Real-Life Parallels: Jawan Film and the Socio-Political Issues in India

Hello, friends! Shahrukh Khan's newly released film Jawan is breaking all records. This film is getting a lot of love from the public. But do you know that more than half of the incidents shown in this film are inspired by real life? You will be shocked to know how significant is the connection between the things shown in this film and real life. In this article, we won't give any major spoilers of plot points of the film. So, even if you haven't seen the film, you can read this article without any hesitation. In fact, if you haven't seen the film, you may get more curious to watch the film after seeing the real issues in this article.

The Gorakhpur Tragedy

In the film Jawan, it is shown how young children in government hospitals die of encephalitis because oxygen may not be available. In the film, a very sincere doctor, Iram, is shown who tries her best to save the children. But after this incident is made public, the government frames this doctor instead. A false accusation is put on her and she goes to jail. Something similar happened in August 2017 in real life, in the city of Gorakhpur.

The Gorakhpur Tragedy:

In a government hospital, BRD Medical College, 63 children died within 3 days when the piped oxygen supply of the hospital ran out. Dr. Kafeel Khan was working as a paediatrician at that time. When he came to know that the oxygen supply in the hospital was nearly over, he tried to inform the authorities. Since there was no response, he tried to procure oxygen supply from himself at his own expense. He is seen as a real-life hero. But when the news of this incident reached the media, the blame is shifted to Dr. Kafeel. The government accused him of medical negligence and corruption. He was suspended from his job, arrested, and then he was in jail for 9 months. In an interview, he reveals how mercilessly he was beaten in jail. He was starved for 4-5 days. He was in such a bad condition that he couldn't sleep on his back for months. "They used to make me naked, they used to beat me with a stick. They didn't give me food and water for 4-5 days!" In April 2018, he finally got bail from Allahabad High Court. The court stated that there was no evidence of his wrongdoing. In 2017, an inquiry panel was set up to investigate the allegations against him. Even the panel stated that the allegations against him are baseless and inconsistent. In fact, this panel report states that on 11th and 12th August, due to his honest efforts, more than 500 jumbo oxygen cylinders were delivered to this hospital by different companies.

Government Hospital Conditions:

The film Jawan shows how when the doctor had no other option, she started giving Ambu bags to the parents. This happened in real life too. During the Gorakhpur tragedy, there were reports that when oxygen was depleted, parents were using Ambu bags to save their children's lives. They were trying their best, and many parents saw their children dying in front of their eyes. Dr. Kafeel said that he was made a scapegoat and that it was a man-made tragedy. More than 30 letters were written to the authorities of BRD Medical College and to the UP government. Bills of 6.3 million rupees were pending to the oxygen suppliers which were not paid for months. Again and again, the letters asked them to pay the oxygen suppliers so that the oxygen supply to the hospital would not be disrupted. Just one day before the Gorakhpur tragedy, on 9th August, Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister Adityanath visited this hospital himself.

Issues of Faulty Weapons

Now let's get back to the topic. The second major issue that has been shown in the film is faulty weapons. Our soldiers are martyred in our country not by the bullets of the enemy, but because of our own faulty weapons, which are manufactured by some crony capitalists. In reality, there have been many reports on this over the years.

In 2012, the Chief General of the Indian Army, V.K. Singh, wrote to PM Manmohan Singh and said that the Army's tank fleet was in dire need of critical ammunition. In 2015, retired Lieutenant Colonel Deepak Malhotra filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court, with the accusation that due to bureaucratic hurdles, our soldiers have to use weapons of poor quality, which puts their lives at risk. In this PIL, an interview of an injured soldier was mentioned, in which he talked about how due to defective INSAS a massacre took place in Chhattisgarh. In 2017, a CAG report mentioned that 40% of the Indian Army's ammunition is at such low levels that if a war breaks out, they will not last more than 10 days. In 2018, the Indian Army rejected Made in India rifles for the second time. Because these Made in India rifles failed badly during trials.

Corporate Funding

Now let's come to our third big issue, Corporate Funding. In the film Jawan, it is shown how corporate money is secretly used for funding the political parties. In 2017, there was a major development regarding this.

