Anjani Kumar

Whena special show was organised for screening of the new super hit movie of Akkineni Akhil – Lenin - at a private theatre, there was much excitement in the air. A select few were invited to watch the movie. It was an elite gathering of Hyderabad. The Akkinenis played a perfect host.

As the movie started, it was clear that the genes of the legendary Nageswara Rao and the ever-green Nagarjuna was speaking loudly in the outstanding performance of this young hero. The maturity of Akhil’s acting skill and his successful effort to live in the role of a rural young man was appreciated by all. Akhil has graduated from a hero to a fine artist now.

As violence depicted the prevailing mood of the Indian filmdom, earlier epitomised by Dhurandhar, one wonders if cinema represents the thought process of the contemporary society. If it does, then we need to do introspection about our society. The chat with Amla on the subject of violence in society and its impact on movies was interesting. Bhagyashri and Akhil together sparked a good on screen chemistry.

As we watched the movie, something which struck me was the title of the movie – Lenin. Man searches deep meaning in everything. During the interval while conversing with Akhil and Amla (whom age refuses to touch) the title Lenin was discussed. This part of the country has fascination with this name as there are many Lenin Babus here.

It was understandable in the decades of our independence and thereafter, when young boys were named after global leaders like Gandhi, Lenin, Stalin, Bose, Nehru, Patel, and other icons of those periods. But now in the third decade of the 21st century choosing Lenin as title of a movie has perhaps a special significance.

When the name Lenin appeals to us even after 100 years of Vladimir Lenin’s death, it conveys many meanings. The irony of history is that Lenin and Mahatma Gandhi were contemporaries. Lenin brought the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, and Gandhi came to India from South Africa in 1915 after spending 21 years there. Both giants in their own way in liberating their respective countries from the then existing decadent systems.

Russia under the Tsar had stagnated as a country and as a civilization. India under the British exploitative rule had transformed itself from being the richest country in the world to one of the poorest country in just 200 years. Inequality was the hallmark of both the countries when Lenin and Gandhi took the reins of leadership.

The closest Gandhi came to Russia was through Leo Tolstoy in whose name he had developed a farm in South Africa. Tolstoy’s quote: ‘There is only one thing in this world which is worth dedicating all your life is creating more love and breaking barriers between people’ impacted Gandhi all throughout.

Lenin and Gandhi with their diametrically opposite pathways of Ahimsa versus the Communist violent revolution, brought an end to an exploitative system. India and Russia threw away their respective existing yokes. The Tsarist Russia and the British India primarily represented an unequal society where the few were exploiting the toiling masses. Lenin like Gandhi had kindled a ray of hope with an underlining principle of equality.

When Lenin carried forward the slogan “workers of the world, unite”, it was a global message for unity and struggle against oppression and inequality. Has this slogan lost its relevance now? The Gen Z have to find an answer to this.

While Gandhi remains father of our nation, Russia threw away the communist path in the early 1990s. Gandhi too is facing difficulties as many scholars of WhatsApp University find it fashionable to criticise the Mahatma before whom the world leaders still bow with utmost reverence. India still has to discover a better export than Gandhi.

The misdeeds and purges of Stalinist regime, and the failure of Soviet economy to modernise could not be attributed to Lenin. USSR failed as a State not because of the concept of Lenin but because of the application of a faulty state repressive policy. So far as the inequality in any society looms large, so far as the few controls the vast wealth of the nation, depriving the majority to struggle for daily bread and butter, Lenin would remain relevant.

These names would keep lurking in our minds and would compel the State for a real socialistic pattern of governance and society. It would yearn us to go beyond token doles but a systemic reform within a time bound limits. Giants like Lenin and Gandhi would remain icons of selfless service and inspiring leadership. Such title of a super hit movie reminds us of the harsh realities of economic disparity and an urgent need to address the issue.

(The author is a former Director General of Police, Telangana.)