Amir Khan and Raju Hirani’s movie ‘PK’ was recently allowed Tax free for screening in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. States usually allow movies with a strong social message for tax-exemption so that more and more people are motivated to watch them. Also, the news of tax-exemption is good publicity for the movie. It was said that PK carries a social message, one that inspires people to move away from ritualism and fraudulent godmen. PK inspires people to think rationally, it was acknowledged. Several forward-thinking intellectuals, organizations and various other big names stood tall to defend and appreciate the message that PK offers.
Aamir has a reputation for meticulously working each and every little detail of his movies from inception to encashment. He has been donning the social-reformer’s mantle for quite some time now with his show “Satyamev Jayate”. It looks like a perfect fit between initiative and initiator that Amir should make a movie on a social malaise, in this case, the myriad issues related to the ‘irrationality associated with religions’.
When a message is conveyed, it’s credibility depends on:
- Expertise of the agency generating the message
- Individual credibility of the messenger / agency
- Intentions of the messenger / agency
Extending these tests of expertise, credibility and intent to PK and its makers, one would expect the PK team to have a certain minimum expertise in the nuances of religious traditions and rationality both. Their actions and intentions should be bonafide and oriented towards the stated social reform objective.
The makers of PK are no authority on religion. No apparent research has been employed to understand and explain a subject which has kept various faculties of human and social research occupied for almost two centuries now. The only explanation which PK offers for people getting enamored by religion is that are scared (“Jo Darr Gaya wo mandir gaya“). This is the line followed by proponents of the Fear Theory of Religion. This theory has been repudiated by greats of social science like Emile Durkheim, Talcott Parson’s etc for being rather simplistic and inadequate. I do not, however believe that PK was based on this theory or any theory. Nonetheless, it must be held that everyone should have, the freedom of creative expression. There should be no qualms about anyone trying to explore religion in his/her own way. One should consider PK, as just an instance of creative expression on a rather complicated topic. However, there has been an outrage and there are substantial reasons for the seemingly hyperbolic outrage against the movie.
The heightened passions over religious conversions have aroused subterranean insecurities. The advent of social media has allowed people to share news and opinions seamlessly, exposing the inadequacies and biases of the mainstream media. These inadequacies assumed levels of hypocrisy and bordered on complicity on the issue of religious conversions. The method adopted by evangelists is to create a spiritual vacuum in the minds of their targets by denigrating their religion, then attempting to fill the void with the evangelist’s religious ideology. (Inducements are used as motivation too but I will not venture there in this write-up) Any criticism of one’s religion in this religion in this backdrop, is likely to instigate insecurities. To make it worse, Amir Khan’s own conduct and his evolving public image have aggravated the perception.
This brings us to the other identified criteria for deciding the credibility of the message. If twitter reactions are representative, Amir Khan’s acceptance as a champion of social change is declining. The third season of Satyamev Jayate saw a dip in viewership and was variously questioned and ridiculed on Social Media. The choice of topics, the veracity of Amir’s emotions on the show and the intent of the show itself were questioned. People doubted if Satyamev Jayate a genuine attempt at meaningful social change or is it just a good business plan to tap the growing social consciousness among people and convert it to money? Amir’s personal life, his conduct and his manifest and stated beliefs have been put under the microscope and he has been found wanting on many of the values his show sought to promote.
Since the PK team largely fails on all tests of credibility for a considerable section of people, it is left to the movie to stand up for itself. PK, the movie, picked a topic which is a subject of various sophisticated researches and bungled by taking the usual formulaic approach to Bollywood film making, involving 5 songs, 2 smooches, love triangle etc and trying to fit the social message within this framework. The movie at best, is a spoof, which allowed itself, to assume the nature of a righteous attempt at social reform. PK is projected to be promoting rationality in the place of religious dogma. Rationality…!!
