The “planner”

Frank Chodorov writes in “The Rise and Fall of Society”-

The essence of value is the human capacity of measuring intensity of desire. When the two frontiersmen bartered their respective abundances, their desires were limited to the necessaries. As increasing population makes for a greater subdivision of labor, and therefore for a greater variety of goods and services, this problem of evaluating desires and of exerting one’s will in favor of this or that satisfaction becomes correspondingly more intricate. When the choice lay between a bear skin and going naked, the problem of raiment was readily resolved. But now the matter involves a choice between a two-button and a three-button suit, between blue and gray, to say nothing of the quality of workmanship or correctness of size; also, population has brought a new influence to bear upon the evaluation, that of public opinion, and style becomes a consideration. Antecedent to the clothing problem, moreover, a decision must be made between clothing and a harness for the horse or a set of books for the children. The desires are many. What constriction, in the nature of things, compels a decision in favor of one gratification over another? What is the true measure of intensity of desire? The answer that man gives to this question is a ratio between variables: that gratification which, taking into consideration all the factors of inclination, environment, and necessity, will yield him the most satisfaction, according to his lights, in return for the least amount of effort that must be given up to acquire it. For it is written in the book of life that the cost of every “good” is that undesirable thing called effort.

Thus labor, in juxtaposition to desire, is the ultimate determinant of value. Let us keep in mind, however, that it is not the labor invested in producing the “good” which fixes its value—not the “cost of production”—but the labor one must give up as the price of possession. The fisherman was not unaware of the effort expended in getting the fish, effort he might have put into growing potatoes, and the other frontiersman knows how much time he invested in his tubers. This awareness of labor cost bears heavily on their respective evaluations of their desires for the things offered in trade; therefore, the cost of production (or the cost of reproduction) tends to approximate the price of gratification.

It would not serve the purposes of this essay—which is concerned with the economic forces that underlie social institutions—to delve into the theory, or theories, of value, or the related subject of price. It is enough to point out that were it not for this human capacity to make evaluations there would be no market place, and if there were no market place there would be no Society. Despite all the recondite thought that has been put into this subject, no definition of value offered is quite as definitive as the popular phrase “easy come, easy go.” What one acquires with little effort one has little reluctance to part with if in so doing one can obtain something wanted; on the other hand, if the getting of a pair of shoes calls for the giving up of a month’s labor, an inhibitory influence comes into play and maybe the old shoes will be pressed into service for a while longer. It is this interplay of two psychological forces—intensity of desire and aversion to labor—that is the essence of value, and any attempt to reduce it to a mathematical formula is fatuous; to do so would require an understanding of the inner workings of every individual, under all circumstances, and that calls for omniscience. When a trade is consummated, the psychological forces come to rest, and this objective act is a historical fact that is measurable; that is, the price agreed upon tells us something about what the buyer and seller had been cogitating upon before the trade took place. There is no way of measuring their antecedent emotional experiences. And even then, even after the trade has been consummated, it cannot be said with certainty that it will be repeated. The determination of value in the future is largely guesswork. That is why there are “mark down” sales.

This impossibility of fixing future values is the rock on which “economic planning” founders. Not only is the planner without data on which to base his prognoses, but the plannee himself cannot furnish it. No man can foretell with certainty what he will want at a future time, or how much he will want it, for no man can predict the influences that will determine his decisions. Today he is most anxious to have a hat, but tomorrow he is convinced that headgear causes loss of hair and he decides to go uncovered; or the repair of his roof is a more pressing need than the automobile he had set his heart on; or a lessening of his income compels a reevaluation of his desires. Variability of choice makes predictions most precarious, as producers well know. The best the planner can do is to forecast “average” desires on the basis of past experience. But the “average” necessarily eliminates the desires of last year’s minority, who may be the majority this year. Confronted with this problem of variability in desires, the “economic planner” must resort to constriction, to limitation of choice, to the strangulation of imagination. The planner undertakes to prescribe what the individual should want, and the basis for his prescription is a conviction that he knows best what is “good” for the individual. Because it is in the market place that variability of choice expresses itself, through price, the planner’s conceit leads him to attempt to control consumption by controlling price. But price is not controllable, simply because desires are not controllable. The barrier to free choice which the planner sets up acts like the dam in the river; the water does not stop flowing but either overflows the dam or spreads out in a lake. Price control does not stop wanting or bidding; it simply creates what propaganda calls a “black market,” which is in fact the true market, somewhat distorted but nevertheless true. It may be illegal but it is highly moral, for it arises from the individual’s right to himself, to the product of his labors, and to the pursuit of happiness which is the essence of living.

