Is corrupt Delhi about to decline? Check Calcutta '71.

By Rajeev Srinivasan

Is Delhi 2011 the same as Calcutta 1971, only more glitzy?

If so, then things look rather bad for the state, because of the history of the precipitous decline of West Bengal in the past 40 years.

There is a Mrinal Sen film with the title Calcutta 71, which is part of Sen’s own Trilogy, but I found the Ray Trilogy - Pratidwandi (The Adversary), Seemabaddha (Company Limited), Jana Aranya (The Middleman) - a more truthful metaphor for that time and place.

These three films, although thematically consistent, have been overshadowed by Satyajit Ray’s masterpieces such as Charulata and the Apu Trilogy, which are among the greatest classics of world cinema.

Nevertheless, they are under-appreciated for what they offer - a view into a nightmarish society on the verge of collapse. We have seen how, in the past 40 years, Calcutta (now Kolkata) has fallen further and further behind; the seeds of this decline are visible in the Ray Trilogy.

For, in “The Adversary” you have an angry young man. In “Company Limited” you have a ruthless corporate executive who engineers a fatal riot in his factory so that he has an excuse for the delay in shipments he may be penalised for.

In “The Middleman” an unemployed young man becomes a ‘fixer’; and has a crisis of conscience when he ends up procuring his sister’s friend to a fat businessman.

These images are close to what is going on daily in India’s capital. There are the angry but impotent masses who are hurt by inflation and the corruption that they see all around, as well as the total refusal of the state to guarantee their safety and security.

[caption id=“attachment_30165” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“In Delhi today you see carpetbaggers who have no particular attachment to anything, except the principle of making money at any cost. Reuters”] [/caption]

But if you protest, the predatory state - as it did with Baba Ramdev’s people - will crack down hard on you. Thus you have a citizenry that is powerless, but which may erupt in self-destructive violence at some point: a tinder may be enough.

Then there are the Company Men who have made a killing by figuring out where their bread is buttered. In Seemabaddha, the sales manager at least has a figure who reprimands him - his sister-in-law, whose respect he craves - but that is fiction.

I read the original Bengali novel’s translation in Malayalam many years ago, and then I believed that the disapproval of this young woman would have an impact on the man.

In reality, there is nobody today to bring up such crass things as ethics: the sister-in-law in real life will be too busy enjoying the upper middle class life the company man has built for himself, with its expensive dinners and fast cars.

In the case of the middleman of Jana Aranya, at least he is struck by doubt when the girl he pimps for turns out to be his friend’s sister. She is in the oldest profession because she and her brother, though educated, are simply unable to find any employment; the brother, who perhaps doesn’t know about his sister’s occupation, has become a taxi driver.

In today’s Delhi, the middleman is king. As we have seen in sordid episode after episode, everybody in Delhi wants to be a fixer.

This is partly because it is most lucrative; partly because you end up being lionised in the media (which by any measure is pursuing the second oldest profession with great gusto, when it can tear itself away from pursuing the oldest), and partly because there is no such thing as shame any more.

Fiction-writers, cartoonists and film-makers sometimes have uncanny insights into contemporary history. There is the classic Cuban film Memories of Underdevelopment that, similarly, foreshadows the fate of elegant and fading Havana. There is another excellent film set in those days that I remember: G Aravindan’s Vaastuhara, about refugees from the Bangladesh War, those who had lost not only their vastu (material possessions) but also their vaastu (sense of self).

In some ways those who were responsible for the decline of Kolkata were also outsiders: isn’t it a fact that many of the leaders of the Communists in West Bengal were refugees from partition days? Those who have been forced to flee once have lost their vaastu and their moorings, and perhaps they have no sense of belonging, or even caring.

Similarly, in Delhi today you see carpetbaggers - like those in the American South after the Civil War - who have no particular attachment to anything, except the principle of making money at any cost.

Perhaps I am stretching the analogy too much, but it’s like portfolio investment: the ‘hot money’ comes and goes, seeking the best returns, with no loyalty to anything or anybody.

If you take that analogy to its logical conclusion, with roaring inflation, decreasing industrial competency, the stench of corruption, and the precipitate decline in foreign direct investment all leading to a downgrading of India’s prospects, the future may well be quite dire.

Bye-bye, super-power dreams? I do hope that I am worrying unnecessarily, but Ray so accurately foreshadowed what happened to Calcutta that it is not hard to believe something similar can happen to India as a whole too.

Rajeev Srinivasan is a management consultant and columnist, and a fan of art cinema.