Avengers’ and its parallels to the Hindu right ideology.

The Avengers’ series has recently concluded and since I have followed the series from early on at the end of the endgame movie I was sitting watching credits presented on the screen to wait for any new hints of the new movie as every Marvel fan does. That was not to be, but while I was sitting there a thought did arise in my mind on the undercurrent message of the series and its parallels to the Hindu right movement in India. Movies do teach and influence us a lot and is a powerful medium to convey the message and hence I try to explore and argue the case for the Hindu right movement using the most successful franchise in modern times Avengers’. For the scope of this blog let’s focus on the three Avengers’ movies the civil war, infinity war and the endgame.

Civil war: The Avengers’ the supposed invincible who could do nothing wrong, find themselves at the midst of the entire opposite in this movie. Doubt, suspicion, infighting grip the mighty and they are pitted against each other the two strongest of them our heroes the immortals and the people who could do no wrong seem only humane, mortals and with same emotions as average individuals. Not everything they thought they did right was right after all and heroism comes crumbling for us viewers.

The same story applies to the Hindu in a sense that the civilization once glorious and torch bearer of the human excellence is marked by caste discriminations and infighting and internal territory wars, pitting of one king against the other, doubt suspicion, differences and ego overpowering the cause of the greater good. The result was no different than avengers and we became fragile and weak and came at a brink of collapse.

The Infinity war: Infinity war shows how the team regroups and tries and defends against external threat to the world. The resistance they put is heroic and praise worthy the outcome not so much favorable. The infinity war shows how even the mighty who take on the great external force called Thanos were unsuccessful in their attempts to fend the enemy off. The result is utter mayhem and destruction of wealth, prosperity and human life. The utter loss of hope over the helplessness of even the greatest is numbing as an experience in the reel. The mighty Avengers’ fall! The external force too hard for them to recover and half the world vanished.

The same can be said about the hindu civilization. The civilization which came to the brink of collapse due to internal reasons did collapse and fell to the external force, 1^st the invading Arab, Turks and Mongol (mughal) armies invaded India and destroyed and created havoc. The destruction was horrific, temples universities and common people nothing was spared. There were off course periods of resistance and of momentary peace but the end result was no different than the avengers’. The sad part was the destruction continued post the Islamic fall and power shifted to the Brits whose rule was no different and the destruction was complete. By the end India was left divided into 3 parts, economy devastated and the pillage complete. The independence did come but at a huge price to pay for it. All seem lost.

Endgame:  The avengers’ survived and struggled almost hopelessly trying to forget the past and  script the revival when they figure the time travel by condensing the universe and replicating it to a smaller form. They do it to write the wrong historically by changing the past and do it successfully. But hey wait is that so simple. Off course not! Enters Thanos again! The climax is beautifully shot and the cinematic experience brilliant. But the two messages that stand out from the climax are. There is a scene were Thanos says,”That I left this place after destroying half of it so that the other half can survive, but humans have memories and try to correct the historical wrongs and So this time I will destroy the entire population and create a new one without the memory of the past so that they does not try and reclaim it because they don’t  not know what happened.” Off course Thnos is defeated and there is a happy ending. It’s a movie after all.

The Hindu revival is a similar story, of defeat but more importantly of survival and of re-writing the historical wrongs. The left liberals were smarter than Thanos in a way,  they knew that humans have memory and hence they made every effort in the past 70 years to re write the history, wipe out the past atrocities and tried to recreate a false narrative of peace and aman ki asha. What they forgot was the resistance this civilization had given for almost millennia could not be overwritten so easily. We after all are tuff nuts to crack.   The avengers’ had the time travel options with them. But real life does not offer time travel. The fight for reclaiming and rewriting historical wrongs is on as was with avengers, it is a process to reclaim the lost glory and bring the past to some respectable self it once stood.

 The Ram janma bhoomi movement, the dalit rights for reservation and equality and the outrage over the lopsided interpretations by  the left libs devoid of the sense of history is but the manifestation of this very struggle for freedom, liberty and the lost pride. As Naipaul said in the wounded civilization and million mutinies India is a work in progress. From the infighting and defeat to reclaiming and glory this story has many parallels to the avengers. The avengers had 1 in a 14 million chance and they pulled it off because it was scripted. The hindu (the indic fold –all indic dharmic traditions) struggle is not yet complete and has a long way to go. This does not mean discrimination against other people but to reconcile with others and itself. Till this happens the India story of whatever it achieves materially will always be without the soul of the civilization and its Dharmic traditions.

 We don’t have the infinity stones or the time travel nor is it the movie to have happy endings but denying the Hindu right of struggle to reclaim the lost glory is like denying the avengers their victory, and none of us will like to see the avengers lose. Yes movies do teach us a lot.