Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema 9780195696547

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Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

Title Pages (p.i) Seduced by the Familiar (p.iii) Seduced by the Familiar (p.ii) ‘Possible, but not interesting,’ Lonrot answered. ‘You’ll reply that reality hasn’t the least obligation to be interesting. And I’ll answer you that reality may avoid that obligation but that hypothesis may not.’ —Jorge Luis Borges, Death and the Compass (1954)

(p.vi) YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110 001 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in

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Title Pages Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in India by Oxford University Press, New Delhi © Oxford University Press 2008 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Oxford University Press. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Images of film posters on p. vi and p. viii, courtesy National Film Archives of India ISBN 13: 978-019-569654-7 ISBN 10: 019-569654-9 Typeset in GoudyOlSt BT 10.5/12.7 by Excellent Laser Typesetters, Pitampura, Delhi 110 034 Printed at Roopak Printers, Delhi 110 032 Published by Oxford University Press YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110 001

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Acknowledgements

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

(p.vii) Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible without the generous grant from The Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council, Mumbai, for which I am deeply grateful. The two-year Homi Bhabha Fellowship (2000–01) made it possible for me to conduct research into the narrative strategies of Indian popular cinema. I owe much to the late T.G. Vaidyanathan, whose coffee house discussions made it apparent in my college years that film criticism was an honourable vocation and to Ashis Nandy, who later persuaded me that studying Indian popular cinema could be of immense intellectual interest. I also acknowledge my debt to the various people who helped me in various ways that are too difficult to enumerate–Usha K.R., Rudolf Bartsch and the Goethe Institut, Akumal Ramachander, Hans V. Mathews, Rohini and Nandan Nilekani, K.S. Sashidharan, Vinay Lal, Neepa Majumdar, Jennifer Crewe of Columbia University Press, New York, the editors of Oxford University Press, New Delhi, Rahul Gupta, and the late M.U. Jayadev. This book also owes a debt of gratitude to the comments of the anonymous readers who scrutinized it more thoroughly than I imagined possible and also made numerous helpful suggestions, most of which I implemented. Finally, I also thank the National Film Archive of India and Vijay Jadhav, Arti Karkhanis, and Subbalakshmi Iyer for their help in providing the images of publicity posters of Hindi films used on the cover of book.

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Acknowledgements (p.viii)

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Acknowledgements

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Acknowledgements

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Dedication

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

Dedication (p.v) For my mother, as unlike a popular film mother as any

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Dedication (p.vi)

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Dedication

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Dedication

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Introduction

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

Introduction M.K. Raghavendra

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords Indian popular cinema is marked by many transformations. It has been subjected to the ‘constants’ found within the beliefs and worldview of the people of the Indian society and to the ‘variables’ associated with the changing social and cultural climate in India. This chapter traces the history of Indian popular cinema from the 1930s, particularly the approaches and methods employed. Also discussed are the critical approaches in the academic study of popular cinema and the drawbacks in the theoretical approach in examining and understanding the phenomena of a film. Later sections discuss the aims and goals of the book. Here, the narrative approach to Indian films and other means of codifying the methods of popular Indian cinema are discussed and detailed. Keywords:   Indian popular cinema, critical approach, academic study, theoretical approach, narrative approach

This book began as a modest inquiry into the transformation of Indian popular cinema in its attempt to become ‘global entertainment’, but it became apparent quite early that the history of popular cinema in India is a history of such transformations. ‘Bollywood’, despite its reputed indifference to social issues and its shunning of the ‘topical’, has actually always responded to the ethos— although in strange ways. This is an aspect that has not received much recognition till fairly recently and, even now, the extent of this ‘response’ is not fully understood. If the popular model in Indian cinema was long regarded with hostility by the older school of Indian film critics, usually more responsive to the ‘realist’ aesthetic, it is still less ‘appreciated’ than interpreted. Film academics,

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Introduction now alive to its importance, tend to regard it as a ‘symptom’ rather than as a form with an independent aesthetic. The film industry in India has also not attempted a serious justification of its own artistic choices and even insiders have tended to be apologetic, actually upbraiding audiences for the ‘low standards’ in film artistry.1 The term ‘commercial cinema’ applied to the Indian popular film is understood to be a pejorative one, but filmmakers of the school have rarely contested pointed references to their business aspirations, often being content to be perceived as manufacturers of entertainment. Indian commercial cinema may not have found able advocates even among its purveyors but this does not mean that its case lies beyond the pale of advocacy. An advocate must be found and, in the absence of another, the role devolves upon the film critic regardless of how inclined she/ he may be to accept it. Popular cinema has remained faithful to its distinctive path for so long that it may be (p.2) presumed to address and touch deeper chords; what it means to its audience needs to be explored and articulated. With the new developments in media studies one is permitted to say that media texts are ‘co-authored’ by audiences. It is postulated that the ‘creator coauthor’ (the filmmaker) may initiate the process of generating meaning but that the ‘consumer co-author’ (the audience) concludes it when he/she shapes it through his/her own experience. Once the involvement of the audience in the generation of meaning is conceded, the value of the experience contained in Indian popular cinema becomes more assured. If one hypothesizes that there could be a ‘natural selection’ of patterns and motifs in the popular cinema of any period depending on their pertinence,2 the role of the consumer co-author is made even more significant and this places a greater value upon popular cinema. For my purpose, Indian popular cinema’s position can be broadly defined in terms of two constituent elements. The first element is perhaps a ‘constant’— determined not only by the beliefs and worldview of the people of the subcontinent but also by the role that the arts have traditionally played in India. While the underlying beliefs may have been distorted under colonialism, their stability/constancy can be assumed at least after the advent of cinema, which is a relatively recent phenomenon. The other constituent element is a ‘variable’ associated with India’s changing social and cultural climate. If the recurring codes and conventions of Indian cinema are traceable to the ‘constant’ element, the manner in which motifs actually undergo transformation may be a function of the changing social landscape. The fundamental codes are stable over longer periods but individual narratives and their constituent motifs apparently address the historical moment.

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Introduction Traditional Evaluations The earliest approach to popular cinema began with the film society movement and the founding of the Calcutta Film Society by Satyajit Ray and Chidananda Das Gupta in 1948. The hostility of this group of cineastes to Indian popular cinema is well known and its opinions were later echoed in Das Gupta’s book The Painted Face (1992). According to their view the first concession to public taste happened very early in Indian film history through the genre of the mythological, (p.3) which pandered to the ‘lowest common denominator’ in popular taste. Although Indian cinema ‘faltered’ at its very origins, a more respectable ‘reformist’ cinema emerged in the 1930s, at variance with the runof-the-mill amalgam of stunts, spectacle, and magic. This view laments the theatricality of Indian cinema but sees a new cinematic direction emerging in the 1950s and after, with the advent of art or ‘parallel’ cinema. While it attributes the rise of parallel cinema to the growth of the middle classes, it also detects a decline in the standards of popular cinema and concludes that its laterday avatar is no more than an amalgam of mindless violence and titillation. This viewpoint may be very dated but it still finds support among some aesthetes and is perhaps responsible for the lowly status accorded to the Indian popular film as cinematic expression.3 The difficulty with it is perhaps that, despite the continued growth of the middle classes, it is the canonized art cinema that has become the eventual casualty and popular cinema flourishes, patronized as never before by the middle classes. The hostility just noted is inappropriate in a critical approach to such a popular body of entertainment but its logic must still be understood. The approach surmises that, since cinema is a development of photography and primarily intended to capture reality, it is most productive in its relationship with the real.4 Critics favouring this viewpoint valorize ‘realism’ as the mode of cinematic narration most appropriate to Indian cinema. Since the viewpoint originated in the film society movement, the prescription is also intended to favour the development of ‘good cinema’. The animosity towards the excesses of popular cinema is, however, not founded only on its aesthetic; this cinema is also identified as the possible instrument of retrograde politics. Das Gupta considers the film spectator incapable of distinguishing between the screen image and reality and, therefore, susceptible to totalitarian politics.5 He cites the demagogic politics in the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (that arose out of the respective regional cinemas) and contrasts it unfavourably with the rationalist and democratic traditions of the Nehru era. The aesthete’s approach is perhaps anachronistic because media critics are now convinced that such a large body of popular culture needs understanding. Rather than heaping abuse on popular culture and contrasting it unfavourably with ‘high art’, the approach that has gained ground today is to dissolve the distinction between the ‘high’ and the ‘low’ in culture.

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Introduction (p.4) Responses to Popular Culture: An Overview Although much of the theoretical work done in the study of popular culture may not be pertinent to the eventual thrust of my arguments, recent developments in the field have deeply influenced the way Indian popular cinema is studied by academics. A brief account of the developments will be useful at least to the extent that it helps me ‘locate’ my own arguments and will also indicate where they diverge. Generally speaking, five main strategies are current in the way the critic approaches popular culture:6 1. The first strategy attempts to find the terms of high culture where you least expect them. 2. The second approach places its emphasis on the aspects of social reality that are unavailable to high art. 3. The third refuses to analyse and opts instead for an enthusiastic study of detail as the foundation for evaluation. 4. In the fourth, the hedonistic approach, the problems with the popular are evaded by concentrating exclusively on the pleasure deriving from it. 5. The fifth method—usually employed by academics partial to psychoanalysis and methods deriving from structuralism—chooses to deal with the division between high and popular culture by dissolving it and declining to differentiate among the objects of study on the basis of such a division. The late Iqbal Masud adopted the first strategy productively in his newspaper columns. Writers like Ashis Nandy and Sudhir Kakar7— whose primary interest is often outside cinema—employ the second one seriously. The third and the fourth strategies are adopted largely in the realm of newspaper or magazine journalism and the writing usually restricts itself to nostalgic articles about films or film music. It is the last strategy that has been the most productive in recent years and it is also this strategy that is most widely employed by academics to study Indian popular cinema. My own inquiry attempts to combine the first two strategies. It ventures into popular cinema because of its ‘proletarian appeal’—although it is more concerned with it as cinema than with its uncovering of social reality. Second, while I do not claim that my study will help popular cinema achieve the status of ‘high (p.5) culture’ inside India, I will try to demonstrate that there is more method to it than is traditionally conceded. Its methods are complex and intricate in their production of meaning and they are, consequently, not undeserving of more than a little appreciation. Before I go on to look at the various approaches to Indian popular cinema, I should perhaps examine the direction taken by academic film study in the past two decades—whatever is done in India today relies upon it.

The oldest approach in the academic study of popular cinema around the world drew heavily on Freudian psychoanalysis but was perhaps only an extension of what had already been done in literary criticism. Psychoanalysis dominated film theorizing in the West for more than two decades and is still influential— although it is Jacques Lacan rather than Freud who is the reigning deity. In the 1980s, a new approach labelled ‘cognitivism’ also took shape as an alternative to Page 4 of 24

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Introduction psychoanalysis. Cognitivism is not a unified theory but derives its name from its inclination to look for answers to many of the questions raised by psychoanalytical film theories in terms of cognitive and rational processes rather than irrational and unconscious ones. The rationale is that when a convincing cognitive account is available, there can be no point in looking for a further, psychoanalytic account8 but there is a tendency for criticism to embark upon symptomatic or ‘deep’ interpretations of a text without acknowledging the primary obligation of a ‘surface’ interpretation. Psychoanalysis still strongly informs film criticism in India and the West but the development that is also most influential in the study of Indian popular cinema today arrived with the discipline called ‘film studies’ in the 1970s. Before 1970 film history was largely treated in terms of canonized films and the reigning conceptual framework was auteurism, which intensified the premise that underpinned much of the traditional aesthetic by positing the director as the supremely important person in any film. This position came under attack after 1970 from a new theoretical impetus largely initiated by followers of French structuralism. Claude Lévi-Strauss was among the first structuralists to be translated and the structuralist semiology of Christian Metz also became more widely known outside France in the 1970s. The most influential structuralist argument with regard to cinema treated it as akin to myth and ritual. According to Lévi-Strauss, myth translates contradictions in social life (p.6) into symbolic terms and, while studying Hollywood genres, it was similarly argued that film offered mythical resolutions to binary alternatives such as man/woman, individual/community, and order anarchy.9 Much of the attraction of structuralism to cinema did not however come from theorizing but from its application to particular bodies of films—like the works of auteurs—or to historically specific genres. While the influence of structuralism upon film studies was relatively brief, new ideas from Althusserian Marxism (after Louis Althusser), Lacanian psychoanalysis (after Jacques Lacan), and Metzian semiotics (after Christian Metz) soon began to find their way into film studies and formed an amalgam that generally goes by the name ‘Theory’. There are two composite streams within Theory and the first, which has sometimes been called the ‘subject-position’, uses the methods made influential by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who argued that the ‘subject’ itself is not an absolute but is socially constructed.10 His oft-quoted dictum, ‘The unconscious is structured like language’, can be taken to imply that the human mind is not pre-existent but is actually constituted by the language we employ. Lacan can be regarded as having developed a semiotic version of Freud and is important to criticism for this reason. Especially important in Lacanian criticism is Lacan’s reformulation of Freud’s concepts of the early stages of psychosexual development into the distinction between a pre-linguistic stage of development—the imaginary—and Page 5 of 24

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Introduction the stage after the acquisition of language that he termed the symbolic. In the imaginary, there is no clear distinction between the subject and the object. Lacan called the ‘mirror stage’ the moment when the infant begins to identify with his or her image in a mirror and begins to develop a sense of a separate self. For reasons that are not entirely clear the ‘subject-position’ found less favour with academics after the 1980s. One of the cited reasons is that it became victim to the charge of ‘ahistoricality’. The motivating clause of ‘symbolic order’ used by it was too broad and ‘totalizing’. Using psychoanalysis also foregrounded gender difference but suggested no way of dealing with other differences such as race and class, which were also regarded as determining. Before 1970 there were very few histories of cinema that could hold their own against histories in literature. This began to change, although many of these histories were often attacked as ‘empiricist’. It was felt necessary to ‘historicize’ and ‘contextualize’ the texts in the (p.7) social process. What needed emphasis was evidently not the text alone but also the uses made of it. The second constituent of Theory is, therefore, ‘culturalism’ which attempts to do this. While there are other strands within culturalism (the Frankfurt School, postmodernism), the most important from our standpoint is ‘cultural studies’ because this strand is most influential within film studies in India. We see, in the critical reception to Indian popular cinema, the emphasis progressively shifting away from evaluating it as ‘art’ towards its sociology and ideology and this is deeply influenced by new directions taken by cultural studies in the West. Much of the new critical writing on Indian popular cinema has its basis directly or indirectly in the structural Marxism of Louis Althusser and in the writing of Antonio Gramsci. Althusser11 identifies repressive state apparatuses (the government, armies, police, courts, and prisons). His writing also identifies ideological state apparatuses (religion, education, family, media, culture) that function as indirect control structures. Gramsci12 sees modern hegemony as not exercised by direct coercion but by achieving the consent of the dominated through the use of the media and institutions. Examined in this context, even the family is a political category and the upholding of familial values becomes a distinctly ideological exercise. Jacques Derrida13 goes a step further than Althusser and Gramsci. He seeks to undermine the control structures of domination and his ‘deconstruction’ of texts and readings points (among other things) to the power relations at work. Deconstruction is a strategy that reveals the under-layers of meaning in a text, suppressed in order to make a guaranteed certainty of what is being represented. The deconstructivists assume that each text has ‘areas of blindness’ that can be crucial to interpretation. The meaning of a text cannot lie entirely within itself because its meanings are enabled by its silence on some crucial point. The virtue of this approach is that it allows for an intricate reading of the text while encouraging a creative role for the critical reader. It neutralizes the hermeneutic insistence on the ‘intention’ of the author by assuming that this intention is itself Page 6 of 24

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Introduction clouded by blindness or bad faith on the part of the author. Deconstruction interrogates the notion that the intention to mean something determinate by an utterance is completely present in the speaker’s consciousness (at the moment of articulation) and that this determinate meaning is entirely communicable to the listener. (p.8) Cultural texts are not perceived to have definite meanings today but are increasingly viewed as ‘sites of conflict’. It has also been argued that the meaning of a text is always determined by the context of articulation. Cultural texts and practices are, in effect, ‘multi-accentual’. Different people in different contexts with different kinds of politics articulate them with different ‘accents’ for different ideological purposes. ‘Meaning’ is therefore socially produced and the world itself has to be made to mean. A text or a practice is not the issuing source of meaning. It is a site where the articulation of variable meanings can take place and the meaning is always determined by the context of articulation. The area of ‘reception studies’, which follows from this logic, has its origins in the work of Althusser, Gramsci, and Derrida and, simply put, examines the way we interpret media culture. If ‘new criticism’ marked the shift in emphasis from the author to the text, reception studies makes a similar shift from the text to the receiver/reader. The text influences the way we read it but this reading cannot be entirely determined by it. The reading can be ‘reader-activated’—the reader’s personal concerns becoming more important in the deciphering of the text. It can also be ‘context-activated’—the meaning occurring in the contextual intersection between text and reader. It has been postulated that ‘interpretive communities’ emerge at crucial moments in history and change the way in which cultural texts are interpreted. Four important struggles are identified in recent history14 and the first of these is the fight against colonialism and economic imperialism. The second is synonymous with the rise of the women’s movement and the fight against ‘patriarchal discourse’. The third is the struggle for democratic control within the culture industry and the fourth begins with the arrival of working-class writing and its offering of alternative modes of literary production—community and cooperative publishing and alternative social values. Some of the more celebrated cultural/film theorists are very literary in their approaches and rely on allusion/suggestion that can be lost in translation and is difficult to grasp for scholars with little appreciation of the elusive literary contexts. But the phrases they have invented/coined have gained so much prestige that second-line academics tend to employ them routinely as ritual ingredients. This may be responsible for much academic scholarship becoming inaccessible, obfuscating, and (p.9) overwhelmed by jargon, and for the paucity of intelligible arguments in film/cultural theory.

