Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer. These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot.

The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero suggests that too without much subtlety.

Just yesterday the National Herald came out with a shocking report that an enormous sum of three lakh crore rupees was printed abroad in duplicate and flown to Delhi and Amit Shah used that new currency to help certain bigwigs to exchange their old currency during the Tughlaqian days of demonetisation. Something similar happens in the movie, Lucifer. A sum of thousand crore rupees is transported to Kerala by a mafia leader in order to bribe the state’s ruling politicians. The hero intercepts the three vehicles on their various routes and the vehicles along with all that money are annihilated.

One vital question raised by the movie is whether it is necessary to have affluent corporate people to fund political parties. Can’t political parties govern the nation without such funding? Of course, that would entail basic honesty in politics. Honest politics is an oxymoron today.

We have seen ever-increasing involvement of industrialists and business people in politics especially in the last few years. We have seen our public sector banks being looted by industrialists some of whom were allowed to leave the country with their loot, a few were seen with our prime minister abroad signing new business deals of billions of dollars while at the same time those people pleaded bankruptcy in India, a few others continue to run the show with increased vigour.

The movie also shows how the media, particularly the television, has been whored by the politicians. There’s a channel, ironically named as NPTV [irony because the actual NDTV is one of the few TV channels that retain some sort of integrity even on the face of serious threats from the ruling, Orwellian political party and also because one of the characters refers to NPTV as “24x7 news channel” disregarding any subtlety], which is sold out entirely to the IUF political party [whose flag bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Indian National Congress].

The climax of the movie implies that only a Lucifer (leader of the fallen angels, an angel nevertheless) can redeem the country now. Is counter-violence really the solution for political corruption? I’m left wondering. Personally, I can’t answer yes to that question because I believe violence is not an answer to anything. Yet what is happening in the country today makes me think that there is really no other viable solution except certain annihilations. What guarantee do we have, however, that the annihilators will be angels albeit fallen ones and not monstrous terrorists?

If you can nurture even a cruel thought in your heart, you are a cruel person even if you don’t commit the act. Can annihilators be benign? I wonder.