“Tracing the State
through two indie films: Loktak Lairembee
and Soni”
by:--Rajkumar Panthoiren
Haobam
Paban’s “Loktak Lairembee (Lady of
the Lake)” and Ivan Ayr‘s “Soni” are
two polar opposite narratives in that the former deals with the lower rungs of
society who are practically social immobiles on account of their subservient relationship
with the State which has in Weberian sense the ultimate monopoly of the
“legitimated” exercise of power, while the latter deals with the narrative of
two agents of the State who are caught up in the functional disruptions that
are part and parcel of their work of law enforcement, worsened by their
character disposition of harbouring an intact conscience. The first is based in
the soil of Manipur, or rather on the floating phumdis of Loktak while the second one is based in the rugged
streets and tense police stations of New Delhi—both products of feature film
medium debutants. Both the films serve as a case study through which the Marxian
framework of the State existing as a necessary means to facilitate and sustain
the politico-economic interests of the few ‘haves’, resulting in the absolute
denigration and alienation of the majority ‘have-nots’, can be utilised. Both
reveal the pathological malaise of the normalised ascendance of psychopathic
elements in the ultimate echelon of power games and power consolidation, which
is manifested in the excesses done by the elite political class. Their actions
are in tandem with their sole aim of maintaining the capitalistic power engine
that sustains not only the direct monopolisers of power but also the subsidiary
and other support structures in the form of vested corporate elites. Now, who
does the State use to further the aforementioned excesses? The optimally fed, paid-for
agents of the repressive state apparatus, Louis Althusser would say. In both
the films, the concrete, accessible figure we see is the police while the
over-lordship of their political masters casts a long, dark yet invisible
shadow throughout the story lines.
In
psychoanalytical terms, both the films chart the characters’ internal conflict
between the executive ego and the moral superego and also, the suspended
cognitive dissonance they undergo. The executive ego of the State is very much
active as seen in the special importance it gives to maintaining the “sanctity”
of its formal, rational institutions, while its moral superego has been
appropriated by the dominant elite using self-serving rationalisation
mechanism.
ACT I:
“Loktak Lairembee” has its basic plotline
based on the controversial Loktak lake phumdi
(floating biomass) clearance operations by the Manipur Government in
cahoots with a dubious corporate body in 2011, which resulted in displacement
of several indigenous fisher-folks whose lives depend solely on fishing
activities done in the lake. Tomba and his wife Tharoshang are as deprived, if
not more, as any of the rest of the phumdi-dwellers.
Tomba suffers from some sort of a psychotic depression and there are visible
strands of schizophrenic hallucination and paranoia, which is indicated by his
occasional sighting of the mysterious lady who travels alone in her own boat. His
present condition is a result of a previous burning of their hut for which they
had to relocate, and as the Government continues to burn down huts and dredge phumdis, he is still anxious of another
repetition of his previous fate. A conversation between him and his wife reveal
that they have a daughter studying in Imphal and arranging for her education
fees is a damning task for them, which is worsened by Tomba’s inability to
contribute anything economically on account of his psychological condition. Although
Tharoshang rebukes him for not standing up again as any responsible man should
for his family, he is indifferent but not
unconscious.
A
psychoanalytical understanding would point to the decimation of his masculine ego
which was in a way irreparably damaged by the ultimate, supposedly invincible
outlet of power-consolidation— the State. This was why he needed a push for
reclamation of his protective and assertive male authority image. Yes, he is a
practicing patriarch but he cannot be simplistically reduced to an oppressive
character as a careless feminist misreading might do. In his mind, he failed to
“protect” and “safeguard” the interest of his family; for a man like him who
has nothing more than his simple sanctum
sanctorum called home where a semblance of his projected importance finds a
vent, the sanctity of his living space (the phumdi
hut) to be trampled upon is akin to him being reduced to impotence.
The
incident of discovering the gun (the pivotal metaphoric tool) excites him as
well as shakes him even though he does not have the tools to explicitly articulate
so. The gun serves as a redemptive tool for him to reclaim his lost ground, in
his own eyes as well as in his wife’s. It’s another matter that his hopes would
later turn out to be nothing more than a delusion—an act of a defeated fighter
who has been pinned down and drained of any energy or will but attempts
desperately to throw back a ressurective punch, only to be punched down by the
dominant fighter in decisive terms.