Modi government had passed the Finance Bill, 2017 through which giving secret donations to political parties was allowed through Electoral Bonds. This bill also removed the limit on how much money can be given to a political party in donations. Now, whether it is BJP, Congress, or any other party, the public cannot know who is funding them. We can just take a guess from the outside. Another thing worth mentioning here is that there is an expenditure limit to what a candidate can spend on his political campaign. This depends on the state, but in Lok Sabha elections, this limit is between ₹7.5 million to ₹9.5 million. If we take the upper limit for every seat in Lok Sabha, 543 seats multiplied by ₹9.5 million, it is around ₹5 billion. So, technically, no political party can spend more than ₹5 billion. Going over the expenditure limit is not allowed. However, the report of the Centre for Media Studies has shown that the BJP has spent ₹270 billion in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019. Just think about the difference. Even if you ignore this report, in November 2019, BJP submitted to the Election Commission as it is written on the website of the Election Commission that BJP has spent ₹12.64 billion for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The maximum limit here is ₹5 billion and they are spending ₹12 billion. How? Is this a joke? In the film Jawan, it is shown that the villain of the film is telling foreign investors how voters in India can be bought. If you pay ₹10,000 to each voter, they will vote for the payer's preferred political party. This is shown wrongly in the film because ₹10,000 is a huge amount. In our country, we see that people sell their vote for a kilogram of chicken or a quarter of whisky. Obviously, it depends from region to region on how much money is used to buy voters. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, there were seizures worth ₹34.56 billion. It includes cash, gold, silver, alcohol, drugs, everything. And forget about buying voters, there's a new trend in the market. Political parties buy MLAs, they buy media houses. "Casinos, horse trading, horse racing." And then these MLAs and media houses that have sold themselves play a game of divide and rule with the public, spreading hatred among the people so that their political masters can remain in power.

Environmental Issues

The film also raises the issue of the environment of the country. How several industrial factories pollute our air and water. In the film, there was a reference to the Bhopal gas tragedy which happened in December 1984. I will not talk about this here because I have made a separate video on this. If you haven't seen it, I will put the link in the description. But it is not about just one tragedy, not about just one incident. This has become so common that it is unbelievable. Just do a random Google search and see the numerous articles pop up.

Farming Practices

Let's start in 2006. In Chhattisgarh, due to iron ore mining, the water of two rivers got polluted, and 100 villages that were on the banks of the rivers, the villagers living there had to use contaminated water for their daily needs. In 2013, a report by the Center for Science and Environment shows that 80% of Indian sewage is dumped untreated into rivers. Who is doing this? Thousands of factories are dumping untreated sewage in rivers. In 2017, "Maharashtra's polluting factories are making its rivers the filthiest in India." In September 2018, Magsaysay Award winner environmentalist Rajendra Singh said that the government's Namami Ganga project is failing. In October 2018, G.D. Agarwal, a pass-out of IIT, became a sadhu. Swami Gyan Swaroop Sananand. To save the River Ganga, he went on a fast. His demand was that a Ganga Protection Act be drafted by the government and a total ban be imposed on quarrying and stone crushing on the banks of the River Ganga. He had also written a letter to PM Modi, but there was no reply. His fast lasted 111 days, after which he passed away due to starvation. "The man who dedicated his life to get River Ganga cleaned, environmentalist G.D. Agarwal finally sacrificed himself for River Ganga." After that PM Modi did express his condolences. The budget of the Namami Ganga project was ₹200 billion. Its deadline was 2021. This year, Namami Ganga Mission 2 was approved. With a budget of ₹225 billion. The deadline was set for 2026. The Minister of State for Jal Shakti [Water Resources] clearly told the Rajya Sabha that this time their main objective is to meet the water quality criteria of outdoor bathing. Not to make the water of River Ganga drinkable. Only so clean that it becomes bathable. They will try to make it happen by 2026.

