DIAMONDS ARE NOT FOREVER
When watching Hirak Rajar Deshe one gets the feeling that the audience’s reaction to Satyajit Ray’s previous children’s films must have been very gratifying indeed. And that would be why the final children’s film he made was the most audacious in terms of pushing the boundaries of what children’s content could depict.
Even though this movie is a Goopy-Bagha adventure, it is so profound and thought-provoking that if described to someone who hasn’t seen it, they would wonder how this could be a children’s film at all. It sounds more like a story about North Korea, or the Vietnam War. There is such revolutionary blood in it that it could shake the foundations of any predatory dictatorship. I would venture so far as to say that it is incumbent on everybody who has the privilege of viewing it to come away transformed and not just entertained.
Blood Diamonds
Government and the public exist in an embrace of mutual responsibility. Each must be responsible for the discharge of such duties so as to ensure the smooth functioning of the state for the welfare of the people. When the power of the state comes not from the will and wisdom of the people but from the sharpness of the sword, public welfare becomes an outdated concept.
Hirak Raja is in every way a dictator. He has come to power through a coup by displacing an honourable king. He has cut off communication with the outside world and banned literacy and education. The people are forced to work in diamond mines, solely controlled by him. They are brainwashed to sing his praises and to erect a statue in his honour. Flattery has become a court policy.
Senior courtiers are easily bribed with diamonds, or threatened with violence. Even kings from other lands are enticed to keep their mouths shut by more such bribes, and by controlling what they can see and not see of the condition of the people. Apparently there is no such thing as possessing so much wealth that you cannot be bribed by someone richer.
The atrocities committed by the Hirak Raja seem to carry on under the nose of the world, just because everybody can partake in the plunder. Like slavery, like genocide, like military states, exploitation can carry on because everyone who could do something about it is actually complicit.
A single bad actor does not instigate revolution, just as a single good actor cannot inspire one. If the will of the people is not strong enough to resist the powers of evil, then it just boils down to who can make the more seductive offer. Unfortunately, when it comes down to it, it’s always the more unscrupulous side that wins on those terms.
It would certainly be difficult to believe that such brute force can be exerted on people, when just on mathematical terms the public must outnumber the size of any army, were it not for the fact that we see such things happen in the world around us. The fact is that the state will always control institutions of warfare and economics, making it possible for it to cut people off from their own resources and safety.
Power Flows From The Pages Of A Book
Such an exercise of state power is also seen in the brainwashing device in possession of the Hirak Raja. Any time someone protests his abuse, they are converted into a babbling preacher of the king’s greatness. This technology can only be sponsored by the state, but afforded on revenues taken from the people. To then turn that power against those very citizens is an abhorrent misuse, but one that we are all familiar with from recent global developments.
If the short-sighted public believes in the justified use of coercive power against others, they are opening themselves up to that same coercive power to be used against them. To have far-reaching vision requires wisdom.
I mentioned above that the validity of the state should be a product of the intellectual evolution of the people. That also implies that it is for the people to make balanced choices – choices based on an awareness of common welfare, and not on prejudices or divisions.
And, the film makes it very clear how it thinks people can empower themselves to form such a state – education.
To fight the powers that think power flows from the barrel of a gun, it is imperative to disarm them pre-emptively. When the masses are literate, they are no longer captive to misinformation and disinformation fed to them. Each person can verify the workings of the world for themselves and share their voice with others. When engaging with the world directly, and not through an interpreter, one takes power into their own hands.
Udayan, the exiled school-teacher, is the real hero of the film. He is the one who directs Goopy-Bagha on how to use their powers to disarm the king. As the local teacher he inadvertently found himself running afoul of the authorities because his lessons were creating independent thinkers. This power was feared above all by the king.
Independent thought eventually leads to individual rights, and it can spread like wildfire through the territory. Like with the French Revolution, it can impel people to rise up against their tormentors and storm the castles, and from there even spread to other countries. An educated public can deny an authoritarian their authority.
The sublimity of being a hero like Udayan is that you are giving away your power as you exercise it. By educating others he is making them all equal to him. He cannot deny them access to truth any longer, he cannot imprison them with his sophistry. This is not a hero who makes everyone reliant on him. When the Hirak Raja’s machine can brainwash people by the hundreds, a good teacher can help to recover their brilliance by the hundreds as well. No matter how advanced the offensive technology may be, it can be countered by good old-fashioned reading, writing, and arithmetic.
The Good Fight
But before one can use the power of education to fight authoritarianism, one must survive being swatted by the heavy hand of the state. While non-violent resistance is the ultimate method of regaining the power of the people, the resistance must build a survival mentality. To assume that goodness has the power of transforming the world without any need for the good ones to leap into action is a naïve self-deception that only benefits the oppressors.
In the film, Udayan is a true rebel. He knows how to escape the king’s thugs, he knows how to hide out in caves, he has the patience to wait for his opportunity using his time to hatch a plan. Once he meets Goopy-Bagha, he immediately enlists them as allies in the good fight and uses their special powers to infiltrate the palace, disconnect the king from his wealth, reverse the effects of the brainwashing machine, and eventually remove the culprit from commission.
If it wasn’t for his defiant spirit he would have languished in jail for a few days before being turned into a babbling dummy for the state. Though a teacher, Udayan demonstrates a practical understanding of power systems that cannot be learnt from books alone. In other words, reading alone cannot prepare one to resist, it has to be practiced through legal and civil actions, or ultimately through rebellion.
There is a lesson in that about the limits of mere idealism (armchair activism) in righting the wrongs of the world. To challenge the powerful using no power is as foolish as challenging them with one’s hands tied behind their back. The clever rebel knows how to construct a playing field conducive to their own power. For instance, the philosophy of non-violence itself is brilliant strategy, as it prevents the state from unleashing violence in the name of preventing violence.
Sure, Goopy-Bagha are far greater weapons than any non-fictional rebellion can ever hope for, and they manage to upset the power balance in mere minutes. As far as Udayan and his band of rebels are concerned, this is ‘deus ex machina’. But in our (sadly) magicless world this amounts to the resourcefulness and strong civil leadership to understand how people can resist, and also how soon one should start to resist. Too often people awaken to the nefarious plans of an oppressive state too late. Since magic cannot come to our rescue, it must be substituted with vigilance.
So it is the person who is aware and alert who can lead his people from darkness to light. Those who lock themselves into an exclusionary room of homogeneity and hatred cannot ever see as far ahead as the one who has her eyes open to humanity. Udayan is not a political leader, nor should he be. He is an educator, which does not only mean teaching to complete a syllabus, but teaching to open hearts and minds, along with eyes and ears. The counter to a muscle-flexing state is the aware citizen, and building a populace of those is the only lasting solution to authoritarianism.
This is why Hirak Rajar Deshe is such a powerful narrative for making us aware of how we should approach the preservation of social harmony and equality. Furthermore, an informed populace is also better prepared to combat problems that do not arise from the state, such as sustainable development and distribution. That some states may fear this is a tragic fact of life, but, just like the visionary citizen, a visionary state is one that knows how to harness the skills of the people to collectively build a future that works for everyone.