The humongous success of the 1996 Tamil blockbuster, Indian , starring Kamal Haasan and directed by Shankar, could be attributed to a number of reasons, such as Kamal Haasan’s brilliant portrayal of a 70-year-old freedom fighter, exquisite numbers from AR Rahman and Shankar’s imaginative story-telling, but the primary reason was its instant appeal to the ‘common man’, forced to shell out money to government officials on an everyday basis. The impact of Gentleman , Indian and subsequently several of director Shankar’s films such as Mudhalvan and Anniyan spoke to generations of Tamil people, shaping their understanding of politics and corruption in the society, often privileging problematic vigilantes over systemic, long-drawn-out, incremental reform of the system. Like every movie, Indian was written and made within a specific socio-political context in India.
Five years before the film’s release, in 1991, the Indian government had decided to break the locks of the economy by effecting a series of structural reforms that loosened the State’s vice-grip on the economy by adopting liberalisation to kickstart economic growth and provide jobs. In 1990, the then-Prime Minister VP Singh’s government agreed to provide 27 per cent reservations to Other Backward Classes (OBCs), which resulted in widespread protests against its implementation, spawning debates over whether this would affect the efficiency and quality of personnel in bureaucracy. Of course, India also witn.