Vivek Agnihotri’s new film Buddha In A Traffic Jam has been creating quite a stir at the universities it’s being screened at. The filmmaker talks about his obviously political stand on an evidently political film and how this Anupam Kher-starrer is an attempt to change the narrative on Leftists and naxals in the country.
Q. What does the title of your film Buddha In A Traffic Jam mean?
Vivek Agnihotri: When our society was suffering, Buddha showed us the path. We call it enlightenment but basically it was his ideas. He had some ideas about how society should run, how life should be conducted. So one day I was thinking if Buddha comes with his idea, he will find himself stuck in a traffic jam of system, establishment isn’t it?
Today we don’t need one but millions of Buddhas. All these young boys and girls in our colleges and institutes are such smart kids but the problem is that they find their ideas stuck in a traffic jam. So they say “kuch hoga nahi”. That is where the idea came from.
Q. After the clash between rival students groups at
Jadavpur University post the screening of your film, according to reports the
university seems to have come under the government’s radar of ‘anti-national’
universities. Has it become so easy to define what’s nationalist and
anti-national?
Vivek: It’s wrong for anybody to say it’s an anti-national
university. No university can be anti-national, but yes it is true that
somewhere students were trying to be anti-establishment,which is
perfectly alright for a student to be, which I was also.
Somewhere they have become anti-state, which is not a good thing.
I have seen, I have spoken to all these opposing protesting leaders and students. The problem is unke walls pe sab jagah likha hai Kashmir ko aazadi de do, Meghalaya ko aazadi de do, Manipur ko aazadi de do. They want the Indian state to be broken apart which is not a good thing, not because of any political ideology but because I don’t think it’s the student’s job to decide which state should be given freedom or not. A student’s job is to question and challenge these establishments and government of the day.
They can be anti-government, they can be anti-establishment but they have no right to be anti-state because states do not belong to a government.
Somewhere what has happened is the Leftist
movement because it started losing its relevance in the country, their seats
were down, nobody was funding them, they lost Bengal to Mamta Banerjee, in
Kerala also they are not very sure, in North East also they are losing it.
Everywhere they are losing out, and the naxal movement is also diminishing in India and slowly their relevance is going down so what has happened is they have entered universities now.
The film is about naxal
and the academia nexus. And it’s not my story; it is based on true-life incidences.
It’s something, which is out there. Don’t you read that some phalana phalana professor
is working with the naxal movement? It’s not that it’s happening in all the
universities but it’s happening in lot of universities. But in Jadavpur and JNU, definitely 1 million percent it’s happening.
Q. Your screening of the film at the Jadavpur
University is being seen as a political stand, because of the support you had
from the ABVP. Where as the screening of the film should have been a neutral
event to promote a discussion. How do you react to this?
Vivek: Of course, it’s a political movie so I’ll take a political stand. ABVP is what? They are students of a university or not? In Kolkata also a girl was asking, “why are the ABVP students with you?” Aree… woh student nahi hai kya? The other boys who are vandalising cars, they are students, they are talking about Kashmir ki aazadi and they are all students and these guys just because they are ABVP, they are not students of a university or what? ABVP is a well-recognised political party of students. In Delhi University all the posts are being held by ABVP. Aur kisne bola ki student politics illegal hai India may?
I have taken a political stand because the film is political. My political stand is against all those people who are anti-national.
Q. How do you define anti-national?
Vivek: Anti-national is anybody who
picks up guns and starts hurting the state.
I think naxal movement is anti-national. I think terrorist movement in Kashmir is anti-national. I think when Raj Thackeray breaks toll plazas and burns government property that is anti-national. I think when Mulayam Singh’s party in UP send goondas and beats up people that is anti-national. I think the extreme Hindu parties beating up young girls in pubs that is anti-national. I think anybody taking the law in their hands is anti-national
Q. There are different versions of what happened at
Jadavpur University making the rounds, what is your version of what happened
after the film screening?
Vivek: Once the film
started they also started watching the film until an assistant registrar who is
an extreme leftist came and said, “stop the film” and he created a lot of hullabaloo.
That’s when the whole protest started again. Once the film got over all the
media left, I left after half an hour.
At 11pm I got a call from the boys who had organised it, they said they have been badly beaten up by these college boys and they have been taken to the hospital. By that time it had become a riot.
BJP’s Rupa Ganguly came in, some people from the leftist party came in. Mamta Didi’s people thought let us also contribute in this mess. You know how it happens in India. So later I came to know, what happened was these five-six boys recorded my speech on their phone and were watching, so these students came and this boy, Sandeep Das, a Dalit boy who was sitting there, they asked him, “why are supporting him (Vivek Agnihotri) ? This man is anti-Dalit and why are you listening to his speech?” So they caught this boy and started beating him up. That’s where the whole fight started. After beating these boys up then naturally the matter went to the registrar and these boys went to the hospital and media came in and as media came in they started saying hamari ladkiyon ko molest kiya.
I want journalists to ask these questions, number one agar ladki ko molest kiya tha toh who toh tab kiya hoga jab jhagra chal raha tha. Waha toh sara media tha uss waqt tab toh kisi ladki ne kuch nahi bola. Film khatam ho gayi tab tak kisine kuch nahi bola. Film khatam hone ke adhe ghante baad tak I was there tab bhi kuch nahi hua.
It’s only after they beat up these boy and media came back then they started
saying ladki ko molest kiya. Aur woh ladki kaun thi jisko molest kiya pehle batayen humko.
Q: Why do you think Buddha in a Traffic Jam is an important film for today’s times?
Vivek: I think it’s an extremely extremely important film because it’s an alternate narrative.
In this country when it comes to naxals and Leftists there has been only one kind of narrative. Narrative has been, all the intellectuals belong to the Left and all regressive people belong to the Right. Second narrative is that professors are all very nice, NGOs are all very nice and poor people are always very nice but rich people are bad. Urban people are bad, rural people are good. These are the narrative that we have created.
This film breaks that narrative. It’s based on true life incidents. It shows you how naxals, NGOs and academia and also a part of intellectual media create intellectual terrorism in the country. Some people may buy it, some people may not buy it. So far where ever I have gone to show it they have bought the narrative.