Final Solution by Mahesh Dattani

India gained Independence, people were jubilant; however, the moment of jubilation was associated with a horrible and ghastly experience of bloodshed that history has rarely witnessed. People, who had been living together for centuries, became blood thirsty and bitter enemies of one another, in the name of religion. The barbaric cruelty against the fellow human beings arouse communal sentiments, the venom of which is still not completely washed. Many people were rendered homeless, children became orphans, people lost their loved ones and there appeared a horrible number of raped and widowed women:
"Millions of people had to flee leaving everything behind, Muslim from India and Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan. Two great rivers of humanity flowing in opposite direction along the pitifully inadequate roads and railways. Jamming and clashing, colliding head on leaving their dead and dying littering the landscape."1
The shocking events and the miseries of the migrants did not end here. The sad and dismal memories of their past haunted them. Instead of fraternity, communal hatred and bias lurked in their minds. India's secularism, could not wash this hatred, anguish and insecurity. Many strange issues confronted the country – looking after the newly acquired land, rehabilitation of the refugees, decline in political and human values, assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, rise of religionalism and the linguistic problems threatened and challenged the national unity and integrity. Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri writes:
"For the Indian, the most important battle for the establishment of a distinctive identity within a territorial location lay in the partitioning of India. National identities were conceived and took shape in accordance with the ideologues that formulated these on the basis of religions (and later, linguistic, ethnic, caste), identities. The gruesome rioting and communal/religious disharmony that took seed in 1947 has continued to throw up countless such incidents in independent to secular India. Such incidents and communal violence in India between Hindus and Muslims was underscored emphatically by the brutal bloodshed in Gujarat in 2002. These were some of the issues that Dattani had actually dramatized in the form of Final Solutions earlier, dealing with the recurring rhetoric of hatred, aggression, the monetary and political exploitation of communal riots, in chauvinism and parochial mindset of the fundamentalists, in the context of the India of the 1940s interspersed with the contemporary India. In confronting and negotiating responses to the post-Babri Masjid demolition and the post Godhra Hindu Muslim communal violence in Gujarat, through varied discursive frames of history and theatre, Dattani subsequently explored issues of identity, memory, suffering and loss… within the larger political context through the various productions of this play (Final Solutions)."2
Mahesh Dattani won the Sahitya Akademi award for Final Solutions in 1998. The theme of the play is to highlight human weaknesses, selfishness, avarice and opportunism. Woven into the play are the issues of class and communities and the clashes between traditional and modern life style and value systems. The problem of minorities is not confined to only Hindus and Muslims, it eats the peace of any minority community among the majority.
Final Solutions has taken the issues of the majority communities in different contexts and situations. It talks of the problems of cultural hegemony, how Hindus had to suffer at the hands of Muslim majority like the characters of Hardika/Daksha in Hussainabad. And how Muslims like Javed suffer in the set up of the majority Hindu community. This all resulted in communal riots and culminated in disruption of the normal social life, and thus hampered the progress of the nation.
The mob in the play is symbolic of our own hatred and paranoia. Each member of the mob is an individual, yet they meet into one seething whole as the politicians play on their fears. In this play, the chorus continuously sings sometimes under the mask of Hindus and sometimes under that of Muslims revealing their feelings of fear and hatred for one another. When the Chariot leading the procession is broken and the Pujari is killed the Hindus masks sing:
"How dare they!
They broke our Chariot and felled our Gods!
This is our land!
How dare they?" (FS, Act I, 168)
The mob/chorous comprising five men and ten masks on sticks (five Hindu and five Muslim masks) is the omnipresent factor throughout the play. Now Muslim in masks sing:
They hunt us down!
They're afraid of us!
They beat us up!
We are few!
But we are strong! (Act I, 179).
In Act II, the mob/chorus squats haphazardly, and Hindu masks sing:
"Of what use is the curfew? (The chorus 3). When there is unrest in our minds! Have we to let them insult us? To close our eyes while they stab us (FS, Act II, 188)".
