Bollywood Baatein: He alone didn’t see the writing on the wall

Kamal Haasan is a very learned man. But he is not a politician. I thought he was intelligent enough to realise this. In fact, we had several discussions on why actors need to stay away from politics. He would cite the example of Amitabh Bachchan. And he also predicted that his arch-rival Rajinikanth would never go into politics.

He was right about Rajinikanth, though in ways that one could never predict. Like the Coronavirus and its after-effects on civilization, we don’t know what politics can do to actors.

The strangest thing about Kamalji’s entry into politics is that he never seemed inclined towards such a move when we were close friends. He knew cinema could change society. And his films until 20 years ago, such as Varumayin Niram Sivappu in Tamil and Hey Ram in Hindi had the inner strength to reform our mindsets.

Then he got himself some new advisers, some of them I am sorry to say recommended by me. They assured him he would give India not the politician that it deserves but needs: the ‘Honest and Selfless’ politician. We have seen those in the past, Anna Hazare and his protégé, for example, who came with the promise of cleansing politics.

Kamal Haasan’s squeaky-clean politics seemed just the antidote that Indian politics needed. But this is actually not true. What politics needs is efficient politicians who can deliver not idealists who can argue on corruption and redemption. Honesty and simple good intentions make for an interesting political drama like Shankar’s Nayak. In reality the electorate wants to see results. Corruption it can deal with.

To see Kamal Haasan so resoundingly defeated in the elections is dismaying but not unexpected. Most hardheaded political analysts saw it coming. You can’t sell honesty as a USP to the electorate at a time when they feel the absence of what Manoj Kumar saw coming 45 years ago: Roti Kapada aur Makaan.

Kamal Haasan was never cut out to be a politician. His absolute decimation in the Tamil Nadu elections should be taken as a sign from above: opt out of politics before it is too late. Rajinikanth did the right thing because his daughters saw what was going to happen. Kamal Haasan has the wrong eggheads feeding his ego with illusory signposts of salvation for the masses. When in fact his chosen path to reforming society was allotted to him 60 years ago.

Why not stick to what you know best?