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Introduction Critical Approaches to Indian Popular Cinema Each approach attempting to unravel Indian popular cinema has had its own distinct agenda. Each approach can perhaps be likened to the way an object is made to cast a shadow when illuminated. The actual shape of the shadow changes according to the placement of the light source. The shadow itself is only a two-dimensional decipherment that cannot be mistaken for the object. Since the placement of the light source is partly decided by what one looks for in the object, the actual decipherment is both a function of the object’s threedimensional shape and of the decipherer’s intent/agenda. Any examination of how popular cinema has hitherto been understood must evidently commence with the intent of the decipherer. By 1992 (when The Painted Face appeared) the viewpoint adopted by Das Gupta had become ‘oldfashioned’ and there was a perception that critical writing needed to do more than simply disapprove of popular cinema. Das Gupta therefore expanded the scope of his writing to include the use of psychoanalytical tools in an essay entitled ‘The Oedipal Hero’. The Painted Face succeeds in several ways but there is a barely concealed glee when Das Gupta imagines the discomfiture caused to popular cinema by the ‘skeletons’ forced out of its ‘social cupboard’15 through psychoanalytical interpretation. Das Gupta’s faith in psychoanalysis was perhaps in tune with the times but the method had been already applied by Sudhir Kakar16 to popular cinema and, despite insights into individual films (like Raj Kapoor’s Ram Teri Ganga Maili, 1984), nothing particularly startling about the body as a whole had emerged. There have been other, lesser, attempts that followed Das Gupta’s and Kakar’s path but psychoanalysis is employed so indiscriminately that it no longer guarantees the startling results it once yielded, and readings of Indian popular cinema tend to be predictable. Psychoanalytical interpretations given to Indian filmic texts (for instance the oedipal fixations invoked with regard to the iconic mother figure17 often seen in Raj Kapoor’s films) are also ahistorical because they do not explain why the motif appears so forcefully at certain times but not at others. (p.10) Sudhir Kakar’s examination of popular cinema and Das Gupta’s The Painted Face were among the first to employ psychoanalytical methods but there are other serious responses as well. Before examining the more influential trends today, a few other assorted methods need to be commented upon. Ashis Nandy has written extensively on Indian popular cinema and he is, chiefly, a critic of rationality and enlightenment, seeing positively that popular cinema was a response to the deadening homogenization and standardization wrought by the modernist imperative upon a variety of traditional cultures.18 Then there is also the ‘traditionalist’ approach that traces the codes of popular cinema to Hindu aesthetics and to the rasas of Sanskrit poetics.19 Sanskrit drama took a shape comparable to the one taken by popular cinema and this lends credence to the approach. In classical drama, heroes and heroines belonged to a few predetermined types, there was little room for ‘new stories’ or for narrative Page 8 of 24

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Introduction invention, plays borrowed their themes from the epics,20 and the role of the vidhushaka ran strikingly parallel to that of the comedian in Indian cinema. The following description of a Sanskrit play can, with some effort, also be rephrased to suit a contemporary film: The lost are found, the generations bound together; the stories echo the seasonal and cyclical myths. The contrasts resemble those in the procession of the year, a circular dance of months and days. The play is not a river ending in the sea, either in mystical union with God or in fulfillment of human ambition. Rather, it is… a highly formal and unmistakably aesthetic projection of life ideally conceived.21 Sanskrit drama was, as is acknowledged, elitist in its aims but Indian popular cinema is plebeian. I therefore suggest that popular cinema is related to traditional Sanskrit drama in the way each object is related to its ‘archetype’. Popular cinema may be considered aesthetically ‘degraded’—in relation to the archetype—but its reach also makes it immensely more important as a piece of social evidence. This ‘traditionalist’ interpretation accounts for several of popular cinema’s basic characteristics but it is inadequate in as much as it treats the methods of popular cinema as firmly established by heritage. The method does not attempt to elucidate the way popular cinema adapts to social transformation.

Then there are, of course, ‘empirical studies’—introductions to Indian popular cinema that chronicle the major developments in (p.11) its history—and the first of these was perhaps by Barnouw and Krishnaswamy.22 A later, somewhat kindred effort by K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake also attempts to examine the cultural implications of Indian popular cinema.23 A recent study of Indian popular cinema by Yves Thoraval (The Cinemas of India)24 sets out to celebrate Indian cinema’s ‘plurality’. Indian cinema is a complex phenomenon, unifying it under a single precept is certainly not easy and Thoraval admits this at the outset through the title. The admission nonetheless becomes justification for the avoidance of even comprehensive treatment and the structure of the volume exhibits all the perplexity that divided approaches entail. While the older interpretations of Indian popular cinema (like the ‘traditionalist’ one) were not usually specific to individual texts, new critical writing is increasingly textual and apparently belongs to two affiliated ‘interpretive communities’. The first of these communities is feminist and its earliest examples were primarily concerned with patriarchal discourse in popular cinema. Later-day examples are nonetheless informed by postcolonial theory even while drawing from Laura Mulvey’s work and Lacanian psychoanalysis. As an illustration, one may cite Lalitha Gopalan’s inquiry25 into the avenging woman of the 1980s, which will become pertinent in the course of the book. While feminist film theory has traditionally focused heavily on Hollywood, Gopalan uses it to her advantage to interrogate the notion of ‘national’ cinema.

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Introduction Do not the points of contact between Indian cinema and international film practice undermine the notion of national cinema as a monolith? The second community proceeds by examining India as newly independent after centuries of colonial rule, finding evidence that Indian cinema was, consequently, engaged in defining ‘the Nation’, and Sumita S. Chakravarty and M. Madhava Prasad’s studies are the most important examples26 although they have different emphases. In examining Indian cinema after 1947, this group proceeds from the postulate that the resources of the independent nation state were deployed to define a homogeneous ‘Indian’ culture and this prompts it to critically examine how cinema became useful. Cinema apparently served ideological purposes in India because it was already suturing cultural differences and producing a homogeneous mass culture for an undifferentiated audience in the period before Independence. (p.12) Indian cinema is perhaps more ‘pan-national’ than any other form of cultural address in India today and this factor lends much credence to the group’s deliberate approach. Although the two interpretive communities have notionally different identities, in practice we detect large areas of overlap between them and critics influenced by cultural studies usually employ both approaches depending on the actual text being scrutinized. The two interpretive communities have now gained so much influence in the study of Indian popular cinema (some might even use the term ‘hegemony’) that the only authoritative Indian film encyclopaedia goes much beyond its assumed role and takes an ideological position to emphasize Indian cinema’s ‘plurality’.27 An encyclopaedia is a naturally ‘plural’ object but we find an attempt in it to impose a ‘singular’ interpretive viewpoint upon Indian cinema to emphasize its diversity! Indian cinema is an enormous body but the hermeneutic approaches described are employed upon a mere handful of films—although the number is growing. As an illustration, an influential essay—Ravi Vasudevan’s ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities: The Hindi Social Film of the 1950s as Popular Culture’28— relies on only two films of the period, Mehboob Khan’s Andaz and Raj Kapoor’s Awaara. Even here, the arguments hinge on detailed analyses of one or two segments without the reader being presented with arguments about why the segments are crucial to reading the films. In fact, the nine-shot segment from Andaz, which is analysed in detail,29 is actually not present in its totality in many available prints today but we wonder if this will diminish the film significantly in the eyes of the spectator. Ashish Rajadhyaksha notes30 that the ‘story’ is crucial in Indian mainstream cinema to producers, distributors, and audiences alike. The dissection by audiences of what they have seen concentrates overwhelmingly upon this aspect, which is not only a component from but somehow seen to contain the entire film-going experience (songs may be equally important to the spectator but they are usually seen as autonomous ‘attractions’ because of their ability to survive in themselves). It is now to be asked if a critic Page 10 of 24

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Introduction who engages with a body of cinema because of the constituency it commands, can decline to address the aspect most involving its audience, which is the story. Given these observations, can any inquiry that does not address the ‘story’ in a film actually tell us much about its meaning to the spectator? (p.13) The new importance that popular Indian cinema is receiving is largely due to the symptomatic readings it allows. Since symptomatic readings are (by definition) concerned with the ‘unintended’ meanings of individual texts, the readings hardly suggest criteria for popular cinema’s appreciation—or for its evaluation as cinema. Still, many critics now celebrate popular cinema in a big way and it is as though the readings Chidananda Das Gupta imagined might embarrass Indian popular cinema, actually do it credit! Indian popular cinema is now increasingly regarded as worthy of celebration although most critics are uncertain about the reasons. The approaches just elaborated upon do not exhaust the methods employed to understand Indian popular cinema and there have also been a few structuralist efforts in this direction.31 The body of Bombay cinema has also been usefully read as a ‘pan-Indian meta-text’, as a ‘palimpsest capable of endless expansion and repetition always betraying its compositional form’ with its precursor text being the Ramayana/Mahabharata.32 This explanation has its own advantages but does not account for the casual way in which Hindi cinema plagiarizes from Western texts but nonetheless achieves its biggest successes. Although popular cinema has been subjected to extensive study, much more primary work still needs to be done. The study of any cinema, as a body, should also begin with an accurate description of its primary traits, but this is a service that has not yet been done to Indian popular cinema because its stories have not been extensively scrutinized and neither have their codes been identified through wider sampling. Indian popular cinema exhibits different dominant traits in different historical periods but the immediate meanings of the changing motifs to its audience have not been addressed—although ‘deep readings’ concentrating on aspects of individual films are not wanting.

The Drawbacks of a Grand Theory The amalgam called ‘Theory’ as constituted by the different strands described earlier has today gained so much influence that it is regarded as indispensable for understanding all phenomena related to film. The phenomena include the activities of the film spectator, the construction of the filmic text, the social and political functions of cinema, and the development of the film industry itself. The attractions of an (p.14) overarching ‘grand theory’ explaining all phenomena are always considerable and that explains why Theory has so many adherents in the area of film studies. Within Theory, cultural studies is now more influential and this is partly because it is committed to social change and therefore offers a more positive programme. Culturalism gained morally when conservative Page 11 of 24

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Introduction ideologues attacked it for being part of the agenda pushed by ‘tenured radicals’.33 It became a necessary component in what was dubbed ‘political correctness’ and this may explain some of its attractions—and the self-righteous tone employed by some of its practitioners. David Bordwell is caustic about the self-righteousness of ideological theorists (‘by studying movies and TV shows one could purportedly contribute to political struggles on behalf of the disadvantaged’)34 and this is perhaps justified. The ‘moral’ compulsion to subscribe to Theory has often been overwhelming but it may be beneficial to question it. Theory can provide critics with immensely useful tools with which to study culture but it is also seen to have philosophical inadequacies. One principal argument underlying Theory is that culture is a social construction by its agents, that social processes construct culture, and that social subjects are, themselves, constructs of culture. As has been argued by critics of Theory, some of this is self-refuting because if all systems of thought are culturally constructed, so will the Theory of Cultural Construction come to be. Such being the case, how can Theory claim that its insights are more reliable or more ‘truly’ valid than that of any other theory?35 There are other problems specifically attached to applying Theory in the understanding of film. One of the basic premises of Theory is, for example, the belief that criticism and historical research must be doctrine driven. Rather than formulate a question or pose a problem with regard to a puzzling phenomenon, the writer assumes that his or her central task is the proving of a theoretical position and the actual film coming under examination becomes an example to illustrate the doctrine. This method has been employed in the case of Hollywood genres and is now increasingly being used on ‘Bollywood’ although the theoretical position often needs to be dramatically stretched. The philosophical difficulty with the approach is that, while it helps to make an argument vivid or rhetorical, the example cited is a trivial case that cannot prove the theory right. In any case, a critic who is intrigued by a film has no obligation to ‘prove’ a theory right (p.15) and his inquiry is not ‘top-down’ but apparently the reverse. Noël Carroll convincingly argues that the major impediment to film theory today is its confusion with film interpretation: There are no grounds for thinking that film theory must have anything to do with film interpretation in every case. Indeed, in many cases, one would anticipate that the two activities would have to part company. Film theory speaks of the general case, whereas film interpretation deals with… puzzling, or with highly distinctive cases of cinematic masterworks. Film theory tracks the regularity and the norm, while film interpretation finds its natural calling in dealing with the deviation, with what violates the norm or with what exceeds it or what re-imagines it.36 If theorizing is different from interpretation, the critic also does not need Theory to interpret a film. Film theory sometimes provides a background that enables the critic Page 12 of 24

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Introduction to grasp why a divergence is interesting but even allowing for this, the critic does not need a theory to spot the divergence—an intuitively grasped class or category for comparison may be adequate. As Carroll proposes, if a film is an instance in a general category, it must evidently be routine and much like anything else in the same theoretical domain and, therefore, not especially worthy of attention.37 Over the past two decades, as Carroll notes, Theory—or fragments of Theory—have been applied monotonously and unimaginatively by scholars, transforming every film to the same ‘standard-issue sausage, looking and smelling the same’. In the study of Indian cinema as well, Theory is generally perceived as indispensable but eschewing it does not leave the critic without other options.

The Advantages of a ‘Local’ Reading Proponents of Theory often presume that the only alternative to their approach is an unambitious ‘empiricism’ that digs up facts. The contention that the only alternative to finding a ‘Theory of Everything’ is to eschew Theory altogether can perhaps be disputed. An academic scholarship categorized as ‘middle-level’ that poses questions that have both empirical and theoretical implications38 has been suggested as an alternative. The most established kinds of ‘middle-level’ research devote themselves to studies of filmmakers, genres, and national cinemas. Many of the theories that emerge are only applicable locally and, while they may lack the glamour of a grand theory, a local approach (p.16) can benefit Indian popular cinema substantially even if it falls short of providing final answers. Theory has been applied to Indian popular cinema largely by Indian academics working in Western universities (often as part of doctoral dissertations) and judged according to the prevalent norms of academic research there. But it is to be considered whether Western scholarship possesses an adequate body of experience concerning Indian popular cinema and awareness that this cinema needs a special reading strategy. In the absence of this experience, would not the academic establishment judging a piece of scholarship on this cinema place more emphasis on the tools employed by the research rather than upon its intended objects? Would there be a ‘fit’ between the tools and the objects upon which they are employed when the tools themselves were specifically developed under historical circumstances, not entirely pertinent to the new context? Unless one is committed to believing in a grand theory capable of providing universal explanations, one imagines that such a study would be hard-pressed to meet local needs. My own interest is primarily in the ‘story’—in how it has changed in popular cinema— and I believe the transformation can only be understood as a ‘local’ phenomenon. The validity of my study will depend largely on the sampling being representative and on the coverage achieved. Examining different aspects of the story will be desirable but the pressing need to examine a large number of films renders this difficult. What I propose to do is therefore to look at only a few aspects of the story—although in a sustained way—and see if the gradual transformation of film narrative does not bear understanding. An inquiry without Page 13 of 24

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Introduction an agenda is impossible but I hope to convince the reader that the agenda emerged during the inquiry and was not assumed a priori based on a grand theory.

The Aims of the Book: Film as Narration The narrative forms of popular cinema command an enormous constituency and the focus in their study today is therefore on understanding how social/political power is being legitimized through them. The undertaking is undoubtedly creditable but it is certainly not the only one of possible interest to the film student. As an instance, Indian cinema can also be studied for itself, to understand the method (p.17) underlying it and the manner in which it may be narrativizing social experience. My own interest is in this direction; it is not in reading it symptomatically but in examining its codes, in understanding the system according to which they have been employed, and the kind of meaning that emerges consistently through studying a sizeable number of individual films. A major difficulty with the academic study of Indian cinema today is the vast gap that has opened up between the academic critics on the one hand and the practitioner/lay spectator on the other. One reason for the gap is that the latter is actively engaged in the pleasures of this cinema while the former is sometimes even hostile to the notion of its pleasure.39 The kind of study that is lacking is the kind that might not only help the lay spectator in understanding the significance of what he/she is responding to but could also inform filmmaking practice, an attempt to study a film as film—or as narration. Consequently, a study codifying the common premises in film narrative, explaining their legitimacy, and also giving ‘surface’ interpretations to individual films may be very useful. It should be noted here that the ‘depth’ in deep interpretations has little to do with profundity. While ‘surface’ interpretations presume that authors as agents are still in some privileged position with regard to what the representations are, deep interpretations presume that they have no such privilege.40 Surface interpretations, unlike deep interpretations, refer to the way the intended audiences might understand a film. A convenient way to begin codifying the methods of Indian popular cinema will be to use (as a template) the neo-Aristotelian principles of classical Hollywood cinema and identify the divergences and account for them in the light of traditional methods of representation in India (dramaturgy, poetics, and aesthetics). The approach has the initial difficulty of placing Indian popular cinema in the position of the ‘other’. Still, I find it justified because it may be akin to describing a location in relation to an acknowledged landmark.41

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Introduction Given these preoccupations I intend to proceed as under: (a) Examine popular cinema’s narrative conventions in relation to those employed by classical Hollywood cinema, to attempt to understand narration in Indian popular cinema to arrive at an identifiable method. (p.18) (b) Trace many of popular cinema’s narrative strategies to those traditionally employed by the arts in India and also find an underlying logic. (c) Examine a significant body of films to understand how popular cinema narrativizes the dominant social discourse in specific historical periods. If my intention to examine Indian popular cinema’s methods in relation to those adopted by Hollywood cinema raises any eyebrows, the design is not to accept Hollywood as a ‘standard’. It is simply to use the divergences as a starting point for a deeper investigation. Indian popular cinema has apparently employed classical Hollywood cinema’s diegetic codes on occasion42 but it is the logic underlying the divergences that interests me. While my readings of the films according to (c) will depend upon my arguments about the significance of the codes, the emphasis is also on selecting films and motifs that do not apparently fit and explaining them. It will be noted that (b) is similar to the methods of the ‘traditionalists’ but I intend to go a step forward to examine how ‘traditional’ methods of address still cope with the contemporary. A difficulty with most studies of traditional Indian aesthetics produced locally is that Indian scholars tend to see their subject as an autonomous category and use concepts and terminology that mean little outside India.43 We now live in a milieu where such an approach cannot be useful. Since I am largely locating Indian popular cinema in relation to Hollywood, brief references to writings from the West will become necessary. All this necessitates a somewhat unorthodox usage of Western terms but an effort is made to define the terms clearly for the present context.