The scenes of the play take place inside and outside Ramnik Gandhi's house where Ramnik has given two Muslim boys shelter from the violent mob outside. The mob is in the form of a chorus, changing its guise into Muslims and Hindus through masks and songs. Inside, a Hindu family is sharply divided over giving shelter to the unknown Muslim youths in the midst of communal frenzy and violence. Even after fifty years of Independence, people have not been able to forget their enemity and bias against each other, i.e. Muslims against Hindus and Hindu against Muslims.
In the play, two young men, Javed and Babban, are hired to disrupt social harmony while others like Hardika's parents – in-laws have secretly burnt the shop of their Muslim friend, with the selfish end of buying it at reduced price.
Final Solutions is based on the apparently friendly relations between Muslims and Hindus and the simmering currents of hatred beneath. The family unit comprises members of different age groups, symbolic of past and present, stretching the plot to over a period of half a century. Young people like Smita, Bobby and Javed, present the future and Ramnik and Aruna, the present while Hardika, the grand mother of Smita, is sometimes presented in Daksha (Past) a fifteen year old newly married young girl, writing her diary and then as her grandmother in her late sixties (present) teaching her children and revealing the family's past. Major events are presented through her eyes.
The play, Final Solutions, is also the story of a young baffled boy Javed, who becomes a victim and a terrorist and is exploited by politicians in the name of ‘Jahad'. He is trained for the terrorist activities and sabotaging. He is sent to a Hindu ‘Mohalla' where a ‘Rath Yatra' is taking place. Javed is so over -whelmed with the fervour of ‘Jehad' that he throws the first stone on the ‘Rath' causing chaos, ending up in the killing of the ‘Pujari' and crashing down of the ‘Rath'. Bobby a close friend of Javed, saves him from the violent mob and gets him sehtler in Ramnik Gandhi's house, where causes of Hindus and Muslims hatred are being discussed and strange secrets of terror, greed, avarice and communal hatred are being revealed.
The details of stage given in the play help the audience to experience the shifts in time, Dattani keeps shuffling the frames:-
"Within the confines of the ramp is a structure suggessesting the house of GANDHI'S with just wooden blocks for furniture. However upstage perhaps as an elevation is a detailed kitchen and a Pooja room. On another level is a room with the roll top desk and an oil lamp converted to an electric one, suggesting that the period is late 1940's. This belongs to the young Daksha, who is in fact the grandmother, also sometimes seen as a girl of fifteen…. Hardika should be positioned and lit in such way that entire action of the play is seen through her eyes" (FS Act I, 165).
When the curtain rises, we find Daksha, the newly wed bride, going through her diary dated March 31, 1948. Considering her diary as her sole friend in the new environment of her in-laws, she is sharing her secrets, experiences and views with her diary. The diary begins with the shattered dreams of a young girl who wanted to be a singer like Noor Jahan, but who has been married and confined to four walls of her in-laws house. This suggests how most of us have to live a life of unfulfilled desires. This is a very lengthy monologue of Daksha but is written in the style of a spoken dialogue. She is narrating the horrible incidents of the Partition, which are still haunting her mind ever after one year.
"We… gained independence… My father had fought for that hour. He said he was happy we were rid of the Britishers… He said that before leaving, they had let loose the dogs. I hated to think that he was talking about my friends' fathers… But that night in Hussainabad in our ancestor's house… When I heard then outside--- I knew that they were thinking the same of us. And I knew that I was thinking the same, like my father" (FS, 166-67).
The young girl immediately changes into the old Hardika:
"I opened my diary again. And I wrote. A dozen pages before. A dozen pages now. A young girl's childish scribble. And an old woman's shaky scrawl. Yes, things have not changed much" (FS, 167).
After fifty year of marriage, Hardika is advising Aruna her daughter-in-law: "Be careful I said. The dogs have been let loose". (FS, 168). There seems to be no change even after so much education and development. It is sad that over after fifty years of Independence, the same things are happening, the whole story is presented in a series of scenes and memories, dialogues, images and sudden shifts in time.
Hardika's wounds caused by the killing of her father in communal frenzy during Partition become fresh again. She is terrorized when she finds two Muslims boys in her house. She does not like her son Ramnik giving them shelter from the mob outside. When she is alone with the boys, she asks them to leave India and go to Pakistan for good, as she still doubts the commitment of Muslims to the nation.
