Living in the Aftertime
Right off the bat: Time becomes a value-laden project that
accords well with the exclusionary market forces that fuel late capitalism.
Crisis after crisis create the limiting logic of living in time. There is always
the nagging feeling that we are out of time, but this is peculiarly a feature
(careful, not a bug) of living in time. So, what becomes different when we are
living in the aftertime. This question becomes the crucial bedrock in Vince
Gilligan’s 2025 Sci-Fi thriller series, Pluribus. As a sucker for SF
material, I loved the teasing out of the known-unknowns, and the unknown-unknowns
in Pluribus. Many would associate the thematic concerns of the series to
be fundamentally focused on the hive-mind or the post-singularity phase of the techno
society. Even so, what clearly stood out for me was time, as represented and affected
throughout the series. There is clearly a break in time between what is the
pre-hive-mind state and the post-hive-mind state. And, if I remember correctly,
every episode mark time, as this significantly keeps track of the break in time.
This is a conscious decision by the maker to emphasize the stark difference
between the pre and the post.
Clearly, time doesn’t exist as we know it for the
post-singularity phase. The hive-mind is in fact living in the aftertime. There
is no meaningful crisis to the hive-mind, except, complete the whole process of
connection as early as possible. I am sure that time wouldn’t be marked as it
is now after the completion as there would be no meaningful crisis to continue
living in time. Notwithstanding the nonsensical questions pertaining to
happiness or harmony, what Pluribus really asks us is this: are you
willing to live in the aftertime? Are you so hopelessly tied to living in time,
to optimize/style your self? The Personal and the Public become a part of the
question here. But enough of Pluribus.
The Message
Sreenivasan, a generational talent that redefined
Malayalam Cinema, its cultural and political space, passed away recently. Over
the years, his political stance has been scrutinized for its spectral nature.
Yes, Sreenivasan had this spectral idea of politics (maybe even a circular
logic, more on that towards the end) that reimagined itself through the submission
to the local and the global contradictions in politics. There was a Sreenivasan
who sided with the Communal Right-Wing forces. He also had a time when he was
comfortable sitting with the Communists of Kerala. His films are most often criticized
for its ‘apolitical’ statements. Take Sandesham for example. Most
Communists in Kerala would love to write an essay (on X or IG or FB?) on how Sandesham
clearly is an affront to the working-class politics of Kerala.
Here, let me try to point out some inconsistencies in
this argument. First up, the so-called working-class politics in Kerala is
inherently flawed. The structural discrimination that accompanies late
capitalism is ubiquitous. Add caste to the equation and this becomes more
complicated. Secondly, Sreenivasan’s satire on the state of decrepitude of the
practical electoral politics of Kerala is timeless. The depiction of the Communist
party is significant as this comes at a time when there was no ‘popular’ art
form or entertainment that criticized the party for its excesses. This singularity
helped Sandesham a lot. It made sense to many and still does. Of course,
the dialogues that refer to global politics had its precedence in speeches and literature.
We had writers like OV Vijayan criticizing the party for its support of
anti-democratic, totalitarian communist regimes in different countries. But these
essays were not ‘popular’. The contradictions that existed had to have a cultural
channel and Sreenivasan clearly capitalized on the opportunity.
Moreover, this becomes more interesting and relevant if
one studied the practical history of the Communist parties in Kerala. The cold
war global politics of the 20th Century clearly affected the
political line of the party in Kerala. Even when China (PRC) in the late 70s
tried to get closer to the US, Kerala CPIM maintained its anti-US stance. This confusion
and inconsistency extended to other incidents involving the Prague spring, and the
USSR-PRC split. Ideology was clearly becoming a baggage at home. Many left
fellow travelers, writers highlighted the ironies, contradictions that ruled
the dictates of the party.
Now Sandesham is, of course, not a completely
harmless film. The persistent issue in the film is that Sreenivasan doesn’t
offer any sort of alternate leftist working class politics. And of course, this
doesn’t mean that he is promoting apoliticism. Let me explain. The pastoral
power and hyper-masculinity that drives both political parties (in fact,
affecting politics as such), the Congress and the Communist, are clearly put
into question in Sandesham. The history of how these factors shaped the practical
politics in Kerala is very interesting (for more, read Violence of Democracy:
Interparty Conflict in South India by Ruchi Chaturvedi). In the film too,
there is a self-centeredness that serves as the driving force for both the
characters of Jayaram and Sreenivasan to get involved in party politics. The
prospect of getting more popular and powerful is underscored. Once again,
personal welfare becomes more prominent than social welfare. This aspect of the
self-serving individual in an organizing capability of practical politics is
ironic. Here, Sreenivasan attacks the contradiction of the self within the collective,
and thereby advocates to drop the façade and embrace individualism
unapologetically.
The historical context also contributes more meaning
to the film. Sandesham came out in the 1990-1991 era. Neoliberalism as a
system was getting more attention in the 80s and 90s. Many state-dominated
economies were being opened to global capital. This economic system also managed
to use ‘freedom’ as a buzzword to draw in more followers who would secure their
personhood and family. Slowly, RW Libertarianism became a political ideology
that catered to people of both the middle and upper classes. This strain of RW
Libertarianism is exactly what one should find in Sandesham, especially
in its ending. While the Communists in Kerala are eager to label the film as apolitical,
the real politics behind Sandesham lies within libertarianism. The fact
that the Communists got it wrong is somewhat surprising, since it was the same
underlying logic of freedom and the market that exacerbated the dissolution of
the USSR.
And yes, Libertarianism can be very appealing. Though
I haven’t read the Jack London novels, one movie adaptation of Martin Eden
(which I saw) was very interesting. As a matter of fact, there are strains of
libertarianism on the left too. The counterculture movement in the US explored
much of this with communes and drugs. The truth of matter is that the despair
with left politics can gain considerable spaces for libertarianism. Now to get
back to the whole ‘Sandesham as an apolitical film’ allegation; No, the
film has its version of libertarian politics and it clearly comes from a place of
anger and despair with the abuses of practical politics or the front politics
in Kerala. It was specifically from a time where global politics was also
getting shaped under neoliberalism. And yes, it is a classic film with timeless
jokes, but it is also a warning to the left politics which is shifting from its
labor-centric/working-class politics to pure opportunistic electoral politics.
Notwithstanding the politicizing of Sandesham,
what also deserves attention is the individual in the collective. Yes, even in
a form of our electoral democracy where some leaders are in it for their own good,
films like Sandesham might not provide the right answer, but it is always
asking the right question. The right way to counter the contradiction is to
understand the self as contained in a collective totality. Here, Philosophy
provides the much-needed basis. The self finds totality in being alienated
both from the self and the others (which means that there is no totality for
the self). Be that as it may, this perspective helps in solidifying the organizing
principles of our political equations.
The Self
Recently, I watched an interview of Hany Babu and one of
the things he pointed out made me think of a dialogue from a Sreenivasan movie.
Hany Babu, the activist-scholar who had been incarcerated under UAPA for five
years recently got out and, in his interview, he says that, he discovered ALLAH
in his five years of incarceration. He explains that God helped him sustain
himself amidst despair and meaninglessness. And now the Sreenivasan dialogue I
referred to (reflective of a circular logic from the ending of Chinthavishtayaya
Shyamala): “In different stages of our life, different ideologies influence
us. At one stage, we may become revolutionaries, atheists, but as time goes on,
we may become faithful or religious or later in life become philosophers. It is
with this change of living with ideas in time and experience that one finally
finds oneself”.
Question
Should one look forward to the aftertime and accelerate
accordingly?
Or
Should one grow comfortable in time?
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