Thus,
Tomba, the defeated fighter, is a non-entity to the State, the dominant
fighter, with no potential for threat either physically or ideologically. In
Marxian terms, Tomba is partly out of the false consciousness loop but doesn’t
have the requisite resources and environs to attain/induce any semblance of
class consciousness. His repressed anger only cripples him psychosocially. This
is representative of his equally subdued phumdi
dweller compatriots. The gun that he planned to use to “defend” (thawai kanba) his family ultimately
pricks his superego and unsettles his executive ego, which shows that even
though helpless, his conscience is very much alive. Or, to restate as a
question, is his conscience alive because he is helplessly subdued by the State?
Contrast this with the mechanical, oppressive nature of the State which is
driven by few vested individuals and which has no remorse in destroying the phumdi dwellers’ lifestyle and also
falsely pinning the blame on them for the lake’s pollution.
To
contextualise, it is pertinent to remember that a company which existed only on
paper, K-Pro Infra Works Limited, was selected for the Rs 224 crore-worth phumdis clearance work, flouting the
norms of CPWD requiring at least three bidders for the award of work. The
company was the lone bidder and came into existence only (on 22 June 2009) after the tender
notice was given (on 4 June 2009)
by the Loktak Development Authority (LDA). The proliferation of phumdis has several artificial causes
such as construction of the Ithai Barrage dam, rapid urbanisation of Imphal,
unchecked sewerage discharge from nearby satellite towns, etc. In earlier
times, the excessive phumdis were
discharged through the Manipur River which is not possible now as the river has
been perennially blocked by the Ithai Barrage. The Loktak Multipurpose Hydroelectric project is
also another factor hugely impacting the ecosystem of the lake. So, instead of
tracing the root causes borne out of careless planning, absence of impact
assessment and furtherance of corporate interests, rather the government had
the audacity to blame the phumdi dwellers,
who share a symbiotic relationship with the lake, for pollution and thus
exonerating itself of its grave missteps which caused the problem in the first
place.
Coming
back to the plot narrative, the last scenes show that Tomba finally gets to use
his gun on that mysterious lady one late night (most probably in a psychotic
hallucination episode). Just after the lady was done in, she miraculously comes
back knocking on Tomba’s door to give him the two used bullet casings from the
two “fatal” shots fired by Tomba. The closing shot shows the camera manoeuvring
underwater in the lake to finally fixate on the gun lying enmeshed in organic
matter. The gun’s fate can be interpreted as Tomba coming to terms (assuming
he, not his wife, threw the gun in the lake) with the fact that his
helplessness and “impotence” cannot be redeemed by confronting the infinitely more
powerful State by violence (his lingering, not acted upon fantasy). The State
thrives on the proliferation of such helplessness and mental bondage.
Also,
the metaphorical image of the haunting
Lairembee of the lake, who doesn’t
die even after being gunned down, represents the invincibility of the State as
an overarching structure which transcends even the impositions of time (constantly
churning, death-less). It’s interesting that the mythical Lairembee’s invincibility somehow impinges upon Tomba’s attempts, howsoever
naive, to secure justice, which ironically places the Lairembee on the side of the State. This can be interpreted as
power colluding with power (the Lairembee
and the State), while indicting the powerless under them for being powerless. This
appropriation of transcendental power by the capitalists gives scant space for
the building up of ‘class for itself’ consciousness of the proletariats. Stray
and individual attempts to reclaim a sense of power is thus, by the very
configuration of the power structure, reduced to delusional and, even if real,
non-threatening abortive attempts, amply illustrated by Tomba’s meek coming to
terms. The film indicates that the capitalistic tendencies function very
efficiently because the State and all its bureaucratic paraphernalia exist
majorly for these interests, not for the overstated welfare functions of all. And
these tendencies are always consolidated by none other than the high
functioning psychopathic elements who come in the form of political leaders and
their corporate backers, begging a disturbing question: is psychopathy an absolutely
needed qualifier in the matrix of functional prerequisites to attain power?
