Title: Neta-Abhineta
Author: Rasheed Kidwai
Publisher: Hachette India
Pages: 354
Price: Rs. 599
Siyasat aur adakaari Dono(n) mein hai riyakaari —Sahir Ludhianavi
(Politics and acting are mere showbiz)
Ronald Reagan was an actor who joined politics and became the US President. In fact, his political career was much more remarkable than his acting stint. “Actors and politicians belong to the same ilk because politicians are basically actors, albeit on a political stage,” opined Nirad C Chaudhury in his book The Continent of Circe.
Rasheed Kidwai’s Neta Abhineta is one absorbing book that nicely analyses this phenomenon in Indian, precisely Bollywood, context as many an actor of the past and present eras chose to jump into the political arena once they got a whiff of their declining careers.
Rasheed has explained this transition in his own inimitable manner. Film actors are people who are inured to hogging the limelight. They become so enamoured of the public adulation that the very thought of not getting it once they become a passe is dreadful to them. They want to perpetuate that mass adulation till they breathe their last. These actors find the same kind of mass hysteria and public prostrations in political sphere. In India, actors and politicians are the most privileged people who enjoy people’s slavish attention. These guys are also often above reproach. So, from acting to joining politics for that seamless and uninterrupted adoration is quite viable to the actors.
At the same time, there have been actors who joined politics when they were nicely ensconced in Bollywood scenario. Amitabh Bachchan and Govinda (to some extent) can be adduced as examples of two active actors joining politics and getting disillusioned with it ’ere long. They wanted to encash their cinematic popularity in the sphere of politics which is an altogether different ball-game. Both fell with a thud and forgot to join politics again.
Rasheed has chronicled the actors from Dilip Kumar to today’s actors-turned-politicians. Without being judgmental in his book, the author has described the intents and motives of these actors who joined politics and how far they succeeded in their second innings.
To be honest, most of the actors remained novices and greenhorns in politics because they were not seasoned politicians. Moreover, barring a couple of really serious and dedicated politicians like Sunil Dutt, the rest of the actors who joined politics remained perennial outsiders. In other words, politics could not become their bailiwicks.
Actor-politician like Shatrughan Sinha, Dharmendra, Hema Malini. etc. made a mistake (though they are still in politics) by erroneously thinking filmdom as their political fiefdom. The author has made this book likeable in the sense that he’s not made it a political treatise. Remember, plain politics is as boring as a boiled egg sans salt. The angle of Bollywood infuses spices into the corpus of the book.
The rare anecdotes and popular gossip make it an excellent book. Those weaned on Bollywood, its actors and their capers, will find this book worth-lapping.