The ‘debate’ over caste-based reservations (a settled debate in many ways) was deliberately raked up by Aarakshan’s makers as a conscious marketing strategy. The pronouncements of prominent figures associated with the film prompted natural suspicions about its intent, and led to widespread protests and even bans in some states before its release.

It is true that the film, strictly speaking, is not blatantly casteist or openly abusive of deprived castes or of caste-based reservations. Its first scene shows caste and class discrimination in jobs faced by a young dalit man (played by Saif Ali Khan). In the scenes where conflict over ‘reservation vs merit’ is dealt with, it is the powerful dalit rejoinder by Saif has emotive impact, not the casteist taunts by the villainous Mithilesh Singh (peddler of commercial coaching, played by Manoj Bajpai). The idealistic teacher Prabhakar Anand (Amitabh Bachchan) rebuffs casteist parents who say deprived kids stink and demand separate classrooms, by saying “It’s your ideas which stink.” The central character (Prabhakar) does support the Supreme Court verdict upholding OBC reservations, saying that centuries of caste-based oppression call for a caste-based correctives. So far, so good.

That said, let us ask if the film is honest in its treatment of reservation and commercialisation of education, the two issues it claims to address? The answer is, unfortunately, no.

A film with ‘Aarakshan’ (reservation) in its title would naturally be expected to do justice to the issue of reservation. Strangely, the title is misleading. The opening part of the film does deal with the question of reservation, but soon the film abandons that plot entirely. Instead it moves on to the confrontation between the idealistic teacher and the peddler of commercialised ‘coaching’. It is almost as if one is watching two separate films.

The most glaring dishonesty lies in the way Prakash Jha connects the ‘reservation’ plot with the ‘commercialisation of education’ plot. What Jha does is to peddle the fiction that coaching classes and the marketisation of education are by-products of reservations! This argument has been made time and again by Jha, Bachchan and others connected to the film. Prakash Jha said, “Reservation came, the number of seats decreased, competition increased and encouraged private coaching. Ironically, reservation’s main aim was to bring equality but it ended up dividing us further.” (Indian Express, June 17) In a similar vein, Bachchan (TOI July 28) suggested, “We must find out if commercialization of education is the result of a mad race for seats triggered by reservation.” The film’s argument goes something like this: after the Supreme Court verdict upholding 27% reservations for OBCs, upper caste students were pushed out of education, and therefore flocked to commercial coaching institutes in a desperate attempt to compete for the shrinking seats. In the film, Prabhakar, while supporting the SC verdict, talks of the need to understand the ‘pain’ of the upper caste students who lose out on admission due to reservations.

But the above argument is a deliberate fiction – resting on an absolute falsehood. For one thing, OBC reservation in education came with a corresponding increase in seats for general category candidates. So, the plain fact is that OBC reservation in education has not led to loss of a single seat for general category candidates. But isn’t it a fact that the competition in education is steadily increasing, leading to desperation and even suicides among students? Isn’t commercialisation – in the shape of privatisation, steep fees, predatory teaching/coaching shops, donation/capitation fees etc a grim reality? All this is true - but none of it can be blamed on reservations!

The film makes a deliberately wrong diagnosis of the ‘pain’ that Prabhakar speaks of, and its prescription too is all wrong. Upper caste students do not have a monopoly on the pain of being pushed out of higher education thanks to shrinking opportunities. The policies of privatisation and commercialisation of education date back to 1990, and preceded those of OBC reservations in education (2008). It is those policies that have led to the steady shrinkage of seats in colleges and universities. Those policies are not just pushing out upper caste students who can’t afford high fees or donations or who can’t meet the steep marks required for admissions. Reserved category students too are at the receiving end – because 22.5% or 27% of a shrinking pie means fewer students of these sections can benefit. Also they are, in general, even less able to afford the steep fees and donations.

The ‘painful’ situation in education today, where seats are ‘reserved’ (by the power of money) for the rich and the poor pushed out; and where students getting 90% marks are denied admission in DU colleges; can be changed only by resisting privatisation and demanding publicly funded education for all. The film hides the truth of privatisation behind a smokescreen of ‘reservation.’ It also situates ‘commercialisation’ only in the coaching classes; the private college of which Prabhakar is the principal is never accused of ‘commercialisation’!

