Recently, the 71st National Awards were announced. Just when you thought the jury could not go any lower than awarding Allu Arjun for “Pushpa” and honouring Mithun Chakraborty with the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, they went a level further by awarding some of the most ridiculous choices. And with the current trend, the future of the National awards looks bleak to me.
The most disappointing thing about the award was the utter lack of objective parameters to judge the films. Even the ardent fan of Shah Rukh Khan would agree that he was not the right person to win the award. Forget the award, the performance in “Jawan” couldn’t even be considered in the final list of nominations.
In an attempt to cater to the popular masses, they conveniently forgot some of the best performances of the year, most significantly that of Prithviraj Sukumaran for “The Goat Life.” Even in the commercial cinema space, Ranbir Kapoor for” Animal” could have been a better choice (notwithstanding the problematic nature of the film).
But Shah Rukh Khan’s award for “Jawan” will count as one of the lowest moments in the history of National awards, where the bias of the judges was blatantly visible. The only examples where such a blatant decision was made in awarding the best actor would be that of MGR for “Rickshawkaran,” Sridevi for “Mom,” and Allu Arjun for “Pushpa,” and to an extent Amitabh Bachchan for “Agneepath” and “Piku.”
But all the above performances were still better in comparison to SRK in “Jawan.” Some fans are trying to defend the decision by saying that he deserved the award for “Swades,” “Chak De India,” and “My Name is Khan,” etc, but National awards should not be given as a corrective decision. Vikrant Massey was the actual winner of the award, and sharing the award with SRK is not good for the credibility of the award.
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Another baffling decision was awarding the Best Telugu Film to “Bhagavanth Kesari.” Starring Nandamuri Balakrishna, the film is a standard commercial potboiler, dressed up with a surface-level nod to women’s empowerment. Balayya — as the actor is popularly known — has long been associated with illogical storytelling and problematic clichés. While “Bhagavanth Kesari” isn’t outright unwatchable, it’s far from deserving a National Award. Calling it award-worthy undermines the very idea of cinematic excellence.
We had films like “Balagam,” “Dasara,” “Hi Nanna,” and “Virupaksha” etc as better contenders for the award. A few months ago, Balakrishna was awarded the Padma Bhushan, and now his film wins a national award (a rare occurrence in his 4-decade-old career). I guess the government is desperate to please Balayya.
Another major letdown was the decision to award “Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani” the title of Best Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. Frankly, it’s hard to understand the criteria behind this choice. The film was neither the most popular, nor the most entertaining, nor even the most widely talked-about commercial release of the year.
Like many mainstream films, “Rocky Aur Rani” was merely decent — it didn’t receive unanimous critical acclaim, nor did it create a major stir at the box office. In contrast, “Jawan” would have been a far more fitting winner. Choosing it might also have spared us from the questionable compromise in the Best Actor category.
Another film that has grabbed the eyeballs for the wrong reasons was “The Kerala Files.” The CM of Kerala has bashed the jury and the government for awarding a film based on lies (according to him), and which maligns the state of Kerala. Sudipto Das won the National Award for Best Director for “The Kerala Files,” which many believe is a gift from the government for pandering to the narrative of the ruling regime. But such political conveniences have become common in the National awards, with “The Kashmir Files” and “72 Hoorein” also winning awards in the past few years.
Apart from these outright biased decisions, some questionable decisions could have gone either way, but ideally could have chosen a better alternative. For example, a film like “Baby” winning the National awards for Best Screenplay doesn’t sound right, as “Baby” wasn’t really appreciated for its screenplay in the first place. Similarly, “Chhaleya” from “Jawan” is not the kind of song that deserves a national award. I was personally rooting for Shreya Ghoshal to win for “Kashmir Jaisi,” where she sang without any background music, showing her range of singing.
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A somewhat problematic trend has been seen in the industry for the past few years regarding the national film awards. For the past few years, Indie cinema has been vanishing from the national awards. While National awards celebrate all types of cinema, for the small budget independent cinema, national awards are their only source of validation and visibility in the country, which can give them respect among the people.
Popular awards generally don’t cater to these small films, but surprisingly, in the case of the year 2023, the case has been different. While the Filmfare awarded a small independent film like “The Three of Us,” the National Awards totally ignored any indie films. The share of regional cinema also saw a dip, and the representation of regional cinema apart from Tamil, Telugu, and Marathi films was relegated to the regional films category.
But the bigger question is- till when will art be sacrificed on the altar of politics, favouritism, and ideology? In 2002-03, when Ajay Devgn deservingly won the National award for the “Legend of Bhagat Singh,” there were some talks in hushed tones about the involvement of Prakash Jha in getting the award for Ajay Devgn.
These criticisms grew louder when Saif Ali Khan allegedly won due to the influence of his mother, while Akshay Kumar faced accusations of securing his award through his close friendship with jury member Priyadarshan. Similarly, this year, questions have been raised about Ashutosh Gowariker’s role in Shah Rukh Khan’s win — and tellingly, no one seems eager to deny the possibility of such influence.
Similarly, the role of government officials to award the pro-government people and films is also very much visible. This sets a very bad precedent for the future, where the jury can outrightly manipulate the awards and nobody has any say in it.
National awards are generally held in very high esteem, but year by year, it is losing their sanctity courtesy of the involvement of forces outside the cinema and the level of manipulation involved in the process. I hope the National awards will be able to separate themselves from the Pan Masala awards meant for television broadcast and shenanigans rather than actual cinema.