Since the control of consumption by means of fixed prices proves impossible, the planner turns to constricting productive specialization. That is, he undertakes to desocialize Society. As we have seen, men come together and cooperate for the improvement of their circumstances—to raise their common wage level—and they accomplish this purpose through specialization; any attempt to constrict specialization is therefore unnatural and regressive; to the extent that if it succeeds it tends to break up the integration or to retard its growth. Men must then get along on less. But it is not in the nature of men to get along on less, and to counteract this inner drive the planner must resort to violence. All “economic planning” ultimately rests on purging. Purging of what? Of the impulses on which Society is built. The “economic planner” does not control prices or production; he polices men.

Aesthetics

Today’s Times view and counterview debate is about “beauty” vs. “merit”-

Wimbledon, of course, is not a beauty contest. But All England Club spokesman Johnny Perkins has admitted that good looks are a factor in scheduling Centre Court matches, adding “it’s not a coincidence that those (on Centre Court) are attractive.” The howls of outrage that have followed ignore that the attractiveness of players does have a role to play in winning fans for the game. And it’s viewership that brings in the money that enables contests like Wimbledon to be held. Scheduling Centre Court matches is a small matter; it isn’t as if competent players are being kept out of the tournament on the basis of their looks.

As a BBC spokesperson pointed out, “Our preference would be a Brit or a babe as this always delivers high viewing ratings.” Looks have had a prominent role to play in women’s tennis since the days of Chris Evert. Or does anyone truly believe that Anna Kournikova was popular because of the astounding skills that saw her win, well, not a single Grand Slam? Many of the players themselves have made no secret about the importance they attach to their glamour quotient. Why the indignation when the organisers decide to do the same?

—

Wimbledon apologists can defend what the organisers have done until they’re hoarse. But the fact remains that the grand slam that matters the most has descended to sexist methods again to make money. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the All England Club would decide to privilege babes over top tennis players this is, after all, the same tournament that only started awarding equal prize money to male and female champions in 2007. Nevertheless, given how Wimbledon portrays itself as the last bastion of class, such crassness comes as a shock.

A few weeks back, Marguerite Theophil made a similar argument-

Details that don’t appear when writing about men easily and regularly find their way into reports about women. Last year, during the US Democratic presidential debate, stereotypical remarks were casually flung about. The articulate and intelligent Senator Hillary Clinton, the lone woman on stage with seven men, was described as appearing “demure” and “ladylike”. Later, Michelle Obama, a Harvard-educated lawyer, “looked well-turned-out… classy, as we used to say.” We have become so used to this patronising language that we generally unthinkingly say, “What’s wrong with that?” or even “But it’s a compliment!” A journal dealing with women and development highlighted this, creatively inserting tongue-in-cheek additions to a report of the kind often included in information about women, but unfamiliar, even bizarre-sounding, when writing about men: “When the negotiations opened in Luxembourg, negotiators had a clear mission to fulfil. A new cooperation agreement needed to be drafted between the twelve states, represented almost entirely by elderly grandfathers, dressed conservatively in gray or navy suits, and the African-Caribbean-Pacific Group’s states … visiting Luxembourg for the first time, and dressed in a colourful array of robes and tropical wear from their home countries… A welcome diversion during the opening session was the arrival of several younger men, elegantly outfitted in outfits from leading fashion houses… Speaking articulately and intelligently, they finished their remarks with a folk song from the host country.”

I think they are making a mountain out of a molehill. How does appreciating beauty become sexism of the “discrimination” kind? The fact remains that the better player will win the title, and neither Clinton’s nor Obama’s appearance would be relevant when it came to their jobs. Beauty is about aesthetics. People like beautiful things. All beautiful things. That’s why they enjoy gazing at, among other things, “babes” and “hunks” instead of hags and scrawny octogenarians.

An interesting conversation between Cameron and the incorrigible House goes something like this-

“Why did you hire me?”

“Does it matter?”

