OF CABBAGES AND KINGS | Perils Of Being ‘Cancelled’… The Twisted Saga Of My Jinnah Play! | Farrukh Dhondy

“The magpie’s cry goes clackety-clack --

It says she’s gone and won’t come back…

Why personify the cry of a bird?

The notes or the sentiment overheard?

The magpie knows nothing of your loss…

And even if it did, it wouldn’t give a toss.”

From Flutter Gutter Verses, by Bachchoo

Unlike some distinguished writers – such as J.K. Rowling -- and several academics, I have never experienced “being cancelled”. This is the contemporary practice of being refused a platform to which one was formerly invited, owing to protests from people and lobbies who don’t like your opinions.

So, JK has been denied a hearing and banned from several platforms because she believes that humans are assigned a gender at birth through their chromosomes and through formation of their sexual organs and secondary gender manifestations.

These bans and cancellations make me wonder if my opinions, which I express in these columns, in others and in my books and speeches from various platforms, are innocuous and not worth bothering about? Perhaps in my short and happy life, though I have acquired the description of being “radical”, I have never sufficiently offended any vociferous lobby.

Luck? Caution? Fence-sitting? (I plead not-guilty, m’lud!)

Not for my opinions, but for my very existence, I have indeed suffered some bans or omissions.

I suppose the first one that comes to mind was when, in the wake of Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, I was approached by two Pakistanis -- the distinguished director Jamil Dehlavi and a contemporary from Cambridge, Akbar Ahmad, proposing that I write a film on Jinnah.

I said I was out of sympathy with Jinnah for splitting the sub-continent. They said my Indo-nationalist view probably didn’t take in all the facts that caused the fragmentation of British India. They urged me to read Stanley Wolpert’s biography of Jinnah. I did.

Akbar, as producer of the tentative project, had offered me a decent sum of money if I would write the film. And yes, gentle reader, after reading two or three biographies of the Quaid-e-Azam, I understood the complexities that led to “Partition” and told Jamil and Akbar that I would write a script as I conceived it. They agreed and I did.

When I handed in the completed screenplay, Akbar said to me: “That’s great, we’ll start production soon, but Farrukh, you won’t get a credit on screen as the writer!”

I was about to say “pour the hell qua non?” but instead simply asked why.

“Because the film is being financed by Pakistani capitalists who would not support the production if the screenplay was by a non-Muslim Parsi of Indian origin, resident in Britain with a reputation for Marxist views and radical ‘socialistic’ activity.”

“And you are to promise to never claim to have written the film,” Akbar said, “and I want to increase your fee by a thousand pounds”.

Gentle reader, being of a modest (and acquisitive?) disposition, could I refuse?

The film went into production with Christopher Lee, famous for playing Dracula, as the mature Jinnah, and Shashi Kapoor as the angel Jibrail who questions Jinnah in heaven (yes, one of the opening scenes!).

The film was a success in Pakistan -- so much so that General Pervez Musharraf, who was hen in charge, appointed Akbar Ahmad as Pakistan’s high commissioner to Britain.

Then came the unravelling. Jamil and Akbar fell out, with Jamil accusing Akbar of inflating the budget and carrying away extremely large sums of money by pretending they were paid to (non-existent) “script consultants” and other such fabrications.

Jamil blew the gaff, and journalists then called me to ask if I had written the script. I, sticking to my promise, said “no comment”, or the equivalent. Then Seamus Milne, a Guardian journalist, showed me a document which said that I sold the script of Jinnah to Akbar Ahmad for “£1”. It had my signature.

So, he said either I did write Jinnah, or I was accusing the high commissioner of Pakistan of forging my signature. I said I wasn’t accusing Akbar of forging my signature.

“So, you did write Jinnah,” says Seamus Milne.

Out of the bag burst pussy. The UK and Pakistani papers picked up the story and when they called me, I told them that if Gen. Musharraf was handing out diplomatic posts for writing Jinnah, I would be quite happy to be Pakistan’s ambassador to Tahiti and will look after Pakistan’s interests after I’ve looked after some of my own. It was a joke! Dawn printed it.

I subsequently met General (no longer supremo) and Mrs Musharraf at a friend’s party and Mrs Musharraf asked me why my name was not on the film. I told her, and she, and the general, who was listening, said words to the effect of “that’s absurd!”

So, to the latest of such reverses:

I’ve written a play called Karna: Warrior of The Sun, based on the Mahabharata.

My good friend, a producer, proposed to stage it in India in partnership with the National School of Drama. Great!

He subsequently informs me that one of the members of the governing body of the National School insisted on cancelling the partnership on the grounds that the play was written by a non-Hindu, resident in Britain, with a reputation for being a Marxist.

Partnership duly cancelled…

O tempora! O mores!

But yes, it will reach the stage!