The hot topic of the day is the open letter by Lady Super
Star Actor Nayanthara to ‘Manmatha Raja’ fame Actor Dhanush. It is related to a 10 Crore demand notice by
Dhanush to Nayanthara for a 3 second clip used by her in her biopic. The clip is said to have been used without
permission of the Producer of the film ‘Nanum Rowdy Dhan’ and is said to be a
click of behind the scene event between the the Lady Super Star and her would
be (and now) husband who was the Director of the said film. As in the case of any controversy, there are
supporters on both sides.
But the immediate question that
came to my mind in this context is, to what extent would ‘behind the scene’
extend? Will it include all that happens
in the sets during the shooting of a particular film? Otherwise, how could a
producer lay claim on all such clippings?
If so, does it not amount to enslaving the entire body, mind and soul, of
all those who are engaged for the project?
In this context, already there
is a raging controversy regarding the call of Mr. Narayana Murthy for a 60 hour
or 70 hour week. When there was a charge
that this was an attempt to put the clock back in respect of labour rights, Mr.
Murthy was unafazed.
Talking about his remark, Murthy told CNBC-TV18, "I rationalized it this
way. If anybody has performed much better than me in their own field, not
necessarily in my field, I would respect, I would call them, and I would say,
where do you think I was wrong in saying this? But I didn't find it. A lot of
my Western friends, a lot of NRIs, and a lot of good people in India called me,
and without exception, they were all very happy. They all said whether it is 70
or 60, that's not the issue."
So he obviously concluded that only those
who supported him were ‘good people’ and others who opposed his idea were ‘bad’.
Now, as if that was not enough,
there was an American born Indian (since that would be an oxymoron, should we
say American born ‘Hindu”?) who along with Elon Musk has been entrusted a huge
task by the President elect, who said that they were looking for those who were
prepared to work for 80 hours a week, without any expectation for returns. Now, only some one entrenched in ‘Karma’
theory could be expected to come up with something like that.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivek_Ramaswamy)
Now, an 80 hour week will mean
nearly 12 hours per day, without a break , i.e 12x7.
What effect it can have on the
young ones who are to be targeted, is a matter of concern, for any well meaning
human being. Even now the web and net
have started strangulating the work force by reducing the time of their
privacy. If individuals do that it will
amount prying. But when organizations who
pay them do it, it is part of work culture – occupational hazard.
It is more than an irony that
this call for an 80 hour week work culture, comes from the land from where
revolt against bonded labour, slavery and long working hours had started as a
part of the great ‘American Revolution’ (1775 to 1783) which was the precursor
to the ‘French Revolution’ (1789 to 1799) and the ‘October Revolution’ (1917 to
1918).
To say, ‘let us gather wealth
first, then we will distribute it’, can be believed only by the naïve. It has not happened, in spite of the efforts
of a Gandhian preaching to the Capitalists that they should consider themselves
only as Trustees. We have only seen real
Trustees themselves behaving like Maharajas of an empire.
We already have seen how the
problem of the growing divide between the haves and have nots all over the
world, could not be solved by any number of economists and their theories.
“The wear and tear of a slave,
it has been said, is at the expense of his master, but that of a free servant
is at his own expense”.
The above statement is not from
a Communist or a Marxist. It is from
Adam Smith in his ‘The Wealth of Nations’.
According to Gandhi, economic equality was the
master key to non-violent independence. If a wide gulf persists between
the capital and the labor, it will eventually end up in a violent
revolution. Also, he asserts that there cannot be true swaraj as long there is
exploitation.
Though this is reproduced in https://cmsadmin.amritmahotsav.nic.in/district-reopsitory-detail.htm?11380#:~:text=Mahatma%20Gandhi%2C%20who%20hailed%20from,to%20maintain%20the%20attained%20freedom.
one really does not know whether if he had said this today, he would have been
a free man. If there had been any riots
after the statement, he would have been booked under charges of instigating
violence. There are enough number of
tough laws for that. Irrespective of the
ideology of those in government, these laws have been strengthened from time to
time.
Then there is another alternative used by the
class with money and power - get the youth addicted to – films, drugs, communalism or politics. They will then have hardly any
time to think about the real chains that fetter them and will fret and fume
at someone whose names they know or faces they could recognize and for any
reactions, they can easily be tackled with some criminal charge or the other.
The money spinning machine can gallantly and
silently walk upon them.
Ultimately, who will answer Tolstoy’s question,
‘How much land does a man need”?.