“Kinda hard to work for a guy who doesn’t respect you.”

“Why?”

“Is that rhetorical?”

“No, it just seems that way because you can’t think of an answer. Does it make a difference why I think I’m a jerk? The only thing that matters is what you think. Can you do the job?”

“You hired a black guy because he had a juvenile record.”

“No, it wasn’t a racial thing, I didn’t see a black guy. I just saw a doctor…with a juvenile record. I hired Chase ‘cause his dad made a phone call. I hired you because you are extremely pretty.”

“You hired me to get into my pants?!”

“I can’t believe that that would shock you. It’s also not what I said. No, I hired you because you look good; it’s like having a nice piece of art in the lobby.”

“I was in the top of my class.”

“But not the top.”

“I did an internship at the Mayo Clinic.”

“Yes, you were a very good applicant.”

“But not the best?”

“Would that upset you, really, to think that you were hired because of some genetic gift of beauty not some genetic gift of intelligence?”

“I worked very hard to get where I am.”

“But you didn’t have to. People choose the paths that grant them the greatest rewards for the least amount of effort. That’s the law of nature, and you defied it. That’s why I hired you. You could have married rich, could have been a model, you could have just shown up and people would have given you stuff. Lots of stuff, but you didn’t, you worked your stunning little ass off.”

“Am I supposed to be flattered?”

“Gorgeous women do not go to medical school. Unless they’re as damaged as they are beautiful…”

You wouldn’t choose your cardiologist based on his looks. And you wouldn’t attend a concert given by an intelligent, hardworking, talented but essentially tone deaf bunch of amateurs. Merit—talent, intelligence, hard work etc—has its place in the scheme of things, an important one. So does beauty, or aesthetics.

Blaming the right people for the wrong reasons

That’s what T.K. Arun does in this article while writing about what the Indian middle class must “accept” if it wants to become politically relevant-

In independent India, the middle class restricted its ambition to living the good life. You worked hard as a student, became a doctor, engineer, civil servant or bank officer, married within your caste and community, brought up your kids to become doctors, engineers, etc, and left politics to politicians.

[...]

Democracy is about political pluralism, civil liberties, human rights, group rights including minority rights, the due process of the law, distribution of political power across the citizenry and an institutional setup in which the judiciary, the legislature, the executive and the media keep one another in check and collectively pursue the overarching goal of expanding individual liberties while keeping the collective an enabling framework for individual creativity.

The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be restricted to any strata in society: it must be universally accessible. There is no such thing as social harmony in an unjust society. Considering that India’s democratic project started off with highly unequal distribution of social and economic power, and therefore, of political power, democracy in India must provide for processes that level the field. These processes could be affirmative action, Bharat Nirman, and various strategies of inclusive growth. The middle class must accept this, and live out the imperatives flowing from it.

Economic reform in the sense of freeing up the creative potential of all citizens is an integral part of such democratic project — without structural diversification of the economy breaking the age-old correlation between caste and occupation, urbanisation and fast growth, empowerment of subaltern groups cannot be achieved. Without political agency, subaltern groups cannot realise their creative potential. The middle class must accept this relationship.

Aristotle writes in his “Politics”-

Now it has been said in our first discourses … that man is by nature a political animal; and so even when men have no need of assistance from each other they none the less desire to live together. At the same time they are also brought together by common interest, so far as each achieves a share of the good life. The good life then is the chief aim of society, both collectively for all its members and individually; but they also come together and maintain the political partnership for the sake of life merely, for doubtless there is some element of value contained even in the mere state of being alive, provided that there is not too great an excess on the side of the hardships of life, and it is clear that the mass of mankind cling to life at the cost of enduring much suffering, which shows that life contains some measure of well-being and of sweetness in its essential nature.

“The good life then is the chief aim of society” – this is what society and the State must be about (and this is what Arun disparages). And politics – principled politics – is what should govern society. But what we have in India in the name of democracy is a mixture of mob rule and feudal rule with various special interests trying to pad their own pockets from time to time. The constitution is so loosely written that it protects no one and nothing. The only reason “rule of law” can be said to exist in India is because most people don’t go about murdering and raping their neighbors or stealing their property. It exists by default, not because of any effort from the government.

