Reforming the reformer

A film on Chandrashekhar’s life, with Mahesh Bhatt as the creative consultant and Ajay Kanchan as the director, was announced in 2010 and then got shelved. But now the project will be restarted in the months to come.

Imran Zahid, who will play Chandrashekhar Prasad, said: “With the ongoing JNU controversy, and the students’ ideology being showed in a poor light, it is imperative that the students of the university and their political ideology be put in the correct perspective. So it’s important to revive our project Chandu to show the reality of the JNU campus, their struggles and sacrifices through their slain JNU leader Chandrashekhar Prasad.”

Chandrashekhar’s story is akin to what Kanhaiya Kumar is currently going though. “We were inspired by Chandrashekhar’s courage to help underprivileged people, the way he moved from one part of the country to another to achieve his mission. I think the story of Chandrashekhar will inspire the youth of India. I think he was the precursor to Kanhaiya,” he adds.

The word “youth” has created quite a buzz in India for couple of decades now but there hasn’t been a better youth icon than former JNU President Chandrashekhar Prasad (Chandu) who was brutally assassinated in 1997. In spite of all the tall claims about various initiatives for youth, the nation as a whole has failed to do any justice to the slain student leader. 

Cutting across all the student unions, many student leaders and faculty members are unanimous with the fact that there hasn’t been anyone more charismatic than Chandu, either before or after him. 

Even more surprising is the fact that there had been a massive outcry and media initiatives for ensuring justice to Jessica Lal, Priyadarshani Matto, and Nitish Katara but no one, so far, had bothered to take up the matter on behalf of Chandu who had to pay a heavy price of his life for challenging the nexus between the criminals and politicians and bringing about a social change in Bihar.

Mahesh Bhatt, who is the creative consultant, said: “Well, I will be honest to say that the happenings in JNU and other college campuses in the country have certainly acted as the catalyst behind the recommencement of the film on Chandu. It will be, however, wrong to say that we are trying to do that at this point to leverage the restlessness that’s quite visible inside the campus, in courts and has been making people to lock their horns in the social media. 

Chandu certainly had a message not just for his fellow students inside the campus but for the wider civil society. Unfortunately, over the years following his assassination, that message evaporated. It’s never been a commercial venture for me and all I wanted is to revive and communicate that message. Of course, it’s far more relevant in turbulent times that we are in right now than it was when we thought of shelving the project.”