Considering that the book attempts to bridge the gap between the critic and the lay spectator, much of it is taken up with with providing ‘interpretive texts’ before their implications are contextualized. Since my attention is mainly given to the ‘story’, my inquiry will involve a higher degree of narration than is the practice in critical studies. My arguments depend on the evidence of the stories and not citing them to those unfamiliar with the films which might make the arguments appear like assertions. My purpose in relating individual stories is also to examine the intricate relationships linking them and to explain the recurrence of the same motifs in different avatars in other contexts. (p.19) The employment of the jargon of academia is usually a corollary to serious criticism but I make a deliberate attempt here to break the tradition and narrate engagingly without compromising the seriousness of the venture. Moreover, the employed jargon is usually aligned with a theoretical preference and I have consciously decided against drawing from an existing theory. Sociology and ideology are impossible to avoid when one is discussing popular cinema but most academic writing only uses the evidence of popular cinema to understand society and reinforce what are, essentially, socio-political arguments. Page 15 of 24

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Introduction This book will make references to social history but the strategy is devised, instead, to understand the legitimacy of Indian popular cinema, its methods, and its discourse more plainly. My purpose being so defined, I will dwell primarily upon the films themselves and use sociological information from other sources restrictedly. Further, while my interest is entirely in film narrative, there are other significant elements in Indian cinema and the most important of these is the film song, which is only one of several (often) autonomous attractions.44 While it is difficult to assert that the song plays no part in the narrative, its use demands a separate study because of the volume of material that needs to be contended with and explained. I will not devote much attention to these elements and, if the disservice done to film songs individually leaves the study inadequate,45 the choice is still deliberate. Since a large selection of films is necessary and ‘deep readings’ are being eschewed, I will look only briefly at each film and, even then, concentrate on the pertinent motifs. The effort will be towards grouping the films into categories, towards identifying and understanding the kinds of patterns that ‘social history’ produces in cinema. Interpretations already given to popular films at different times concern me largely because of my differences with them and some46—Ravi Vasudevan on Andaz, Lalitha Gopalan on Insaaf Ka Tarazu and Zakhmi Aurat, Patricia Uberoi on Hum Aapke Hain Koun…!, M. Madhava Prasad on Sangam and Damini, and several writers on Roja—are taken into account among others. Critical writing about popular cinema has often embarked upon deep readings while ignoring the immediacy of the text and my effort is partly to demonstrate that surface interpretations are not only much more plausible but could also be rewarding. Moreover, while all kinds (p.20) of interpretations are possible, a case can be made out for a hierarchy among the readings themselves and the critic is obliged to exhaust the ‘surface meaning’ of a text before embarking upon a deep interpretation. I also include under the term ‘surface meaning’ those implicit meanings that may or may not be anomalous elements but that need to be excavated because they reside in the sub-text.47

A Disclaimer The politics of Indian popular cinema is often deplorable but it has been castigated so often48 that I can safely bypass this aspect even while admitting the validity of the charges. The ideological opponents of Indian popular cinema do not lack allies and turning out strongly on their side will be superfluous; one may therefore keep oneself gainfully engaged in other kinds of activity. To look at the issue politically, the criticism of Indian popular cinema which is relevant within India has a completely different meaning that is irrelevant—perhaps even racist—globally and this means that similar criticisms often have different meanings and uses in different contexts.49

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Introduction The view of the ideological reading as the most ‘politically correct’ reading in film study has also been questioned: Skepticism about the theoretical usefulness of concepts like the male gaze, or, to be more timely, about the glance, invites accusations of reactionary backlash. It is as if Lacanian psychoanalysis and civil rights advocacy (for persons of color, for women, for gays) were so indissolubly linked logically that one could not affirm one without the other. This is not only patently ridiculous; it is also an immensely self-serving idea for proponents of Theory to encourage. And, it almost goes without saying, such an atmosphere is inimical to a context in which genuine theorizing might flourish, since theoretical discourse requires open channels of critical communication, not repression.50 All things considered, there are adequate grounds to justify my decision not to engage with the politics of Indian popular cinema. The ideological aspects need examination in certain contexts but there is little reason to assert that politics and ideology are the most important elements implicated in every attempt at comprehension. The compulsion placed upon the critic to dig ideological truths out of every text has also been questioned and one can perhaps benefit by taking note (p.21) of disagreement.51 Although some assertions associated with the disagreement may be contested, it is also true that ideological inquiries serve limited purposes—like inquiries of any other kind—but it is other kinds of inquiry that are lacking. I will also attempt to demonstrate that ‘correct’ ideological positions assumed a priori lead to misreading or ahistorical interpretations of the immediate implications of individual films like Sangam and Roja.

The Tenor I propose to begin with what can be regarded as ‘constant features’ of Indian popular cinema although this leaves me vulnerable to the charge of taking an ‘essentialist’ position. Indian popular cinema seems to owe much to modes of perception cultivated over millennia—or at least centuries—and although many perceptions have been changing, they cannot be completely undone within an interval of a few years or even decades. Once the ‘essential’ features of popular cinema are identified and understood, the changes in narrative patterns can be examined in relation to key changes in India’s social history and, as we shall duly see, even these ‘constants’ finally undergo some transformation. The chapter about Indian popular cinema’s conventions and form is, by and large, the only one where an attempt is made to ‘theorize’ about Indian popular cinema’s method although it falls short of being a full-fledged ‘theory’. The chapter concerns itself only with identifying popular cinema’s narrative strategies and the underlying framework. Still, it posits a generality—stretching beyond cinema—that also provides for testing/application upon a large selection of films. From the second chapter onwards, the book takes up the primary examination of individual films—or groups of films—in various periods (towards an orderly classification of narrative phenomena) when these arguments are useful. The observations about the individual films in these chapters will be Page 17 of 24

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Introduction largely original although the interpretations of other critics sometimes become relevant. A difficulty with film study is that a film text cannot be ‘reproduced’ and details are inevitably omitted. A text is, in effect, described in order to support a reading and a new reading of a film sometimes also entails an entirely new description. One of the temptations in top-down interpretation is to begin with an explanation and produce a description that fits it. (p.22) Indian critics partial to the sociological approach are normally prone to linking motifs in popular cinema to historical processes like the migration of people to the cities, the decline of feudalism, or the growing emancipation of women. All these are continuing processes and definite dates cannot be put on when the processes begin or conclude. The difficulty is that new motifs in popular cinema make their appearances abruptly and disappear equally quickly, usually in five years or less. No one, for instance, has addressed the question of why the oedipal mother emerges forcefully only after 1947. My own understanding is that these motifs cannot be traced to ‘continuing processes’ that have effects extending to decades. The motifs must be traced to processes initiated by key recorded social or political events that have early repercussions and effects that reach their culmination within a relatively short time. My approach is historical but the present book is, strictly, not a history of Indian popular cinema. It is intended, rather, as a new reading of a body of popular cinema in the light of Indian ‘social history’, with an effort made to understand, through appropriate examples, how social history actually informs popular film narrative. I am also relying on only a handful of works on social history with the key one being nonacademic.52 My own inquiry attempts to speculate and I have chosen the book because of the way it unifies the experience of history after 1947 within a single consistent viewpoint. Needless to add, this implies that my own inquiry cannot avoid being informed by the same ideological perspective. Globalization is the initial impetus that prompted the study but Indian cinema’s behaviour in the global age is part of a history of responses to similar impetuses. Life under colonialism left its impact upon Indian cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. The hopes kindled by 1947 found echoes in cinema, as did the optimistic nationalism of the late 1950s. India’s humiliation in the Indo-Chinese War left a stamp upon the nation’s ethos and this finds a strange reflection in Indian cinema. The early 1970s represented a period of radicalism and the ‘angry young man’ is evidently a product of social turbulence. The Gorbachev era, which marked the end of the bipolar order, sounded the death-knell of socialist utopias. The end of the Soviet Union was followed immediately in India by the process of economic deregulation initiated in 1991–2. If the ‘final triumph of the market’ had a profound effect upon the arts, it is useful to see the manner in which popular (p.23) cinema responded to the developments. These aspects may ultimately suggest a preoccupation with social history but, considering that my interest is in cinema, the emphasis is not on sociology as much as hermeneutics. The inquiry in this book is into how a body of cinema usually Page 18 of 24

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Introduction taken to be ‘fantasy’, finds the means to sharply address the historical circumstances of its times. The project may not itself be an entirely new one but this book attempts to undertake it more closely than has hitherto been done by writers like Prasad and Chakravarty. With the stability of the Indian nation being acknowledged, Indian popular cinema may be doing more than simply sustaining it. The individual chapters dealing with the various periods are chronologically arranged but my intention is to group films with similar motifs together and the individual films within each chapter are not always examined in chronological order. The chapter headings may make it appear that the individual periods correspond to decades but the method is to classify periods according to the developments in cinema, and this corresponds to the decades only roughly. As an instance, I discus a film of 1992 (Roja) in the chapter dealing with the 1980s— because of its pertinence to the period—but a film of 1993 (Baazigar) finds a place only in the subsequent chapter. A question that will engage the reader about a book of this sort is how one chooses the films to discuss; does one actually choose them to support a hypothesis? Since I had no hypothesis ready—when I began viewing films chronologically—but knew that my choices could not appear arbitrary, it seemed that I should centre my arguments largely on the available significant films (and not only financial successes), relying upon the Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema for guidance at least until the early 1990s. I also attempted to club films together based on common motifs and to examine some of the less important films through such grouping. Needless to add, my attention was also caught repeatedly by storytelling anomalies—films, segments, or motifs that appeared to depart from the norm—because to my mind, an anomaly is, most usefully, a signifier. Notes:

(1.) S.S. Vasan, cited in R.M. Roy (ed.), Film Seminar Report, New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1956, pp. 29–30. (2.) This also follows from Sudhir Kakar’s remarks: ‘The prospect of financial gain, like the opportunity for sexual liaison, does wonderful things for increasing the perception of the needs and desires of those who hold the key to these gratifications… (Filmmakers) must intuitively appeal to those concerns of the audience which are shared.’ Sudhir Kakar, ‘The Ties That Bind: Family Relationships in the Mythology of Hindi Cinema’, India International Centre Quarterly, Special Issue, 8(1), March 1980, p. 13. (3.) The opinions of the group are widely cited as illustrated by this quotation by the Bengali actor Utpal Dutt: ‘An Indian hero in a blonde wig and in latest Bond Street clothes making love to a heroine who seems to have shopped for clothes Page 19 of 24

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Introduction in New York last week—that’s their conception of Indianness’ quoted in Roy Armes, Third World Filmmaking and the West, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987, p. 67. More recently, the same views are echoed by John W. Hood in his introduction to The Essential Mystery: Major Filmmakers of Indian Art Cinema, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2000. (4.) Chidananda Das Gupta, The Painted Face, New Delhi: Roli Books, 1991, p. 281. (5.) Ibid., pp. 199–247. (6.) Colin MacCabe, ‘Preface’ in Colin MacCabe (ed.), High Theory/Low Culture: Analysing Popular Television and Film, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986. (7.) Ashis Nandy, The Savage Freud, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, Sudhir Kakar, Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality, New Delhi: Penguin, 1989. (8.) Noël Carroll, ‘Prospects for Film Theory: A Personal Assessment’, in David Bordwell, Noël Carroll (eds), Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1996, p. 64. (9.) Thomas Schatz, Hollywood Genres, New York: Random House, 1981, pp. 30– 2. (10.) See Elisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan & Co.: A History of Psychoanalysis in France, 1925–85, trans., Jeffrey Mehlman, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990, pp. 290–316. (11.) See Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays, trans., Ben Brewster, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971. (12.) See Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, trans., and eds, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971. (13.) See Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans., Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1976. For a useful summary also see Robert Scholes, Semiotics and Interpretation, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 13–14. (14.) Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983, p. 215. (15.) Das Gupta, The Painted Face, p. 98.

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Introduction (16.) See Kakar, Intimate Relations. Also see Sudhir Kakar, ‘The Ties That Bind: Family Relationships in the Mythology of Hindi Cinema’, India International Centre Quarterly, Special Issue, 8(1), March 1980, pp. 17–21, for an analysis of mother–son and father–daughter relationships in popular cinema. (17.) To illustrate with a few examples, Vinay Lal, ‘The Impossibility of the Outsider in the Modern Hindi Film’, in Ashis Nandy (ed.), The Secret Politics of Our Desires, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 228–59, uses psychoanalysis briefly while discussing Yash Chopra’s Deewar (1975). Ravi Vasudevan does similarly with Raj Kapoor’s Awaara (1951) in ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities: The Hindi Social Film of the 1950s as Popular Culture’, in Ravi S. Vasudevan (ed.), Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 99–121. (18.) Ashis Nandy, ‘An Intelligent Critic’s Guide to Indian Cinema’, Deep Focus, 1(1), December 1987, p. 69. (19.) See Lothar Lutze, ‘From Bharata to Bombay: Change and Continuity in Hindi Film Aesthetics’, in Beatrix Pfleiderer and Lothar Lutze (eds), The Hindi Film: Agent and Reagent of Cultural Change, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985, pp. 3–18. See also M.C. Byrski, ‘Bombay Philum—The Kaliyugi Avatara of Sanskrit Drama’, Pushpanjali, 4, November 1980. (20.) Arthur A. Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1958, pp. 352–3. (21.) Henry W. Wells, The Classical Drama of India, Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1963, p. 43. (22.) See Erik Barnouw and S. Krishnaswamy, Indian Film, New Jersey: Replica Books, 2000. (23.) See K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake, Indian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change, Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books, 1998. (24.) See Yves Thoraval, The Cinemas of India, Chennai: Macmillan India, 2001. (25.) See Lalitha Gopalan, ‘Avenging Women in Indian Cinema’, in Vasudevan (ed.), Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, pp. 215–37. (26.) See Sumita S. Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema: 1947– 1987, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996, and M. Madhava Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.