But these are mere consequences. The main problem is the “basis” of our “democracy.” It is based on egalitarianism and “social justice.” That is why politics is the prerogative of the worst scum in society – a principled man cannot survive in such an environment because a principled man will not promise to grab X’s property and give it to Y. When Bernard Shaw’s quote – “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” – plays out, politics becomes a game where the Pauls hold the balance of power. And such politics legitimizes theft because the theft does not take place in the form of a pickpocket running away with your purse or wallet, or a robber breaking into your safe, but in the form of rules, regulations and taxation. And this minor difference can fool even the most sophisticated minds unless they really think about it. (When I first realized the way the game was being played, I could not believe it. It took me a while before I got used to it. “Democracy” had blinded me.) Our political system requires politicians to promise that they will steal. Anyone who doesn’t do that won’t win. It is as simple as that.

A simple example. Assume I stand for elections. And that this is my manifesto-

• Amend the constitution to guarantee the absolute right to life, property and free speech.
• Scrap all laws currently in force and only keep those related to crimes involving non-consensual physical violence, fraud, and contracts. The laws to be abolished include those relating to taxation, all victim-less crimes, affirmative action, censorship etc etc.
• Privatize all government undertakings and all property currently owned by no one – most of them by auction, others though homesteading.
• Only keep the home, law and defense ministry active – close down all other ministries and bureaus and relieve all the employees.
• Abolish all government control on the economy including through the Reserve Bank.

And the same will apply at the level of the state and the city. Now what are the chances that I will be elected? Anyone who works for the government won’t vote for me. Anyone who gets contracts from various government agencies won’t vote for me. Anyone who benefits in any way from the present system won’t vote for me. Some won’t vote for me because they have no idea why my manifesto talks about the things it does – they will either say he’s crazy, or that he’s an “idealist” who is “impractical.” And others won’t vote for me because I didn’t offer rice at 3 rupees a kg, or didn’t control the price of petrol and onions, or didn’t build toilets in some area, or a temple at Ayodhya. That is how things stand at present.

The Gopinaths and Sarabhais and Sanyals standing for MP on an anti-corruption platform cannot do anything to change the “nature” of our polity. “Corruption” is not a problem, it is a symptom. A symptom primarily of the State’s lack of respect for life and private property, and then of procedural red tape and lack of transparency. The second reason is why corruption exists even in some of the biggest private sector companies particularly when it comes to the purchase department (hardly comparable to the government though). And this is something Arun misses when he blames the middle class for bribing people to get their job done.

All in all, “inequality” cannot be used as an excuse to impose involuntary servitude, or disrespect property rights. And unless the very nature of politics in the country changes, all efforts will be in vain. I do recognize that such change will not come overnight or even in a few decades. In fact, I think that it is foolish to expect that a bunch of people thrown together by “chance” with the only characteristic they share being their ethnicity (am talking purely in physical, not cultural, terms) – that is what a nation basically is – will ever agree on a particular issue. Progress requires the coming together of like minds, and only a society that voluntarily comes together for the purpose of “the good life” will succeed. That is what happened to some extent when America was formed, and that is what will need to happen if liberty is to be achieved. Given this view of mine, anyone who believes that any country in the world, be it India or America, will somehow wake up one day and embrace liberty is probably being outrageously optimistic.

People need to give up the “do something” mentality – a reactive and destructive mentality – and spend more time on “proper” principles and ideologies. You don’t build buildings without blueprints; how do you expect to build a truly just society without one?

Humanities

The Times of India has a Times View/ Counterview section in the paper every day. Most times one feels that the contributors are being intentionally dense; but today’s question was an interesting one- it was about the relevance of “humanities”/ liberal arts education. The “Times View” says – No, its very relevant-

Humanities have always been at the receiving end. Liberal arts studies which include history, political science, cultural studies, literature have either been dismissed as elitist self-indulgences, or as is the case in India, a worthless (read non-profitable) pursuit. In the post-industrial society, it has always had to justify its existence. Engineering, medicine and management disciplines usually corner the lion’s share of university funds. The humanities make do with the crumbs, except in a few elite universities, which are an exception to this fact.

