By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : In the 1950s, when the kings of Nepal ruled the country with an iron hand and political parties were banned, the palace nurtured the birth of the fledgling Nepali film industry to use it for propaganda. Almost six decades later, fate is writing a different script for the industry.
Royalists are on their way out and the Maoists, who after a 10-year guerrilla war from the jungles took their battle against monarchy to Nepal’s parliament, have invaded the silver screen with a string of tales to glorify their “People’s War”.
Maoist supremo Prachanda, who also heads the guerrilla People’s Liberation Army as its supreme commander, is leading the new invasion as well.
With the rebels signing a peace accord with the new government last year, the revolutionary leader, who remained underground for more than 15 years and carried a price on his head, is now trying his hand at the weapon considered mightier than the sword – the pen.
Prachanda, whose revolutionary philosophy is already in Nepal’s bookstores as “Prachandapath”, has also turned lyricist.
His song “Lardeichhu, bardeichhu, muktiyuddha hami lardeichhu” (We are fighting, growing, fighting the liberation war”) is the title song of “Jana Yuddha”, directed by a member of the Maoist cultural brigade Bimal Poudel.
“The chairman wrote it during the Chunwang meet,” Poudel says, referring to a controversial underground meeting of the top leaders of the then banned party in Rolpa district, the heartland of the Maoist movement.
Prachanda and his deputy, Baburam Bhattarai, fell out creating a rift in the party with fears of a split.
“He asked us to add some more songs and make it an opera,” Poudel says. “When I began making my film, I decided to use it with his permission.”
Initially, Poudel also thought of inserting in his film clips from a public meeting addressed by Prachanda in Kathmandu soon after the Maoists signed the truce.
“But the story precluded such a scene and I didn’t want people to dismiss my film as sheer propaganda,” he says.
However, even if Prachanda has not donned the greasepaint, his dreaded People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has.
Vijay K.C., a 28-year-old from Ghoragaon village in Rolpa who joined the Maoists as a school student and rose to become chief of the Pratap Memorial Brigade of the 3rd Division of the PLA, looks like a rock star with his athletic body, dazzling smile and one silver ring dangling from the right ear.
K.C., who became known as Vikalpa during the underground movement, is the hero of another newly made film, “Lal Salaam” directed by Shivaji Lamichhane.
“Lal Salaam” premiered Saturday in Kathmandu’s prestigious Birendra International Convention Centre watched by Prachanda and other Maoist top gun.
Besides Vikalpa, combatants from the 3rd Division also act in the film that shows the hero being captured by the then Royal Nepalese Army and tortured inhumanly.
The PLA dominates the film with the script penned by its deputy commander Janardan, known by his nom de guerre Prabhakar, who is now a Maoist MP.
Only last week, the capital saw the premiere of yet another film on the Maoist war, “Shahid”, marking a new trend in Nepali films.
“Shahid” was watched by a group of Maoist MPs, including a woman legislator who was raped by security forces during the insurgency while her brother was killed.
Sitting quietly in the last row, the hardened Maoist MPs sobbed as the plot unfurled, saying it was their story they were watching.