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Introduction (27.) Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. The Introduction by Ashish Rajadhyaksha cites a historian, Gyanendra Pandey, to caution against the essentialist notions inherent in the term ‘Indian’ cinema. (28.) In Vasudevan, Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, pp. 99–120. (29.) Ibid., pp. 106–7. There are a few inaccuracies in Ravi Vasudevan’s description of the segment from Andaz. As an instance, his major argument hinges on a shot in the party scene that he labels shot 3. In this shot, Neena touches the feet of an older, anonymous woman (with her back to us) who invites Neena to sit by her. Vasudevan claims that the woman occupies the place of Neena’s absent mother and her gesture is an act of nomination: ‘Neena is invited to enter the space of the mother’. What Vasudevan declines to observe is that Neena has already begun to ignore the anonymous woman and looks away from her even before the invitation is made. We wonder how to read Neena’s indifferent behaviour towards this ‘mother’ figure. (30.) Ashish Rajadhyaksha, ‘Viewership and Democracy in the Cinema’, in Vasudevan, Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 276. (31.) As an instance, Sanjukta Tultul Ghosh, ‘Celluloid Nationalism: Cultural Politics in Popular Indian Cinema’, Unpublished dissertation, Ohio State University, 1992. (32.) See Vijay Mishra, ‘Towards a Theoretical Critique of Bombay Cinema’, Screen, 26(3–4), 1985, pp. 133–46. Mishra asserts that in a systematic analysis of the ‘founder of Indian discursivity’ the Mahabharata/Ramayana is the minimal starting point for a systematic analysis of the massive cultural artefact that is Indian cinema. (33.) David Bordwell, ‘Contemporary Film Studies and the Vicissitudes of Grand Theory’, in Bordwell and Carroll (eds), Post-Theory, p. 11. (34.) Ibid., p. 11. (35.) Ibid., p. 13. (36.) Noël Carroll, ‘Prospects for Film Theory’, pp. 42–3. (37.) Ibid., p. 43. (38.) Bordwell, ‘Contemporary Film Studies’, pp. 26–30. (39.) The essay I have in mind is Laura Mulvey’s influential and widely anthologized ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen, 16(3), pp. 6–18. Page 22 of 24

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Introduction (40.) Arthur C. Danto, ‘Deep Interpretation’, in The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art, New York: Columbia University Press, 1986, pp. 51– 3. (41.) The ‘centrality’ of the Hollywood model has often been asserted. For instance, see David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, ‘Alternate Modes of Film Practice’, in The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, London: Routledge, 1988, p. 383. (42.) While Rosie Thomas, ‘Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity’, Screen, 26(3–4), 1985, p. 120, notes that Indian popular cinema rejects the standards it is routinely evaluated by in the West. Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, pp. 105–6 suggests that it is also not entirely indifferent to Western narrative codes. (43.) The strange thing is that such terminology will mean little to film students even inside India. As an instance, I refer to Vijay Mishra, Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, London: Routledge, 2002, who uses terms like ahamkara, nivrtti, pravrtti, vipralambha when these terms will be familiar to few readers (film students/spectators/practitioners). A statement such as: ‘A later matinee idol Rajesh Khanna, was, for a while, continually in a state of vipralambha’ (p. 6) will be forbidding even to an Indian reader. Mishra, of course, translates the terms into approximate English but one wonders if it wouldn’t have been simpler to use the English terms in the first place. (44.) This is so apparent that Rachel Dwyer (Rachel Dwyer and Divia Patel, Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001) describes Hindi cinema as a ‘cinema of attractions’ (p. 26). (45.) Film songs are seen as free-floating signifiers whose original narrative context is often overlooked and, in the public memory, associated largely with the singing star. Even the use of the term ‘song picturization’ to describe the production of song sequences shows a tendency to define the image in the terms set out by the song. See Neepa Majumdar, ‘The Embodied Voice: Song Sequences and Stardom in Popular Hindi Cinema’ in Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight (eds), Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001, pp. 162–3. (46.) Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, in Ravi Vasudevan (ed.), Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, pp. 99–121; Lalitha Gopalan, ‘Avenging Women in Indian Cinema’, pp. 215–31, and Patricia Uberoi, ‘Imagining the Family: An Ethnography of Viewing’, in Rachel Dwyer and Christopher Pinney (eds), Pleasure and the Nation, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 309–52; M. Madhava Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998; Tejaswini Niranjana, ‘Integrating whose Nation? Tourists and Terrorists in “Roja”’, Economic and Political Weekly, 24(3), 15 January 1994, Page 23 of 24

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Introduction pp. 79–82; Nicholas B. Dirks, ‘The Home and the Nation: Consuming Culture and Politics in Roja’, in Dwyer and Pinney (eds), Pleasure and the Nation, pp. 161–85; Rustom Bharucha, ‘On the Border of Fascism, Manufacture of Consent in Roja’, Economic and Political Weekly, 30(23), 4 June 1994. (47.) There are four kinds of meaning, that the spectator may construct: (a) construct a concrete world and build an ongoing story; (b) assign a conceptual meaning or a ‘point’ to the film; (c) construct a covert, implicit, or symbolic meaning; (d) construct a repressed meaning that the film divulges involuntarily. A surface reading would include (a), (b), and (c). See David Bordwell, Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1989, pp. 8–9. (48.) For instance Mira Reym Binford in her essay, ‘The Two Cinemas of India’, in John D.H. Dowling (ed.), Film and Politics in the Third World, New York: Praeger, 1987, cites art filmmaker Kumar Shahani on the subject, p. 148. (49.) Rosie Thomas, ‘Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity’, Screen, vol. 26 (3–4), 1985, p. 119. (50.) Carroll, ‘Prospects for Film Theory’, p. 45. (51.) Ibid., pp. 50–1. (52.) Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, New Delhi: Penguin, 1997.

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Narrative Convention and Form

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

Narrative Convention and Form M.K. Raghavendra

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords This chapter looks into the regarded ‘constant features’ of Indian popular cinema. Here the essential features of popular cinema are identified to understand the transformations in the narrative patterns of popular cinema. This is done in relation to the social transformations that India underwent where the perceived ‘constants’ of the popular media underwent tweaking to cope with the changing social structure of the Indian society. The chapter mainly focuses on the methods employed by Indian popular cinema, in particular the narrative strategies and frameworks employed by these films. The representation of space and time and the narrative logic of both Hollywood and Bollywood films are contrasted to pinpoint the identifying traits that make Indian popular cinema unique. Keywords:   popular cinema, constant features, narrative pattern and framework, narrative strategy and logic, representation of space, representation of time

Hindi Cinema as ‘Indian’ Cinema As already noted in the Introduction, the plurality of Indian cinema has attracted attention and one characteristic standing out is the clear demarcation between the ‘quality product’ (art cinema) and the ‘mass-produced’ one (popular cinema). Such clear distinctions have generally not existed in Hollywood and the most highly regarded American filmmakers work within the constraints of a studio system. In India, not only do ‘art’ and ‘commercial’ filmmakers work under different systems of financing and different economic considerations but the format of the art film bears little resemblance to the one traditionally employed by popular cinema—it is as if the two cinemas speak different tongues. The Page 1 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form advent of art cinema can perhaps be traced to Satyajit Ray’s epoch-making Pather Panchali (1955) which virtually represents ‘India’ in world cinema. Pather Panchali does not reveal the ‘truest’ India but it can claim to have applied Aristotelian principles rigorously to a kind of narrative that apparently resisted these principles. If Satyajit Ray partly inspired India’s art cinema, there is also the ‘middle’ path of filmmakers like Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Gulzar who bridged the uncertain ground between the two cinemas by conforming to some of popular cinema’s conventions even while diverging from others.1 More importantly, Indian popular cinema is not a homogeneous body and the regional cinemas exhibit characteristics that often depart from the ‘pan-Indian’ model represented by the Hindi film. The notion of ‘the regional’ is itself not entirely determined by language and each kind of regional cinema exhibits distinct characteristics. There (p.25) will be decided opposition to the idea of identifying the Hindi film with ‘Indian’ cinema but the regional cinemas, while admittedly belonging to the geographical space demarcated as ‘India’, tend to work in exclusive pockets of influence. Substantiating this will require a separate study but the regional cinemas are even advantageously placed to address local identities within India and, although this has not received much recognition, many regional films covertly problematize local differences. Only the mainstream Hindi film attempts to overlook regional differences and, as a cultural artefact, permeates the farthest corners of the nation. The idiom of Hindi cinema, while being responsive to the spectator’s needs, tries to avoid ‘local’ influences within India to keep its reach widespread. It caters to a ‘lowest common denominator’ across a larger space and therefore eschews much of the vibrancy and the audacity of a localized form. To illustrate, a tradition of performance like the nautanki willingly takes chances with regard to ‘sensitive’ issues. Religious tales digested in the nautanki have a secular colouring. Even in as sacred a play as Raja Harishchandra, when the noble Queen Taramati begs to obtain money for the cremation of her dead son, she dances, kicking her heels and swinging her hips. In a religious tale Sita sings of her tragic plight while casting ‘come hither’ glances.2 Such boldness is unimaginable in the Hindi film— when it deals with sacred subject matter. Students of theatre have also commented upon the lewdly non-religious note of tamasha performances while dealing with Krishna and the milkmaids and such impiety is rare in cinema. The Hindi film is apparently more complaisant and intended to appeal to people spread over a wider territory.3 This design apparently makes it obligatory for Hindi cinema to avoid any discourses that may cause annoyance. For the same reasons popular Hindi cinema also keeps its spoken language universally accessible.4

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Narrative Convention and Form The Hindi film after 1947, it may be said, attempts to belong to the ‘Indian nation’ in a way that other categories of film in India do not5 and it answers more honestly to the description of a national cinema. Autonomous ‘national cinemas’ in the ‘Third World’ were often the creations of the Western-educated elite who functioned as prime movers in cultural production. This was accentuated by cinema being intrinsically a product of Western capitalism and the US-dominated film distribution system having become a kind of universal example.6 (p.26) In India, however, the corresponding postcolonial ‘national cinema’ is not popular cinema (which has grown organically out of large-scale public patronage) but more closely aligned with the elite art cinema— although even this identification is admittedly difficult.7 Indian popular cinema has, perhaps, asserted itself as a national cinema ‘despite’ the Western-educated elite —rather than ‘because’ of it. Popular Hindi cinema is apparently ‘Indian’ despite the disregard with which the Westernized elite and the politically powerful have viewed it and this places it in an advantageous position to define ‘the nation’ authentically. Although defining the nation is an undertaking that will be ideologically questioned, such defining nonetheless serves practical purposes. If the defining is admitted, the widespread attraction of the Hindi film to people who have little else in common must be contended with. There is, consequently, some justification in identifying ‘Indian cinema’ with the mainstream Hindi film. Spectators are, of course, familiar with a kind of low budget, ‘B’ category Hindi cinema constituted largely of cheap action films that sometimes incorporate elements of magic/horror, that play prominently in the small towns of northern India and may correspond to ‘regional Hindi cinema’. The Hindi cinema to which I am devoting myself is not from this category but from the more visible kind that, geographically, also receives wider acceptance inside India. The ‘catholicity’ of the mainstream Hindi film has received attention8 and has been duly explained in terms of its all-India appeal; this lends credence to the approach I employ identifying it as ‘Indian’ cinema. I have deliberately termed my field of study ‘Indian popular cinema’ although my interest is predominantly in the Hindi film. Before I continue with my arguments, I must once again note that the term ‘Indian’ is employed to indicate the range of this cinema’s address and not, strictly, to denote the geographical or political space in which it originates. Further, since it addresses audiences over such a widely defined area, Hindi cinema must also find a ‘constant’ subject that involves them all and the single constant that answers entirely to the description is ‘India’. In the context of the aims I have set myself, I also propose that since Hindi cinema addresses a largely undifferentiated audience within the boundaries of the nation, I am justified—when I chart the relationship between cinema and social history—in looking only at (p.27) ‘monolithic’ national history without Page 3 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form concerning myself with its constituent sub-narratives. This is despite my wariness of national history as monolith.

Identifying the Traits Listing out the traits of Indian popular cinema can become a contentious exercise because what the critic notices usually depends on his/her agenda. Those valorizing realism may notice the melodramatic strain and the ‘weaknesses’ in characterization. Critics who favour the psychoanalytical method may notice the special place accorded to the mother in most films, while those preoccupied with visual representations will devote their attention to popular cinema’s flat compositions and its frontal mode of address. The songs and dances and their employment as spectacle will also interest some critics more than it will others. Since my interest is in narration, comparing Indian popular cinema’s narrative codes to those of classical Hollywood cinema— studio filmmaking from Hollywood—can be useful if we determine the traits setting them apart. It is also convenient to identify the parameters where specific comparisons can be made and select them on the basis of their centrality to classical Hollywood cinema. A narrative film consists normally of three systems—the representation of space (mainly composition and orientation), the representation of time (order, duration, repetition), and narrative logic (definition of events, causal relationships, and parallelisms between events).9 Understanding Indian popular cinema under the three systems will be advantageous and we may therefore examine film narrative in terms of the above parameters. The suggestion, to repeat what I said earlier, is not that Indian popular cinema can be defined in terms of the classical parameters to which it does not conform but, rather, that the non-conformity can provide us with clues about its independent traits. The effort is to identify Indian popular cinema’s mode of narration by inquiring into how it manifests itself under the three parameters. Much has already been written about the films cited as examples but my area of interest being different, I rely on the primary evidence of the films themselves rather than on existing accounts or analyses, which are apt to be misleading.

(p.28) The Representation of Space Classical Hollywood cinema attempts to preserve the verisimilitude of space through various devices. A scene is a series of shots collected together usually in a single locale or adjacent locales and durational continuity is assumed. There are two ways in which space is established, either immediately or gradually. The narration may begin with a long shot establishing the total space in the scene or it may begin the scene by focusing upon a portion—a character, an object, or a detail of the décor. If the narration begins by framing a detail, it uses various devices (dissolve, cut, iris, or tracking shot) to then reveal the totality of the space. Within the scene, eyeline-match cutting uses character glance as a clue to Page 4 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form link shots. The earline-match cut also helps to convey the axis of the action. If a character cocks his ear to the right and we hear footsteps on the soundtrack, the person entering must move to the left. The 180-degree (‘axis of action’) system ensures that shots are filmed and cut so that the spectator is always on the same side of the story. Shot/reverse shot editing helps make narration covert by creating the sense that no important scenographic space remains unaccounted for. The representation of the space in any scene is made so tangible and clear that the position of the actors is determined even when a close-up eliminates the décor. The effects of the cut and the close-up then become exclusively dramatic or psychological and only provide emphasis. The changes in the camera’s point of view do not interfere with the spectator’s conception of the total space. The way in which a character exits from one scene and makes an entry into another one (by including the time element) gives us the relationship between the spaces in the two scenes. Classical off-screen space therefore functions as a blank area, a ‘screen’ which invites the spectator to project hypothetical elements on to it and the entire space of the narrative is therefore created in the spectator’s mind as one continuous whole.10 The methods employed by classical Hollywood cinema to represent space have been briefly described and I need to examine an Indian popular film to see whether it conforms and, if not, the extent and nature of the divergences. The first few sequences of Mehboob Khan’s Andaz (1949) serve my purpose because the film is seen to follow many of the narrative codes of American cinema.11 The opening scene of (p.29) Andaz is set in Neena’s country house, which is situated in the hills. We see Neena walking along a corridor, casually talking to a servant before meeting her father in what appears to be their living room. From the way the room is furnished and from the presence of the servant we know this is an affluent household. The medium shot predominates in the sequence and the film does not employ the devices described earlier to establish the total space—either immediately or gradually. The next scene follows thereafter when the heroine goes riding in the hills. Here again, although Neena is shown descending a set of steps, we are not given a view of the house from the spot where her horse is tethered and there is no effort to suggest that the spaces are adjacent. Similarly, when her horse bolts and a male protagonist, Dilip, witnesses the occurrence, we are not shown the spatial positions of the two in relation to each other. The next important indoor scene is set in the hospital ward, which is denoted by the presence of a doctor in a white coat and a recognizable hospital bed. Here again, no effort is made to establish the total space of the action and there is a deliberate eschewal of detail—as though the space corresponded merely to the abstraction of ‘hospital’. The other important scenes in the film are set in Neena’s city house— signified by visible signs of affluence, the presence of a staircase, higher ceilings, and the absence of the fireplace. The other male protagonist Rajan is as affluent as Neena and it might have been difficult to differentiate between their city houses Page 5 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form if the film had not hit upon a singular ruse. It is repeatedly emphasized that Neena is ‘motherless’. Rajan’s own wealth is comparable to Neena’s and his city house therefore shows all the ostentation of her own residence, with the difference that Rajan’s mother is prominently ensconced in his residence when it is introduced to us. Where classical Hollywood cinema tries to define the totality of the space through the cut or the tracking shot, Andaz uses the medium shot to catch the action within a designated space. The totality of each space is not established but its quality is suggested. Andaz, in effect, denotes the space of the action in each scene as an abstraction (‘office’, ‘affluent household’, or ‘hospital’) although cinema lacks the means to achieve this. It is generally acknowledged that, being an imprint of physical reality, the photographic/cinematic image cannot represent ‘abstractions’ in the manner of verbal language. Cinema has no means (p.30) to communicate the notion ‘house’ because any cinematic image will be a specific one—of a particular house filmed at a definite moment (a hillside cabin seen in the afternoon). In Andaz, we see an effort to define narrative space not as singular and continuous but as a collection of discrete settings, conceived as abstractions with each space denoted separately by its inherent qualities. It is significant that while Neena’s hillside country home is associated with her years of maidenhood (in the company of her father), her city home is her residence as wife and mother. Neena does not return to her country home after her father’s death (and her subsequent marriage) and it is as though the two spaces correspond to two exclusive conditions. If, in defining space, the tendency in Andaz is away from the specificity of the cinematic image, a parallel can be seen in the way photography was employed when it first came to India. Portrait painters apparently used the photographic print only to get a good facial likeness. They thereafter painted upon the photographs and reintroduced the decorative conventions that preceded photography,12 transforming the individual into the type. Those who have seen these old pictures will recognize in them an effort to move away from the specificity of the photographic image towards a level of typicality/abstraction not characteristic of it. The observation just made about Mehboob Khan’s film defining each space in terms of its quality is not true only of Andaz but also of other popular films. In Suraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain Koun… ! (HAHK, 1994), the action takes place in two different spaces: the home of a businessman (with its affluence) and the home of a scholar (with its books) and there is no attempt to define the total space of the narrative as unified. In both Andaz and HAHK, there are also no separate lines of action to denote simultaneity. Everything happens ‘here’ and classical off-screen space is notably absent. Ravi Vasudevan cites Roland Barthes and notes that the tableau arrangement is evident in Andaz and what I just

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Narrative Convention and Form observed corresponds to the tableau, which ignores off-screen as a site of reference.13 There are, however, differences between Barthes’ understanding of the ‘tableau’ and the arrangement in Andaz. Barthes cites key scenes in Eisenstein’s The General Line and Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, noting that the tableau arises from the process of cutting out everything except the ‘pregnant moment’ poised between past and (p.31) future14 but this is not true of Andaz. The pregnant moment is the defining moment in a continuum when whatever surrounds the action is reduced to an ‘absence’. If the scenes in Andaz are arranged as a series of ‘tableaux’, the tableaux are not ‘pregnant moments’ because there are no ‘absences’ surrounding them. The domain of the action is self-defining and nothing has been eliminated. The action seen on the screen circumscribes the universe of the story. The only ‘absence’ is perhaps Neena’s dead mother because she is invoked but not seen. But, even there, if she is absent from Neena’s adult life, Neena’s ‘motherlessness’ only qualifies her innate condition and the film does not posit a past in which the mother actually lived—not even through the mandatory picture of the dead woman. In contrast, the dead father’s portrait hangs prominently and alone inside Neena’s city home. The meaning of the ‘pregnant moment’ may not yet be clear but the notion will come up again and will be elaborated upon. For my purpose here, it is enough to recognize that the film is constructed as a series of tableaux with the rider that the term is not to be understood as Roland Barthes defined it. They are ‘tableaux’ only in the sense of set scenes entirely containing the story.