Hardika : Have you ever thought of going to Pakistan?
Bobby : No
Hardika : Why not?
Javed : I prefer Dubai
Hardika : There you can live the way you want without blaming other people for your failure like we did many year ago. (FS, 221).
Her problems have no meaning for Bobby and Javed and their problems have no meaning for her. Hardika and Javed are easily excited and are kept in dark about the reality of the things. The death of Hardika's father at the hands of Muslims is of no concern for Bobby and Javed, and Javed's sister's safety has no meaning for Hardika. Their experiences are their own. Each of them is trapped in his/her own experiences.
Hardika and Javed both have the bitter tastes of the minority community. Hardika's father was murdered because they were member of the minority Hindu community in Pakistan during Partition and Javed has become a terrorist because he is from the minority Muslim community in India. Javed explains to Ramnik his reasons for involving himself in terrorism and acts of sabotage on the Hindu procession (Rath Yatra).
"Anyone sitting at home, sipping tea and reading the newspapers will say that it is obvious that a minority would never start a riot, we are too afraid that it had to be politically motivated. (FS 205).
The selfish and petty politicians still play with the emotions of the young people like Javed and Babban, instigate them to create violence and use them for their own ends. Dattani has conveyed the same message in Final Solutions, where Bobby and Javed long to be amongst the majority section of the society. Javed tells Ramnik:
Javed : It must feel good
Ramnik : What?
Javed : Being in the majority
Ramnik : Yes, I never thought of it.
Javed : After feeling good you are in the majority?
Ramnik : No, about being the majority.
Javed : But Sir, it is in your every move. You must know. You can offer milk to us. You can have an angry mob outside your door. You can play in civilized host. Because you know you have peace hidden inside your armpit (FS 192).
Javed, who became a victim of their plans, narrates his horrible experience:
It is a terrible feeling. Being disillusioned. (Pause) Don't we all have anger and frustration? Am I so unique? Now that I am alone… I hate myself. It was different when I used to attend the meetings. I was swayed by what now appears to me as cheap sentiment. They always talked about motherland and fighting to save our faith and how we should get four of theirs for every one of ours". (FS, 205).

Javed explains how when he was following the Hindu ‘Rath' someone at first put a stone in his hand and then a knife. Javed hit the procession hard. In the words of Babban, who was a witness to this all.
‘… He was possessed!... He was insane.. I clung to him putting my arm around his waist trying to hold him back. I was dragged by his force… I pushed him aside just as the chariot began to keel over; we escaped in the panic and confusion' (FS. 207)
Visualizing Javed under the spell at that time, Bobby says:
Why did Javed threw stone and climbed the Rath and hit the Pujari, because he was told that the Hindus were taking the procession of their Gods prodding them… to wipe us out of existence…" (FS, 207)
However, there is a hidden human heart in Javed. Screaming with pleasure, Javed, in the Carnival, moves on the giant wheel. But soon his joy ride is over as the pujari looked at the knife in his hand, begs him for mercy. His frenzy is over and he wishes to be a normal human being. He is not able to kill the pujari. Explaining this Javed tells Bobby:
"I moved to the Chariot, pushing people away… I was in the carnival… screaming with pleasure. And I came crashing down, down. I wanted to get off but I could not! The pujari backed away, his last words were his god's name. He looked up at the knife… He begged for mercy but I couldn't hear him at all! There were screams all around and I was screaming too, but no longer with joy as fear came faster and faster confusing me! I got nauseous and cried. Whey am I here? What am I doing (FS 208).
This is a brilliant piece of Dattani's dialogue, what Javed felt at that time can be experienced through it. It provides a vivid picture of human psychology. Javed's frenzy and change of mind at that particular movement, pujari's imploring for mercy and the mob's tumultuousness.
