WAR ZONE: (From top) A scene from the just released Red Alert; lead stars of Raavan; Viveik Oberoi in Rakta Charitra

Abhishek Bachchan has gone on record to say that Raavan, the film by Mani Ratnam where he plays the lead, is not about Naxalism. The director himself has never uttered one word to imply that the film has to do with the Maoist problem. On the contrary, he has suggested that the film’s story is inspired by the epic Ramayan. Yet anyone who watches the film will not fail to notice that it is really built around the current Maoist uprising.

But Raavan is not the only film on the block that seeks to address the Maoist issue. Ram Gopal Varma’s soon-to-be-released Rakta Charitra is based on the life of Paritala Ravindra, a powerful south Indian politician who started life as a Naxalite and later entered mainstream politics. And director Ananth Mahadevan’s Red Alert – The War Within, which hit the screens this week, is the true story of a man who works as a cook for the Maoists to sustain his family and eventually gets sucked into the movement.

So what has led filmmakers to turn their attention to the Naxals? Of course, Mani Ratnam has always been known to address social and political issues. As Joy Sengupta, who played the role of a young Naxal in Govind Nihalani’s Hazaar Chaurasi ki Maa, a film based on a story by Mahasweta Devi, says, “Mani Sir’s movies have always had a socio-political issue as their backdrop. If Roja addressed the Kashmir issue, Dil Se addressed the terrorism problem in the northeast. And Raavan does seem to have shades of the Naxal movement.”

Delhi-based social scientist Sanjay Kumar explains why an issue like Naxalism is attractive to filmmakers today. “Filmmakers always want to pick up a contentious issue as that enables them to add high voltage drama to the film. Naxalism is a burning issue now so it gives them ample scope to bring in elements like clashes, violence and conflicts that attract the masses to cinema halls.”

To be sure, this is not the first time that directors have tackled major socio-political issues, as P.K. Nair, veteran film scholar and founder of the National Film Archive in Pune, points out. “Our filmmakers have been handling political themes for many years,” he says.

Take Mrinal Sen’s Calcutta 71, a film which had three back-to-back stories of which the third one was about the brutal manner in which the police dealt with the Naxalites. Or Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’ The Naxalites (Mera Inquilab), which followed the trail of the Naxalite movement in West Bengal and had Mithun Chakravarty and Smita Patil in the lead.

Sometimes directors feel a genuine need to highlight a social problem. As Sudhir Mishra, director of Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, a film which also touched upon the Naxal issue, reveals, “At that point of time I felt the need to address Naxalism, which was a big social issue, through my film.” Mishra now plans to make another film on the Naxals, but this time from the point of view of a police officer.

There are those who believe that cinema that deals with burning social issues immediately strikes a chord with the audience. “True life stories are closer to the audience than fiction, and this made me work on a newspaper report that highlighted the plight of a farmer caught in a revolution,” says Mahadevan, who has directed Red Alert.

Others say that such films can add to the debate over the Naxals and the violence they are committing daily in the name of seeking social justice. Says Suniel Shetty, who plays Narasimha, a poor villager who gets sucked into the Naxalite movement in Red Alert, “I have pitched my character, who is a common man, in such a way that both the Naxals and the government will sit up and take notice. He poses questions like, ‘It’s our own people on both sides — then why is there so much bloodshed?’ Such questions could spark a debate and lead both the government and the Naxals to think about their actions.”

However, experts such as Nair feel that directors are moved more by the box office potential of a film than by the need to raise a debate on Naxalism. “More and more directors are coming forward to address issues such as Naxalism primarily to explore the box office potential of the subject,” says Nair.

But stories based on contemporary reality are not always a guarantee of box office success. Raavan failed spectacularly at the box office even though it depicted the Maoist problem in the garb of a story based on the epics.

Filmmaker and critic Khaled Mohammad explains, “Most directors like making films that reflect social issues or society at large, as it makes it easier for them to establish a connection with the audience. But most of the films being made today do not address the issues directly. Instead, they opt to romanticise the plot. As a consequence, we have people like Mani Ratnam who dealt with issues like terrorism and riots so beautifully in films like Roja or Bombay, making a Raavan that failed to make an impact.”

Nabina Das, whose debut novel Footprints in the Bajra deals with the Maoist issue, would tend to agree. “Movies are a vehicle of social message everywhere in the world. The art cinema movement in India has raised important issues in our society. But the demands of making a masala movie can often make directors compromise on reality.”

Mahadevan too admits that stories based on social issues like the Maoist problem have to be handled with maturity. “But in most cases we end up exploiting it for commercial ends,” he says.

Will his Red Alert, or the other movies based on the Naxal issue, be any different?

We can’t wait to find out.

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On the Naxal trail

Calcutta 71
1972, directed by Mrinal Sen

The Naxalite
1980, written and directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas

Hazaar Chaurasi ki Maa
1998, based on a story by Mahesweta Devi, directed by Govind Nihalani

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi
2005, co-written by Ruchi Narain and directed by Sudhir Mishra

Chamku
2008, written and directed by Kabeer Kaushik

Red Alert
July 9, 2010, directed by Ananth Mahadevan

Rakta Charitra
Releases in September 2010, written and directed by Ram Gopal Varma