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How fascism grows and takes over unsuspecting societies
A film by Gauhar Raza
Hindi/Urdu, 24 mins Gauhar Raza’s black and white film uses footage from Hitler’s Germany and the triumphalism of the Third Reich to make a chilling point about the way fascism grows and takes over (unsuspecting) societies. This is a film about learning lessons from history and examining the present in terms of the past. In Dark Times appears to be a simple film of grainy images from a faraway history interspersed with an apparently random selection of shots from close to home. A careful viewing, however, removes the veil of subtlety and the message comes through loud and clear. It is the commentary that lifts the film out of the ordinary. Bertoldt Brecht’s powerful words and warnings (through extracts from his play scripts and poems) about how a society can be easily manipulated by clever rhetoric and cynical stirring up of bourgeois fears ring harsh and true. The film impressionistically traces Hitler’s rise as the leader of a democratically elected minority party that eventually takes over the country. Using unemployment and economic depression as a springboard in a war-ravaged country, the Nazi propaganda machine starts to lay the blame: on communists, and Jews and intellectuals. With amazing swiftness, a nation low on self-esteem and a people struggling to make ends meet transforms itself into a juggernaut of prejudice and hatred. Those that can afford to leave do, other dissenters are eliminated and ethnic cleansing begins under the very noses of polite society. By an inexorable internal logic, the Nazis target art and culture, persecuting artists, burning books and creating a national culture that is purely ‘German’. All this with the tacit consent of the electorate. By raising fears and creating bogeys, the state can easily persuade its citizens to give up their democratic rights, or encourage them to stand by and watch as the rights of the ‘threats’ to society are trampled upon. Raza’s film resonates with Istvan Zsabo’s recent Taking Sides and Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning effort Bowling for Columbine even as it recalls Noam Chomsky’s seminal argument about ‘manufacturing consent’ within democracies. It also shows how the simple fact of democracy and an elected government is no protection against a concerted attack on individual rights and freedoms. But more than that, In Dark Times suggests that we look carefully at what is happening around us these days. Religious groups are targeted and blamed for a host of social and political ills that are both real and imagined, freedom of artistic expression is constantly under threat, the state pays little heed to intellectuals and other social critics, artists are called upon to censor their works or face attacks from various ‘private’ organisations with muscle and the ownership of the past has been wrested from us. It is important to understand that these phenomena are related, that they do not happen independently of each other. It is equally important to realise that silence becomes complicity (if not consent) and that ignorance is no longer an adequate defence. Raza’s allegorical film deserves to be seen and shown lest we sleep through our own darkening times and wake up when it is too late. For more information contact:
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Why we need the art of resistance and protest An interview with Gauhar Raza, filmmaker of In Dark Times, an allegorical film on fascism across generations, cultures and continents
What kind of fora have you shown this film at and what has been the audience reaction?
1998 was Bertolt Brecht’s birth centenary year. On the late Safdar Hashmi’s birthday every year SAHMAT organises a function in Delhi. Safdar Hashmi, a theatre activist, was also a great fan of Bertolt and SAHMAT decided to commemorate Brecht on Safdar’s birth anniversary. The film In Dark Times was produced in July 1998 and was first shown on July 12. Since then, the film has been shown all over India and abroad at thousands of places. It was translated into Malayalam and Tamil and hundreds of copies have been sold and distributed both in VHS and CD format. The film has been used extensively primarily by NGOs who are working on human rights and communalism. It was also screened at schools and colleges all over, most of the time followed by discussions on related subjects. On many occasions I have had a chance to interact with the audience and I feel that the film leaves audiences dumbfounded. They take time to recover; the horror that was unleashed in Germany many years back comes almost alive. Though references to Indian reality are subtle, the audience is able to relate the rise of fascism in Germany to incidents that have occurred in the recent past in India. For Indian audiences, I feel, the efficacy of the film has increased after the Gujarat riots. When I was making this film most of my friends, including revolutionary ones, advised me not to. Fear had gripped many because of the political changes. There was intense resistance to the endeavour from within the production team as well. They objected to the introduction of Indian sequences and some of the sentences that draw a parallel between fascists in India and Hitler’s Germany. The private channel Television International (TVI) for which the documentary was produced, kept it in cold storage for more than six months after its production. After a lot of protest they agreed to telecast the film, but not without a rider. I was forced to show the film to a moderate (Mani Shankar Aiyar, Member of Parliament, Congress I) and an extreme right-winger (Tarun Vijay, editor of Panchajanya, the RSS mouthpiece) in the studio, and record the discussion on film. The film was telecast along with the discussion. The discussion turned out not only an attack on the film but a personal assault on my integrity as a filmmaker. The programme was telecast on January 30, 1999 with an announcement that it would be repeated on February 2nd. It was never repeated, there was intense pressure put on the management not to show it again.
Is your film specific to the current situation in India or do you think it has a wider resonance?
The film was conceived at two levels: one, I wanted to present the lessons that could be learnt from history, and two, I wanted to remind the audience that fascism, if allowed to grow, would see that history was repeated. The film was made at the time when the National Democratic Alliance had come to power in India, led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party. Ironically the prophecy came true in the form of the Gujarat riots. Though the film talks about the current Indian situation, which, since then, has gone from bad to worse, it could have used clips from Chile, Bosnia, Rwanda or Afghanistan. Fascists are not very creative; their character does not change with geographical conditions. Do you think it is possible for nations and peoples to learn from world history? Of course humanity learns continuously from history and therefore ‘histories’ constitute an arena of resistance. No nation or people is a monolithic entity. All societies are fragmented. Revolutionaries learn their lessons from historical processes and incidents and so do status quoists and fascists. The lesson learnt by each is different. Based on these lessons opposing forces sharpen their tools of defence and offence. You have used allegory very effectively in this film. What is the larger role of (fictional) allegory in political dissent and protest? All art forms including films -- be they documentary or fiction -- shape the consciousness. Thus, in a society, the art of resistance and protest plays a major role in taking the target audience to a higher level of consciousness. This cannot be achieved without an element of rigour and creativity. I find Brecht one of the most creative writers, poets and playwrights to influence the consciousness of many generations of creative artists. The use of allegory if handled creatively increases the efficacy of communication and Brecht was a master craftsman who chiselled his creations with this tool. I could pay true homage to him only by using this tool and making the film valid for contemporary Indian conditions. The art of dissent and protest still has a lot to learn from him.
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