Bobby seems to be wise enough to understand both Aruna and Javed's view points well. He reads out Javed's feelings to Ramnik and tries to convince Aruna that God is not biased by picking up the idol and grasp it in his hands: "you can not remove my smell with sandel paste and attars and fragrant flowers because it belongs to human being who believes, tolerates, and respects what other human beings believe that is the strongest fragrance in the world" (FS, 225) by doing so, Bobby at the same time hurts the sentiments of Aruna, a Hindu woman, when, infact, the Muslim religion does not allow any women to ever enter their Mosques, showing open disrespect towards women; however, hurting Aruna's feelings can be a small offence on Bobby's part when Aruna, perturbed over this action cries "Oh! Is there nothing left that is sacred in this world" (FS 225). He tries to calm her by the logic of fraternity and forgiveness: "The tragedy is that there is too much that is sacred. But if we understand and believe in one another nothing can be destroyed… And if you are willing to forget. I'm willing to tolerate" (FS, 225). Later on Aruna herself admits to god's oneness. Through dialogues and reflections like these, Dattani makes a strong plea for humanism, love and understanding.
Smita, Aruna's daughter, is a young college student. She is content with whatever her mother has taught her at home, she follows her directions and obeys her by performing all the rituals, till she meets Bobby, a Muslim boy and for a short while, falls in love with him. When she comes to know that Bobby is engaged to Tasneem, she is disappointed, her own experience forces her to introspect and question the rituals she has been blindly performing. Aruna, the mother, is shocked at the queer behavior of her daughter, she declares that she respects all the religions:
"Please try to understand. We have nothing against you. It is only that we have our own customs and – And… we are equal… All religion is one. Only the ways to God are many." (FS, 209)
But Smita is ignorant of the rituals in Muslim religion so she ridicules her mother for not allowing the Muslim boys to be fed along with them or to let them fill water from the holy pitcher. And she shouts at her, "… you have to admit you are wrong" (FS, 211). When Aruan asks her, ‘Does being a Hindu stifle you? (FS 211).Smita bluntly replies. "No living with one does… Because you know they don't believe in all the things that you feel are true. Doesn't that make your belief that much more weak? Do two young boys make you so insecure ? Come on mummy. This is a time for strength! I am so glad that these two dropped in. We have never spoken about what makes us too different from each other. We would have gone on living our lives with our petty similarities? (FS, 211).
Aruna feels hurt and asks her daughter not to be so cruel "you can stop being so cruel… (FS, 212). Smita replies, "I am not sorry. I said it… I am glad" (FS, 212). She feels elated in saying so in the presence of two Muslim boys because she is having an inferiority complex. Here, her religious education seems to be shallow because she has not been advised on the necessity of the rituals. On the other hand, Bobby is so impressed with the fact that Smita enjoys more freedom with her mother than he does:
I never could express my feelings as well as you do. May be my religion oppressed me for more (FS, 213)
For Javed, religion is more stifling as Bobby says, "Javed finds the whole world stifling" (FS, 219). Ramnik, who is not able to understand Javed and Babban's indulgence in acts of violence and sabotage, tries to teach the Muslim boys a lesson and gives them a good piece of his mind. And through this discourse, comes to light the hard facts of their lives. In the end, he praises the boys for their courage in fighting and questioning things.
Dattani is trying to show, probably how fundamentalism is born out of fear of marginality. He endeavors to show that it may turn towards closures and how closures do not facilitate or permit authentic debate.
Bobby has changed his name to Bobby from Babban simply because he does not like to expose his identity as a minority member. Ramnik, who seems to be quite liberal, intelligent and understanding stands exposed for his hypocrisy in the end. Ramnik knows it very well that his father and his grandfather had burnt the shops of their Muslim friends. He suffers from the complex and is willing to compensate by offering them jobs. But it never occurs to him that killing of Hardika's father could have happened to revenge. He praises Bobby for helping Javed, in doing away with his false pride and faith in his religion. Ramnik tells Bobby. "You are brave. Not every one can get off. For some of us, it is not ever possible to escape"(FS,208 ).
This goes on in Ramnik's mind and he wants to make penitence for it. No one in the house is familiar with this truth. The question raised by the young Muslim boys forces Ramnik to confess and lose his mind. In the end he tells Hardika that her husband had burnt his Muslim friend's shop because Ramnik knows that she had only few year to live now so they would not have to suffer long for it. Ramnik tells Hardika:
"I just can't enter that shop any more… I didn't have to face to tell anyone. For me there is no getting off. No escape. It is their shop. It is the same burnt shop we bought from them, at half its value. And we burnt it. You husband. My father. And his father. They had burnt it in the name of communal hatred… You have to live with the shame only for a few years now" (FS, 226).
