The Irony of Sanjubaba: When India’s original enfant terrible preaches peace!

Raju Korti
Sanjay Dutt recently graced our screens to lament that he can no longer feel peace in India. Coming from anyone else, such a statement might provoke a serious debate on civil liberties or societal harmony. Coming from Dutt, it merely invites a collective, weary sigh. Here is a man who spent his youth ensuring that peace was the last thing his own family ever experienced. Now at sixty-seven, after a life defined by reckless self-indulgence and catastrophic choices, he positions himself as a gentle soul yearning for a calmer nation. The sheer audacity is almost impressive.

The anatomy of Dutt’s troubled life is well documented. He was the classic product of a doting mother who swept his every misdeed under the rug and a stern father who resorted to harsh measures to instill discipline. Yet, neither love nor the belt could keep him on the straight and narrow. When his idea of inner peace in 1993 involved possessing an assault rifle during one of Mumbai’s darkest hours, one wonders what definition of the word he uses today. His subsequent time behind bars, punctuated by an absurdly generous sequence of furloughs and paroles, appears to have taught him precious little about accountability.

Instead of maintaining a dignified silence and allowing the public to believe he had finally matured, Dutt chose to spout political platitudes on a satire show. When the inevitable backlash followed, he scrambled to offer a damage control clarification. He claimed the entire segment was merely a light-hearted, scripted routine inspired by Gandhigiri. By throwing the scriptwriters under the bus, he not only displayed a naive lack of foresight about his own precarious standing but also managed to thoroughly embarrass host Shekhar Suman. It seems Bollywood celebrities never lose their holier than thou mindset, no matter how tarnished their credentials might be.

This tendency to rewrite history and play the innocent victim is an old habit. On March 24, 2013, I wrote in my blog about the sardonic humour in the groundswell of support Dutt received from his industry peers. The film fraternity, always acting like an autonomous authority immune from liabilities, rushed to portray him as an acknowledged Gandhian after his conviction. High-profile politicians and public figures lined up to declare his actions were merely the result of child-like innocence, conveniently ignoring the gravity of illegal weapons charges linked to a tragic terror event.

In that same blog post, I recalled how his late father Sunil Dutt once spoke to me in near tears. He narrated how he had staked his entire goodwill and reputation to rescue his erratic son from the brink. A senior journalist friend also shared harrowing details of how the elder Dutt would beat Sanjubaba with a belt in a desperate bid to reform him, leaving physical marks on his legs. But back then, Dutt was beyond redemption. It took the shock of the Bombay Blasts case to break his complacent stupor, yet his supporters continued to insist he was just a harmless, misguided boy.

Someone who never allowed his parents a moment of serenity and spent decades inviting turmoil cannot credibly lecture a nation on peacefulness. India has offered Sanjay Dutt extraordinary leeway, second chances, and a level of forgiveness that few ordinary citizens would ever enjoy. For him to claim he no longer feels peace here is not just rich, it is utterly tone-deaf. If Sanjubaba truly wants to understand why peace feels so elusive, he might start by looking in the mirror.