ACT II:
In
“Soni”, we follow the story of two
policewomen in Delhi passionate about fighting crimes against women, but that
doesn’t mean they are to be bracketed as gender-specific police as they are
efficient police officers in all aspects. Being women gives them the extra edge
in comprehending certain nuances involving crimes related to women. Their job
involves decoy operations at night while being undercover in the streets of the
capital city. The title character Soni is the junior of her Superintendent rank
boss Kalpana Ummat, and both share a warm, sisterly bond that cuts through the
formal hierarchy. Both are passionately devoted to their job of fighting crimes
but their temperament is diametrically opposite— Soni is the hot-headed,
righteous rebel while Kalpana is the balanced and well-meaning officer who
gives importance to protocol. This film is a character study of these
policewomen done in very realistic terms. The rational bureaucratic structure
is being scrutinized by questioning its efficacy on the ground level (policy
output vs. policy outcome). Several questions can be framed through the film: what
is the root of crimes such as drugs-related, kidnapping, extortion, political
and bureaucratic embezzlement of funds etc. and gender-related crimes? Does one
reinforce the other, or are they complementary? How does the perversion of economic
base structure come into the picture while looking at the dysfunction of the politico-ideological
superstructure?
On
top of the gritty law enforcement work they do, Soni and Kalpana also have to
fit in the gender roles expected of them at home, more so in Kalpana’s case who
is constantly reminded by her mother-in-law of her wifely obligations such as
bearing a child. Kalpana’s more practical husband Sandeep who is also an IPS
officer, with a higher rank than her, berates her for not being authoritative
enough while dealing with subordinates (referring to her empathetic support of
the “problematic” Soni). Now, there are certain important moments in the film
which shape the characters’ assertion of their organismic selves (Carl Rogers),
each time being cornered by the State’s vested checks and balances system (to
maintain the anomic status quo, a false sense of societal equilibrium).
At
a checkpoint, Soni slaps an uncooperative and misbehaving drunk Naval officer
after several of her warnings were retorted by patronising threats. In the
beginning scene, while undercover in a night decoy operation to check crimes in
the streets, she beats up a molester chasing after her who also didn’t relent
despite being ignored initially. The checkpoint incident induces an
institutional enquiry on her and she gets transferred to a desk job in the police
control room. She gets reinstated to her normal post shortly after Kalpana bats
for her. In the third instance, while she and her supportive boss Kalpana were
in a restaurant having a quiet time, she again gets into a major fight when she
found some pampered hooligans holed up in the ladies’ toilet and consuming some
Class A drug, thus causing public nuisance; in this case too, her reasoning
attempts were futile and she was provoked to physical action when one of the
hooligans breached the sexual lines (the provocateur being a corporate honcho’s
ward). As expected, the police unit’s head (Sandeep) is pressurised by the
corporate honcho, an influential election funder, using his political links. Sandeep,
the practical officer that he is, considers the consequences and relents and
the hooligan is made to go scot-free, which is resented by his wife Kalpana. Soni
is put in the dock again.
So,
it can be clearly seen how the very concept of law enforcement entails
dysfunctional adjustments and accommodations that are concretised through the
strict hierarchical set-up. And the Weberian rationalisation of bureaucracy
prescribing one-fits-all framework is demonstrated by the inter-institutional
consensus (the police and the Navy, in this case) on what is within bounds and
what is not. The Naval officer’s drunk misdemeanour is sidelined as a stray and
excusable thing while Soni slapping him for the very act of disruption of
police work is seen as an act of excess; would this have been the case if in
the place of the Naval officer was a civilian having no political or otherwise
backing? Or rather, would a simple civilian have the motivation or nerve to display
such privileged misuse of authority even in place where their authority, if
any, is not in force? Highly unlikely, except in rare cases of psychological deviance.
This exposes the beautiful lie of the so-called equalising effect of law
enforcement (all equal before the law) because at the end of the day, the law
enforcers are more like authority posers than anything else who are constantly kept
in check by the State’s various vested requirements. And all of these
institutions are subservient to the State and its constant will to the
maintenance of its power concentration.