The calls for the humanities to justify their relevance are growing louder as the world finds its fortunes declining. It’s being argued that we need more scientists, engineers and doctors to fuel our collective progress. The privileging of some streams of studies over the others is a flawed approach to human development. The liberal arts equip us with the faculty for critical thought, and an understanding of collective human behaviour and social systems. The importance of such understanding cannot be overstated in a globalised world.

and the “Counterview” says its irrelevant-

Many graduates of, say, English literature or philosophy, to name some of the more common majors, are so busy debating the fine points of Shakespeare or Kant that they have little idea of how to solve real-world problems. Those tasks are left to the scientists and engineers, who are able to constantly innovate to solve problems. In this scenario, wouldn’t it be better for everyone concerned from the universities to the students if students were taught skills that might actually help them get a job one day?

I have to agree with the first position – “collective” irks me, however. “Arts” is where intellectuals flourish; while the world may be filled with the wrong kind of intellectuals, the fact remains that every society needs thinkers, artists, writers and the most important of them all – philosophers. Else, society will decay. The “sciences” can tell you “how”; only the “arts” can tell you “why.”

—

The last two paragraphs of the first chapter of Peikoff’s “The Ominous Parallels” are as follows-

“[The Nazi] death camps,” notes a writer in The New York Times, “were conceived, built and often administered by Ph.D.’s.”

What had those Ph.D.’s been taught to think in their schools and universities—and where did such ideas come from?

He then goes on to blame three philosophers – Plato, Kant, and Hegel – for Nazism. Their influence is still alive today – Plato’s philosophical idealism and his totalitarian communist Republic; Kant’s banishment of reason, the upholding of faith and basing his ethical theory on “duty,” Hegel’s mad scribblings (more than one person has suggested this; Schopenhauer for one, and then Jung), sanction to the State, and historicism that then influenced Marx. Who will refute them if there are no intellectuals well versed in philosophy or history?

The “humanities” are not useless. They seem so because their effect spans centuries – that’s why the wanton disregard for a subject as important as philosophy, and the refusal to look back at events that are half-a-century old forgetting Santayana’s maxim – “Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.”

—

As far as the 20th-21st centuries are concerned, we are slowly but steadily moving in the direction of totalitarianism – the evils of socialism and fascism have been forgotten, the field of ethics is being ruled by utilitarians and moralists, and politics by pragmatists. The all-powerful Welfare State is becoming common place, and logic has been given the go by. And there is no hope on the horizon. I can only quote Mises here-

From time to time I entertained the hope that my writings would bear practical fruit and show the way for policy. I have always looked for evidence of a change in ideology. But I never actually deceived myself; my theories explain, but cannot slow the decline of a great civilization. I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline.

At a time when good intellectuals are in short supply, we have debates over whether the system that contributes towards their creation is relevant or not.

Anti-heroes

I watched a couple of films – not in their entirety – around Republic Day. One was Shahenshah – a bad film whichever way you look at it; the other was Prahaar – a good one, and a masterpiece compared to Shahenshah. Both films tackle a topic that is a staple of Indian films – corruption in society. And both films feature an anti-hero.

The COED, and even the Wikipedia, defines the anti-hero as someone who “lacks conventional heroic attributes.” But such a definition doesn’t do justice to the phenomenon. My definition is quite simple – he is a person who is forced by circumstances to embrace “his dark side.” He no longer behaves in a manner which society or the law considers to be right; his ends are the same as that of most people, but not his means of achieving them. For this reason alone, barring a few who understand him, he is condemned to a life of misanthropy.

Shahenshah
The only reason Shahenshah deserves a mention, a short one, is – Amitabh Bachchan; he owned the genre as the “angry young man” throughout the ’70s and Deewaar won’t be forgotten for a long time.

Shahenshah is a crime-fighting superhero wearing, as an IMDb commentator describes it, “the worst outfit in movie history.” The story cannot be more clichéd – a boy sees his cop father, accused of taking a bribe, hang himself in shame, and he becomes a seemingly corrupt cop (Vijay, for the thousandth time) when he grows up, but turns into a nightmare for criminals during the night. Fast forward to the climax, the villain (Amrish Puri, “in what may be his 1,000,000th villain role – a role he could do in his sleep with his face.”) is brought before (dragged into) the court (by Shahenshah) so that justice can be done. Shahenshah, who hasn’t bothered with niceties like the law till now, lectures the judge on why justice in important; he also reveals his identity. The case against Puri is proved (thanks to a taped conversation, or a newspaper on which Puri has wiped his bloody hands, or both). But rarely do Indian villains learn their lessons. Puri takes a hostage. And Shahenshah delivers justice by hanging him from the courtroom ceiling – tit for tat.