Rationality is murdered in this ‘movie with a social message’ when you find an alien race (an entity as speculative as God), sending a “researcher” to earth. Now researchers are generally smart people and this alien race is so advanced that it could travel across galaxies to reach earth. The researcher should have been genius by any standards on earth. But this researcher from an advanced species did not show any zeal for research and is so confused and so dumb that people started calling him ‘PK’ (drunk). He learnt one thing on earth – Bhojpuri, and hammed it up!! (And why on earth Bhojpuri?? Coz he had to sound funny and bhojpuri is funny to him? Isn’t that profiling? But we’ll not take this further for now)
The researcher from an advanced alien species had the extraordinary ability to communicate through telepathy. The idea of telepathic communication by the way, makes scientists cringe as much as religious rituals do. But PK does it, and uses it to read a prostitute’s mind. It makes him deft at abstract concepts of the ‘funny-sounding Bhojpuri’ language but could not reveal to him the nuances of religion, of which the prostitute would certainly be aware. Or was it selective mind-reading so the movie could stretch on?? The advanced alien researcher also makes Charles Darwin roll in his grave when he exhibits the ability to speak, even though he belongs to a specie which communicates through telepathy!!
One might still argue that movies have what they call, creative license and deviance is good for creativity. I do not contend this argument. But the deviance becomes a significant point of contention if one were to probe the intent behind the creative expression. For example, movies like “A Few Good Men” or its desi version “Shaurya”, were made on erring Army officers and tastefully received, but a movie like “Haider” whose script is written by a separatist, with a theme that does not care if it maligns the Indian army, in the garb of creative freedom, understandably attracts deeper scrutiny and public ire.
A simple evaluation of the intent of a movie can be done by the story line, nature of its lead characters and the most impactful scenes. The main story line is about an unfortunate breakup between lovers, who were then brought together by an alien. The breakup precipitated because of the inner demons of the lady love, raised by a Godman. The chief protagonist was an alien, the anti-hero, a Hindu godman, the inner demons, borne out of a ritualistic reverence for Swamijis and biases against Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular in the love-jihad accusing Hindu society. The most memorable scenes (which might differ by individuals) that I can think of are:
- PK, the refund and the stickers on cheeks
- PK distributing pamphlets of “Missing Gods”
- PK wondering how idols work, asking for batteries
- PK offering arti to Jesus
- PK chasing a man dressed as Lord Shiva
- Argument between PK and the Swami ji
I wouldn’t ask you to evaluate based on my choice of memorable / impactful scenes. Make your own list and see if it is loaded against any one particular religion. For me, by now, I am near certain that Hinduism, is at the center of this movie’s plot. The mention or any other religion or its practices is an attempt at monkey balancing. The points handpicked for criticism against Christianity or Islam for instance, are those that are already assessed, tried and tested to not evoke major outbursts in India.
I would still wait before assigning the motives being suggested, such as spread of Islam or a general loathing of hinduism, for the simple reason that it would be speculative at best. There are stories abound of PK being funded by ISI and Amir being close to anti-India agencies but it would be best to allow these stories to evolve. What is apparent though, is that the movie is the highest grosser in Bollywood ever! As of today it has crossed over 300 Cr in earnings.
An apt response to the movie could have been writing it off without much hoopla, because PK, the movie with a social message, gives you every reason. Tough subject, poor research, cliched arguments, biased presentation, the use of ‘masala framework’ for an intellectual topic, it gave us everything. The goofy presentation and profiling of Bhojpuri for ‘funny’, present it as even more naive and unimaginative. PK however took the cake by crafting the perfect controversy, debatable but not debilitating. Kanchan Gupta in his article here, calls PK a “trap”. I find this take on PK very reasonable. Sensationalism and controversy pre-release, are as much of rituals with Bollywood now as are post-production promotion exercises. Amir and team execute it with such finesse that they earn a good publicity, generate a lot of curiosity, earn the image of a socially conscious, progressive bunch of movie-makers and earned 300 Cr and counting. PK dialed the right number in the market!!
