If politics is colour, Mithun Chakraborty has seen every shade. In his youth, he embraced the extreme Red. The hue got lighter with success as he grew friendly with CPM politicos. Down the line, he turned blue becoming a Rajya Sabha member, courtesy centrist Trinamool. On Sunday, the 70-year-old actor’s political life came full circle when he daubed himself in saffron joining BJP. “Koi shaque? (Any doubts?),” as the fauji he played in Ghulami would have asked.
Back in 1969, Mithun was asked to leave Calcutta by his father for his involvement with the Naxalites. After a degree in acting from Pune’s Film Institute, he struggled for years before finding box-office gold as an action-dancing star.
But his pro-poor orientation persisted. In 1986, he took the lead in organising the Calcutta version of Hope 86, a concert in aid of Bombay film industry workers. Mithun’s nearness to Bengal’s sports minister and CPM leader Subhas Chakraborty helped green light a project that had initially met with strong opposition.
In 2014, the actor joined Rajya Sabha. Around the same time, he got embroiled in the Sharada Chit Fund scam and was summoned by ED. He quit the Upper House citing health reasons in 2016. According to PRS Legislative Research, he asked zero questions, didn’t participate in a single debate and had a 10% attendance in Parliament.
His new political affiliation was speculated upon when he met RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat on Feb 17, a meeting then described as personal, not political. It was political, not personal, when on Sunday, PM Modi addressed him as “Banglar chhele” (Bengal Boy). The PM hailed him for overcoming the odds to wrench out a successful career. There was a time when Mithun self-admittedly slept on pavements and paid Rs 50 for the space. In the Nineties, he was regularly conferred with Rashtriya Samman for being one of the highest tax-payers in the country.
On Sunday, the actor described himself as “a Cobra”. The self-description sounded as filmi as the iconic dialogue from Bengali film, MLA Phatakeshto, “Marbo ekhane lash podbe shashane (Will hit you here, and the body will land up in the crematorium).
Not only politics, even Mithun’s film career is a heady cocktail of contradictions. No Bollywood filmography is such a unique mix of the sublime, the regular and the asinine: Mrigayaa, Tahader Katha, The Naxalites, Gunda, Jallaad, Hitler, Surakksha, Disco Dancer, Ghulami, Pyaar Jhukta Nahin, Agneepath and Golmaal 3. He received the national award for best actor in Mrigayaa and Tahader Katha.
“I do three kinds of films. One kind of movie I do only for money. Another I do only to satisfy myself. The third kind I do is to please my fans,” he told this reporter in 2010. In his prime, Mithun Chakraborty wasn’t just a hero; he was an idea whose time had come. He was the star who emerged when theatres faced a video piracy crisis and the gentry had abandoned them. Whether the sweetheart of the masses now finds the same resonance in his Bengal BJP avatar remains to be seen.