Truth and Justice

Maggie and I decided to watch a movie during this weeklong Christmas break from school. Our natural choice was Neru, Malayalam movie directed by the illustrious Jeethu Joseph of Drishyam (dubbed or remade successfully into many Indian languages including Hindi) fame. Neru means truth. The movie is about both truth and justice both of which are inextricably intertwined and neither of which is quite available nowadays, especially in a country where the values of the Mahabharat war are upheld as just. And what is that value: everything is fair in war, and life is a perpetual war.

Sara, a young blind girl, is raped in her house in Thiruvananthapuram by Michael Joseph, son of an affluent Malayali businessman in Mumbai. Sara, being an exceptionally gifted sculptor, makes a lifelike bust of the rapist which helps in the prompt arrest of the culprit. The police officer who arrests Michael is soon relieved of his charge. This is India, after all. Everything is fair in life’s war here provided you have the wealth to buy that fairness. The rest of the movie is a question hurled at that popular assumption of today’s India: is everything really fair in life even if it is a metaphorical war?

Michael’s father rushes from Mumbai with his immense wealth and the best lawyer. Michael knows that wealth and political influence (which is readily available if you have the monies) will get him freedom sooner rather than later. This is not his first rape case anyway. “But this is Kerala, not Mumbai,” his father reminds his mother who insists on getting his son out on bail promptly.

The system is not too different in Kerala either. Politicians aren’t very different whether they are from Kerala or Gujarat. But this movie is slightly different from the others of the kind insofar as it doesn’t involve politicians explicitly. Here the lawyers take over the role of politicians. Advocate Rajashekar will lead the war and show us with the aplomb of Patriarch Bhishma that dharma is so subtle that it can be manipulated pretty easily. This advocate possesses also the intellectual acumen of Krishna. So Sudarshana Chakra and Gandiva and all sorts of legal arms and arrows will fly in the court.

The victim’s side has its own avatar of Karna, advocate Vijayamohan, who was discredited by the crooked dharma-strategies of Rajashekar many years ago. In this movie’s epic war, Karna wins.

This is my personal application of the epic to this movie. The movie makes absolutely no reference to any character from Mahabharata. The good vs evil theme in the movie made me impose some parallels.

I have wished time and again that Karna should have been the real hero of Mahabharata. He possessed the virtues required for a hero. But why did the creator of that epic discredit Karna? The answer is obvious: the requirement of the system. The creators of the system should win in the end. It is they who win in real life. Jeethu Joseph is making a movie and hence the good has to win, truth has to win, justice has to prevail.

If truth and justice don’t prevail, what good is art, right?