Ramnik finds it hard to keep all the secrets burning in his mind. His agony is with him only since he does not want his wife, Aruna, to suffer from the agony of this sin. That is why Aruna is busy with her daily rituals as usual, even after a fight with Smita over the rituals. She is shocked by the rude behavior of her daughter who is not willing to change her ways. She is very proud of her ancestral past and Ramnik does not want to shelter it. When she wants to know about Ramnik's anxiety, he simply says, "there are things, that are better left unsaid" (FS, 226). He desperately wishes the boys to accept a job so that he can liberate himself from his pain and also absolve himself from a feeling of guilt.
In the character of Javed, Dattani has portrayed the pathetic life of a terrorist who is never at peace with himself or with others. Javed has an outrageous nature; his emotions are his revulsions make him a puppet in the hands of politicians. He used to be like a hero in his school; good in studies and cricket; ‘smart and cocksure'. A minor incident changes his life and old fanatic Hindu man picks up the letter kept in his house by Javed, with the help of a cloth and also wiped the gate touched by Javed and that leads him to terrorism. The incident irritates and agitates him and the next day he threw pieces of cow meat in the backyard of the old man. Suddenly, his friends stopped talking to him, "And for Javed he was - in his own eyes no longer the neighbourhood hero" (FS Act III, 201). Such persons easily catch the eyes of selfish men who lure them towards more and more repulsive acts. Even his parents disown him. Smita tells her father: "They threw him out. He did not leave them, His father threw him out". (FS, 195)
Still Javed has a warm heart. Such allegations about him make him sob and remorseful. Babban, a sincere friend of his, is always there to bring him back to normal life. But it is very difficult to rebuild the image of such persons in the society. When Bobby tells Ramnik, "He did not do it for money… They did not hire him. He volunteered"(FS 199). Ramnik says, "Doesn't that make him even more repulsive" (FS 199). Javed's own parents do not understand him let alone the outsiders. Hardika does not like him, though she does not have any complaints against any of the two yet for Javed she says, "I don't like the one called Javed, I hated him" (FS 183). It is a tragedy that people like Javed who once fall victim to terrorism cannot lead a normal life. Society refuses to accept them. And often they end their lives either in a fight or become target of police firing or commit suicide. In the 21st century they are rather prepared to die with their target like the suicide bombers. Javed tells Ramnik that no one from the police would come to arrest him and that he becomes a victim of mob's fury only because the trouble shooters along with him were not paid for overtime.
"May be they are not paid over time…. And they attacked us! They are not very systematic. Next time they should have a sound of introductions so that we don't end up killing each other. At least not unintentionally. Ha". (FS, Act III, 204).
Abandoned by the family, discarded by the society, he resorts to violence. Smita again tells her father about them.
They hire him! They hire such people and… those parties. They hire him! That is how he makes a living. They bring him and many more to the city to create riots. To… to throw the first stone" (FS, 199).
They too, like others long for love and care. Javed loves his sister Tasneem very much. And he does not want Smita to come in the way of her love for Bobby. "To me, my sister's happiness means more than anything else" (FS 217). K. Satchinand comments on the problems of communalism.
"Communalism being the worst form of materialism divorced from being anything that is sacred and oriented towards worldly wealth and power, can truly be combated by a higher form of the sacred that combines the secular ideal of human equality, democratic awareness, identification with the suffering alleviation of by poverty to resistance to a deep inner inquiry and belief in the holiness of all forms of life, those who turn religion as mean to attain state, power and world status are indeed the most irreligious of all, for they profane the most hollowed on usurp even the last refuge of the spirit from a world where the best lack all the conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity by joining the ignorant armies that class might".4
Dattani very successfully seeks to dismantle this assumption and to recover and reclaim the live of the people on the margins. Laying his hopes on the youth like Smita and Babban, Dattani finds the Final Solutions with them only. This play is a critique of violence. It is not overtly didactic but does make a forceful appeal for love and broader understanding, transcending the divides has rightly proved that the demons of communal hatred may not be out on the street, out they may be lurking inside us. They need to be exorcised.