The only point in the whole film that struck me as odd was Shahenshah’s “lecture” to the court. Our anti-hero evidently suffers from a bi-polar disorder – he fights crime because the justice system is broken; yet he pleads before the court. Other than that this is a regular but bad film with an anti-hero protagonist.

Prahaar
Prahaar is spine-chilling, ultra-violent, and a must-see. Written and directed by Nana Patekar, who is also the protagonist, the first hour and a half sets the foundation for the last hour. The first part of the film can be summarized in one phrase – military boot-camp. A young-man, Peter D’Souza, opts for commando training leaving behind his fiancée, and widower father who runs a bakery; the trainer, Major Chouhan (Patekar) is a hard task master. Peter completes his training, but loses his legs in an operation against a terrorist group that had hijacked a school bus. He leaves the army, and a few days later, invites Chouhan for his wedding.

Chouhan lands in Bombay, and discovers that Peter is dead; he had refused to pay the protection money demanded by local goons. Chouhan visits the police station and demands action on the matter. But he finds out that no witnesses are willing to come forward. He then visits a newspaper office. The editor tells him that people dying at the hands of goons is not news. Then the phone rings – “The Home Minister has a cold? I will print it. He’s going to London? I’ll print that too. On the front page.” And a disgusted Chouhan leaves. Chouhan has a past – his mother was a courtesan who was sold into prostitution before his very eyes – and he hasn’t forgotten the helplessness that he felt. He finds the same feeling among the people he meets while dealing with Peter’s death – sheer helplessness, shattered spirits, people who have lost all hope for justice.

The next time the goons visit the locality, they run into, and get bashed by, Chouhan. And this is where he is left flabbergasted. Instead of applauding him, the people of the locality blame him for Peter’s death, throw stones at him, and even register a police complaint against him. A man who is wound up tight now loses it – the respect for human life. He kills a man who tries to hold him at knife-point; and then he butchers the local goons – kills them all – when they show up and create a ruckus in the locality. The climax is a speech in a court – I haven’t done anything wrong, he says. The judge passes an order declaring that society’s injustices have impacted his mental balance, and that he be kept under psychiatric care till he is cured.

This film delivers the same message that Scholl did-

The real damage is done by those millions who want to “survive.” The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

—-

If these were the “good” anti-heroes – the crime-fighter kind, there are also “bad” anti-heroes – criminals who are not “villains”. I will quote from Lutgendorf’s review of Maqbool-

Films with criminal protagonists permit directors and audiences to vicariously experience lifestyles involving extraordinary levels of danger, violence, and ill-gotten luxury, secure in the expectation that they will (normally) be atoned for in the end. Although detective and crime dramas in Bombay cinema began appearing in the silent films of the 1920s, a criminal antihero was relatively rare (with the exception of occasional films featuring noble dacoits or rural bandits; cf. GUNGA JAMUNA, 1961) until the 1970s, when such a role, usually explained as the result of childhood trauma or deprivation, became associated with the emerging “superstar” persona of Amitabh Bachchan (cf. DEEWAR, DON). The backdrop to such films was generally the “black” economy of smuggled goods and untaxed wealth that flourished on the underside of the Congress government’s bureaucratic “license Raj.” With the gradual eclipse of the latter, during the 1980s and early 1990s, by “free market” ideology favoring large capital and the consumer appetites of the middle and upper classes, and with the cross-pollination of gritty crime dramas by American and Hong Kong directors, there appeared a number of notable films (especially from directors Ram Gopal Verma and Vishal Bhardwaj) that depicted life in the Mumbai underworld with a new level of naturalism in both mise-en-scene and dialog. Although the trajectory of the protagonists of these films still generally ended in violent death, the plots now assumed an encompassing amorality in which criminal activity paralleled or was barely distinguished from politics, big business, and police work. Identification with gangster heroes, who continued to display such traditional Hindi cinematic ideals as dosti (male friendship) and clan loyalty (here transferred to the surrogate “family” of the mob), permitted filmmakers to explore the fascinating psychology of characters, such as Satya and Bhikhu Mhatre in Verma’s SATYA (1998), whose evident humanity and even charming bonhomie coexisted with a shocking and repellent brutality.