The Representation of Time Classical cinema usually insists on the duration of the action being specified. In a scene’s expository phase, narration specifies the time, place, and the relevant characters. The time is assumed to be after the previous scene (unless otherwise suggested) and the previous scene indicates when this scene must occur also through the device of the appointment or the deadline. If there is no prior intimation, an indication is given at the start of the scene (a calendar, a clock, or the dialogue) to announce the scene’s place within the film’s time scheme. When scenes are played out in different sets or locales, they represent different lines of action. Cross-cutting—between different lines— denotes simultaneous action. Within each line of action, the events are consecutive but between lines of action taken as wholes, the temporal relations are simultaneous. David Bordwell illustrates this method with a hypothetical example. The hero gets up late in the morning; cut to the boss looking at the clock; hero eats breakfast; cut to boss pacing up and down …15 (p.32) The duration of the action must be clearly denoted but apart from this is the inclination of American films to also furnish historical markers, or at least presume that time is ‘universal’ and to ‘fix’ the chronology of the narrative Page 7 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form within a commonly accepted temporal framework. To illustrate, George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977) begins with the legend ‘Long ago in a galaxy far, far away …’ implying that the action in this film can be located within our own scheme of historical time. It is now a truism in physics to say that ‘universal time’ is an absurdity when distances of such magnitude are involved but that, apparently, does not deter Star Wars. Returning to Andaz, the film does not choose to denote duration and the time scheme of the narrative remains uncertain. The notions of continuous space and universal time are related and if Andaz does away with continuous space it also does so with universal time. There are perhaps only two instances that could constitute cross-cutting in the film and the first is in the episode when Dilip pursues Neena’s bolting horse and we see alternating shots of Dilip and Neena on horseback. But Neena is within the range of Dilip’s vision and since they are within the same space (the ‘hillside’), this is not equal to cross-cutting or denoting parallel action. The other instance in Andaz shows Neena and Dilip talking to each other on a telephone and this is not cross-cutting in the classical sense. There are other films (like Bimal Roy’s Devdas [1955]) that use the premonition instead of the telephone line to alternate between two different spaces but this, again, cannot be compared to having different lines of action because the ‘communication’ knits the spaces together. The next observation to be made about Andaz concerns its supposed employment of character subjectivity and its attempt at point-of-view narration. In the first part of the film Dilip becomes convinced that Neena loves him and is dismayed when Raj arrives. Raj and she have long been sweethearts but Dilip knows nothing about it. Ravi Vasudevan remarks that the films of the period often represented character subjectivity in the manner of American films. He notices that there are allusions to Neena being involved with another man in the early part of the film but that the spectator is placed within ‘Dilip’s field of knowledge’.16 This contention is unsustainable for one important reason, which is that the film consistently gives us more information about Neena than it does about Dilip. It sets up scenes (p.33) between Neena and her father when Dilip is absent. Neena’s father knows about Rajan but makes no mention of him even when he chastises Neena for being too friendly with Dilip. In contrast, we know very little about Dilip, even where he lives, and we are not allowed to see him when away from Neena. In the sequence in which he pursues Neena and her bolting horse, the film also gives us a close-up of his face but not an image of Neena the way Dilip might have seen her. Indian popular cinema does not use point-of-view narration in a sustained way to achieve its effects. When used—and always briefly— the effect is exclusively for dramatic emphasis.17 What Indian popular cinema does not do is to employ point-of-view narration in an extended way to represent character subjectivity—as say Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) does —and the implications of this remark will be elaborated upon later.

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Narrative Convention and Form Since we are examining popular cinema’s representation of time, an observation about the extended flashback dealing with Neena and Rajan’s first meeting—and their romance before he embarks for England—is relevant. Extended flashbacks are rare in the classical Hollywood film because they tend to slow down the dramatic progression.18 In Andaz, as in the classical Hollywood film, character memory only motivates the flashback and what we see is not restricted to point of view. But while Hollywood is generally reluctant to exploit spectator curiosity about past story events, Andaz satisfies our curiosity about Neena and Rajan and their relationship. Further, there are neither any tonal differences in the flashback nor any compression setting it apart as a remembered past, and it takes place ‘now’ like the other events. This agrees with my earlier observation that the film is constructed as a series of ‘tableaux’ from which nothing is omitted and every part of the narrative is charted out in the same detail. This is also consistent with the film being unable to imagine a past with Neena’s living mother lying outside the domain of the witnessed action.

Time, History, and Allegorical Representation Andaz appeared shortly after Independence and Ravi Vasudevan rightly sees in the film an attempt to generate an image of modernity for Indian audiences19 and modernity was a special preoccupation of Jawaharlal Nehru’s India.20 The preoccupations of the film may be (p.34) historically determined but, strangely enough, the narrative of Andaz contains no explicit markers that contextualize it in the nation’s history. There are no references either pointing to the actual times or to contemporary political occurrences that might enable a spectator to make historical associations. This aspect of the film can seem puzzling to the (non-Indian) spectator unless s/he relates it to the narrative abolishing universal time. Locating the action within a historical context confers distinct advantages upon any narrative. If the opening frame of a film says ‘1945’ and the film itself is set in the United States, we recognize an allusion to the end of the War; we anticipate tumult, music, and the returning soldiers. We will perhaps also see a wife waiting for her husband or a girl for her sweetheart. The allusion does not necessarily pertain to the past; it can be contemporary or even invoke the future (or, rather, our expectation of it). The allusion is a sign that creates an instantaneous context. We become involved in the story on the basis of what we already know of the moment and we expect the drama in the film to be driven by its implications. The historical anchoring of the narrative is usually compulsive and even futuristic fantasies specify dates. Most films set in the contemporary world also have an element of topicality that anchors them to the historical present. Andaz is contrary in its methods but it is hardly alone in Indian cinema. The disinclination of Indian popular cinema to attach itself to history even when the intent is transparently political is illustrated by Mehboob Khan’s film Mother Page 9 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form India (1957). This film is a remake of another film Aurat (1940), also made by the same director, but Mother India sets its eyes firmly on the optimistic nationalism of the Nehru era and is conceived as a ‘national epic’ replete with Soviet-style lyrical agrarianism. Although the film has a framing sequence suggesting a mechanized India of the 1950s, it makes no explicit references to the real political and historical events of its time. The happenings in the film are apparently spread over several decades but, apart from the customary greying of heads, it provides no credible markers to convey the real transition. The framing sequence shows the elder son grown up and in the garb of a statesman but the central narrative neglects to contextualize itself in the freedom struggle, which might have justified his representation in this way. Where the drama in a Soviet film might have been played out against the backdrop of the revolution or (p.35) the collectivization campaign, the drama in Mother India is innocent of happenings outside its own narrative. The ‘metanarrative’ of history (and universal time) presents each narrative with the opportunity of attaching itself to a common referential and provides the drama in the film with a universal context. Indian popular cinema does not acknowledge a ‘universal’ context and each narrative must therefore erect its own referentials. Whole stories must be told where a single sign might have sufficed and films therefore become long. We noted how Andaz uses an elaborate flashback to convey information about Neena and Rajan when there are more economical methods to impart the same information. If popular cinema does not acknowledge universal time, sequels are impossible because this implies situating one story in relation to another within an acknowledged ‘metanarrative’. Without an external point of reference, the most important erected ‘context’ becomes the family and this has the effect of making the family the most durable of popular cinema’s motifs. The family is the largest social unit that can be regarded as independent of history and universal time and this explains its stability as a motif. There are also cultural reasons for the ubiquitous presence of the family but these nonetheless appear secondary. The interpretation of its primary role as an erected context finds support in the continued presence of the parental figure (or parent surrogate) when the presence of the family in the story is itself only vestigial. In Andaz Neena’s widowed father brings her up as a free-spirited girl and her independence finally becomes her undoing. The discourse of the film is about modernity and its pitfalls and, modernity being one of the dominant concerns of its times, the film’s response is deeply historical. But instead of dealing with the notion in actual historical terms, Andaz locates the idea of the modern within the family. The hazards perceived in the independent nation’s modernization project are presented as the dangers accruing to a young woman from being too freespirited. Andaz narrativizes the dominant historical concerns of its times but instead of contextualizing them in history, the film proceeds by allegorizing them. Once this reading is admitted, Neena’s unwavering devotion to Rajan Page 10 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form becomes the nation’s attachment to tradition and Neena’s free-spiritedness and vivacity, its dalliance with modernity. Dilip’s tragedy can then be interpreted as a warning against (p.36) the modernizing imperative. Indian popular cinema apparently narrativizes the dominant concerns of historical periods by allegorizing them through the employment of familial motifs, because its eschewal of universal time prevents it from doing so otherwise. This is not to say that each motif consistently finds correspondence at the social/historical level because the narrative must also stand up independently as fiction. One difficult question is whether the allegorization21 is always a ‘conscious’ strategy on the part of the filmmaker.22 The term ‘allegory’ usually refers to a frank allegory like The Faerie Queene where the issue being allegorized is understood and recognized by the reader/spectator. Popular texts may need to connect with the present and even fantasies may be required to do so, in which case ‘allegory’ could be a covert (though not only) way of solving the problem. Spider-Man 3 (2007), for instance, has aspects inviting reading as allegory. Spiderman’s colours allude to the American flag and the film also makes the connection explicit. His suit is contaminated by a black glob of evil that makes his conduct uncharacteristically wicked and he is delivered by the peal of a church bell. Spiderman’s adversary is also a monster made entirely of sand, suggesting the desert and, specifically in 2007, Iraq.

The Family The observation that Indian popular cinema allegorizes its historical concerns gives us a clue about the significance of the family in film narrative. The employment of the family as a motif by Hollywood is often perceived as ideologically motivated and the transformation of the family in films like Ordinary People (1980) or Kramer vs Kramer (1979) is said to reflect the changing perceptions of the public.23 Unlike in the American film, the representation of the family in Indian popular cinema does not problematize the changing circumstances of the family. The working woman has come into her own today but cinema leaves the patriarchal family secure. The Hindu joint family has broken up but the joint family of popular cinema has thrived. Indian popular films also do not attempt to persuade the spectator about family values by centralizing the discourse on household discord like Redford’s Ordinary People, and the values are an incontestable ‘given’. Filmic texts from India disallow the kind of social analysis usually applied to Hollywood, (p.37) implying that the imaging of the family in popular cinema is not ‘representational’. Whenever a discourse on the dominant historical preoccupations is needed, popular cinema goes back to the same constant motifs (pertaining to the ‘traditional’ family and the values associated with it) and employs them in several different ways to further a variety of discourses. It is perhaps because the traditional (or, rather, the ‘traditional-ideal’) Indian family24 is a constant unit of narrative construction, that popular cinema does not problematize the actual family’s changing circumstances. If the ‘traditionalPage 11 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form ideal’ family is a constant element, deviations from this ‘idealness’ are also among the elements that offer themselves for interpretation. To illustrate through Andaz, it is Neena’s untraditional, free upbringing that helps us to read the film as a discourse on modernity. The representation of the family has two components and while parentage may play the part of the surrogate past, love and marriage apparently fulfil a different purpose in the narrative. Before looking at love and marriage, one more observation needs to be made about other denotations of the ‘surrogate past’. Parentage does not always perform the role and when parents are absent, there are usually parent substitutes that take the hallowed place of the father and/or mother. Sometimes male friendship (or dosti) usurps the place of parental attachment to give the narrative the same kind of mooring. Interestingly, the sacred male friendship (Sangam, 1964) stretches back in time (like parentage) to before the commencement of the story and is not contracted in its course. This sets it apart from a Hollywood ‘buddy-buddy’ film (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[1969]) where the first meeting between the friends occurs within the domain of the story. Returning to love and marriage, Rachel Dwyer has dealt comprehensively with the traditional Indian understanding of romance and the way it influences popular cinema.25 I do not propose to repeat her observations here because my interest is not in the cultural origins of film romance but elsewhere. The sociology of the Indian family was not pertinent to my study and my inquiry took another direction, and the significance of love can also be sought elsewhere. What is perhaps certain about ‘love’ in popular cinema is that it does not support the psychoanalytical readings usually given to romance today. The closest Western relative of the love story from Indian cinema is not in film but in the literary genre of ‘women’s romance’, which has been subjected (p.38) to some very useful psychoanalytical interpretation26 and shown to exorcise latent emotional fears in women about their dealings with men. Romance in Indian popular cinema is different in as much as it does not cater specifically to either gender. Further, relationships do not pass through the same stages of development—involving interpersonal conflict—but are announced as ‘perfect’ and ‘eternal’ in every way. Difficulties, when they arise, are caused by external agencies (the family, society, destiny, etc.) and not by interpersonal conflict between the lovers. We cannot, therefore, read Indian film romances as engaged in the exorcism of latent emotional fears and this makes psychoanalytic interpretations unproductive.27 Romance is not always central and is sometimes employed even perfunctorily in Indian popular cinema but it remains ubiquitous unless it is replaced by marital devotion. But, even when a film does not have a legitimate place for the heroine or for romance, it still extends the logic of the narrative to accommodate them. The heroine’s fruitful relationship with the hero may therefore be performing a Page 12 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form role akin to parentage within film narrative and, as in the earlier case, the explanation that explains its presence satisfactorily is neither sociological nor psychoanalytical. Like parentage, heterosexual love is apparently a ‘constant’ within the narrative. Since its affirmation generally brings the narrative to conclusion, heterosexual love is perhaps the way by which the narrative achieves ‘closure’. The term ‘closure’ needs elaboration at this point. Critics have sometimes classified narrative films under the categories ‘open’ and ‘closed’. In a closed film the world of the film is the only thing that exists, everything within it has its place in the plot of the film—every object, every character, every gesture, every action. In an open film the world of the film is a momentary frame around an ongoing reality. The objects and characters in the film existed before the camera focussed upon them and they will exist after the film is over. They achieve their significance or interest within the story of the film, but, unlike the objects and people in a closed film, the story of the open film does not exhaust the meaning of what it contains.28 The distinction between open and closed films is part of the debate on realism, and genre films are considered ‘closed’ because the familiarity of their conventions and their repeating patterns exhaust the meaning of the narrative. A genre film exhibits the closure of a ‘myth’ and even a historical film can be described as imposing a final meaning upon the (p.39) moment in a way that history itself does not. But Indian popular films are ‘closed’ films in a more fundamental way because their narratives are not located within the stream of history. Even a genre film like the western, because it locates itself within a historical continuum, can be said to leave itself ‘open’ in some sense. The narrative ‘ceases’ definitely at the conclusion of any Indian popular film and this would not have happened if its links with the metanarrative of historical time had been authentic. As an illustration, Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot (2000)—an adventure film set in the American Revolution—is a genre film with the Englishman Lord Cornwallis as one of its villains. This villain surrenders to the Revolution at the conclusion and the act brings the narrative to closure. Still, an Indian’s awareness that the same Lord Cornwallis went on to become Governor-General of India works, in some sense, against him/her seeing the closure as final.

As already explained, such historical links do not exist in Indian popular cinema and, just as the family provides the narrative with a context, family relations must bring about the final closure.29 Where its links with history leave The Patriot with a corridor open to universal time, the autonomous, unhistorical universe of the popular Indian film makes narrative closure necessary. The closure must be achieved at the level of the family and ‘triumphant love’ is the readiest closure strategy. In the occasional film that has no place for romance (Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin, 1953) the coming together of the family still facilitates the final closure. Occasionally, a reunion between a parent (or parent

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Narrative Convention and Form surrogate) and the son/daughter—as in Kaante (2003)— can also facilitate the closure.

