Harshad Nalawade’s ‘Follower’ is a superbly crafted drama about the Kannadiga-Marathi conflict in Belgaum
Now in theatres, this Marathi (with Kannada and Hindi) feature world-premiered at the 2023 Rotterdam Film Festival. It shows how an ordinary man transforms into a “hater”. The rest of this review may contain spoilers.
Harshad Nalawade’s story is set in Belgaum, a largely Marathi-speaking district that was pushed into the border region of Karnataka in the 1950s, when maps were being redrawn. Over time, this move has resulted in linguistic conflict, and we see this conflict personified as Raghavendra Pawar, aka Raghu (Raghu Prakash). As his surname suggests, he is a Marathi speaker. On the other hand, we have a Kannadiga named Sachin (played by the director). Both employ social media to further their cause: Raghu’s posts insist that Maharashtrians are being oppressed, while Sachin thinks that there is nothing wrong in wanting, for instance, shop signs in Kannada (in addition to Marathi). Raghu runs a gift shop whose sign was first in Marathi (i.e. Devanagari), and one of the film’s most violent images has him dragging the tin sign behind him on a desolate road at night. The deafening noise – tin on tarmac – could well be the soundtrack of Belgaum.
Throughout Follower, which runs about an hour and forty minutes, we see political developments on TV screens or computer screens or smartphone screens. A rabble-rousing politician asks (in Marathi) why people speak up for Palestine and Kashmir and not for Belgaum. Meanwhile, a man on a bike threatens Sachin that he will be killed if he does not stop his pro-Kannadiga propaganda. In the initial stages, we think that the film is about the question: “Whom does Belgaum belong to, the Marathis or the Kannadigas?” But the success of Follower is in the way it peels back this unanswerable question and looks deeper into the cause of the rot. The real question is this: “What are the circumstances that result in someone like Raghu becoming a follower?” And this is achieved through an excellent narrative choice, the equivalent of a long flashback that fills out most of the post-interval portions.
Usually, we see flashbacks being used to flesh out singular (and concise) plot points, like… “what really happened that particular day” or “what caused this person to turn into a vigilante?” But in Follower, we see a long stretch of the present, followed by a long stretch of a “one year ago” past that tells us about Raghu and Sachin and the single mother named Parveen (Donna Munshi). So we have a Marathi-speaker, a Kannada-speaker, and a fair-complexioned woman who speaks in Hindi. I mention this detail because it is emphasised in a conversation between Raghu’s colleagues. They speak of women with “white skin” whose ancestors were from Persia (as opposed to the duskier Kannadiga and Maharashtrian women). The issue of being a migrant is everywhere. Raghu even has a brother in the US, another case of someone from one place resettling in another.
Follower is directed superbly. In one scene, we see Raghu in a room, his mother in another room, and Raghu’s brother on laptop screen. (It’s a family call.) As the camera swerves from Raghu’s mother to him, with a wall in between, the divisions in this small family are emphasised. Another terrific stretch follows Raghu on the road, beside Parveen. He is riding his bike, she is on her scooter, and we see them talking as they head to their respective destinations. In contrast to all this uninterrupted movement, an argument between Raghu and Sachin (a scene that practically begs for the agitations of a handheld camera, as per modern filmmaking convention) is presented as a static shot. This argument erupts in a kind of eatery, where Raghu and Sachin go to have some beer. Sachin orders a side of tandoori chicken, and he loses it when the waiter says they don’t serve non-vegetarian food on Tuesdays. It becomes an issue of “those guys are telling us what to eat”. This us-versus-them apparently transcends cause.
And these scenes are important because they paint a larger picture of disharmony, and how everyone who does not conform to your belief systems is quickly viewed as “the other”. The irony is that Raghu, despite the statuette of Shivaji Maharaj in his living room, does not really care. At first, he is just a man trying to make ends meet. When his father says that Raghu’s promotion has been denied because he is not a Kannadiga, Raghu walks off at what he considers a cynical old man’s ranting. He speaks in fluent Kannada with the man who leases him the space for the gift shop. How did this (apparent) poster boy for assimilation turn into a radical “follower” of divisive politics? How did this person who puts up with everything with a sigh turn into a man so angry that when he masturbates it’s not pleasure we see on his face but rage?
We get these answers in installments. It’s the casual insult from a friend that Raghu runs a gift shop. It’s the pressure of having to bear the family expenses despite that US brother. It’s the fact that Raghu cannot take a day off because the gift shop is already not making much money. It’s the prospect of an increase in rent. It’s the fact that Karnataka Day is seen as a “black day” for the Maharashtrian community, and if Marathi-speaking musclemen ask him to shut his shop, a few Kannadigas barge in later and demand that he keeps it open. It’s the the frustration of seeing a rich friend become a political video-maker simply because he wants to do something on his own and not rely on his father’s money. These are not spoilers. These are just a few of the many ignition points.
A brilliant scene where a Kannadiga who cannot read English asks Raghu to pick out an anniversary card ends up being both comedy and drama. That is the point of Follower – that frustrations and subsequent political alignments need not always be rooted in strong ideology. It can be something as simple as watching someone kiss the girl you have a crush on. Raghu Prakash puts these emotions across magnificently, and there’s solid support from the director and Donna Munshi. These actors give performances that are not “actorly”, and which chart the many micro-arcs that make up their broad character trajectories. Even the language of the film, I think, has its own trajectory. In the early parts, the title cards (such as “one year ago”) are in Devanagari, English, and Kannada, while the rolling end credits are entirely in Devanagari. Follower is a strong, assured work that moves casually between the personal and the political, rich and poor, Hindu and Muslim, Marathi and Kannada. The film holds a mirror to modern-day India and asks the audience if we can see our reflection in it.
