Saheb's Haveli, and Ours

There is an interesting moment in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Sahib, Biwi aur Gangster Returns. Overwhelmed by invisible forces working against him, Saheb, the spoilt, vicious scion of a royal family, rues that there is something deeply inauspicious about his haveli. It sullies, he claims, even the most virtuous, by its air of conspiracy and deceit. Havelis are the old, airy mansions, built around spacious courtyards, often visible along the North Indian countryside, and even in the cities, where the royalty used to live. A slew of measures post-independence tried to rob the privileges off this elite. What happened instead was that many of them reinvented themselves as the provincial leaders of modern India (some, even more than provincial). Historically devoid of a sense of civic duty, and disconnected from any moral foundation after imperial subjugation, these petty politicians have spent the past few decades building vast business interests and playing to the base obsessions of the malnutritioned and still-largely uneducated masses. When genuine grassroots effort is thwarted, it is generally through these conduits of governance—our ever-present though greatly diminished royalty.

So it is in such a milieu, that Saheb, the central character of Dhulia’s film, straddles his ego and desire. Let down by an alcoholic wife, who loves him as viciously as he hates her, and in love with the daughter of a nearby king, he genuinely believes that he can recreate his clan’s past glory. The MLAs follow him and he intends to marry again for an heir. And then, it slowly untangles, before the tapestry of ruins, what is left of the haveli.

It is interesting, this moment, where Saheb softly blames the haveli. As if to say, outside it, the age-old treacheries of human nature do not play out. The assumption is, we are born with an innocence, which bad company (or the miasma of evil mansions) destroys. So we are inherently good, and deserve good. And it is all about staying good. If only the ambivalence of humankind could be explained away so easily.

Modern India has been a tug of war between such callous, entrenched interests and new entrepreneurs. It is something the books rarely talk about and the TV never shows. But it is us. Most Indians are caught in crossfire between the spirit of the zameendar and the devilry of the business tycoon. But crossfire does not mean genuine enmity. On the contrary, in a battle essentially for resources, the interests of the two often converge. An educated middle class thinks it has escaped this world and risen to, or will soon rise to, the liberal security of its western counterparts. A sorry dream, given the middle class in the West is fast shrinking. So large parts of the middle class colludes with the powers that be. So much for an education.

A film which portrays the amoral play of politicians and elites raises a basic question. How can civil society be effective in the face of such ruthlessness? The idea behind a non-violent protest is to probe the conscience. It relies on compassion and empathy. But when the absence, or paucity, of these traits has been illustrated, what does an activist or agitator do, other than shout hoarse and invite laughter, both loud and silent?

Dhulia’s achievement is to lay bare the unchanging cruelty of the human instinct, in a Shakespearean rendition of sub-continental drama. When Saheb blames the haveli, for its treacherous air, he knows perhaps, at the back of his mind, that this is how we are. The haveli he bemoans is the hidden face of the human condition.