Do weep for Salim the lame

My Mumbai Mirror column:

Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro won two National Awards in 1989. Thirty years later, its fierce indictment of the working class Muslim experience emerges as chillingly prescient -- right down to the police.

There are many things in Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro that would have been recognizable to the mainstream Hindi film audience in 1989. There's the family thrown upon difficult times when the father loses his long-time job; the mother who takes on small-time tailoring work to augment the household income; the sweet-faced, dearly beloved younger sister who is 'of marriageable age'; the hero's turn to illegality placing him in conflict with his law-abiding father – as well as the remembered, almost hallowed figure of his elder brother. Also, as in so many commercial films, the hero is the leader of a trio, with him and his bumchums going everywhere together; and his love interest is a tawaif at the nearby brothel.

But Saeed Mirza's award-winning film – it won National Awards for Best Film and Best Cinematography in 1989– also contains a great deal that would have felt unfamiliar to Hindi film watchers. Or at least unfamiliar on screen, though perhaps deeply familiar from life. For instance, though the film doesn't actually take us into the mills of Bombay, it evokes the socio-economic world that existed around them, and the stark instability of Indian working class life in the late '80s. Salim's father has lost his job after decades of service, and is sitting at home, unable to find another. His son Javed, an electrician at a factory, is dead; killed in a tragic labour accident. Salim, the less academically inclined son, dropped out of school early on, because the family didn't have enough money to educate both sons. There is no mention of their younger sister Anis having been sent to school at all – though her suitor Aslam raises local hackles by pushing for the education of girls from the community.

The dialogue between Salim and Aslam is, in many ways, at the core of the tale Mirza wants to tell about poor urban Muslims. Salim and his mates, who are essentially all illiterate, have fallen early into a life of small-time crime: collecting hafta from local tailors and shopkeepers, conducting small and occasionally larger thefts, and acting as henchmen for local big men. Their fantasies of school and college are just that, fantasies -- as made memorable in a scene where Peera and Ahmad (played by theatre director Makarand Deshpande and filmmaker Ashutosh Gowarikar) perform a hilarious little spontaneous skit about how they imagine college girls and boys behave with each other.

Meanwhile the studious Aslam cannot find a job except as a poorly paid proofreader, because his MA was in Urdu literature. As he says, “Urdu zabaan ka istemaal hi kucch kam ho gaya hai.” Salim, appalled at his salary, initially rejects Aslam as a husband for his sister. His own ambitions are much grander: he and his friends dream of becoming as rich and well-connected as the local toughs who have risen to run illegal empires. As we watch Salim guiltily leave Aslam's book-filled room, we see little children unloading boxes. In fact Mirza's film, which thanks “the residents of Dongri, Do Tanki, Nagpada and Bachoo-Ki-Wadi”, is filled with working children in the background.

But it's Aslam's defense of Muslim girls' education that brings local men angrily to his doorstep. Salim shoos them away, but then asks Aslam why he's going against their religion. The ensuing conversation is a powerful one. Through Aslam, Saeed Mirza indicts Muslims for letting fear and ignorance keep them in a vicious cycle, while using Salim's experience to underline the poor urban Muslim's harsh experience of life in post-independence India: “Aa ke dekho, kaise log Musalman log ko nafrat karte hain! Kachra samajhte unko. Daraate hain, hamesha khallaas karne ka baat karte hain.”

Mirza's perspective on the causes of Hindu-Muslim violence, from Partition to the Bhiwandi riots that form the backdrop to the film, is simple -- and tragically, still entirely valid. “Why did this Partition stuff happen?” asks Salim. “So that powerful people on both sides could have a hissa to rule over,” responds Aslam. Later, a filmmaker who shows up in the area to screen his documentary on the Bhiwandi riots makes the distraction argument -- that high communal feeling and the threat of violence only serve to keep people from asking why they don't have education, food, shelter.

Shockingly, thirty years after Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, we have elected a government that has made such deliberate distraction their full-time occupation. But only one side is being successfully distracted. One hopes they will open their eyes, before it is too late.

Mirza's film does not depict police brutality, but it doesn't shy away from referencing the systemic communalisation of the system. Early on, we see a police officer on the phone. “Yes, it's a Muslim area, but we'll control it, sir,” he says easily. “Maar-maar ke khaal kheench lenge. They only understand the language of the stick. And if there is a problem, we'll impose Section 144.” A little later, we see another cop catch hold of Salim and his friends, heading home late, while Section 144 is officially still imposed in their area. “Are you planning a riot?” says the cop. “Nahi sahib. Aap hain na,” he responds, almost bantering. In December 2019, after all that has happened in Jamia, Aligarh, Lucknow and Mangalore – and possibly many other places whose news is still to reach us – it is impossible to summon up a laugh.

Published in Mumbai Mirror, 22 Dec 2019.