L.O.C/ Kargil
I have just been to see the film L.O.C./Kargil, directed by J.P. Dutta. It is about the exploits of the Indian Army in retaking the heights of Kargil in the Himalayas, treacherously occupied by “the enemy”.
I will have more to say about the film later. Here I want to talk about the insult to my Indian Army that this film represents.
The army that I was exposed to for more than four hours in Mr. Dutta’s painfully long film was not the Indian Army that I was proud to serve in, as an officer in the 11th. Sikh Regiment, for six years during and after the Second World War. It was not the army in which my brother, Colonel Mazahir Abbas served with distinction for 25 years, many of them on the Kashmir front fighting the very “enemy” depicted in this film, and died while still in the Army in 1969. It was not the Indian Army that I proudly portrayed in my film INDIA! MY INDIA!
The army that I saw in Mr. Dutta’s film was an army of scurrilous louts and sentimental slobs shedding glycerine tears at every contrived opportunity and shooting off their prop guns in all directions making an awful racket – a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
I dare say there are worse films, in this genre, being made by Pakistani film-makers who, though lacking the skills of the craft acquired by their cousins across the border, have not been known for their restraint when portraying their “enemy” across the L.O.C. That is no justification for Mr. Dutta’s film.
The abusive language used in this film by Mr. Dutta’s soldiers would be unforgivable in any situation, but to commit the blasphemy of making these soldiers shout these profanities in the name of Ram and Bharat Mata and Ma Durga and Ma Kali, is to make them behave like the thugs of John Master’s book THE DECEIVERS.
Is this the face of Hinduism we want to present to the world? Is this the secular India that we keep boasting about whose army contains no Muslims and no Sikhs and no Christians or Parsis to speak of , but only Jats and Dogras and Rajputs and Gurkhas.
What a travesty of facts! What a trivialisation of a great and noble institution! The Indian Army, I would have hoped, was one institution that would have remained a symbol of India’s unity and a reminder of its secular identity. But Mr. Dutta has transformed it into a fanatical, saffronised Hindu army, glorifying the creed of hate, frothing at the mouth, spewing swear words, spitting curses, and kicking fallen foes who are, when not “mother and sister f……” just “rats” and “dogs”.
If I was the Commander in Chief of the Indian Army I would sue the makers of this film for defamation.
ut perhaps I am doing Mr. Dutta an injustice. Perhaps I am out of touch with reality. Perhaps this is a true representation of the Indian Army as it is now. If that is the case, I fear for my India. Such an army may trounce other religious fanatics less well equipped than itself. But it will be no match against a professional army such as that of China which does not invoke exotic gods and goddesses on the battlefield but gets on with the job clinically and efficiently.
The days when you could motivate armies in the name of religion, shouting “Allah-o-Akbar” or “Jai Shri Ram”, are long gone. Killing in the name of religion is the ultimate blasphemy and produces obscenities of Sabra and Chatila, and Srebrenica, and 9/11, and Godhra/Gujarat and our very own holocaust of 1947..
As for the film L.O.C./Kargil itself about which I said I will talk later, I have changed my mind. I think the less said about it the better. I would have liked to give Mr. Dutta the benefit of the doubt by recalling that he is the same man who made REFUGEE in which he showed compassion and understanding and a sensitive touch. But then I also recall his BORDER, which makes me think that he is deliberately playing to the baser instincts in all of us, and that therefore his L.O.C. is no aberration but a true reflection of his mindset, with his REFUGEE, perhaps, being a freak.
With friends like Mr.Dutta the Indian Army doesn’t need enemies.
And what motivated Javed Akhtar who lent his name to this film by writing the lyrics for it? Nothing wrong with the lyrics, mind you, a thoroughly professional job that you have come to expect from a master craftsman. But he has a reputation as a progressive and secular person. Did he not read the script? Has he since seen the film? Does he not regret being part of it?
P.S. As I write this there is promising news from the S.A.A.R.C. Summit in Islamabad. There are unmistakeable signs that at last the people of India and Pakistan are forcing their leaders to shift their old positions and respond to their peoples’ genuine desire for peace. In this atmosphere the timing of this film’s release could not have been more unfortunate. The trouble with such time serving films is that time has a habit of passing them by, and then suddenly the films’ makers are left with mud on their face.
-Yavar Abbas
Date: January 7, 2004