The political filmmaker

Prakash Jha’s films capture India’s journey from the socialistic eighties to the post-liberalisation era. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar talks to him about his journey

You can take Prakash Jha out of Bihar, but can you take the Bihari out of him? Like many Biharis, Jha is erudite, politically and socially aware, has an opinion on issues and wants to voice it. The big difference, however, is that unlike most of them he happens to be a successful filmmaker. So what you get out of the cogitation in Jha’s mind are gems like Mrityudand (1997, on the caste and class divides in Bihar), Gangaajal (2003, on the Bhagalpur blindings), and Apharan (2005, on the kidnapping industry in Bihar).

Raajneeti (2010), the last of the 10 films directed by Jha, bit into the heat and dust of state politics with gusto. The Rs 64-crore, multi-starrer surprised everyone by becoming one of 2010’s biggest hits. It also pushed this physics graduate from Delhi University into the A-list of directors. Aarakshan, the film Jha will start shooting in January, deals with reservation politics.

Jha, 57, is so politically conscious that he even fought elections twice. So what is he, a politically aware filmmaker or a closet politician?

“My passive participation was always there (in Bihar and issues in the state), but the active one began in 2004 when I stood for elections,” says Jha. Over the years he realised that all the issues in the state — in the country, for that matter — were linked to economic development. Until and unless that changed, nothing else could. “Everything in the public arena, in healthcare, education, and so on dealt with finance and management,” says Jha. Therefore, while the money was coming in, it never resulted in any public welfare — roads, transport, healthcare, security, or any of the things that form the infrastructure of a state. These in turn are what form the basis for private investment and, therefore, wealth creation.

Because of his ability to succeed in the filmworld, Jha says, “I thought I could do the job [of implementing] better by being a people’s representative in parliament.” He decided to give himself 10 years in public life, from the age of 50 to 60. Though he personally supports Nitish Kumar, he chose to fight as an independent from Champaran in 2004. Later in 2009, he fought on a ticket from Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party — a “misjudgement” he admits. He lost both times. Now, “I am done with active politics,” says Jha.

Instead, Jha is using his filmmaking and media abilities to contribute to Bihar. So he is the majority investor in Maurya, a general entertainment channel in “Hindi as spoken in Bihar”. The eight-month-old channel employs 200 locals in Patna. He helped kick off Century Communications’s Mahua with Bahubali, a hit show, again in “Hindi as spoken in Bihar”. He has invested in a mall in Patna and there are other businesses that he intends to get into in a bid to stir up the local economy.

In many ways Jha’s films reflect the same journey — from the ideologically pure to the commercially savvy. They reflect the changing times, he quips. In the ’80s, when he started making films, NFDC was the only body offering finance for films, not an industry then. Damul (1985) and Parinati (1989), his first two films, were made on a budget of Rs 12 lakh each. By the early ’90s, money had become scarce and budgets had gone up three-four times. “It became clear that I could survive only by being commercially competitive,” he says.

That is when he made Mrityudand. It is a typical Jha film about a decrepit high caste family and its attempt to salvage itself in the face of the rise of low-caste contractors in Bihar. The difference however was approaching the (then) reigning star Madhuri Dixit. “If I had cast parallel cinema actors I would have not got any money,” says Jha. Dixit, said yes and Mrityudand happened.

Was that a sell-out? “There is no question of a sell-out. I saw clearly that I had to change my style of filmmaking, had to get distributors and exhibitors interested. We spent Rs 12 lakh, the entire budget of Damul, on the publicity for Mrityudand,” says Jha. The film went on to do reasonably well and also received both critical acclaim and awards. “My foothold in commercial cinema was established.”

Though he did do the somewhat insipid Dil Kya Kare (1999), Jha has largely stuck to an issue or a cause he feels strongly about at that point in time. For instance, when he started researching the Bhagalpur blindings he was amazed at the fact that the entire town supported the policemen who had done it.

His current worry is the whole divide building up between the haves and have-nots in India and how the ‘haves’ are not sensitised to it. So Aarakshan is a post-liberalisation, post-mandalisation, post-regionalisation look at India. He’s already got a letter from the Brahmin Samaj requesting him to be fair to Brahmins. Look out then for another angst ridden, star-studded look at India.