Truly, it was the last of "people's" revolution, when in 1917 the proletariat Bolsheviks usurped power from the Provincial Government, ending the reign of the Czar monarchy and ushered in the people's government. Lenin, leading from the front, approached the herculean task from two sides, of putting in place a system that 1. aimed to accomplish the goals of the Revolution 2. build upon those goals (foundations) a society that would serve as a beacon of emancipation and model of emulation to other repressed and oppressed peoples around. Armed struggled had accomplished its part of wiping the slate clean, and it was then the turn of the intellectuals, philosophers, thinkers and politicians to put their heads together into building their utopian world. And so it happened for over ten days a furious and a chaotic brainstorming session involving stakeholders from the Russian society, sympathizers and enthusiasts who traveled from all over the world wanting to take part in the process of welding of interests, melding of ideas and forging of ideals, as captured in great detail the birth pangs of communism in "Ten days that shook the world" by John Reed. Surely, after that, Soviet Russia should had "lived happily ever after", for this was a society that was built on great thoughts and noble intentions, where the cog of the wheel that moved the society forward was the worker and not the ruler, where labor was supposed to seated at the head of the table and where the ruler's sole job was being a custodian of the fruits of labor and never a beneficiary of it.
Move forward just a few decades from that point, and more Russians were dead during the second world war and under Stalinist regime than ever in recorded modern human history, the Communist Party firmed up its vice grip not just on its civilian society, but on more than half the world, toppling, derailing and destabilizing regimes in its favor, all to eventually meet its end, quite ironically, through another internal reformation process in the 90s. How could it happen, a society that started off with so full of hope and aspiration turn into a cesspool of despondency and despair, in just a couple of decades? At the center of the communist manifesto lay an innocuous statement that not even the great visionaries could see the far-reaching effects of - the mighty state can only be sustained with great power. And that single statement didn't just create a Communist State, it created a Communist System and any system that involves power simply self-perpetuates, in it, it aims to protect itself, sustain itself and thrive by any means necessary.
"Republic" is not about the society, it is not about the individuals, and it is definitely not about ideologies, it is about that self-sustaining system that draws in the nutritional part of the society and simply spits out the thresh from the other end. It tries to understand the beating heart behind the system, the one that makes it tick regardless of who is at the helm - is it the individual who is so wedded to power that he cannot extricate himself once caught in its web and so desperately clings on to it at all costs, is the rules of the game that exist at the nexus of conflict of interests and survival of the fittest, or is it the paradoxical system itself that survives on best intentions but constantly feeds itself on worst motivations? In business realms, closed loop processes are much sought after, for, once a process is carefully thought of and properly designed, it should be able to sustain itself with little to no human input during its execution, as human involvement is considered to be both the weakest and the costliest part of any system, and avoiding/eliminating it as much as possible brings the system to its optimal efficiency. Take the example of corruption. Punishments - stringent, severe and harsh - could not root out the issue from public spheres, even in hawkish societies like China. However, once technology came to the fore and human involvement was sidelined, the spheres of influence of corruption was mitigated to a certain extent. However, in political spheres, these closed loop processes have become a bane to the societies, where both the people and politicians find it near impossible to pull themselves out of vicious circle.
A young politician with all the right ideals enters the fray. For him to make a positive impact on the society, he needs to get closer to the seat of power. Running a campaign costs money, and winning it even more. Ideals might earn him cheers but winning takes votes and votes come with money. And the politician, even without his knowledge (or against his conscience), goes after money. Business lends money and it expects something in return. The first compromise with (dent to) his ideals is made. Like it is with votes, power demands a blood oath, an oath that this closed loop system would be protected at all costs, that once in power the idealistic politician would not bite the hand of those same businesses that were now demanding their pound of flesh in return. This is on the politician end. Now at the people's end. Situations remaining as they are, prejudices being what they are, illiteracy, illogic and raw emotions being how they are, expecting the electorate to rise above them all, and sometimes go against their own grain, all for a greater good of the society is a little much to expect of them. And so bribes, inducements, freebies and offers flood their way during the election time and another closed loop is created. No one person is in charge of these processes and systems and yet everyone is a willing participant. Reject it to be termed a radical, condemn it to be called naive. At the root of it all lies the grand illusion, the one to the voter, that he decides who gets to take the seat every X number of years. Sure, he gets to play a part in someone else's fate, but when it comes to his own, fates and facts remain unchanged regardless of who is in power. As Churchill pointed out, democracy is the worst form of government after everything else has been tried. Communism hobbled away into oblivion and democracy is dangerously teetering on the precipice. So which system is in line to be the next savior?
Very rare it is in the telugu film scene that a movie dealing with politics does not draw up clear battle lines between "good" and "bad". And even rarer when the politician is portrayed as much a prisoner, a victim of the system as the public that is ruled over. Trapped in a system that is pulled in different directions by groups, castes, special interests, businesses, religions, languages and states, to appear equitable distributing resources among the above without risking the ire of any, bringing all these divergent forces together and have them march in a single direction of progress and development, and above all keeping all personal emotions out of it, is what the current political climate is up against.... and miserably failing at it. Who is to be blamed here, the player or the game itself? Dev Katta's thoughts shines through all throughout pointing at the glaring contradictions at every step and when the final part rolls out on the screen, the question lingers on as an aftertaste, whether it is idealism that is the true anomaly of the system and not anarchy, for, as history proves time and again, idealism is often a flash in the pan, while it is the anarchy that truly lingers on. Dev Katta's "Republic" is not merely a movie, it is a social treatise about the systemic malaise. Outstanding!
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