Sapiens and a chasm

Two films across a chasm. Dhurandhar, with its violence and vicious vengeance, at one end. Lead on Gandhi, a documentary with a demanding appeal, at the other end.

By a quirk of circumstance, a link to the new short film about Gandhi was sent to me the morning after I saw Dhurandhar. The contrast between the two films is stark, and yet the space in between is alive with possibilities.

The feature film, which has broken box-office records, says: ‘If someone is firing at you, hit back with exponentially greater firepower.’ This is presented as the only ‘right’ thing to do. There are no other options in the universe of Dhurandhar.

The four-minute documentary, Lead on Gandhi, says Gandhi was not stopped by the three bullets. Instead, he stopped
the three bullets of hate, fear and untruth. 

Today most people would challenge this view and point to the proliferation of all three ills. Some would go so far as to say it is the fascination with all three that attracted such large audiences to Dhurandhar. The film’s narrative is indeed about overlapping and intersecting equations of hatred, fear and consequent violence – gangster vs gangster, Balochis vs Pakistani government, India vs Pakistan and so on.

It is also true that the film does not even hint at the utter futility of all the violence, even as character after character falls – consumed by the same means by which he has lived. This is because the film’s message is ghayal hoon toh ghatak hoon (wounded thus deadly). Despite impressive technical finesse, the filmmaker lacked confidence about this point getting across through action and dialogue. So, the ghayal-ghatak message is flashed across the screen as loud text – twice! 

Lead on Gandhi, a modest little documentary with commentary by Kamal Haasan, is not designed to directly address the ghayal-ghatak narrative. Its purpose is simply to restate a truth that has emerged across millennia of human experience. Namely, that succumbing to fear and untruth, letting them feed hatred and thus violence – is the road to living hell, precisely the kind of hell depicted in Dhurandhar.

Dhurandhar does something insidious. It projects hatred, vengeance and violence as inevitable. Violence is presented as ‘natural’. Opposite it are only two kinds of people – the cowards who beg for mercy and the brave who go into the fray all guns firing till the enemy is vanquished.

Yes, violence is natural. The capacity to strike, to fight back, is a part of the human evolutionary journey. But research in both the natural sciences and social sciences over the last 70 years has decisively shown that other traits – notably cooperation and compassion – played a much greater role in the emergence of Homo sapiens and thus the rise of societies and civilisation. After all, ‘sapien’ is the Latin word for ‘wise, intelligent, knowing’.

Yes, treating the violence of the ‘other side’ as wrong and your own violence as a justified response is an ancient problem. But nuanced research emerging from peace studies scholars has shown that this is not an overpowering reality of the last 10,000 years. Nevertheless, an influential global discourse treats partisan violence as the dominant human impulse. Dhurandhar is a small addition to this larger phenomenon.

Violence begets violence – maybe a truism, but it is vital to recognise that this truth has two dimensions. At the individual level, children who are beaten have a higher chance of violent behaviour as adults. At the public level, collective fear induces an acceptance of violence, done on behalf of the in-group, as either self-defence or ‘settling the score’.

Acknowledging these tendencies is vital. Only then is there hope of an effective response to the ghayal-ghatak narrative of the film and the political discourse it favours. This means that the reality of hurt must be addressed. While specific characters and their interactions are fictitious, the narrative pivot of Dhurandhar is historical events – notably the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in 1999 and the terrorist attack on Mumbai in 2008.

What then is a sensitive and constructive response to the dominant narrative, which valorises violent response and equates nonviolence with cowardice or dismisses nonviolence as impractical?

Let us reaffirm and reclaim the core meaning of ahimsa, which is – absence of fear. For that which is influenced by fear can never be nonviolence. This is why Gandhi firmly and repeatedly said that if the only choice is between cowering in fear and a violent act – it is better to be violent. But this view comes with a crucial caveat – the act of violence must be contained, controlled and not rooted in any desire to harm the other.

Then there is breathing space to truly be a sapien and tell the difference between ‘settling a score’ and actually solving a conflict. 

(The writer is the founder of the YouTube channel Ahimsa Conversations)