Nandita the Naxalite at Bihar box-office

IT’S an arresting scene. Men and women in green uniforms clutching long-range rifles move stealthily through the lush foliage. Their ey...

IT’S an arresting scene. Men and women in green uniforms clutching long-range rifles move stealthily through the lush foliage. Their eyes fixed on an unsuspecting policeman in a jeep. Finally, they go for the kill, ambushing the policemen on a bridge. The crowd bursts into lusty cheers as a very militant Nandita Das clobbers the cop with the butt of her rifle, and then shouts Lal Salaam.

It’s a while before the claps die down. But a section of the crowd in a Patna theatre continues to cheer. At the end of the film, the group of 50 gathers outside and listens attentively as its leader launches an impromptu harangue against the men in khaki. ‘‘Policemen commit atrocities and Naxalites make them pay for it,’’ he thunders to the surging crowd. This is Sarvan, the unit chief of the People’s War Group, who is making the most of the movie to harp on police atrocities.

Lal Salaam is creating more than just waves in Bihar. The PWG has absorbed the movie into its cultural arsenal to recruit villagers. ‘‘What you see in the movie is happening here. Just last week, a Naxal was killed in a fake encounter by the police,’’ says a PWG cadre member who doesn’t reveal his name, but says we can call him Ajay. He fishes out a pirated videotape of the film from his bag and waves it. ‘‘This will now be taken to various villages and shown to recruit people,’’ he says.

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In Patna, where the movie is showing in only one cinema theatre, it’s been running to full houses four shows a day. Strangely, the management insists it hasn’t been doing well and they will keep only the morning show.

On Thursday, a large and mixed crowd shows up for the 11pm show. Surprisingly, many of them are rustics who clap and hoot whenever a policeman is beaten up by a Naxalite taking revenge for the atrocities heaped on him.

At Buxar and Muzzafarpur, the PWG cadres are taking villagers to theatres to show them the movie. In remote villages, they are taking the help of pirated cassettes to get their message across. The Bihar police say they are worried that their image, which was never rosy, will get tarnished further. ‘‘A lot of people, especially angry young men, have a feeling that the policemen visit their village only to harass them,’’ DGP police R.R. Prasad told this reporter, adding that they will counter the Naxal propaganda by setting up cultural groups.

‘‘This movie fosters general contempt for the police. The censors should have taken notice of this,’’ fumes IG (Operations) Nilmani, who admits that it is a readymade propaganda material for the Naxals.

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Directed by Gaganvihari Boratte, the movie is woven around Rupi, an Adivasi girl played by Nandita Das, who is raped by a policeman and then becomes a Naxalite to avenge her humiliation.

Lal Salaam has comes as godsend for the Naxalites in Bihar, who have always relied heavily on art and culture to spread the word. Their cultural potpourri includes groups like the Nari Mukti Sangh, Janwadi Shramik Sangh and Krantikari Sanskriti Sangh, which hold dance and song programmes, street plays, bhajan recitals, et al, to focus attention on brutalities committed by the men in khaki.

The film’s producer, Sanjiv Karambelkar, had earlier postponed the release of the film due to violence in Gujarat. He couldn’t have imagined the impact it would have on Bihar.