Distress of migrant labourers brings to the mind films from past and present

Shardul Bhardwaj

A deadly virus is communalised. A mass of migrant workers from metros with barely any means leaves the city on foot, called callous behaviour by many. Majority of the nation takes a lead in cheering the above on social media and mainstream media. Whose destruction is being cheered upon? Two pop culture icons today namely: Albert Pinto’s (motor garage worker) from Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai (1980) or Salim’s (petty gangster) from Salim Langde Par Mat Ro (1989), or both and many more.

The commonality between the two is that both the characters belong to films directed by Saeed Akhtar Mirza and are on the margins of society who think they are bigger than their circumstances. Both of them despise their fathers for having lived for ‘dignity’ but in ‘poor’ conditions. They are of the opinion that their whip-smart nature is what distinguishes them from those around. Salim’s walk in the opening of the film and Albert’s walk up the stairs with the hum makes their feeling of distinctness about themselves clear as day. Both these characters, at once, are every disenfranchised youth, and a particular one belonging from a communally marginalised section of the society in a big city. Another common thread is that they belong to the working class. These films clearly demonstrated that the choice our society, in the 1980s, afforded these youths was between a life of criminality or a plain disgrace of having to live through life with ‘dignity’ but also degradation.

The years have marched on. The system of mill owners against whom Albert and Salim’s father were fighting have transformed into faceless corporations who control governments and their policies. The fiendish illusion of free choice and hard labour to further oneself, which plague Albert and Salim, in a market economy controlled by a handful has taken deep roots. Workers and marginalised are outrightly called lazy and evil for living under the conditions that they live in, especially in the big metros where the population lives on the ticking time bomb of limited resources.

To borrow from John Berger: “The gulag equation ‘criminal=slave labourer’ has been rewritten by neoliberalism to become ‘worker=hidden criminal’. The whole drama of global migration is expressed in this new formula; those who work are latent criminals. When accused, they are found guilty of trying to survive at all costs.”

In the new state of affairs emerge Murad (Gully Boy) and Anand (Super 30) in stories which exemplify the platitude “God helps those who help themselves”. Bollywood in its choice of stories picks up successes, aiming to tell a ‘motivational’ story. These stories of ‘hard fought success’ never ask why Murad or Anand have to start behind the others on the starting line of life, it is understood to be a given: because they are poor, who or what got these people in the mud of endless deprivation is not important. What is important is that they ‘beat all odds to become successful’, the nature and reason behind those odds are not necessary until they are beaten. If one were to believe these films, one can only conclude that everybody has a chance in this ‘free competition’, it’s just that some are lazy and stubborn. One should aspire to be a Murad or an Anand, not a whiff of protest should be registered about why inhuman struggle is the only prerequisite to life for most.

It’s like a situation from Brecht’s play Good Person of Schezwan where after many years of praying to the gods for betterment in living conditions, the gods descend to find one good person so that it can be proved that it’s the people who are good or bad and not the conditions. The success story films of Bollywood about the young men and women are out to prove the same. Salim’s killing at the end after he decided to lead a life of ‘honest labour’ and Albert’s hurt at being treated like an outsider by the rich clients he thought were friends are not moments of hopelessness, but of liberation for the audience which can discern that continual ignorance of a fellow human’s pain and suffering would lead to one’s own end, where a small brotherhood at the top wants to distract us by falsities of ‘hardwork’ and ‘obedience’ as ladders to the top where they sit.