The Myths of Prehistory Common opinion often holds that Indian popular cinema responds more to traditional mythology than to history. Popular Indian cinema draws sustenance from myth but this factor does not distinguish it. As Roland Barthes phrases it, myth is a kind of language and a set of conventions by which the exigencies of a historical moment are given eternal justification.30 Hollywood genre films refer back to mythologies of their own and, phrased very simply, the conventions of the western can be associated with the origins of the American nation state because it shows the ‘Westerner’ as the civilizing influence in a savage land.31 (p.40) Post-War Germany produced the genre of the Heimatfilme. ‘Heimat’ is the feminine German word for ‘homeland’ as contrasted with ‘Vaterland’ (Fatherland), which is a masculine term with martial connotations. The Heimatfilme was a response to the War and Germany’s defeat but the War was characteristically the subject it neglected to invoke— except in the manner of a natural calamity.32 ‘Third World’ cinemas have historical genres of their own and Indonesian cinema has two different genres dealing respectively with the colonial period under the Dutch (the Kompeni genre) and the struggle against the Japanese (the Perjuangan genre).33 Egyptian cinema has the genre of the war film, which deals largely with the Arab–Israeli struggle of 1948, the historical spectacle genre, which includes Cleopatra (1943) and Saladin (1941), and another genre that deals with contemporary politics.34 A striking feature of Indian popular cinema is that it gives no indication that the process of myth making draws from history. Only a handful of historical epochs provide it with subjects—chiefly the Mughal emperors Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan. History creates very few myths of its own and one is hard-pressed to find a film that uses even 1947 for its narrative thrust, despite the efforts of the state to build a durable mythology out of the freedom struggle. Popular cinema apparently finds the myths of prehistory (often the Ramayana and the Mahabharata) more useful in the construction of narratives, and this is consistent with what I said earlier about its doing away with absolute time and history. Films using narratives drawn from history seem exceptions although they nonetheless need to be examined. The patriotic cinema from the 1990s onwards—1942: A Love Story (1994), Lagaan (2001)—also departs from this norm and needs to be explained. In accordance with my chosen approach, I will look at these exceptions separately while dealing with their specific periods and try to account for them. What I have said about Indian popular cinema’s response to universal time has one more implication. Universal time implies not only a common past but also a shared future, and the future commonly imagined is shaped by the exigencies of the historical present. This may explain why Indian popular cinema does not Page 14 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form work with the model of the futuristic fantasy. Science fiction is a way of dealing with possibilities brought to relevance by the historical present (consider how Jurassic Park [1993] arrives just when genetic engineering engages (p.41) the Western world) and there has been no science fiction in Indian popular cinema— although Koi Mil Gaya(2003) will need explaining.

Causality and Psychological Motivation Indian popular cinema has been scrutinized hitherto in terms of two systems (the representations of space and time) and I began each examination with a reference to classical Hollywood cinema. The most important system defining classical cinema is psychological causation and the spatial and temporal systems are subordinated to it. We may now inquire into Indian popular cinema’s behaviour under this parameter in the expectation that the inquiry will lead us further: The classical Hollywood film presents psychologically defined individuals who struggle to solve a clear-cut problem or to attain specific goals. In the course of this struggle, the characters enter into conflict with others or with external circumstances. The story ends with a decisive victory or defeat, a resolution of the problem and clear achievement or nonachievement of the goals. The principal causal agency is thus the character, a discriminated individual endowed with a consistent batch of evident traits, qualities, and behaviors.35 In its early years Hollywood relied more on coincidences, which had been the staple of melodrama and popular nineteenth century theatre. But with the growing emphasis on realism around the turn of the century, coincidences became less acceptable. The elimination of coincidences became necessary through a careful preparation of events throughout the plot. The role of coincidences—especially in resolving plots—was not considered desirable.36

Psychological causation is not the only possible option and causality can also be conceived as social—as initiated by group processes—in the manner of Soviet cinema of the 1920s. One can equally conceive of an impersonal causation in which chance and coincidence leave little room for personal action, and this is largely the method of post-War European cinema. In Robert Bresson’s films, for instance, events follow each other according to a causal order, but still within the framework of accident.37 Hollywood, of course, also permits impersonal causes but they are usually subordinated to psychological causation. Impersonal causes may initiate or alter a line of story action but personal causes must then take over and move the narrative. To illustrate, a war may separate lovers but they must react to their situation. Coincidences and (p.42) accidents must confine themselves entirely to the initial condition.38 In the structure of the classical Hollywood film, causes are also left dangling to be picked up subsequently by effects. This method leads the spectator to anticipation and guarantees that the action does not slacken between any two scenes.39 Page 15 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form Returning to Andaz, we find that, as regards causation, the film violates the cherished precepts of classical cinema. Before we examine the manner in which Andaz structures its narrative we should perhaps understand the implications of ‘psychological causation’ through an appropriate illustration. I have chosen a simple illustration—Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002)—and will be examining only part of the narrative. The chosen part of Spiderman can be broken down chronologically as follows: 1. Peter Parker is a timid young man in love with Mary Jane whose boyfriends are hunks. Peter knows that—given his puny stature (and his glasses)—he cannot win Mary Jane. 2. Peter nonetheless pursues Mary Jane discreetly but, during a visit to a museum, is stung by a genetically altered super spider and becomes ‘spider strong’. He discovers his new strength, unwittingly thrashes the school bully, and finally gets Mary Jane’s attention. 3. Peter becomes more confident in his newly discovered strength and is also drawn closer to Mary Jane because of his achievement with the bully. But his rival owns an automobile and Mary Jane continues to date him. Peter now believes he can win Mary Jane only by first owning a car. 4. Peter looks through a newspaper for information about used cars but also discovers a notice about a wrestling match where he can win the required money ($ 500). He needs to find a colourful costume and, given his newly discovered propensities, dresses up as a ‘Human Spider’. 5. His beloved uncle senses the change Peter is undergoing and his gaining in confidence. On the way to the wrestling match he warns him against misusing his gifts. 6. Peter Parker enters the ring where the manager announces him as ‘Spiderman’. Peter uses his spider strength and demolishes his opponent but the manager cheats him of the prize money. (p.43) 7. An armed man robs the manager but Peter does not intervene because of his anger at the manager. 8. The armed robber also kills Peter’s uncle in the street while making his getaway. 9. Peter pursues the robber and helps make the arrest but he also understands that his initially letting the culprit get away caused his uncle’s death. He recognizes his error and resolves to fight crime as ‘Spiderman’. This is only a sketchy account and several details have been omitted but it still provides a fair idea of the film’s approach to narration. If each of the above items is considered an ‘episode’ the film employs a specific way to link them together—in the manner of a causal chain. Peter Parker becomes super strong by accident but his psychological condition induces him to take advantage of the accident and each episode is connected to the succeeding one in a similar way. To illustrate further, Peter needs a car to win Mary Jane but he does not have the Page 16 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form money. He finds an easy source but still needs to wrestle to get it. He wins the bout because of his ‘spider strength’ but the manager cheats him. Peter encounters the robber just after he has been cheated but allows him to escape because of his anger at the manager. The robber kills Peter’s uncle because Peter permitted him to get away. Peter Parker resolves to fight crime because of his own part in his uncle’s death. The narrative may abound in accidents but the accidents do not happen arbitrarily. The narrative moves because the accidents happen at ripe moments, taking advantage of existing circumstances and the relationship—between the circumstance and the accident—may (for want of a better term) be termed ‘dialectical’ in as much as each interaction leads to a new stage in the narrative. This implies that each event is important and no episode can be removed from the chain without affecting the entire story. Plot and character therefore ‘develop’ as part of a single continuing process. The major episodes in Andaz can be arranged chronologically as under: 1. The motherless Neena is brought up and ‘spoiled’ by her widowed father. 2. Neena meets Dilip when he saves her in a riding accident. (p.44) 3. Neena invites Dilip home. Dilip loves her and fondly imagines that she reciprocates his feelings. 4. Neena’s father dies suddenly and she impulsively names Dilip to manage her business empire. He takes this as a sign that she cares for him. 5. Rajan arrives and Dilip suddenly discovers that Neena loves Rajan. 6. Dilip retreats from Neena’s side and she duly marries Rajan. 7. Dilip’s behaviour becomes morose and difficult for Neena to understand. When she presses him for the reasons, he expresses his love for her and she is shocked. 8. Neena and Rajan have a daughter. 9. Dilip comes to their daughter’s birthday party and startles Neena but he lets her know secretly that he has decided to leave her alone. Rajan sees them together, misunderstands their relationship, and grows jealous. 10. Rajan’s jealousy becomes more and more acute. It grows so intense that he assaults Dilip, causing him to become mentally unbalanced. 11. Dilip is so deranged that he becomes violent and expresses an intense urge to kill Rajan. 12. Neena is forced to shoot Dilip dead when he becomes too threatening. 13. Neena is tried and sentenced to life imprisonment after Rajan speaks out against her in court. 14. Rajan discovers a letter written by Dilip that exonerates Neena and he regrets his own actions.

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Narrative Convention and Form 15. Rajan, Neena, and the child have one last meeting before she is led away to prison. I have omitted a few sub-plots and comic interludes in order to make the story simpler. Although the events in Andaz follow a chronological order, the film contains little evidence of the characteristic linking that distinguishes Spiderman and it may be regarded as ‘episodic’.40 Rather than each episode linking to the preceding one as effect to cause, the narrative relies on a ‘first cause’, which is Neena’s free upbringing. In fact, one may even declare that the story actually emerges from this ‘first cause’. Neena’s character does not change appreciably thereafter although she ‘regrets’ her errors and wishes that her own daughter be (p.45) brought up correctly. Dilip remains his grave and vulnerable self until the blow on his head upsets his balance. Rajan’s display of jealousy is abrupt and disappears when he discovers Dilip’s letter. One may say that Andaz arranges it so that each character is defined in terms of an ‘essential’ trait rather than through attributes that develop. Whereas in Hollywood cinema, ‘character’ is defined in terms of intentional action41 we also find few events in the narrative where Dilip, Rajan, or Neena act intentionally towards foreseeable ends. It will be more accurate to say that they allow unintentional acts or even ‘destiny’ to dictate to them. Andaz defines character in terms of the ‘innate’ but, instead of intentional behaviour, the action takes the shape of fortuitous events (or impulses) with consequences that are experienced and felt.

The Passive Voice The disinclination of popular cinema to rely on psychological motivation has implications upon the way that action is conceived. Consider, for example, the clash usually concluding an adventure film before the inevitable family reunion. Most of these fights take place after a hate figure (the villain) has been created and his treacherous activities elaborated upon. Yet, when the moment actually arrives for the villain to be confronted and dealt with, the final act of his disposal is postponed time and again on the most unconvincing grounds, sometimes even involving the sudden appearance of an unknown henchman. If this method of storytelling prolongs the action, the reader will point out that most action films use the method to wring the greatest amount of excitement out of climactic sequences. A distinction must nevertheless be made between the villain’s end at the hands of James Bond and the culminating action in Indian film melodrama. The typical James Bond adventure puts the protagonist initially at a disadvantage but when the obstacles are surmounted, the film makes the destruction of the villain deliberate and, sometimes, even contemptuously simple. Action sequences in Indian popular cinema usually arrange a more fortuitous end for the hate figure. To provide an example, in Sooraj Barjatya’s Maine Pyar Kiya (1989) the villain attempts to push the protagonists over a cliff but (because a pigeon he has previously ‘wronged’ attacks him) he finds himself also plunging downward and (p.46) hanging by a rope alongside his intended

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Narrative Convention and Form victims. A sudden, unwise move on his part to drag them down makes him finally fall to his own death. Instead of offering the spectator the pleasure of watching the premeditated annihilation of the hate object, these sequences actually disregard the potential for such excitement. This is a strange kind of ‘unassertiveness’ on the part of popular cinema but the chosen shot construction and the linking work consistently towards it. If I were to illustrate the methods of the popular film through a hypothetical scenario, I would say that, rather than participate in the excitement of a mountainous ascent, a popular film would more likely show the summit as ascended. The active pursuit of an end is less sought than the end simply attained. This feature does not pertain only to action sequences and it can be stated, generally, that individual acts are presented as ‘fulfilled happenings’ rather than as the execution of ‘intent’. If we are to understand the structure of popular film narrative as a ‘grammar’, we can justifiably say that its construction is the visual equivalent of the ‘passive voice’. It chooses not to generate excitement through a consistent use of the ‘active voice’, as Hollywood prefers to. It can perhaps also be said that ‘free will’ and ‘determinism’ have some correspondence with the grammatical employment of the active and passive voices. Popular films are often accused of being ‘unoriginal’ but ‘borrowing’ involves integration within Indian filmmaking convention and part of this is taken up by narration in the passive voice.42

The Relay of Meaning The tendency to identify character with an ‘essence’—as seen in Andaz—is consistently exhibited by popular cinema although critics who valorize realism treat it with derision: ‘In these films abstract notions have simple human representations: Good is characteristically a young man, necessarily handsome and exceptionally virile; Good’s offshoot, Vulnerable Innocence, is naturally a young woman, necessarily beautiful, preferably lacking in intelligence, and helpless….’43 The remark is rudely dismissive but it nonetheless contains a kernel of truth in as much as it recognizes that ‘character’ does not develop in popular cinema but is present in the form of an ‘essence’. This (p.47) also supports an observation made by Ashis Nandy about essential characteristics: ‘If the story line chooses to depict the hero as an apparent mixture of good and evil he must be shown to be essentially good, whose badness is thereby reduced to a temporary aberration.’44 The issue here is not the philosophical validity of popular cinema’s viewpoint but, rather, how the viewpoint shows up consistently in cinema. What Indian popular cinema’s critics do not acknowledge is that the classical arts in India are founded on approximately the same perceptions. An Indian art critic who Page 19 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form distinguishes between traditional Indian and Western art by commenting upon a painting by Rembrandt entitled ‘Christ before the Pilate’ substantiates this. According to him, Rembrandt’s painting does not place Jesus in ‘proper perspective’ because an Indian artist might have tried to discover the soul or essence of the object of creation. Rembrandt … chose for his portrayal the moment when at the end of his strivings in the cause of the religion he regarded to be true, he was discarded by his own people and brought before a Roman judge. The choice of this particular moment, though revealing the great artistic insight of Rembrandt, fails to put Jesus in proper perspective…Indian artists [on the other hand]…did not lay emphasis on any passing [moment] …but tried to discover [the essence of]…the object of creation. This was perceived by them as dominating over individual moments…and could be regarded as characterizing the soul or essence of the artist’s object of creation.45 The moment chosen by Rembrandt corresponds to what Barthes (in writing about the tableau) described as a ‘pregnant moment’ because it is suspended between the events of Jesus Christ’s life and his martyrdom, surrounding the moment but eliminated from the actual picture. The pregnant moment (or the tableau) is poised between the past and the future and frozen within a continuum of change, the change itself comparable to a perpetual resolution of binary conflicts.46 Returning to my argument, I propose that a moment in a narrative becomes ‘pregnant’ only within a causal continuum. Causality and time are apparently related and if the ‘tableaux’ in Andaz do not provide evidence that universal time runs through them, neither are they causally linked. The ‘episodic’ quality of Andaz implies that it does not answer favourably to the Aristotelian concept of ‘unity of action’. Unity of action requires that the incidents in the story should cluster around a central animating idea. A single purpose must be seen to run through (p.48) the series of events, incidents that are so woven together that it is evident that one incident could not have taken place without the other.47 This central animating idea has now come to represent the ‘theme’ in classical cinema and the theme is made to emerge only through the causation in the narrative. The factors just enumerated indicate why it is difficult to identify themes in Indian popular cinema and why theme music is also noticeably absent from much of it. If it is difficult to identify themes in Indian popular cinema, each film’s discourse nevertheless emerges unequivocally and this needs explanation. Madhava Prasad draws some broad conclusions that are pertinent at this point.48 Prasad contrasts the ‘relay of meaning’ in Indian popular cinema with the ‘production of meaning’ in classical Hollywood cinema. According to his hypothesis, the production of meaning in realism takes place when ‘raw material’ in the form of Page 20 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form the narrative is made available to the audience for interpretation. Prasad links the transformation of the story into ‘meaning’ to the process of capitalist expansion, which gradually ‘renamed every bit of the world as raw material’ (although he does not provide evidence that the transformation did not take place in the ‘pre-capitalist’ reception of texts). Prasad suggests that in contrast to classical Hollywood cinema, ‘meaning’ in Indian popular cinema is not generated in the process of reception but the text (the production and the performances) is actually the way of transmitting a pre-existing meaning (from a ‘transcendental point of emanation’) for reception by the audience. Prasad draws upon Anuradha Kapur’s remarks about Parsi theatre,49 making an association between the devolution of the meaning/message and the ‘aesthetics of frontality’ in Indian popular cinema. Since my interest is in narration, I propose to employ Prasad’s hypothesis towards somewhat different ends. I earlier remarked that the ‘first cause’ in Andaz is Neena’s free upbringing, which is suggested in the very first scene of the film, and the ubiquitous ‘first cause’ in any film is perhaps the site of location of the relayable meaning.50 The episodes subsequently arranged assist in transmitting the meaning and do not apparently ‘produce’ it in the manner of the classical film. Significantly, the plot material in a classical Sanskrit play is also seen to be present as a seed or a germ at the beginning and grow as the action progresses51 and the ‘first cause’ may correspond to this seed or germ. (p.49) Since the text of a popular film is a way of relaying meaning to an audience, it needs a transparent language enabling it to make abstract significations while employing the concrete means of cinema. In The Painted Face Chidananda Das Gupta observes how film convention supplants the ‘real’ in popular cinema: There are a number of ways in which the popular film struggles to overcome the built-in naturalism of cinema, and to bend this medium, developed in a western technological society, towards its own, mythical style of discourse…A beard on Valmiki in the Ramayana—whether on film or on TV—is not a photographic record of a real beard on a real man; it is a photograph, but of the beard symbol of someone who is supposed, by tacit agreement between filmmaker and audience to be a traditional sage.52 The ‘tacit agreement’ between the filmmaker and the spectator on the meaning of each representation implies that the shape of the represented object must be fixed. The object must also be conceived and represented in a manner that makes all its attributes visible at first glance, and not gradually revealed.53 Since the specificity of the image must be employed to make an abstract signification, whatever Das Gupta notices are the ways by which this specificity is undermined and the individual made to correspond to the ‘type’. We noticed the same tendencies in the depiction of space and in the earliest experiments with the photographic portrait in India. This preference for the abstraction over the individual also finds correspondence in what Prasad observes Page 21 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form about ‘pre-existent meaning’. Prasad’s observations can sometimes be misunderstood as pejorative—the unfavourable contrast between the way the ‘active’ spectator is allowed to construct meaning by Hollywood cinema and the way popular Indian cinema relays meaning to the ‘passive’ spectator. But I propose that the ‘story’ and its ‘meaning’ find correspondence with the ‘individual’ and the ‘abstraction’ (or the ‘type’). This may owe to a recurring philosophical preoccupation because we will also discover parallels in the undermining of ‘particularity’ in Indian classical art and literature. Further, the titles chosen by individual films support Prasad’s hypothesis because they tend to be symbolic words or phrases like Kismat (‘Fate’), Dhool Ka Phool (‘Flower in the Dust’), Sangam (‘Confluence’), Dil Ek Mandir (‘The Heart is a Shrine’) and Sholay (‘Flames’). Their relationship with the text is more often metaphoric than metonymic.54 They suggest that the film is conceived as an instrument for an abstract signification.

