'Come, question
your faith' cannot be a very inviting tagline,
I thought as I went to see Dharm, a film
by the debutante Bhavna Talwar. In the film, Pandit
Ram Narayan Chaturvedi (Pankaj Kapur), the head
priest of a landlord’s family temple in
Banaras, is made to take a stand on communal riots
happening around him and finally gets to protect
a young child that he had adopted as his own but
given up on finding that he was born a Muslim.
Chaturvedi is both a scholar of Vedic scriptures
and other Hindu texts and also a karm-kaandi Brahman
who ministers prayers and other rituals for his
clients (usually these are two different tasks
and not done by the same person). Talvar has also
decided to disregard the codes and mores of the
jajmani system in Hindu households of today where
family priests cater to the common ritualistic
needs of their patron households, and do not form
the moral core of their universe. Instead, Pandit
Chaturvedi is received like royalty in their house
and is considered the last authority on dharma.
In moments of doubt (his own and his client’s),
the pundit is promptly seen referring to the written
word, oblivious of real life’s experiences.
The film presents this situation in the very beginning
when it aptly posits 'kaghaz ki lekhi' [the written
word] against 'aankhon ki dekhi' [the experience
of lived life]. Dharm, then, is Pandit
Chaturvedi’s inner journey, his transition
from an idealized scholar to a human being with
common decency. The film uses the microcosm of
his personal conflicts to reflect on the larger
social issues- the Hindu-Muslim conflict or more
particularly, communal riots.
The Hindu-Muslim conflict has never ceased to
fire the imagination of artists in India. The
violence, cruelty and inhumanity associated with
this conflict have been reproduced with amazement,
pain and anger. Apart from those on the Partition,
we also have films and writings on recent conflicts,
like the one in Gujarat and Bombay. Unfortunately,
these works are often insipid and simplistic.
In the case of Dharm, the reference to Hindu-Muslim
conflict, that was supposed to strengthen the
narrative, actually weakens it. The analysis of
communal violence in this film is one of the most
facile that I have come across.
 For
one, what has communal violence got to do with
the practices of a priest in Banaras? It is only
convenient to situate the narrative (and the crisis)
of a subject involving the Hindu-Muslim conflict
in a conservative Hindu priest’s household
(and the holy city of Banaras). To suggest that
violence happens because one interprets the religious
scriptures too literally, and it will stop as
soon as one finds the right interpretation, is
to simplify the problem to the point of absurdity.
The Hindu-Muslim conflicts that have often resulted
in violence in the past are not only about religion
or faith but also about power. To ignore the role
played in these riots by political and other vested
interests, as well as by local power structures,
commercial concerns, unemployment or a misplaced
sense of purpose, would be like seeing the world
in monochrome. Dharm takes a similarly
skewed view, where the only factor in communal
riots is religion and how one interprets religious
scriptures.
So I was left very skeptical when, at the end
of the film, Pandit Chaturvedi successfully stops
fifty-odd men, from further killing Muslims, by
simply quoting two lines in Sanskrit and explaining
that dharma does not allow this bloodbath. The
men with bloodied swords are made to stand in
statuesque poses while Chaturvedi takes away a
child to safety (one suspects that after clearing
a distance, Chaturvedi might have made a dash
with the child before the stupefied crowd came
to its senses and followed him). The child is
his adopted son Kartikeya, who had to be given
up earlier. It is not clear if he is then saving
a child he had come to love like a son, or a Muslim.
The writer and director cannot show this juvenile
understanding and have it as the basis of their
hope that better sense will prevail between Hindu
and Muslim communities (the end credits starts
with this plate).
The problem with Dharm is not just thematic.
The film is painfully slow, where daily rituals
in the life of a priest (like bathing and praying)
are played upon like home video for anthropological
records and repeated beyond their narrative point.
I wished that some of the well-intentioned points
– xenophobia seen in hatred for the white
boyfriend of the landlord’s daughter (Hrishitta
Bhatt), commercialization of priestly practices,
and the status of widows in Hindu Society –
that the subplots referred to, had played out
better.
Most of the actors, except the redoubtable Pankaj
Kapur, are theatrical (a more layered treatment
to Kapur’s character was sorely missing).
Other supporting characters are flat and lackluster.
However, the child actor palying Kartikeya shares
some graceful on-screen presence with Kapur. Hrishitta
Bhatt is as weak as the sub-plot she inhabits.
The dialogues in the film are uneven and often
expository. At times they show understanding of
the characters they were written for, and at others
they are grand-sounding Hindi and Sanskrit lines
that fail to get the audience involved. One person
who deserves praise is the cameraman, Nalla Muthu.
Though the frames (which are director’s
prerogative) are often unimaginative, the camerawork,
especially the lighting, is good. Shooting on
location in Banaras is surely an advantage, and
the film has made the most of it, including the
use of ghats, the serpentine lanes and the palace
of the former Maharaja of Banaras. The art director
and the costume designer have also done a decent
job.
Finally, what is Dharm’s Cannes
connection’? I wished the promoters had
translated 'tous les cinemas du monde’
for people who don’t speak French, and wondered
how the film read in translation to the foreign
audience.
Padmaja Thakore holds an MPhil in English
Literature and is currently a lecturer at ARSD
College, Delhi University. She's long had an interest
in both popular Indian films and international
cinema.
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