Nayagan
Nayagan is a must-see for Kamal Haasan’s powerhouse performance. It is a great story, but is somewhat similar to The Godfather – no gangster film made after Coppola’s masterpiece will ever escape the comparison – and Haasan plays the brooding Michael for the first half of the film, and the patriarchal, grieving Vito during the second.

Velu’s father, a trade union leader, is killed by cops. The boy kills a cop in revenge, and escapes to Bombay. He’s taken care of by a good-natured Muslim man who smuggles goods through the sea. Velu learns from this man that nothing that is helpful to someone can ever be wrong. He has a tiff with a policeman who beats the crap out of him. Velu doesn’t fight back. Naa adicha nee sethuduvai, he says – if I hit you, you will die. Then onwards its the story of Velu’s meteoric rise to power and transformation into the Godfather, murder and vendetta; he doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong. After all, “nothing that is helpful to someone can ever be wrong.” The film, however, pays more attention to family dynamics and the “good” that Velu does rather than his mafia operation. But as is the tradition, a “bad” anti-hero cannot live till the end – he has to pay for his crimes. And that happens to Velu as well.

Satya
As I have said, and written about, many times, this is one of my favorite films. Satya should definitely make it to the list of anti-heroes. But Ramgopal Varma doesn’t think so (Outlook; free registration required). in the interview, he says that Satya is an attempt at finishing off the anti-hero-

Satya’s foray into the underworld happens casually—it’s not the usual forced-by-circumstances-vendetta story. Unlike Deewar or Shiva, where the audience looks up to the violent hero, nobody wants to be Satya. In fact, Satya is an attempt to finish the angry young man once and for all.

Outlook did a story on the film. And it said-

Satya is a moving elegy to men who live under the shadow of death in a big, bad city which, as a voiceover tells us at the outset, never sleeps and yet never stops dreaming. The fitful dreams of one’s waking hours often tend to turn into unnerving nightmares. As they do for the film’s eponymous ‘hero’ (Chakravarthy). The mysterious misfit, like the hundreds of faceless hopefuls who arrive in Mumbai every day in search of material nirvana, lands in the city of dreams. Even before he can find his feet, he is sucked into the underworld. The consequences are tragic.

But Satya is no masala movie mannequin who attains martyrdom. He is the ultimate Nowhere Man: he’s come from nowhere, he’s headed nowhere. It is his nonchalant nihilism that sets him apart from all other anti-heroes. Satya is an end-of-the-century avatar of the ’70s angry young man pared down to his very bones.

The persona that megastar Bachchan made his own had certain moorings: he had a mother, he also had God. But Verma’s anti-hero is an atheist and an orphan. He has no past, no future, no clear raison d’etre except the need to stay afloat in a hostile environment. Even the girl he loves cannot save him: when Satya’s real identity is sprung upon her, she can only recoil in horror and deny him the redemption he craves.

In an era when feel-good romances are all the rage, Satya is a close-to-the-bones chiller that holds out absolutely no flicker of hope. Sad, pensive, it is a film that delves deep into the heart of darkness. Each of the film’s characters is a victim of a system gone haywire. It’s a world where cops are indistinguishable from criminals. For both, it’s a struggle to save what is precious: for the former it is their jobs, for the latter, their lives.

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The conventional hero is boring to say the least. In nearly every case, he lives and dies for others, doesn’t question authority, and barring a romantic interlude or two, has nothing that he can live for or call his own. The anti-hero allows the filmmaker or author to break the shackles. He can indulge in behavior that society doesn’t approve of, and therefore which a conventional hero cannot attempt; he can be extremely individualistic in a society where individualism is frowned upon; he can brood, smolder, hate. And he can commit “crimes” and disregard authority. If a hero does that, he will be called selfish, greedy, a thief and what not. That’s why the anti-hero’s actions need a justification – a sad past so that all his “vices” can be justified. As an aside, Bollywood will see the father of all anti-heroes if Anurag Kashyap manages to make this film.

In someways, the anti-hero is the refuge of the individual, and the last stand against conformity while still being “good.” Cross the line, and he becomes a “villain.”