The final confrontation takes place when Prabhakar starts free coaching in a ‘tabela’ (cowshed), and, when its success threatens his coaching institute, Mithilesh gets the police ready to bulldoze it. But this conflict between the idealistic teacher and the coaching shark (backed by the Government and police) is resolved by – believe it or not – the power of money! The rich and spiritual founder-patron of the private college (Hema Malini in a cameo role) turns up as a deus ex machina, and with a single phone call to the CM, makes the police beat a retreat, and dismisses the coaching-walas from the college.

Prabhakar’s wife articulates the familiar argument – ‘Reservations are unfair to the upper castes; instead, give primary education to the deprived castes and then let them compete on merit.” Prabhakar rejects this argument. But the film leaves the reservation debate unresolved, eventually ending on a note that tacitly upholds the ‘education is the solution’ view.

The initial part of the film gives us acrimonious debates over reservation, where the dalit Deepak, played by Saif, asserts his identity, demands reservation as a right, resents Prabhakar’s ‘charity’ to him and tells him there’s no middle road on the question of reservations. The tensions caused by this dalit assertion all vanish painlessly in the face of the paternalistic upper caste teacher (Prabhakar) who selflessly imparts education to all, irrespective of caste. Sushant (played by Prateik), who represents the upper caste student who protests against reservation, is never shown to come to any new realisation about reservation. Rather, both Saif’s character and Prateik’s come to a realisation that they’ve misjudged Bachchan, whose commitment to teaching, they are shown to recognise, is far nobler than any petty debates over reservation! The prickly issue of whether private colleges should implement reservation is quietly dropped in the latter part, and instead the film ends on a triumphant note when the rich patron of the private college starts free remedial classes for weak students!

The film also tacitly endorses the myth that reservation has ‘divided’ youth on the basis of caste. It shows love and friendship among young men and women of different castes. This state of caste-less innocence, the film suggests, is rudely broken by the loss of innocence caused by OBC reservations. This pre-reservation paradise of castelessness is pure fiction. Don’t we live in a world where, reservations or not, khap panchayats and families kill inter-caste couples, and where matrimonial columns are as a rule rigidly divided on caste lines? Our youth never lived in a state of castelessness – they have always been hyper-aware of caste.

Given this basic dishonesty at the core of the film, it is hardly surprising that it has angered dalits and OBCs. What has contributed to the anger is the pronouncements of the actors during promotional events. Bachchan, (TOI July 28), for instance, begins by paying lip service to the reservation policy on a purely technical ground: “Since it has been endorsed by the Supreme Court and the Parliament and sanctioned by laws, Indians have no choice but to obey and accept it.” But he then goes on to call for a ‘review’ of reservations: “But we need to assess whether it’s really helping uplift the backward classes or widening the rift between the privileged and the have-nots. ...the time has come to examine if reservations have really been able to create a level playing field for students from all sections of the society.”

Jha was also criticised by dalits for casting Saif, a son of a nawab in real life, in the role of a dalit. The question is not whether Saif is convincing in his role or not. Saif’s own attitude is ground for serious outrage. For instance, Saif has repeatedly said reservations are needed because they might have kept a revolution at bay: a truly self-serving reason for royalty to support reservations! Speaking to one paper (HT August 10), Saif said, pointing out that his father too had sent him abroad for studies, “I’m going to work really hard to send my children abroad. And if necessary, ensure that they don’t need to work. I know it’s an escapist attitude but how do you change the system and bring equality in a huge country like ours?” Breathtaking gall, indeed, for nawabs who can afford to pay for a foreign education and whose kids never have to work, to complain of ‘inequality’?! Most revealing of all was Saif’s assurance that in order to prepare for his role, he “met some people from that (dalit) strata of society!”

Be it caste discrimination or commercialisation, the film offers a fairy tale solution in noble individual teachers and the charity of the rich. Prakash Jha should have known better than imagine he could get away with exploiting the reservation and commercialisation issues for profit, and then expect people to swallow a facile and false formula.