Emergency ward

Anand Patwardhan's documentary, Prisoners Of Conscience, is about the emergency during Indira Gandhi's regime. It's a film, he says, that is relevant 32 years after it was made because freedom is still dodging the poor

Few filmmakers can claim to understand the Indian judicial system better than Anand Patwardhan. He has had run-ins with our courts for almost as long as he has made political documentaries -- almost 30 years now. These confrontations have been brought about by a number of methods employed to subdue his voice; rather, the messages his work attempts to deliver.

In 1978, Patwardhan released Prisoners of Conscience (Zameer ke Bandi), his record -- filmed in black and white -- of Indira Gandhi's State of Emergency. It was a time when the media was silenced, and a shocking 1,00,000 people imprisoned without trial. On January 15, Alliance Francaise and Vikalp intend to screen the film again. We asked Patwardhan to tell us why people should go watch it.

Zameer ke Bandi was made in 1978. What, according to you, makes it relevant today?
Sadly, my films remain relevant as the injustices they document continue to recur. When the Emergency ended in March 1977, many political prisoners were released but a few hundreds, mainly Naxalites, Nagas and Mizos, continued to rot in jail despite the new government's assurances that all would be released. At the same time, a strong civil liberties movement grew, determined to fight all attempts to curb democracy.
Today, while the urban elite and we in the middle classes can count ourselves lucky that we enjoy many political and other freedoms, the same is not true of people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. For them, an undeclared Emergency continues to deprive them of their rights and, sometimes, of their lives.

Despite how influential it was in our political history, the Emergency hasn't influenced as many works of art as one assumes it should have. There have been a few novels addressing it, but little else. Why do you think that is?
We are doomed by our lack of interest in history, which makes us vulnerable to repeating the mistakes of the past. Not just the Emergency, we have forgotten the bloodletting of Partition, the shock of witnessing Mahatma Gandhi being gunned down by fanatic co-religionists, the horror of the demolition of the Babri Masjid and its brutal aftermath. We remember only what our print, TV and Bollywood media chooses, and our media largely reflects the thinking of our dominant religion, class and caste.

Referring to this film, you once said, "What is the use of a democracy if public conscience and public pressure cannot bring about a more just society?" Our news channels appear to have managed this, today. Is this the sort of justice you had in mind?
I welcome the fact that in the Jessica Lal, Ruchika and several other such cases, this has happened. Unfortunately, the media has not risen to the occasion when victims of injustice are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Look what is happening to adivasi women trapped under a brutal military and para-military repression unleashed in places like Chhattisgarh. Even Gandhians like Himanshu Kumar who dare speak up on their behalf are branded by this same media, as supporters of "Naxalites".
People like Medha Patkar, Sandeep Pandey and others who are well-known champions of non-violent action are pelted with stones and rotten eggs by those belonging to state-sponsored Salwa Judum, and the media swallows and regurgitates the planted story that "ordinary adivasis" opposed their visit to the area. This is the kind of embedded journalism that will get us into the same deep hole that America got into when it invaded Iraq following motivated media reports of "weapons of mass destruction". It is double standards we can ill afford if we are going to call ourselves a democracy.

Do government prisoners today have it any better than those arrested during the Emergency? Some suspected Maoists have yet to be granted judicial custody.
I doubt if much has improved. Look what the State did to Dr Binayak Sen, who is far from a Naxalite. He spent two years in prison and was bailed out only after a huge national and international cry. His crime? He was a doctor who lived and worked amidst the poor!