And then there's this

[selenak]

The other day, I could hear Arundhati Roy present her new novel and talk about the situation in India today in Munich. And reinforced that by now, I'm not just bugged but disturbed by part of Kala's storyline in Sense8, because it's so exactly in contrast to Indian reality, and so exactly what a vicious government propagandist would want people to believe, that I'm starting to wonder whether the reason why the Wachowskis and JMS came up with it wasn't that they otherwise would not get permission to film in India.

Again: Kala's later father-in-law being an open atheist in today's BJP-run India is already unlikely if he's simultanously an influential businessman with influence in politics, who as of s2 even gets a ministry post. That he's able to nearly stop worship at a Hindu temple in s1 and pass an "anti-idolotary law" in s2 puts it beyond unlikely and into BJP territory. Why? Because consider the depth of current day Hindu fundamentalism from Modi (the PM) downwards. Arundhati Roy mentioned the saying "there are just two places for Muslims - the grave and Pakistan", which gets said by officials in the country with the second largest Muslim population in the world (Indonesia has the largest). People get lynched for the crime of possessing or eating beef. Modi belongs to the RSS, the same organisation Gandhi's assassin did, and the vocabulary of said assassin is now mainstream politics. A popular taunt makes the word "secular" into "sickular". An MP could say Arundhati Roy should be used as a human shield in the war in Kashmir to punish her dissent, and not get reprimanded but applauded. (For more, check out check out these statements by today's most famous Indian origin writers.) Basically: the kind of story Sense8 tells is about as likely to happen in this India as a story about, say, a rabid atheist rising in Saudi Arabia's government and starting to persecute Muslims would be. Or, to bring it closer to home, a story about a fanatic atheist becoming a US government official and starting to surpress Christians. Which, of course, is what Breitbart & Co. tell their ilk already happened under each Democratic president. ("War on Christmas", anyone?) Which tells you what type of propaganda this is.

Now don't get me wrong: I don't believe the Wachowskis and JMS are aware. At first, I thought it was simply that they wanted Kala to be a faithful believer and needed some type of conflict for her that wasn't about her not wanting to get married, picked Hinduism as the most popular Indian religion (and the one with the film friendly statues), and didn't do much research about the Indian present. But now I wonder whether they did tell some staff member to do research, and that person came back with this storyline, getting it as a condition for the crew filming Kala's story in India. Because it's just too perfect BJP propaganda to come across by accident, my inner conspiracy theorist says.

For distraction, something lighthearted:

Avengers


Up in the air, Junior Birdman: in which the Avengers (plus Maria Hill, Sam Wilson and Rhodey) go camping. Set at some point between the frst and second movie, this Natasha-centric story is ensemble-tastic, and has Bruce as co-lead.

Comments

[laurashapiro]

Thanks for the analysis of Sense8 and current religious climate in India. I was ignorant and am now less so. Much appreciated.

[selenak]

You're welcome. I like the show a lot, regretted when it got cancelled, and was glad it gets a wrap up movie, but this bit with Kala's storyline irritated me from the start, and Hearing Arundhati Roy talk about her most recent experiences made it worse.

[laurashapiro]

I had felt they really simplified India in the show (India is all arranged marriages!), but this is more troubling than that.

[selenak]

Yes, it is. In the discussion after her talk, Arundhati Roy guessed that one reason why the extent of fundamentalism in current day India is still so underreported is that India is such a big economic market. And I suspect it's that, but also that there's still a lot of exoticism and idealization going on. Now, the pharmaceutical company Kala works for and then marries into turning out to be responsible for the faulty medicine delivered into third world countries and to patients like Capheus, that strikes me as a plausible present day story to be set in India, and a good way to connect two storylines, but I notice it's shut down very quickly, whereas this "intolerant atheist prosecuting Hindu believers" rubbish has been going on for two seasons.

And really: if they wanted Kala to clash with her future father-in-law because of her beliefs, it would have been very simple. Make her someone critical of the India= Hindustan doctrine and him an up and rising BJP official subscribing to it. (I would say "make her a member of a religious minority - doesn't matter whether Sikh, Christian, Muslim - but a successful businessman about to venture into politicis in a big way would NEVER allow his son to marry a non-Hindu today.)

[laurashapiro]

Excellent points. I kinda wonder if JMS or the Wachowskis did try to reach out to people in India to consult on storylines, and if they were fed propaganda and didn't know it.

[redfiona99]

Pre a certain Orange Person, Modi was the international leader who worried me the most.

[selenak]

I can see that. :(

[jesuswasbatman]

I'm still watching Sense8 and am currently halfway through S2, but my feeling about the Indian religious/political issues is that some Western progressive people, who are suspicious or hostile towards Christianity because of direct or indirect experiences with hateful Christian people, but who are also put off by the dogmaticism and sometimes bigotry of the Dawkins type of atheist/rationalist, tend to hugely idealise the South and East Asian religions and in particular Hinduism and Buddhism, and see them as inherently kind, moral and liberal.

I've seen some online discussions where people like this have seen stories about, say, the involvement of Buddhist clerics in inciting violent ethnic persecutions in Burma and Sri Lanka, and have been not just shocked but truly, deeply destabilised, as in "I thought Buddhism was the one major world religion that actually was a force for good, what hope is there in the world now?".

So I suspect that the Kala religious plotline is down to inherent assumptions rather than any kind of overt pressure from the Hindutva elements in India.