In 1975, two films that went on to become
mega-hits, Sholay and Deewar, were released. What
stumped critics was the runaway success of
another movie released the same year - Jai
Santoshi Maa. The film, based on a vrat katha - a
story narrated during a religious fast - that had
become popular in North India in the 1960s,
expanded on the basic pamphlets on a relatively
unknown deity. Thanks to director Vijay Sharma
and Anita Guha, the actress who played Santoshi
Maa, the film earned cult status drawing crowds
who conflated the identities of the character and
the actress. Anita Guha quietly passed away
earlier this week, ironically at a time when
there is a ruckus about humans being depicted as
gods - women depicted as goddesses, to be precise.
Unlike the late Anita Guha, neither Sonia Gandhi
nor Vasundhara Raje is an actress. Thus, Ms
Gandhi and Ms Raje don’t seem to have the licence
that a performer has to portray established
deities. In the case of Ms Gandhi, some of her
supporters have displayed posters of her as
Goddess Durga (something the Congress Party has
expressed strong disapproval of) while some of Ms
Raje’s supporters have shown their leader as
Goddess Annapurna.
Visual representation of political leaders as
deities is nothing new. But in an overwhelming
number of cases, the leaders being depicted are
given the paraphernalia of divinity - thus making
them gods, rather than associating them directly
with any existing gods. This seems to have been
what has upset a few: the depictions of political
leaders not as towering personalities in their
own right (which would be perfectly all right,
ask the supporters of Jayalalithaa, for instance)
but as Durga and Annapurna.
Culturally, however, even this is not a
blasphemous act in Hinduism. Durga idols in
Calcutta, for instance, have for decades used the
face of a favourite cinema star (Hema Malini,
Aishwarya Rai, etc) as Durga’s. There may have
been aesthetic debates about this practice but
certainly not cultural or religious ones. But
politicians are a different lot when it comes to
’photoshopping’ their faces on to deities. Trying
to usurp religious visual representation for
political purposes can seem underhand -
especially when politicians such as the late NT
Rama Rao have reaped the benefits of playing Lord
Krishna and other deities, both on and off screen.
As for Indira Gandhi and her supporters getting
away with her being compared to Durga, smartly
enough no one bothered putting that down on a
poster. Perhaps, no one needed to forcefully make
the connection anyway.