Revisiting Murali Gopy’s ‘Left Right Left’ as LDF assumes power again under CM Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala
While almost everyone has associated LDF’s return to power in Kerala, beating the so-called anti-incumbency factor, with its strongman leader and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, there is a movie that merits a second view: Left Right Left, written by Murali Gopy, and directed by Arun Kumar Aravind.
When Left Right Left released on June 14, 2013, it faced an unprecedented dilemma: It couldn’t find theatres in some northern towns of Kerala. Towns that have been the bastions of CPI (M).
The reason: Many part members felt the film derided Pinarayi Vijayan, the then secretary of Kerala state committee of the party.
From 2002 to 2015, Pinarayi had focused on building the party, not assuming a ministerial role, one that had earlier landed him in trouble, for his controversial role in the SNC Lavalin contract. Acquitted by the Kerala High Court in 2017, CBI’s petition against him is pending in Supreme Court.
One of the many premises of LRL hangs on a similar corruption deal. The towering leftist leader in the film, Kaitheri Sahadevan (Hareesh Peradi) who is accused by ‘disgruntled’ party members of amassing a fortune.
The baggage of murders past
Those who incur the wrath of Kaitheri are not forgiven.
The two disgruntled workers who bring the ‘corruption deal’ to light are disposed of, despite the pleas of Che Guevara Roy (Murali Gopy — in one searing performance as an actor that races neck-to-neck with his writer-brilliance) to Kaitheri to spare them.
This also leads to one of the seminal moments in the film: The face-off between Kaitheri and Roy.
Kaitheri is unequivocal, arrogant, defiant.
Roy is spared, he is told, because Kaitheri has respect for Roy’s father, who was brutally murdered during the Emergency period.
Just as Roy’s leftist ideology is shaped by his dad’s left leanings, so is Kaitheri, a powerful depiction of how centuries of social injustice led to the surge of the Left.
There is a compelling monologue on the factors that shaped him — the servitude of his grandfather, the death of his dad and father-figure — and the ignobility of unjust social practices that once prevailed in the state, including untouchability.
Murali’s observations of the society and the party are impeccable — and no Leftist will counter that.
The Tank Man
It is when Murali moves to contemporary politics that the film’s politics becomes disturbing, as many pointed out.
In a scene that brings to mind the ‘Tank Man’ — the lone Chinese protestor at Tiananmen Square — of whom nothing has been heard since — the stand-off between Kaitheri and Roy becomes scathing for its brutal honesty.
Unable to meet Kaitheri formally, Roy has way-sided the leader. Kaitheri is bemused not shaken. Nothing shakes him, after all. Hareesh Peradi is magic in this scene.
He bluntly tells Roy that the scandal is not without merit.
The money has been pocketed — but not for his personal benefit, no sir, not even a penny. But every penny, for the party.
Money to beat the bourgeoise in their own game.
Money that even benefits even Roy and his wife indirectly.
Money that is needed to win. Money that is needed to be in power.
It is not a wrong. Not a mistake.
But an essential. As Kaitheri says, drawing analogy from football that he loves, “To score a goal with your left leg, you need the right.”
It is a stark scene. Disturbing for idealist party members. And that it ruffled the feathers of many is the victory of Murali.
Rise of the personality cult
It shows, perhaps for the first time in Malayalam cinema, without caricature-like, stereotypical portrayals of politicians, the Stalinist-Fascist streak of a leftist leader on screen.
That it found disturbing resonance among many shows what many party members would not like to admit in public: That their leaders are not beyond suspicion.
Maybe they can take consolation that some of their leaders are not ‘personally’ corrupt — but as a verdict on integrity, it is as damning as one could get it.
As they say of integrity, you either have it whole or none.
That brings us to the real thing: The LRL factor that the left-leaning will find disturbing. The X-factor that is relevant now as in the past five years.
The rise of personality cult in the party.
The unambiguous message of LRL is that in a democracy when the left succumbs to personality cult, it becomes as right wing as it gets.
And then, any contest, becomes one of right wing versus right wing. That is what Kerala just witnessed. The Left as Right.
That is also why CPI(M) rushes to say that the victory in Kerala is “not due to Pinarayi Vijayan but a collective one.”
Caught in between, the common people
LRL is one of Murali Gopy’s perfect scripts — each in its own league and genre. Though LRL might not have minted money like Lucifer, as a movie with many wefts and warps of narratives, it surprises you and catches you off guard, even in repeated viewing.
The film and its characters — each one of them without fail — latches on your thoughts and like the hum of the flies that accompanies Vattu Jayan (Indrajith), the foolhardy cop, they annoy you — because here is a film that tells the truth. The despicable truth.
In the prologue to the movie, Roy asks his father about communists and why they are being killed. The answer is: “Communists tell the truth.”
From a party that prided on truth, has CPI (M) buried many a truth in recent years?
Unlike the time when LRL released and the party did not have a PR machinery or social media supporters, does the party do and go by the absolute truth, the absolute ideals now?
Will those who speak the truth be tolerated?
Party members, who sit on the sidelines, are best fit to tell us the answer.
The Sanghi debate
LRL is used by many to present Murali as a pro-Hindutva writer, a Sanghi, as they call to demean.
Apart from the criticism of the money-power-politics, they draw out a dialogue to drive home the point: Of an ABVP worker stating that even the most copious shedding of red cannot change the saffron colour of the soil.
The retort by Roy is now conveniently forgotten.
Condemning the communal agenda, he says that even amidst rabid communalism, there are the islands of red, their kindness giving hope to millions.
An artist has the right to portray life as she/he sees it. Just because you do not like something, you cannot have the fatwa-mindset against artists who present what is around you.
Like it or not, the BJP is a political party, and the RSS has as much history as the Leftists in Kerala. Not depicting them in movies do not take them away from the society.
Though written eight years back, LRL in fact holds a mirror to contemporary Kerala. Unlike what many Leftists argued of the film attracting young men to the Hindutva agenda, it — I believe — has put a check on the most dangerous of all — the rise of rabid apoliticism.
That is what one of the film’s most defining characters — the excellent Indrajith as Vattu (meaning mad) Jayan presents.
Like Roy and Kaitheri, he too has seen devastating losses. He is also moulded by the same bitterness, pangs, and frustrations of the two, having seen his sister die due to improper medical care.
The apolitical danger
In his face-off with Kaitheri, Roy warns the leader: “First comes the revolution of the peaceful. The next revolution will be led by the mad.”
Jayan is that lunatic — who spurred by the spirit of vengeance — attacks Kaitheri in the climax. The mad man, the lunatic without politics, taking on the establishment. Isn’t that the most disturbing of all?
It is to the credit of the Left that they identified the danger of apolitical masses — perhaps thanks to LRL.
In the past years, the vehement attack on BJP (with the high moral ground of defeating the communalism) has served as a potent force and a very strategic one for the left: It has rallied more young people to its fold, which helped it considerably in the elections.
Ironically, it also helped the BJP grow — at the expense of the Congress, which now appears to be the party without a clear agenda.
But most definitely, it curbed the rise of those without a politics — the fence-sitters who help win elections and can also turn dangerously rabid.
So, for once, perhaps the leftists must say, thank you Murali!
ENDS
