CREATIVE ways abound to resist oppression be it from one`s own state or a foreign occupation power; but to defeat or vacate the menace is another ballgame. Cinema, theatre, dance, poetry, music, art and often enough satire by stand-up comedians India`s Kunal Kamra excels in the craft-havebeenharnessedin differentcircumstances to rally support against the oppressor. It was thus that in the early Nazification of Germany, there was music and satire to resist the terror. Christopher Isherwood`s account of the cabaret as a tool to lampoon early Nazis in German nightclubs made it to Broadway and eventually became a celebrated Hollywood movie.

Charles Chaplin released his f abled black comedy film The Great Dictatorin 1940, a year into the war on Hitler. He caricatured the Duce and the Fuhrer in the movie to standing applause, but his own presumed allies were wary of his talent.

Thus, during the Red Scare of the 1950s, the beloved film icon became a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI, who labelled him a communist sympathiser, creating the grounds for his eventual exile from the United States. The Great Dictator remains relevant as a sharp comment on the surfeit of megalomaniac autocrats preying on the world even today.

Often enough, a creative impulse or its endorsement flows from collective humour. A whispered skit in 1930s Berlin went thus: `Today in Germany the proper form of grace is `Thank God and Hitler.`` `But suppose the Fuhrer dies?`. `Then you just thank God.` Yet, all the inspirational art and ammunition deployed by great satirists were never intended to replace the masses on the streets to fight an unjust order.

Memorably,it was the Soviet troops whose arrival on the outskirts of Berlin finally persuaded Hitler to shoot himself and have his body burnt to ashes.

Picasso`s Guernica depicted the horrors of war and the German bombing of the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Though the black and white oil painting is a horrific reminder of Franco`s brutalities against progressive men and women who were drawn from around the world, it also underscores the duplicity of those who claimed to fight fascism. Churchill surrepti-tiously courted Franco and denied support to the Republican fighters.

The Vietnam War spawned a range of creative protests across the world. While art and poetry played their role, however, it neede d the mastery of Ho Chi Minh, Le Duan and Le Duc Tho in the science of guerrilla warf are to bring imperialism to heel. Creative forms of resistance did supplement the efforts of Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose in the Indian freedom struggle, but the battlefield usually calls for a little more.

Justice Anand Narain Mulla, a former high court judge and poet, ventured to mix the metaphors adversely and got himself into needless trouble.

Charged up protesters took to the streets against his verse that proclaimed a drop of ink from the writer`s quill to be worthier than a martyr`sblood: `Khoon-i-shaheed se bhi hai geemat mein kuchh siwa/ Fankaar ke galam ki siyahi ki ek boond.` Mulla had to apologise.

Which brings me to two important films documentaries, actuallythat made it to the Oscars list this year. The Jewish-Arab documentary, No other land, about the never-ending eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank won the award. A few days after winning the prize, the Palestinian producer of the documentary was viciously assaulted and tortured by Netanyahu`s goons.

The documentary about the CIA`s targeted assassination of Patrice Lumumba on the orders of the US president Soundtrack to a coup d`etat -is just as riveting though both films have struggled to find movie halls. Since the Modi regime has thrown itself behind the oppressors at home and abroad, it was logical that it refused to allow the Palestinian documentary to be cleared for screening in the country.

Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez`s Congomurder explores a less discussed narrative of the CIA`s hand in the murder of Lumumba. How the agency exploited the talents of American musicians to use in the murder plot forms a key plank of the film. Jazz icon Louis Armstrong became a smokescreen to divert attention from Africa`s first postcolonial coup, leading to the assassination of Congo`s first democratically elected leader. By the time musicians Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln raided the UN Council to protest Lumumba`s murder, the damage had already been done.

Lumumba`s penchant for music is ironically revealed in his poem, which was published posthumously in Moscow. An excerpt: The sweet desires of youth sound, wild with power, On strings of brass, in burning tambourines.

And from that mighty music the beginning Of jazz arose, tempestuous, capricious, Declaring to the whites in accents loud That not entirely was the planet theirs.

ChubbyKunalKamraisIndia`sinstantlyloved stand-up comedian whose infectious humour and satire is peppered with street language and locker-room phrases. India`s Hindu nationalist politicians and their favourite tycoons feature prominently in his one-liners. I like Kunal even more for his occasional off-key singing and nonchalant attempts to lyricise sans rhyme or meter stories of vile events and turncoat politicians. His parodies of movie songs as props make for ribtickling anti-establishment scripts. Some can be seen on YouTube. The regime naturally doesn`t like him and in BJP-ruled Maharashtra he needs protection from physical assault.

Recently, the state let loose Hindutva mobs to hunt him down. Fortunately, Kunal had escaped to opposition-ruled Tamil Nadu. The mob vandalised his studio in Mumbai while police slapped troublesome cases on him. Kamra and others of his ilk risk life and limb in a cause that evokes genuine gratitude. But, with the opposition in disarray and little sign of a serious challenge to India`s ongoing political quandary, Kunal Kamra remains at risk of ploughing a lonely furrow. • The writer is Dawn`s correspondent in Delhi.

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