Film Review: Prakash Jha's Rajneeti (2010)

In a word, Prakash Jha's latest venture was obvious. Perhaps it is the nature of Indian politics, nothing changes for the better. Perhaps...but my grouse with the film is not just the fact that it didn't have a uptoic vision. It is not even the gross miscasting of Katrina as a Bhopal girl, Arjun Rampal's wooden acting, or the ripoffs from The Godfather. It is the absence in the film of any moral center. There is no critique, no character who can critique the decaying Indian polity. Just oppressors and the oppressed. These are the only two positions that the film makes available.

There is no outrage over the fact that the Dalit driver who could have had a meteoric rise in the political arena is reduced to chauffeuring the very family that murdered his son. Instead there is maudlin sentiment for Arjun Rampal's death, for Katrina who remains, until the very end, a pawn in the hands of her male relatives and, then, the party (whoever is in any doubt about Indian women making canny, and often corrupt, politicians should look at Jayalalitha and Mayawati as real-life examples), or even Ranbir Kapoor's character for having lost his fiance and his unborn child.

There is a sneaky hierarchy operating in the film. It encourages us to identify with and sympathize with the fictional counterparts of the Gandhi family. Their death matters. Their victories are valorized with "Vande Mataram" playing in the backgroud. The death of Ajay Devgan's character, the dalit leader who was capable of toppling the oppressive feudal hold of the ruling family, does not get the significant treatment it deserved. There is a void at the center of the film. It is representation emptied of any ethical core.