There are very few things that Hindi cinema and Indian streaming platforms appear as obsessed with as biographical films on politicians. It’s easier for them to make scathing films on politics that tend to be a cookie-cutter, ‘sab mile huye hain‘ take on the corruption and incompetence of our political system — it’s like pointing in the general direction of the sky. But it is biopics that are tricky.
From PM Narendra Modi (2019) to Madam Chief Minister (2021), Bollywood’s political biopics have thus far either crashed and burned or simply been mediocre and forgettable, failing to live up to the hype or the controversies that surrounded them. Some films, like Jagmohan Mundhra’s Sonia Gandhi project, never really took off because it didn’t have the blessings of 10 Janpath. And while many Indian filmmakers have attempted to make films on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, it is still the Richard Attenborough version that we get to see on TV every 2 October. The documentary on Arvind Kejriwal, An Insignificant Man (2016), was deemed as hagiographic and didn’t make it to any film awards.
But that hasn’t yet deterred Hindi cinema production houses, studios, and streaming platforms from continuing to make and market such biopics. After Madam Chief Minister loosely resembling Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati, now it is another chief minister’s turn.
Also read: Madam Chief Minister on Netflix one more example why female politicians in India dress down
A bar set too low
Last week, following the success of Scam 1992, SonyLIV released a teaser for its upcoming series Maharani, created by Subhash Kapoor and starring Huma Qureshi.
Sony shared this premise of the series on YouTube: “A political drama set in Bihar of the ’90s. With its caste arithmetic, traditional satraps and the emerging voice…will an illiterate woman survive this?”
Sound familiar? That’s because this narrative is “loosely based” on Rabri Devi Yadav, Bihar’s first woman chief minister.
Serving from 1997 to 2005, after her husband Lalu Prasad Yadav was embroiled in a corruption scandal and subsequently jailed, Rabri Devi was once described as being “dragged from the kitchen to the Bihar Assembly” in an “initiation by fire”.
Given the circumstances around her rise to power and her background, Rabri Devi’s story is ripe for adapting into a high-quality biopic that, even if not historically accurate, can have a lot to say on issues like caste politics, class consciousness, power, and corruption.
Despite the big names involved in this project, it still would be completely understandable to not have high hopes from Maharani due to the mistakes made in previous biopics.
Also read: Madhuri, Deepika, Gauhar — How everyone in Bollywood is getting the same PR tip
Bollywood’s caste problem
Maharani will be Subhash Kapoor’s second project to be released in 2021, his first was the Richa Chadda-starrer Madam Chief Minister.
Loosely based on the life and career of Mayawati, the film explores the rise of a fictional Dalit politician in Uttar Pradesh named Tara Roopram, played by Chadda.
The weeks before the film’s release were shrouded in controversy, not from any objection from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) or from any political groups, but from audiences themselves.
While Chadda had already raised eyebrows for being a non-Dalit actor playing a Dalit character, what made matters worse was the film’s poster that showed Chadda holding a broom, with the tagline, “Untouchable. Unstoppable.”
Tone-deaf at best, and casteist at worst, the poster predictably became the primary target of controversy for its stereotyping of the Dalit community. As a result, Chadda issued an apology, stating that the poster was an “unintended oversight”.
However, instead of being a fiery political drama, Madam Chief Minister turned out to be a damp squib, according to film critics and audiences alike.
The principal cast received praise from the likes of critics such as Ronak Kotecha and Nandini Ramnath, but Subhash Kapoor’s screenplay was derided for its cliches because it failed to say anything insightful about the caste politics that was marketed as the backbone of the film. Bollywood’s understanding of caste has mostly been lazy and almost Gandhian — and certainly not suited for 21st-century’s questioning Ambedkarites. But filmmakers can’t take on leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party or Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh either. A biopic on Smriti Irani, Uma Bharti, or Pragya Thakur could well be watchable but who would take the risk. Even Kangana Ranaut’s film on Jayalalithaa is being made and released only after her death. Such is the fear.
Picking BSP and Rashtriya Janata Dal leaders is a relatively easier task.
Upon the release of Madam Chief Minister, Chadda responded in detail to the criticisms that had been directed at her throughout the buildup to the release.
“Please don’t expect me to become a scholar or expert on the subject, by acting in one film, especially when it is as vast and complicated as caste and varna,” she said.
— TheRichaChadha (@RichaChadha) January 22, 2021
Indeed, it was unfair for Chadda to be the sole target of criticism from so many, because the other senior members of the production, especially Subhash Kapoor, were also responsible for the mediocre final product.
2019’s glut of Biopic misfires
Any criticism that Madam Chief Minister received pales in comparison to what we got in the first half of 2019, which saw the release of three high-profile biopics: The Accidental Prime Minister (2019), Thackeray (2019), and PM Narendra Modi (2019).
While the first two films received mediocre reviews and were not huge box-office successes, the Vivek Oberoi-starrer PM Narendra Modi was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish.
The trailer itself was branded as pure “propaganda” by various film critics and people within the Hindi film industry. When the film finally released on 24 May 2019, after being delayed from its April release due to the Lok Sabha election that year, the criticism only intensified as Oberoi’s performance, the script, and the direction, were panned in equal measure. The film was like a paean to the prime minister more than anything.
It is hard to counter such viewpoints when the creative integrity of the film was called into question, as its producers were alleged to have links to the Bharatiya Janata Party, although they denied such allegations.
PM Narendra Modi and Madam Chief Minister show the fundamental problem with politician-based biopics in Hindi cinema today. Either the subject is seen as connected to the production in some way and compromises any independent perspective, or the product itself is so far removed from reality that it devolves into an overly dramatised, cliched mess, and comes across as casteist instead of caste-conscious.
It is still very much possible that Rabri Devi-based Maharani can buck this trend and be the next Scam 1992 by providing a unique perspective on Bihar politics, the way Scam did for the workings of the Bombay Stock Exchange. You see, it’s easier to be critical of those not in power anymore. But the jury is still out on the quality of the film.
Views are personal.
Why do you give space to such ignorant, ill- researched articles? Your journalist doesn’t even seem aware that a biopic on J Jayalalita in Tamil released last year. He erroneously calls TAPM a biopic of Manmohan Singh, which it wasn’t. Above all, he hasn’t perhaps heard of IRUVAR, a masterly biopic of MG Ramchandran which ranks among Mani Ratnam’s best work.
Secondly, is it necessary to drag in RSS and BJP in every little issue? What do they have to do with these movies? Do you deliberately include RSS and BJP in the title of every article just to attract clicks?
I watched Madam Chief Minister on Netflix here in Canada. The movie is a superb production in all respects — its casts have done an excellent job and Richa Chadha has performed a mesmerizing role. After a long time when Prakash Jha used to make films on corrupt and complicated links between caste, crime and politics, this movie should stir the consciousness of the average people of India.
lets make movies on everyone. but lets do chronologically, how about making history drama about charu majumdar , marichjhapi massacre, or atrocious rule of Jyoti basu , etc …… shall we….