(p.50) Ritual Participation and Narrative Coding I earlier hypothesized that Indian popular cinema responded to social history by allegorizing key moments through the prominent motifs finding favour in the respective periods but a credible relationship is still to be established between social transformation and cinematic representation. Does this happen in response to audience desires, commercial decisions, the individual agency of screenwriters or directors, or a tapping into the zeitgeist? The older model of communication— known as the ‘bullet theory’—sees only a one-directional flow from sender to receiver, that is, source–message–medium–receiver–effect. This model is not useful because it reduces the experience of the film to the motives that precede it (of the producer) and the effects that follow it (upon the receiver) with no likelihood of the latter influencing the former. A more useful model would perhaps be to regard audience response to popular cinema as akin to ‘ritual participation’. In her discussion of the Indian film magazine Stardust, Rachel Dwyer55 asks why the stories about stars contradict all ‘normal expectations’ of behaviour and the roles associated with the star personae on screen. Dwyer goes on to suggest that the readers are not passive readers of messages but use the texts to deal with their everyday lives—as spectators in folk performances and as viewers of soap operas do. Dwyer does not say this but the suggestion is that the readers are involved in some kind of ritual participation. Since fan involvement and popular film viewing are by and large related, could not the viewing of popular cinema be ‘active’ and akin to ritual— as soap opera viewing is also regarded— and could not the ritual be pan-Indian? The ritual participation theory of media communication conceives ‘communication as a process through which a shared culture is created, modified, and transformed’56 and this suggests that the distinction between the ‘producer’ of the text and the ‘receiver’ is rendered nebulous. Both may, in effect, be producing, maintaining, modifying, and transforming the shared culture of Indian popular cinema. If this argument is conceded, I propose that the issue of who codes the filmic text becomes largely irrelevant.

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Narrative Convention and Form An earlier question that needed answering also pertained to the coding in filmic texts. Why should it invariably be ‘social history’ that is allegorized? There may be no compulsion here but I surmised that the nation is implicated as a ‘constant’ in popular film narrative (p.51) and there is hence the likelihood that the nation’s social history will represent the dominant ‘variable’. Given my interest in the changing shape of popular film narrative, Indian social history is perhaps the only external variable commonly involving the participants in Indian film culture. These observations are important because the underlying hypothesis permits the reading of a large body of Indian cinema consistently. I must spell out here that the ‘relayed meaning’— that I find vital—corresponds less to a more elusive ‘content’ than to the explicit meaning or the moral of the story. Other meanings will be made of any text and these other meanings are often more interesting. If I identify the relayed meanings in individual films, I attempt to excavate other kinds of significance from them as well and do this largely by examining the social context in which the meanings are relayed.

The Omniscient Eye Indian popular cinema’s methods are regarded as originating in early-twentiethcentury theatrical practice. The immediate source of Indian popular cinema’s codes is widely accepted as Parsi theatre of the early twentieth century because it had many of the same attributes— presentation of stars, grandiloquent gestures, song and dance sequences, comedy interludes, special effects, and the same ‘frontality’.57 This ‘theatricality’ was apparently carried over into cinema because theatre is the handiest model available to ‘primitive’ cinema but it may have remained there longer because it fulfilled a specific purpose in narration. Popular cinema’s frontal, flat compositions work contrary to the dynamics of realist filmmaking where the spectator is presented with the illusion of inclusion within the space of the narrative. Narrative space in Indian popular cinema corresponds to our experience of proscenium theatre58—with the additional quality of ‘frontality’ (examined in the next chapter). But relevant to my argument is only the fact that a visual style corresponding to proscenium theatre also prevents the conception of off-screen spaces. ‘Off-stage’ does not constitute narrative space in theatre (as ‘off-screen’ does in cinema) and the proscenium/ frontal style effectively prevents the conception of an ‘elsewhere’. The implication here is not that there are no ‘offstage’ events in a play, but that the verisimilitude of space in cinema (p.52) allows us to imagine events occurring outside the view of the spectator in a way that theatre does not. This is in conformity with what we noticed about the representation of space and time in popular cinema, with the latter’s disregard for both continuous space and universal time, and the preponderance of the ‘tableau’ arrangement in its preferred mode of narration. Andaz suggested that there was little in Indian popular cinema corresponding to ‘point-of-view’ narration, indicated that the eye of the camera is omniscient, and the frontal style may be most appropriate to such a viewpoint. Page 23 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form The omniscient eye of the camera in a frontal visual style may also have correspondence with the omniscience of the ‘sutradhara’ (the ‘troupe manager’) of classical Sanskrit theatre because the sutradhara is also ‘the presenter of the performance’.59 His task goes beyond merely ‘reflecting’ upon the action because there is no event in the narrative that he has not ordained and over which he has no control. The narrative and the performance are his domain and stage happenings cannot retain their ‘mystery’ even to him. The universe of the action, being entirely the creation of the sutradhara, cannot be ‘unknowable’ like the real world and it is a world with a purpose. The omniscience of the camera eye (the absence of point of view) and the closed universe of film narrative are apparently consequences of the ‘relay of meaning’ by popular cinema because meaning is not ‘produced’ in the spectator. If ‘meaning’ actually precedes the text and the text is only the means by which meaning is transmitted, the ‘purpose’ of the work must also be known a priori. The rules of the Natyashastra also enunciate the purpose for which drama can be employed: ‘They have deep-rooted foundations in certain traditional rules according to which “drama should be a diversion for people weighed down by sorrow or fatigue or grief or ill-luck; it should be a rest (for the body and the mind)”.’60 This purpose seems to explain the deliberate ‘escapism’ of much of Indian popular cinema because escapism is, by definition, a denial of the ‘real’. Still, this explanation also finds contradictions in other texts of classical Indian theory because Indian poetics do not actually treat literature as an ‘autonomous’ category divorced from the ‘real’. India’s dramaturgy may be more pertinent to a study of cinema than its poetics but rather than a hypothesis of art for art’s sake, the belief is that literature is not subordinate to external reality but actually greater,61 (p.53) and the ‘diversion’ proposed by the Natyashastra could well be towards this ‘greater reality’. Literature and theatre are perhaps even intended as ways by which the immediate reality can be transcended rather than evaded. Popular cinema displays seemingly contradictory sides but these aspects are still attributable to the same belief. Its ‘escapism’ and its sense of purpose (seen in Andaz) may come from the same source—the remnants of a belief that whatever literature or dramatic performance represent should be actually ‘truer than the real’.62 It should be remarked here that only a comparison with the ‘classical’ is being resorted to but this is not because the classical tradition is more representative of ‘India’—there have been other traditions in India (the folk, the Islamic), also very rich and influential. The experience of Sanskrit drama63 is invoked although Sanskrit drama is not the exclusive ‘source’ of Indian popular cinema’s inspiration. Still, it is pertinent to my arguments that classical Indian theatre,

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Narrative Convention and Form literature, and art have rigorously documented theories and invoking this body of knowledge makes the understanding of cinema less strenuous. Whatever has been said about Indian popular cinema hitherto suggests its support of an aesthetic viewpoint corresponding to an extreme form of ‘essentialism’.64 Its ‘tableau’ form may also be the least troublesome way to relay a predetermined meaning since each tableau has a fixed denotative purpose that does not intentionally permit interpretation. We have already seen something of the character ‘stereotypes’ deriving from the fixed denotative purpose of the narrative. Sanskrit drama permitted only a limited number of character-types for heroes and heroines and the same observation can perhaps also be made for Indian popular cinema, although the precise number cannot be fixed in the latter case.65 If character is represented in terms of an immutable essence, the gainful employment of a romantic heroine is perhaps one of the ‘irresolvable’ contradictions, although there are several exceptions to the rule. Manoj Kumar’s Upkaar (1967) has a heroine who is a doctor but since her devotion to the nation draws her to the hero, her vocation as a doctor does not conflict with her romantic appeal. Romantic heroes do not themselves ‘work’ in popular cinema unless their individual qualities are those associated with their professions— whether doctor (selflessness), policeman (toughness), farmer (goodness and simplicity), or businessman (affluence). (p.54) Also pertinent here are the way songs are employed. Playback singers are always used to render songs but few attempts are made to ‘match’ the voice of the actual singer with that of the actor/actress singing it on-screen. The method of rendering songs also prevents the association of individual singing styles with the character/personality of the actor. A disembodied singing voice is perhaps a guise like a hairpiece, like a pair of spectacles or a beard, transforming a vital being into an abstraction, helping to reduce him or her to an immutable ‘essence’. Neepa Majumdar66 notes the very small number of singing stars actually providing playback. For almost five decades, every major film actress borrowed from the same singing voice, that of Lata Mangeshkar, and there are only a slightly larger number of male playback singers. Where Lata Mangeshkar’s voice lent itself to the norm of ‘ideal femininity’, the voice of her sister Asha Bhosle became associated with ‘oozing sensuality’. This observation bears out my contention that the disembodied voice is a guise that seeks to reduce the individual to a type.67 The ‘guises’ just mentioned relate to character and I have confined my attention to character portrayals so far. Still, it is not only character that is represented by its qualities. I have already demonstrated that narrative space in Andaz is conceived in similar fashion and this gives us an insight into how fundamental the perceptions are.

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Narrative Convention and Form Detractors of Indian popular cinema will wonder if the tendencies described bear this kind of overt intellectualization; they will ask if the ‘stereotypes’ cannot be simply put down to ‘inept characterization’. It must be remarked here that American films are also prone to using stereotypes but that these stereotypes are differently conceived. To illustrate, a frequently occurring stereotype is the housewife and/or mother becoming radicalized in her dealings with the male establishment—Norma Rae (1979), Erin Brockovich (2000). Contrary to the model made familiar by Indian cinema it is not the character that is stereotyped in Hollywood. What is stereotypical is the way he or she is allowed to develop and a familiar ploy is for a character, not a perfect specimen, to improve in the course of the narrative.68 This is not to say that all characters in American films develop in the course of the tale because there are those (played by character actors) who remain unchanged. In Spiderman Peter Parker’s Aunt May and Uncle Ben are apparent examples. (p.55) When films have narratives spread over prolonged (although indefinite) intervals, change must somehow be accommodated but the popular film responds by asserting that the initial condition is inviolable. In films like Vijay Bhatt’s Baiju Bawra (1952) and M.S. Anand’s Agneepath (1990) a child grows up to right an injustice done to his father. The child’s attitude, arrested in implacability, is then carried forward entirely into adulthood to furnish the narrative with its raison d’être. When the boy grows up, the rest of the world has altered but little. The villain is not only sustained in an unsullied condition for the exclusive purpose of his vengeance but the hero must also cease to exist after his ends are achieved because his vengefulness defines him entirely. This is vastly different from the realism of Coppola’s The Godfather II (1974), in which the protagonist revenges himself impassively upon his father’s murderer—now senile and beyond recollecting his victim from twenty years before. In Agneepath, vengefulness is the hero’s innate condition and he may not depart from it. The hero does not however actively pursue vengeance because the passive mode of narrative does not permit this. It is more accurate to say that he remains in his condition of agitation until an alignment of circumstances eventually allows his vengeance. In reading about Sanskrit drama, we learn that: ‘Sanskrit drama aims at imitating the state or condition while Greek drama imitates the action.’69 ‘Imitating the state or condition’ assumes a ‘state or condition’ as a general notion that the specificity of the actual experience cannot undo. The ‘state or condition’ in Sanskrit theatre has perhaps some correspondence with the preexisting ‘meaning’ in the Hindi film, the message that the text, the production, and the performances are specifically designed to relay to the spectator. I will also add that it is because narrative events do not need to be emptied of their

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Narrative Convention and Form specificity— and the archetypal film characters of their psychology—that they serve an allegorical purpose effectively.

Suspense/Surprise Most Indian film critics acknowledge today that Indian popular cinema is indifferent to the attractions of suspense and surprise. There are many attributes that go with suspense and surprise and one of them is (p.56) to build up the spectator’s sense of anticipation through tight causal linking. Suspense and surprise, in their different ways, rely upon causes to be left dangling and subsequently taken up by effects. We have seen through the example of Andaz that Indian popular cinema is episodic and does not structure itself as a chain of causes and effects and this means it will be hard-pressed to produce these sensations. Second, Indian popular cinema tries to relay meaning to the spectator and there is evidence that this meaning is contained in the ‘first cause’ usually made explicit in the early part of any film. Introducing plot devices to conceal the outcome might be actually akin to obstructing the ‘relay of meaning’ and this can hardly suit any film’s purpose. There have been attempts at composing detective stories in Indian popular cinema but these are always hesitant. They rely on the ploy of withholding one or two items of information from the spectator even as the camera eye remains omniscient. The emphasis placed by Indian popular cinema upon presenting the spectator with the familiar does not mean that every episode in the narrative only fulfils predictions. It will be more accurate to say that the emphasis is on ‘how things will happen’ rather than on ‘what will happen next’.70

Melodrama The aspect of Indian popular cinema to have been studied most extensively by academics is perhaps its melodrama and the familiar strategy is to regard it in the light of Western studies of the notion. The major difficulty with the strategy is that the term ‘melodrama’ largely loses its significance when applied to Indian popular cinema because there is little in the body with effects that cannot be described as ‘melodramatic’. While Western texts have something to offer instead of melodrama (realism, for instance) and the term ‘melodrama’ is a useful form of identification, it is necessary to identify individual films that are ‘not melodrama’ before the term can be usefully applied within Indian popular cinema. Broadly speaking, melodrama is seen to indulge in strong emotionalism, moral polarization, and schematization; it portrays extreme situations and actions, overt villainy, the persecution of the good and the final reward of virtue, inflated or extravagant expression, abrupt changes in fortune, and dark plotting and suspense.71 Most of these (p.57) attributes (with the exception of ‘suspense’) are also those of Indian popular cinema and this seems to justify using Western theories to understand it. Melodramas are seen to use strongly emotional Page 27 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form material from everyday life—murder and crime, natural calamities, trials, arrests, and impoverishment. The dramatic violations of emotional relationships —mother losing child, spouses undergoing imprisonment— and the perfidies inflicted upon characters who are affecting by their very natures—defenceless girls and truthful men—are also favoured. Melodrama always consoles, punishes, teaches, and rewards72 and Indian popular cinema’s ‘moral polarization’ continues. The impassioned speeches characteristic of films like Parasakthi (1952) or Deewar (1975) may be leaving the screen and Indian popular cinema becoming less vocal. But other characteristics continue and they include cinema introducing the unexpected into the action (for instance Pooja’s accidental death in HAHK [1994]). This strategy has the effect of violating the course of events and turning the story into hitherto unknown directions through the introduction of the new fact or deed.73 Another difficulty with linking Indian popular cinema’s methods to Western models arises out of similarities between Indian and Western texts having been noticed earlier outside cinema. Sanskrit drama is seen to resemble some of the work of Elizabethan playwrights. Common to both are plot contrivances like the writing of letters, the introduction of the play within the play, and the restoration of the dead to life. Often cited are the similar devices in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Bhavabhuti’s play Malati–Madhava, although the latter has a happy ending. These affinities are cited as instances of how similar devices are often invented independently.74 Indian popular cinema could therefore have arrived at some of its ‘melodramatic’ methods independent of the West. Given these factors, one wonders if an explanation for melodrama’s development in Europe can be of assistance in understanding Indian popular cinema. The origins of Western melodrama have been located within the context of the French Revolution and its aftermath when the traditional sacred and its representative institutions (Church and Monarch) lost their centrality.75 Melodrama, as an aesthetic form is therefore regarded as a corollary to the democratization of society and this gives it special value. Indian film theorists working on melodrama have relied on Hollywood’s domestic melodramas with women being a result of (p.58) the ‘feminization of mass culture’ in the West76 but this is not pertinent to my inquiry because Indian film melodrama addresses (in terms of gender) a much more undifferentiated audience. Despite its foundations in the democratization process, the earliest Western stage melodramas were aristocratic in nature and the same tendencies have been detected in Indian popular cinema with its fondness for the model of the ‘feudal family romance’.77 The dialogues in these ‘feudal family romances’ are reinforced by references to the semi-divine heroes from the epics, by speech that seems to coincide with that of divine authority. Much of this speech is—Madhava Prasad cites Barthes—‘already interpreted’ and its meaning is visible on the surface.