In
order to maintain this happy nexus, the State has to make several “small adjustments”
such as the case of Soni’s temporary transfer to a desk job to satisfy the
inter-institutional equilibrium and also reinforce intra-institutional hierarchical
role allocation’s strict adherence. Also, in the case of the restaurant
hooligan, Soni was supposedly at fault just because she responded physically to
a serious nuisance causer, while the nuisance causing hooligan’s ticket to
exoneration from lawful persecution was not legal defence but extra-legal
“adjustments”. Police brutality, even to the extent of death, done on weaker
sections of society rarely invites recall and reprimanding of the personnel(s)
involved but even non-deadly physical escalation in cases involving the
privileged sections results in consequences for the personnel(s) involved. This
is the dangerous dichotomy that the State promotes.
In
an interesting turn of events, in the penultimate scene, we see that Kalpana goes
ahead and brings in the already let off restaurant hooligan and this time, frames
several charges on him (drug trafficking, criminal trespassing, attempt to
kidnap and assaulting an officer on duty), to the utter shock of the hooligan
who still threatens her by invoking his privilege. It’s a redemptive and cathartic
act on her part and her own kind of rebelling within the bounds of the system
(set protocol). Despite the potentially aversive consequences involved, she
doesn’t relent which is sort of an act of reclamation of her conscience. It can
also be read as a reassertion of her “position” of an IPS officer that she had achieved
through her own struggles which carried genuine meanings for her
(righteousness, sense of duty, sensitivity for the less fortunate and so on).
In
the final scene, Soni is back in the police control room with a book in her
hand which was gifted by Kalpana: ‘Raseedi
Ticket’ written by the acclaimed Punjabi writer Amrtia Pritam. It’s a
symbolic gesture because the book is the autobiography of a non-conformist of a
different era who lived her life on her terms and so in a way, the solidarity
and solace that Soni and Kalpana shared between them is solidified by the
historical link of another person they mutually admire. They trace their own
turmoil and inner dissonance arising out of their being in acute contact with
harsh social realities to an identifiable figure who, to them, sort of lived
through similar turmoils in her life.
Confluence:
In
“Loktak Lairembee”, the State manages
to subdue Tomba and his nascent rebellion which anyway was borne out of his
psychological disturbance rather than a real, concerted will on his part to better
his life chances. His inability is not something personal to him because like
him, his phumdi dweller ilk does not
have the intellectual and physical resources to match up to the State. Their
material conditions bring them down, the reversal of which they attempt through
investment in their children’s education. But then, they are unable to ensure
top-notch education for their children because education is also a pricey commodified
enterprise meant for the well off and the burgeoning middle class. Tomba’s
attempt to reclaim his lost ground through the discovered gun results in
cognitive dissonance, which gets resolved through his act of abandoning the gun,
out of his view and reach, deep in the lake’s waters. And so, the meek
resolution seals his fate and we are not given any hopes of betterment of
Tomba’s life condition. Tomba’s story is just the tip of the iceberg.
On
the other hand, Kalpana and Soni, even though they are bound by the
dysfunctional and self-serving diktats of the State, are better off as they still
have a scope to right things in areas they can to compensate for the areas they
cannot. The State’s bureaucratic machinery intends to make and expects of one
to become depersonalised, efficient work cogs. The invisible hand that sustains
the iron cage of capitalism doesn’t allow for conscience to function. This way,
many young and bright people who initially were principled and optimistic get
absorbed into the system’s tentacles and become either psychopathic converts or
regress back to the unconscious realm of void, with no personal stand or
opinion on anything. In “Soni”, we
see the struggles of Kalpana and Soni to remain sane and maintain their
integrity while bearing the onslaughts of the State’s dysfunctional adjustments.
Their triumph lies in the fact that they do not relent as easily as the State
might want them to. And maybe, it is because of the existence of many actual
Kalpanas and Sonis in the real world that the State has a slight semblance of
humanity.
All
in all, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the State as we know is a
repository for potential and actual criminalities, with its existence necessitated
by the human need for a representative and symbolic consciousness, and
sustained by absence of fairer, viable alternatives.
“Loktak
Lairembee” won the National Film Award for Best Film on Environment
Conservation/Preservation at the 64th National Film Awards in 2016,
among many other accolades. “Soni” won an award in debut category at the Pingyao
International Film Festival, 2018. Both the
films were received positively in various international film festivals.
