teenagers become queens of the World and the Universe with a single right-sounding sentence. TV obliterates the drab truth and provides the beautiful myth. Nikki Bedi is a star because TV says so. Rajat Sharma is a crusader for the public good because TV says so. In '90s India, TV defines the frontiers of human experience.
Yet as we become citizens of the satellite empire, 1995 has also seen a return to conservatism, or perhaps the birth of a new conservatism. Virulent Bengali protest against Khushwant Singh's remarks about Rabindranath Tagore has shown that freedom of speech must stop short of local idols. As yuppies stopped off on the way to their investment banks to spoon in some milk to Ganesh, it became clear that dollar salaries do not preclude homegrown superstitions.
HAHK built its fantastic success on the staunch conservative values of an Indian marriage. Rich people can be good people, too, the film seemed to say. Look how Hindu, rich and good we are, in our kitchen full of microwave ovens and mixer-grinders. No wonder we can sing 13 songs in the space of three hours and still look well-rested. More seriously, the ban on Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh and protests against Azharuddin signing his name on Reebok shoes, illustrate that India is entering the age of Internet with old orthodoxies intact. Sexually abused children, a bloated biscuit tycoon choking to death on his own blood and a dismembered woman stuffed into a hotel tandoor tell a chilling story. In 1995 the barbarity of bygone ages stalked us as we stepped into the supposed light of "development".
There have been protests that the new TV culture is an assault on Indian values. Yet pop culture in 1995 reflected a peculiar Indian combination of tradition and modernity. Jaaved Jaffrey, the TV anchor of the year, puns in Hinglish, dresses in East-West chic, but shows us songs of the past in a programme where nostalgia legitimises newness. Advertisements are in Hindi-hep: Thodi Si Petpooja is the blurb for an ad that features a foreign-looking situation. And high culture has gone pop in 1995. M.F. Husain has declared that it is Madhuri Dixit who is his muse, because she epito-mises Indian womanhood. A few aficionados said Husain had lost his mind, but most accepted the Master's stroke because Hindi cinema is hardly infra dig anymore.
So as we ring in the new year after the tumult of the old, we can hardly rest easy. The courts are now deciding where the limits of the reported word lie in a landmark judgement of the "right to privacy" after the Auto Shankar case. A gang-raped woman has still not been able to persuade a judge that she was violated. Films like DDLJ tell of sweet romance in a climate where women are hunted like animals. Fathers kill children, the elderly are savaged, there is anger on the streets as unemployed youths smash windows of Maruti Esteems.
But then there is Sachin Tendulkar and his international fame as a sportsman, notwithstanding the debate about commercialisation of sport. Through the controversy of her case, Rupan Deol Bajaj managed to take her grievances to the Supreme Court. Amidst a storm of protest about exceeding the mandate of officials, Kiran Bedi left behind enduring reforms in Tihar Jail. Through controversy, we have perhaps inched forward.