The CM as the angry young man

Kshitish Date as Eknath Shinde before he was CM in Dharmaveer 2. Pic/Youtube

Is there any known instance of a sitting, state CM, who's simultaneously the brooding, somewhat action-hero, on the big screen? Take Pravin Tarde's Marathi film, Dharmaveer: Mukkam Post Thane 2 (in theatres).

Consider the scene, when Maharashtra's CM Eknath Shinde, resident of Thane's Kisan Nagar, was an autorickshaw driver, in the 1980s. He enters a godown, illegally hoarding sugar - such that there's none left for people on Diwali.

CM Shinde's mentor, Anand Dighe, local Shiv Sena boss, Thane's Thanos, when it comes to black marketeers, orders the said raid.

Action ensues. Goons get fixed. Dighe Saheb insists Shinde ferry sugar on a truck; he's never driven before. Dighe's own mentor, of course, is the Sena ‘supremo', Balasaheb Thackeray.

Similarly, CM Shinde is once surrounded by bikers with weapons, chasing down his Fiat. He suitably takes them on. Dighe Saheb enters the scene too. Shinde was the target, possibly because he'd ransacked a dance-bar - a feat that locally earned him laurels, and enemies.

Actor Kshitish Date plays Shinde. In the final frame of Dharmaveer 2, Date's face morphs into the actual CM's. Just so the audiences know who they'd been witnessing. Not that there were doubts. In every way, actor Date is CM Shinde's lookalike onscreen.

To quote the film Sixth Sense, it's not like CM Shinde sees dead people. Only, that late Dighe Saheb (1951-2001), aka Dharmaveer, visits him from the dead, and they hold long conversations.

Once, when CM Shinde - then, I guess, Maharashtra's PWD minister, and Thane's guardian minister - is at his residence. Dighe Saheb shames him for the mob-lynching in Palghar (2020).

That's infamous incident, involving WhatsApp rumours, wherein two sadhus got mistaken for thieves, during the COVID-19 lockdown. Dighe Saheb wonders if CM Shinde's blood no more bleeds saffron.

Likewise, the late mentor, and mentee, have an elaborate chat on Mumbai's Marine Drive. CM Shinde asks Dighe Saheb why he allowed "Raj [Thackeray; nephew] to be sidelined in Shiv Sena," in favour of Balasaheb's son, Uddhav!

To be certain, Tarde's original, Dharmaveer (2022), was a huge hit. How do I know this? From the longest line, I noticed, outside its first-day-first-show, while I'd gone to watch a Ranveer Singh starrer (Jayeshbhai Jordaar), instead, that nobody showed up for.

I observed equally packed audis for Dharmaveer in Thane, where I'd gone to catch Dr Strange 2, the following week. Curiosity piqued enough, that one had to dive into this Dharmaveer, right after - to check what the fuss was about. Evidently, this wasn't a movie. More a local phenomenon.

Anand Dighe, by all accounts, a Balasaheb-like figure, may not be widely known outside Mumbai-Thane. Unlike the Shiv Sena founder, Dharmaveer attempts to right that supposed wrong.

What primarily struck me about the unpretentious Dharmaveer - besides the quality of production; use of sound, light, camera, popular music, the works; more so, the brilliant Prasad Oak as Anand Dighe - is how the film does the opposite of ‘whitewashing', that biopics indulge in, otherwise.

As in, Dighe Saheb is captured actively participating in communal riots, but escaping punishment, because he had an alibi. In Dharmaveer 2, he's shown to have personally demolished Babri mosque.

The point of the prequel, you could tell, was also to portray CM Shinde as Dighe Saheb's political heir. None others in Thane's Sena have much of a say. Further, the overpowering image of Raj Thackeray in the film, foregrounds a muted Uddhav.

The latter was CM and Sena boss - with Shinde as his subordinate, in both state government and regional party - when the film released.

If you'd watched Dharmaveer, with a political lens, when the film opened in May 2022 - you would've been able to predict the revolt within Sena, led by Shinde, that occurred, in June 2022!

It takes, minimum, a year, to mount a picture of such scale. This rebellion could've been simmering for that long. How often has one read a propaganda movie as a political tea leaf? Wow; never, to my knowledge.

Dighe Saheb dies in Dharmaveer. What followed was the notorious torching of Thane's Singhania Hospital, by Shiv Sainiks, for where he was admitted, over a heart ailment. What could Dharmaveer 2 be about, then?

Although packed with anecdotes from Dighe Saheb's life, it's actually about why Shinde broke away, with Sena's MLAs, to dislodge Uddhav's coalition government.

CM Shinde takes on former allies Sharad Pawar as political rival, Rahul Gandhi for his comments on Savarkar, indeed Uddhav, for his inaccessibility, etc.

Making a persuasive case, in public, for bringing Hindutva back into Sena. As if on a current affairs debate. Something that has no precedence for a proper mainstream movie; pre-election, or not.

Final nail in the Maha Vikas Aghadi coffin/coalition, it appears, was when an event-manager type girl, during Rajya Sabha elections, while looking at him, asked, "Who is Ekta Shinde?" This keeps echoing in the hero's head!

Why did I watch Dharmaveer 2? Another cinema serendipity!

Months ago, going up Fun Republic theatre, Andheri, the lift opened to a floor that had a cutout of CM Shinde. I asked if this was a Sena office.

A Zee Studio exec entered the elevator to tell me, no, it's their poster of Dharmaveer 2: "The film's like Godfather…" Okay.

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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