This weekend, it was Coldplay’s turn to go viral on the Internet for all the wrong reasons. Privileged Indians tweeted from their smartphones that Coldplay has got India wrong, and that India is more than just the festival of colours, the festival of light and a lot of children watching films in chawl -like neighbourhoods. This, of course, put Newton’s Third Law in action. By the end of the weekend, counter-opinions defending Coldplay’s Hymn for the Weekend were trending on social media.
At the end of the day, it’s not just Coldplay that may, if at all, be misrepresenting Indian culture. Indians are worse offenders when it comes to portraying people from other countries, regions and even religions. Let’s ask ourselves when we last portrayed a Muslim or a person from the LGBT community without stereotyping or when was the last time we saw a nuanced depiction of an African, American or European onscreen? Perhaps never.
However, the issue is not whether it’s ok for Coldplay to do this, just because Indians are often worse offenders. The fact remains that Coldplay was only producing a 4-minute 21-second-long music video set in India. It is, by no means, nor does it claim to be, a comprehensive documentary about India or “Indian-ness” — there is no compulsion to cover all angles, or show spanking new highways, glitzy malls or swank IT offices.
Amidst the futile outrage that has invaded social media, which is, in fact, used only by 11.19 per cent of the Indian population , the Twitterati and Facebook users seem to have forgotten that Coldplay’s depiction of India is really a non-issue.
Creative license
First, there is something called creative licence. Producers and directors of music videos are under no obligation to “portray” India in a certain way. The point is to create colourful and creative visuals that go with the music; it’s not about political correctness.
If you think this Coldplay video is bad, you clearly haven’t seen Paradise. All those offended ones, don’t pretend you don’t like it when Chris Martin croons and jumps to random lyrics. And don’t even tell me you won’t listen to Coldplay because of this video.
Second, the responsibility for the on-screen portrayal of the complex, heterogeneous and multi-cultural hotch-potch that is India really lies with the Indian news media and documentary filmmakers. I am not including Bollywood, because we all know that it is too much to expect from that quarter.
The English and Hindi news media has consistently pandered to the demands of TRPs and whims and fancies of ruling parties over the years. As far as the news media is concerned, Delhi and Mumbai is the cynosure of their vision.
As for documentary films, filmmakers such as Anand Patwardhan, Nisha Pahuja, Nakul Singh Sawhney and many more have focused their lens on the many Indias that exist beyond the tip of a smartphone user’s finger. How many such films have we even watched? In fact, we know of many such films only because of the flicker of misplaced outrage that puts them in the spotlight.
Such artistic and realistic initiatives are quickly forgotten as the issues they talk of are brushed under the carpet inconclusively. Most of us have the attention span of a gnat — especially when it comes to matters of actual importance.
As we — the miniscule percentage of users of social media and consumers of pop culture — wonder how Coldplay could engage in such trivialisation of Indian diversity, let’s remember: all of us, as a nation and as individuals, have more important things to worry about. If all goes as it usually goes on in social media, Coldplay’s prayer for this controversial weekend would have come true. And we would be faking outrage over something else soon. So, let’s move on.