Saint Rantic

I have decided to join the Band Wagon of people talking about the movie Rang De Basanti (RDB). I think its a great movie and here is my justification for it.
(This was originally posted here as a comment. I previewed it and thought it would look better as a post on my blog and as a DC post later.)
1) This movie has lit up the spirit of atleast 50% of the ppl i know who have seen the movie. It proves (to me atleast) that how many ppl are desperate enough to see something positive. It shows the EDUCATED, LITERATE and LEARNED India is desperate for a change. All we miss among such a group is a set of Individual who DO something rather than crib and comment (like me ). This movie shows it happening.

2) I think the message of the movie was to set a towering example of integrity towards principles. It did succeed in that. I guess if the story really happened then these charectors would be worshipped in India as equals of the Great Bhagat Singh. The only thing that I dont like in the movie was that it set the wrong ideals of revolution and violence. I think India needs reforms and not revolution. Also a revolution is mostly possible in a homongenous country where people are homogenous. We are the exact opposites of homogenity, because of centuries of irrational casteism and 100s of languages(which btw is used to divide and rule by the politicians just like our british masters did) So a revolution is not possible. We have to ACT and not REACT. We have to attack layer by layer. That would take a long path of struggle, and probably would make a long story spanning decades.

3) This movie(especially during the last sections) shows our political masters of today as equal to our british masters of the past. Both are fucked up(pardon me for the language but i have to use it and i MEAN it) and both have fucked up and plundered the country to the state it exists. BUT at ‘pre independence’ the Great Bhagat Singh and the likes decided to do something about the fucked up masters and he did it. He send waves among the people. According to me Bhagat Singh was a very learned man, having a towering integrity. For example check out THIS ARTICLE by Bhagat Singh on why he chose to be an atheist.
What we need right now is to identify that we are still not free. We have the same fate if our fucked up british masters had continued ruling us or our fucked up political masters continue to rule us. I do not blame the political masters or the british masters completely for this. For its Us the people that are TOLERATING this nonsense and we react by refusing to act against nonsense.

Gandhi used Tolerance as a virtue, and now we see it being used against us by our political masters. The more we tolerate here the more we get fucked, period. And we see tolerance everywhere. A govt. officer asks for a bribe, we tolerate and give in and say ‘chalo bhai, 300 ruppaye mein kya hai? De do’. Someone breaks the Red Light Signal, we say ‘chalo bhai, usko koi urgent Kaam Rahega, usse jaane do!!!’. A Politician rapes someone’s child and the news spreads, we say ‘Thank God, Meri Beti nahi hai. Woh politician hai, hum uske against kuch bhi nahi kar sakenge’. The more we show the other chin the more slaps we get. And they will slap us till we are doomed. Which is the state of contemporary India.

Tolerance is an ethical attribute of a philosophy. Tolerance is an action which presupposes a situation and a set of principles to act on. If u have integrity u shall never tolerate something against it. Say for example bribing is against ur principles, U shall never tolerate the offer of a bribe nor shall u tolerate the demand for a bribe. Perpetuating tolerance as a virtue to be held true at all times is suicidal idealism, and it does more harm than good. There can be no perfect example than India.

Bhagat Singh realized this and decided NOT to tolerate. That is what we ought to do. And thats why RDB is a GREAT movie. It contains the message of Intolerance. It contains the message of WHAT to tolerate and WHAT NOT to tolerate.

I am surprised that so many ppl miss out the richness of the movie.
I am also saddened that most ppl need movies like RDB and Swades to think about India. Shows how much we tolerate!!!!