Governments don’t really care that much about truth

There is a problem with the current tendency to base movies and TV shows on real life and actual events.

And that is: what we see on the screen often twists, mangles or falsifies reality either for dramatic purpose or to fulfill an agenda.

 

To some extent, we are tolerant of TV shows and movies where fact is fictionalised only because it makes for a better plot. But when we suspect that there may be an agenda involved, we tend to get more upset.

 

   Two controversies over the last week highlight the complexity of making so-called realistic fiction. One is the delay in the release of Kangana Ranaut’s film on the Emergency. Most sensible people will agree that the Emergency was one of the darkest chapters in our post-Independence history. And yet, even those who have no sympathy with Indira Gandhi’s actions during that period, doubt if Kangana Ranaut, who has a clear contemporary political agenda and who betrays a profound ignorance of history every time she opens her mouth, will provide a fair and unbiased account.

 

   But we haven’t even got to the stage of worrying about that. Though the film has apparently been approved (with some cuts) by the film certification board (otherwise referred to as the Censor Board) the government has stepped in to “indefinitely delay”, its release.

 

   No reason has been given for this delay but speculation has abounded that the government is concerned about protests from Sikh organisations. It is now unlikely that the film will reach the cinemas before the Haryana elections are over. This is a little ironic because over the last decade it is this government that has weaponized cinema and TV to advance its own political agenda.

 

   Though there has been an even bigger uproar over the Netflix series on IC 814, the government has done very little about it. It responded only (with great speed though) to the Hindu right wing's complaints that the hijackers used Hindu names though they were clearly Muslims. Netflix was asked to put an announcement at the beginning giving the real (Muslim) names of the terrorists.

 

   The I&B Ministry chose to ignore the more substantial complaints that the series made up episodes that falsely suggested that India had advance warning of the hijacking from our agents in Kathmandu but still did nothing.  Nor did the government respond to claims from nearly every senior Indian official who was involved in the incident that the series downplayed the fact that the hijacking was an ISI operation and pretended that it was organised by Al Qaeda.

 

   This is not particularly surprising. Governments don’t really care that much about truth. As the Emergency movie’s ‘indefinite delay’ also shows us, political expediency, the need to win elections or to keep Hindu-Muslim tensions alive, are often more important than accuracy or even, national pride.

 

"My view is that, on the whole, people will eventually see through bogus representations of real events and real people and the shows and movies do no lasting damage to our understanding of serious history."

   Nevertheless it is hard to decide what the right thing to do in these situations is. Nearly all fictional representations of history tend to involve distortions.  Rare is the historical movie or biopic that sticks relatively closely to the facts. A singular exception is Richard Attenborough's Gandhi. But though the film served an important purpose in taking Gandhiji’s message to a new generation in the West, it comes off as plodding and only intermittently watchable to today’s audiences.

 

   In the West, they have learned to live with distortions. Most cinematic representations of Winston Churchill re-arrange the facts to glorify him. And nearly every film about the British royal family depends on fiction and imagination. For instance, most representations of Princess Diana’s life gloss over the fact that after her divorce from Prince Charles, the real love of her life was a decidedly unglamorous, paunchy Pakistani doctor called Hasnat Khan. The one film that dealt with that relationship was a flop.

 

   Even the much praised The Crown TV series takes so many liberties with the facts that it is essentially a work of fiction that uses real-life characters and places them at the centre of made-up events. Before the last series, the makers were forced to put disclaimers about the fictional nature of the show at the beginning of each episode.

 

   Does it really make a difference if a so-called historical movie or show distorts reality? Do we really care that The King’s Speech played fast and loose with the facts? Do we think less of Mark Zuckerberg after his negative portrayal in The Social Network? Has there been a significant rise in the popularity of Sardar Patel or Netaji after the release of laudatory biopics featuring them? Why, at the height of Narendra Modi’s popularity, did a sycophantic biopic about him sink at the box-office? Did the comically inaccurate The Accidental Prime Minister, which distorted Sanjaya Baru’s memoir to suit an anti-Congress narrative, change the way in which Manmohan Singh will be remembered?

 

   I don’t think there is a clear answer to those questions. You could make a distinction between movies and shows that twist reality for dramatic purposes and those like The Accidental Prime Minister or IC 814 that may have an agenda. But who is to decide which is which? Should we be willing to hand over the power to make those decisions to the government of the day?

 

   My view is that, on the whole, people will eventually see through bogus representations of real events and real people and the shows and movies do no lasting damage to our understanding of serious history. I concede that in the short term (or even the medium term) such shows as IC 814 or movies like The Accidental Prime Minister may mislead the audience. But truth usually wins out if the lies and distortions are publicity exposed and contested (as has happened with both IC 814 and The Accidental Prime Minister).

 

   Writing about the Netflix IC 814 show last week, I said, “If you tell lies about an extremely important event in our recent history to a generation that is too young to remember what actually happened, your falsehoods and untruths become the accepted versions and the truth is buried.”

 

   I stand by that position. That’s why it is important to expose the agenda-driven elements of IC 814. But how far should you go? Should you petition the government to get involved? Or should you accept that such distortions are the price we pay for protecting the principle of freedom of expression? And after that it is up to us in civil society and the media to point out the lies?

 

   There are no black and white responses possible. But on the whole, I would rather live in a society that lets such distortions get on the screen rather than one that requires government approval of every show that is made.

 

   In the long run governments are not friends of free speech. It is best to involve them as little as possible.