This review has politically sensitive contents. Please abstain from reading it if you are very politically sensitive.
I never thought of writing this review untill this particular scene in ’Yuva’ caught my attention. Here was a tele-journalist, was asking Ajay Devgan aka Michael Mukherjee whether the youth based political movement that he is incorporating going to succeed. The lady mentions the ’’success’’ of the first democratically elected student government in Assam led by Prafulla Mahanta.
This might be preposterous, but has Mani Ratnam modelled an entire narrative based on the theory that students movements by default are successful future political systems?
I have not seen Yuva, this scene too, I happened to see while flicking channels. Neither have I read much of George Reddy, the famous student leader from Osmania University who was killed brutally by so-called power-centres and whose cinematic adaption is a sobre, too-old-looking Ajay Devgan.
But then the point is whether one single sacrifice (?), strong enough to repel the catastrophe that an entire state had to bear for years (and possibly in years to come). A social disorder of the frankensteinic order that has resulted from the installation of youth mania in my home state (which by the way is Assam) has almost paralysed the growth paths which we should’ve walked.
The stigma is too powerful for me to shrug off. It all started the year I was born (’81). A few months before my birth, K P S Gill (the current IHF president and the supremo of Punjab Commandos during ’85-’87) ordered the shooting of two youth volunteers. It stirred up the hornet’s nest, all young men came to the street, a few more like George Reddy were brutally assasinated by the power-centres. Within a few years, all schools and colleges closed and went to infinite strike, millions of young men (and women) lost valuable years of education and developed a rage against the system that was going to burn the state for years.
The political solution by Rajiv Gandhi was seen as a compromise by many. Some decided to politically justify their views as students and stayed intact as their parent student body, the AASU ( All Assam Student Union). The rest decided to fight the same people they had installed in power, from the jungles of Myanmar(ULFA). The main power block led by Mr Mahanta, had a torrid time negotiating the torrid affairs of the militants and the demands of the local student body. The governemnt comprehensively lost the grip of mainstream issues, like a kicked backwards economy, unemployment and allowed millitant groups to run amock. Indian Army came in and exercised their rights of territorial protection, broke bones as if they were weeds in the jungle so much so that people lost count of the rape and torture cases.
The situation still remains very similar today, instead of the army there are people with ex-militant backgrounds who run the show now. Most have become ’’sponsored business partners’’ of the state enjoying all sarkari perks, exploiting all the available resources.
The future is even more depressing, the youth have grown accustomed to the culture of ’’violent demonstration’’ even for minutest of their problems. The education clock runs about a dozen year backwards, no serious involvement with academics, only aim in life is to land up in some ’’partnership business’’ and get a licence to loot and kill.
So I end with where I started : should there be more prototypes of Michael Mukherjee amidst us? Should the youth be forced into the politics of power?
As I see it, with so many Lallan Singhs (and millions still growing up) back home, one Michael Mukherjee will create the need for thousands of Lallans to survive the mess of power. The principal aim of youth is to contribute towards society, through his/her endeavour, and adding value to the stream of human sciences. Youth, as I see it, is a paradigm of human development, and tremendously enrich the value system of each era. Should they be allowed to meander away in the cobweb of politics, the answer is a resurgent No from the hearts of a bleeding state.