Farming Models

Let's move ahead, there are other rivers as well. This article from 2021, Karnataka dumps 1,746 million litres of sewage in the rivers every day. 40% untreated. Experts say that factories and industries should be blamed for this. April 2022, the water of the River Hindon in Noida, Uttar Pradesh is so bad that it is not even safe to bathe there. September 2022, the water of the River Damodar in Jharkhand has become toxic. People are getting sick by using this water. Local power stations and mining companies dump large mountains of ash in this river to save money. In 2023, the Central Pollution Control Board says that there are 413 industries in Haryana in total which are discharging untreated wastes into the river. Panipat is at number one with 181 polluting factories. Gurgaon is at number two with more than 100 such factories. This is why the villain in the film Jawan openly tells foreign investors in the film to invest their money in winning elections, to invest in donating to the parties, so that they will get the freedom to do anything in India. To set up as many factories as they want, to use as much cheap labour as they want, to spread pollution and waste, and no one would care. The villain of the film also says that India's environmental regulations are very favourable for big companies. In other developed countries, there are a lot of restrictions that are not there in India. For example, some pesticides are banned in other countries but are allowed in India. The Supreme Court was hearing a petition demanding a ban on 116 dangerous pesticides. In 2013, the Anupam Verma Committee was constituted to investigate these dangerous pesticides. This committee reviewed only 66 pesticides and submitted its report to the government in 2015. But the government remained inactive for years and when the government took action in 2018, only 12 pesticides were banned by the government. And it said that 6 other dangerous pesticides would be slowly phased out. Out of the 116 dangerous pesticides, they took steps to ban only 18. After this, another committee was formed under SK Malhotra in which some more pesticides were to be reviewed. This committee in 2020 said that 27 pesticides should be banned in India. In 2022, the government formed another committee. And what action did that committee take? Only 3 pesticides were banned. That too in February 2023. So now you can understand the attitude of the government. They are not worried about the citizens but about the crony capitalists. If they ban any more pesticides, then the business of these billionaires will be affected. They should not have to bear the loss. In July 2023, the Supreme Court questioned the government. The Supreme Court said that whenever a committee issues a report, instead of taking action on that report, the government makes a second committee. Why is it so difficult to ban these dangerous pesticides which are already banned in other countries?

Farming Practices and Farmer Suicides

After this, we can talk about food safety regulations. Look at this 2017 news. Experts say that poultry farms in India are using antibiotics. Antibiotics are being given to hens in such heavy doses that this antibiotic resistance is reaching humans. This means that if humans catch a disease that has become antibiotic-resistant, then the antibiotics will not help these humans. After this, the government did something good here in 2017, they set a permissible limit on how much antibiotics can be given to hens. But look at this news from 2018. "India's farmed chickens are dosed with the world's strongest antibiotics." This study was done by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism which found that a last resort antibiotic, Colistin, is being given in heavy doses to many chickens in India. Only in 2019, the Union Health Ministries took action on it and banned this antibiotic. So, even where action is being taken, they are waiting for a report first, only then any action is taken. This should tell you the importance of free media. If all the media in a country has been turned into political representatives, then such reports will not be published and the government will never have to take any action. Without these reports, the government never takes any action on these things. Compare it with other countries. The European Union banned antibiotics from being used in animal feed in 2006. They took action so many years ago. This year, in January, the European Union came out with a new legislation which has banned all kinds of antibiotics in farming. And they have also banned meat that has antibiotics in it being imported from foreign countries to the European Union.

Farming Models and Policies

Now see how these multinational food companies take advantage of the indifference of the Indian government. In 2017, KFC was praised in America because they committed not to use antibiotics in their chicken. In the same year, Burger King, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, all took this pledge. There will be no antibiotics in their chicken. But did any of these fast-food companies make such a commitment in India? Center for Science and Environment reached out to these companies in 2020 and they did not respond to this issue. In the movie Jawan, it is also shown how the government forgives the bad loans of these billionaires. If you want to compare it with real life, see this news from just last month. The Minister of State for Finance told the Lok Sabha that in the last 9 years, the banks have written off ₹14.56 trillion in NPAs. More than half of these were owed by large corporates. And when the banks try to recover these loans, the banks are unable to recover the entire amount. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Rajya Sabha this year in March that in the last 5 years, the public sector banks could recover only 14% of the written-off loans. Apart from these NPS, there are cases of such billionaires who have taken loans from banks and fled the country. Like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, and Mehul Choksi. The film Jawan drew an interesting comparison of loan write-offs for these billionaires and crony capitalists. And the loans owed by common farmers in the country. Look at this India Spend report of 2019. The cost of the top 12 corporate NPAs is twice as much as compared to farm loan waivers. Between FY 2017-18 and February 2019, 10 state governments issued farm loan waivers whose total amount was ₹1.848 billion. But the top 12 NPAs, their total amount is almost twice this. At ₹3.45 billion. And when the farmers' loan is waived, there is another big difference. If the farmer is unable to repay his loan, he often commits s____de. But these billionaires, have you ever heard that they committed s____de because they couldn't repay their loans? There is a very powerful scene related to this in Jawan. I won't talk much about it. If you have seen the film, you will understand what I am talking about. When a farmer takes a loan, it affects his life entirely. If you see just one year, in 2021, more than 10,000 people committed s____de in the farm sector. The number shown in the film was quite shocking. But the number in real life is close to it. There are farmers in our country that earn substantially. They should be seen as positive examples so that other farmers can learn from them.