Category: The title of this blog “In Search of India” is an allusion to “Discovery of India” by Jawaharlal Nehru (1st Prime Minister of India). He found it but I’m still searching. This is Part 3 of 4.
It’s been a while since Part 2 was published – I had it drafted but was unable to finish it. But a headline in today’s paper nicely captured the theme I wanted to write about and spurred me into action.
Just to give a context to what these headlines are screaming about – the cricketer above is Sachin Tendulkar from India who hit 200 runs in a match against South Africa yesterday (Feb 24, 2010). This is a score that has so far been unsurpassed – especially considering that 200 runs is often the average score made by a cricket team in a cricket match (1 day version).
Considering the theme of my early posts about India being a land affected by elements, the people here have largely been dependent on authority figures to administer the affairs of the land (could be the cause for authority ranking figuring high in India). This made it very easy for India to have Kingdoms – in fact, on Independence the total count of princely states in India totaled to about 500 odd. The king being the great benefactor was revered by the people to the point of being treated as Gods (not surprisingly enough, some of the Gods in Hinduism were Kings). In fact, I’m reminded of a John Huston movie “The Man Who Would Be King” (starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine; based on a story by Rudyard Kipling) about 2 British soldiers in India who set out to become Kings.
Of course, English and Portuguese never got the stature of Gods and neither did any of the remaining kings of India (who pretty much lost all their power and wealth to the Indian government) – a price for betraying the Indian people by supporting BrItish Raj, I suppose.
So with independence of India, there was a job opening for the role of “God”. And it was surprising ease that Movie stars and Cricketers (note the first letter in capital (sic), like in “God”) took on this mantle.
In my opinion, the Movie star phenomenon probably started around the 60′s with Hindi movie actor Rajesh Khanna becoming the first Superstar (I’m told teenage girls used to get married to his photograph) and eclipsed with Amitabh Bachchan in 70′s and 80′s. Amitabh Bachchan would have stayed on the top had it not been for a near-fatal stomach injury (which had the whole country praying for his health) and an ill-advised entry into politics. These actors were very highly revered but it is the actor in the Tamil movie industry, MG Ramachandran (MGR) who made the successful transition from actor to politician to God (yes, I’ve heard that he has a few temples in his name). And after MGR passed away, it was Rajnikanth who has taken up his mantle (however he has stuck to being in movies and largely staying from politics. In Hindi, of late Shah Rukh Khan (who is also called King Khan) has been getting huge following but then again things are changing. Movies have been democratized in the last 20 years or so and the playing field in the movie industry is being leveled – idol worshipping in Hindi movies, at least seems to be a relic of the past.
India’s love of cricket and cricketers is a more recent love story. India had been playing and flirting with cricket for the last century or so it wasn’t until 1983 that the sport became a full-blown affair. That was the year India won the cricket world cup (starting as underdogs and winning). That was probably the beginning of India’s true love with cricket – and the reverence that it had for its cricketers. Starting with Kapil Dev, all the players since then have won very large following and admirers in India. But none matched the God-like status Sachin Tendulkar (pic. above) had achieved. He has had a remarkably long and very successful career in cricket – and is considered by many to be the best ever. But then, he’s probably the last God of cricket in India. In cricket too – a lot more talent is coming up albeit with a limited shelf life.
What has been interesting for me is that in the last 20 years is how these bastions of Gods have slowly been breaking off post-liberalization. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next 20 years – would we have new Gods or would that be a thing of the past? God knows.
Interesting post Shailesh! The funny thing about scoring 200 runs is…you need to keep playing a LONG time to score 200 runs! I’d probably get tired and/or bored, and want to get out ;)
I realize that the use of the word ‘God’ is somewhat facetious in this usage, but culturally, do you feel that India as a whole is becoming more secular/less religious? If movie stars and cricketeers are more the role models, it would seem like the answer to the question would be ‘yes’…
Yes, you’re right. In India, if you manage to cut across the language divides and have some national appeal – then nothing really matters. I mean, the biggest movie stars in India currently are muslims (Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan). Their religious beliefs haven’t affected (or bothered) anybody. They are liked for who they are.