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Narrative Convention and Form Some of these observations are useful but they ultimately lead away from my line of inquiry. It is nonetheless important that melodramatic speech should be described as speech ‘already interpreted’ and the meaning of which is transparent. What strikes one immediately is how appropriate such speech would be to a project that sets out to ‘relay’ a pre-existing meaning without giving room for further ‘interpretation’. This is consistent with the earlier arguments because, melodrama not being a distinct category in Indian popular cinema, it suggests why all popular films should function ultimately as melodramas. A distinction is often made between two aspects of the narrative. The Russian formalists gave the name ‘fabula’ (the story) to the imaginary construct we create progressively and retroactively as we interact with the text. They gave the name ‘syuzhet’ (the plot) to the actual arrangement of the fabula in the narrative. The syuzhet is a blow-by-blow recounting of the story as the film or the piece of fiction would render it. To illustrate the difference between the two, a detective novel would yield a fabula beginning with the planning of the murder and concluding with the criminal being brought to book. The syuzhet (corresponding to the novel as actually written) proceeds by concealing parts of the fabula to create ‘suspense’ and sharpen the impact of the text upon the reader. In contrast to the detective story, as David Bordwell explains,78 melodramatic narratives are highly communicative about fabula information. Where the detective story emphasizes the act of unearthing what has already occurred, the melodrama plays down curiosity about the past by withholding little from the spectator and necessitating the omniscient camera-eye, a characteristic already noticed in Indian popular cinema. This suggests that melodrama is (p.59) ideally suited to assist Indian popular cinema in the effects it seeks and the latter only takes advantage of it.

Aggregation I have been consciously searching the three systems constituting the narrative film—the representations of space and time and narrative logic—for clues that might help understand Indian popular cinema’s methods more clearly. My chosen approach has been to use classical Hollywood cinema as a template, identify the divergences, and account for them as independent characteristics. In the process, the logic of psychological causation that is central to classical cinema emerges as the characteristic that Indian popular cinema violates extremely. The examination of the system of narrative logic also leads to the most important conclusions about popular cinema’s independent characteristics. To return to Indian popular cinema’s narrative logic, I repeat the earlier observation that Indian popular film narrative is not structured as a chain of causes and effects. The films themselves are noticeably episodic, arranged somewhat like a series of tableaux—although not in Barthes’ sense. It is this characteristic of Indian popular cinema that is apparently responsible for its Page 29 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form omnibus characteristic, the absence of generic differentiation, the presence of innumerable sub-plots and other narrative digressions. This tendency, or rather the resulting heterogeneous genre, which I am simply calling an ‘aggregation’ has been variously described as a ‘cinema of attractions’, a ‘bricolage’, a ‘conglomeration’, a ‘cinema of interruptions’79 and (in Metzian terms) a ‘grande syntagmatique’.80 As suggested by the terminology applied, each description of the phenomenon entails a different explanation about its purpose. I have chosen the simpler term ‘aggregation’ because my interest is not in its ‘true’ purpose but merely in how it is facilitated by popular cinema’s narrative logic. Indian popular films include diverse narrative elements that often lie outside the ambit of the domestic melodrama but generic distinction remains an enormously difficult task for critics. Most examples include generic elements that find correspondence in Hollywood—the western, the gangster film, the heist film, and the horror film—and these generic elements can sometimes dominate the narrative. As illustrations, (p.60) Sholay (1975) incorporates elements taken from the western, Deewar (1975) employs several motifs of the gangster film, and the Ramsay brothers have achieved renown for their horror films like Purana Mandir (1984). As in American genre films, the dominant elements in many of these films sometimes also determine the spectator profile. If ‘youth films’ like Dil Chahta Hai (2001) are meant for young audiences in the metropolitan cities, horror films that incorporate elements of magic are usually targeted at the small towns of northern India. There was once a sub-genre in which the actors were ‘B’ category stars like Dara Singh and Sheik Mukhtar and these small films were watched by a ‘sub-proletariat’81 that was predominantly Muslim. The triumphs of big films like Sholay and Dharam Veer (1977) were due partly to their integrating motifs from these films with those of the domestic melodrama (or the ‘social’ as it is more commonly called). The integration of (by Hollywood standards) incompatible elements into a portmanteau genre is only rendered possible because of the episodic structure of each film. The same episodic structure also admits other attractions like autonomous comedy sequences, songs and dances—increasingly demarcated as voyeuristic spaces within any film—and even religious interludes. It is also increasingly noticed that ‘attractions’ are not clearly demarcated from the narrative and, if one were to define it from today’s films, one could say that an ‘attraction’ is simply a sequence that does not fit into the narrative logic and exists independently within the film. To illustrate with a contemporary example, in Sanjay Gupta’s Kaante (2002), with a narrative that splices together Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects, two of the protagonists tip a Pakistani arms dealer over a balustrade and watch him plunging twenty or thirty stories downward. The episode serves no narrative purpose within the film and we are forced to read it as an autonomous attraction. Watching a Pakistani arms dealer plummeting from a high-rise is something a ‘patriotic’ Indian spectator might desire to see! It is the episodic Page 30 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form structure facilitating the insertion of attractions and the narrative aggregation that also allows the incorporation of ‘contemporary’ elements into the story: The episodic structure is convenient both for simulating a comprehensive worldview and for keeping up with the times…. The very looseness and imperfection of the episodic structure makes it possible for a popular film to incorporate (p.61) the most recent happenings in Indian society, to give shape to the very latest objects of technology, fashions in daily life.82 It is perhaps not correct to say that popular film narrative includes recent happenings in Indian society although it physically incorporates aspects of the contemporary world after detaching each aspect from its historical significance—because of its adopted time scheme.83 Interestingly, one of the definitions of the art of theatre to be found in the Natyashastra is that the art of theatre is no more or no less than the nature of the world with its happiness and despair presented through acting. This has been interpreted as meaning that Sanskrit drama is itself ‘an aggregate of model situations’.84

Moral Instruction and its Relay The persistence of the relayed message indicates that Indian popular cinema has explicit moral instruction for the spectator. Two questions pertaining to this instruction however need to be answered and the first involves identifying its tenets broadly. This—especially the role of dharma and geneology—has been dealt with in some detail by Vijay Mishra85 and I will not venture into the terrain. The second question pertains to the location of the instruction and the bearer of the message. Andaz and HAHK are separated by nearly five decades but we find both of them relying on ‘family issues’ not only for the action but also to provide each narrative with an ethical framework. As already argued Indian popular cinema does not produce meaning in the spectator but transmits a pre-existing message with the assistance of the text and the performances. This ‘message’ is usually located in the ‘first cause’ (which corresponds to the seed or the germ in the Sanskrit play) and the ‘first cause’ is itself associated with the family. Popular cinema therefore uses the motif of the family for its moral discourse and the family is apparently used as a ‘moral site’. A parental presence or familial relationship also becomes the object of reverence when it becomes ‘the bearer of message’, when the moral discourse flows through it. This can be contrasted with another method of providing a moral basis to the narrative—the use of historical markers or a contemporary social issue.86 An emotional tie that substitutes for the filial relationship is the fraternal one or the male friendship (dosti), considered sacrosanct and (p.62) often the guiding ethical force—for example in Sangam (1964) and HAHK. As a rule, the strength of the parental tie or childhood friendship is inextricably tied to the first cause. Parents unsympathetically portrayed or childhood friends who stray are sometimes (though not always) ‘Westernized’ and betrayers of tradition and they are contrasted with the right, ‘traditional’ parent or friend. These observations lead to the conclusion that filial relationships (or male friendship in the shape of Page 31 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form dosti) are also devices that function as conduits through which the moral values of a mythical past pass into modernity. Without this conduit, the ‘unhistorical’ present of the narrative might well become a moral limbo. Dosti and parentage are both equally sacrosanct and the popular film therefore refrains from bringing the two into conflict. While the friend is not regarded with as much reverence as the parent, dosti is still sacred and the message of the film is often encoded in it. The tendency of academics has often been to seek out extra-textual explanations for aspects of any text even when more plausible textual explanations are available and they sometimes even misread the text in order to do so. Patricia Uberoi’s reading of HAHK is an instance of extra-textual explanations being ineffectual.87 The film is analysed elsewhere in the book but what interests me here is a question raised by Uberoi about the narrative. The film is a romantic love story involving Kailash Nath’s nephew (and ward) Prem and Professor S.S. Chowdhury’s daughter Nisha. As Uberoi explains, Kailas Nath and Professor Chowdhury were friends in college and both were in love with the same woman although Kailash Nath made a ‘sacrifice’ and the woman became Mrs Chowdhury. HAHK commences with the two men renewing their friendship and pledging to establish kinship ties as a means of continuing their friendship. The question asked by Uberoi in her reading is why Kailash Nath could not have been Prem’s father instead of his uncle.88 The explanation she eventually gives is an elaborate one and draws from theories about the Hindu joint family provided by sociologists A.M. Shah and Veena Das. My argument is that reverting to the sociology of the Hindu joint family for an answer is unnecessary and deceptive when the narrative logic itself provides a satisfactory explanation. To be father to Prem, Kailash Nath must have wed another woman later in life. But this act would have cast doubts on the truth of his feelings for the former (p.63) Mrs Chowdhury and diminished the value of his ‘sacrifice’. This in turn would only weaken the fraternal bond between the two men, which is so central to the narrative.89 I have argued that Indian popular cinema declines to problematize the changing circumstances of the family because its subject is not the real family but the ‘traditionali-deal’ one. Uberoi attempts to find a correspondence with the real family in its depictions. I will offer another argument here which may be more contentious. The argument is that the moral instruction contained in popular cinema is so antiquated today that the same kind of ethics no longer informs actual/ prescribed social conduct. Given this factor, the moral instruction derived loosely from the codes of dharma appear to have hardened into conventions perhaps comparable to the rules in chess. We do not choose to interpret a game of chess as ‘discourse’ though it involves political entities such as kings, queens, castles, and knights and it is for consideration whether the manifest content in a popular film (for example the sanctity of family dictate in HAHK) is not simply Page 32 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form the outcome of narrative strategy and narrative convention coming into interplay.

Devotion There is an interesting aspect to devotion in popular cinema that needs exploration. The idols worshipped in Hindu temples are conceived as objects of devotion and, while the Hindu gods are anthropomorphic, these idols are often mere cult symbols that do not imitate human proportions with any particular faithfulness.90 While the contention that idols are ‘symbolic’ may be contested, what is pertinent here is only that actual idols do not imitate human proportions faithfully. Prasad invokes the tradition of darshan in Hindu worship where muteness on the part of the devotee and mediation by a priest are prerequisites91 but devout moments in Hindi films do not follow this prescription. The devoutness in popular cinema is usually directed towards idols that are sculpted in a (naturalistic, Western) way that makes their human attributes manifest. These gods are sometimes muscular and seem capable of movement where traditional idols are solid in their immobility. Where the object of worship in a usual Shiva temple is a sculpted lingam (a stone phallus), a Shiva temple in a popular film enshrines a (p.64) ‘lifelike’ statue of the god. This does not mean that we do not see lingams in popular cinema. As an instance, the pretitle sequence in Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978) shows people worshipping a wayside stone shaped like a lingam—to demonstrate that it is faith that renders the object of worship sacred. Yet application to the divine in Satyam Shivam Sundaram is always made to anthropomorphic deities (usually Krishna and Radha) and devotion is also directed towards them in the song sequences. In many other films, the scenes are shot and edited during the devotee’s address as though an actual dialogue was in progress. The entreating face of the character is cut to the reassuring countenance of the idol (often employing the eye-line match and shot-reverse-shot editing)92 and the general sense is there is a communion between the two. Chidananda Das Gupta makes a similar observation about the instant sense of eye contact between God and a devotee in D.G. Phalke’s silent films93 but this will be taken up in greater detail in the next chapter. Das Gupta’s remark and my observations suggest that the intention is not to introduce a god to ‘control psychic dispositions’94 but one actually more mindful of material claims.95 What is presented is not only an icon more reassuring to the spectator but an accessible deity capable of intervening with human understanding in human stories.96 Indian popular films often employ divine intervention (as in HAHK, where the family dog becomes the divinity’s agent) to resolve the narrative. To conclude my observations about devotion with a final remark, the abrupt ‘divine interventions’ witnessed in popular cinema are extraneous to narrative logic and would not be accommodated within the narrative if the individual episodes were held together by causal linking. When

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Narrative Convention and Form Hollywood admits divine intervention The Ten Commandments) God is actually implicated in causality.

The Villain Some of the conventions of Indian popular cinema can perhaps be traced to the philosophical tenets of Hinduism but the rewards are scarce because the logic of the narrative itself often provides simpler explanations. As an illustration, some critics attempt to explore the notion of ‘evil’ in Hinduism to explain the presence of the villain in popular cinema97 but the exercise does not provide valuable insights. (p.65) In fact, searching Hindu tenets for an understanding of the villain may not be more purposeful than searching theology for the significance of Batman’s adversaries. The purpose of the villain in Indian popular cinema (as in Hollywood) is simply to place difficulties or obstacles in the path of the hero— it seems unnecessary to look for deeper philosophical purposes. This assertion must not be taken to mean that Indian popular cinema conceives of him in the same way as Hollywood. The contrasts nevertheless arise because of the fundamental differences in the two modes of narration and much less because of the contrary notions of ‘evil’ operating in the two cultures. Ravi Vasudevan cites Guru Dutt’s Baazi (1951) as a crime melodrama that reproduces some of the generic elements of American noir of the 1940s98 and the film gives us some understanding of the figure of the villain in Indian popular cinema. Later films like Sholay provide more extravagant villains and I will examine them separately while dealing with the periods that produce them. In Baazi, Madan finds employment in a disreputable gambling den named Star Hotel, which is run by a shadowy figure, secretly the heroine’s father. I have already argued that psychological motivation plays no discernible part in narration and most individuals are placed in situations where events are allowed to impact upon them. The villain seems an exception to the rule because he actually produces the condition to which the protagonists react but Baazi demonstrates the superficiality of this reading. One of the major attributes of villainy in Indian popular cinema is the absence of what may be called the ‘conspiracy’ and the villain has no clearly defined nefarious scheme to be thwarted by the hero. In Baazi, the villain runs a gambling den and is nominally engaged in illegal activities of various hues but he only remains an ‘evil presence’, his deeds not contributing substantially to the action. The hero runs foul of the villain not because he obstructs him in his designs but because he loves his daughter. The villain’s wickedness is also not suggested through any wilful act but through the dark ambience of his den and the interest of the police in his mysterious activities. Another of Baazi’s ploys is to give the villain an army of unnamed henchmen and his first thought of killing the hero is placed in the villain’s head by a henchman.99 The evil thought is therefore akin to an external happening because a character is subjected to it. The presence of ‘henchmen’ allows another possibility and this is that a wicked Page 34 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form idea, even when it originates (p.66) in the leader, emerges so adventitiously that the actual individual giving expression to it cannot take full responsibility. The process is somewhat like an exercise in ‘brainstorming’ where ideas ‘happen’ to a group and no one actually gets credit. Baazi is only one example because there are countless other films that employ the same strategy.

The Anatomy of a ‘Failure’ Madhava Prasad is partly taken up with relating the ideology of the Hindi film to the actual process of manufacture. He notes that Hollywood, when assigning itself a certain ideological task, developed a mode of production that would facilitate its achievement and asks if a similar relationship exists between the ideology of the Indian film and its mode of production.100 After considering the question carefully he comes to the conclusion that the failure to consolidate the production process is responsible for Indian cinema not serving a determinate ideological project. At the same time, the impediments placed in the path of such consolidation by the powerful financial interests in ‘Bollywood’ have themselves contributed to the perpetuation of backward capitalism in production and precapitalist ideologies in filmic texts. Prasad explains that relationships based on loyalty, servitude, honour of the khandaan (clan), and institutionalized Hindu religious practices are the core cultural content of popular cinema and that this bears the hallmark of a pre-capitalist worldview. While the contention that the core content of Indian popular cinema is ‘pre-capitalist’ is apparently beyond dispute, what bears questioning is his covert understanding that, given a mode of production that is not ‘pre-capitalist’, this core content would be transformed. From the observable fact that the transformation has not taken place Prasad surmises that the particular form of Indian popular cinema results from a series of ‘failures’ and he cannot accept the view that Indian film is ‘precisely tailored’ to meet local tastes. The question that Prasad’s thesis naturally provokes in the reader is that if Indian popular cinema is not tailored to suit local taste, how is it still able to maintain its share in India’s entertainment market when better organized cinemas have given in to Hollywood in their own territories. But if we do not accept his contention we have another question to answer, which is why the ‘pre-capitalist’ content (p.67) of Indian popular cinema should suit local tastes so admirably in an era that is not ‘pre-capitalist’. To answer the second question I should perhaps revert to some audience responses to HAHK as cited by Patricia Uberoi:101 As Madhuri Dixit conceded…the film is not about the family as it is, but the family as people would like it to be. ‘I would want my daughter-in-law to be as nice and sweet and domesticated’ as Madhuri and Renuka, a middle-aged businessman was reported to have remarked…suggesting, perhaps, that not all daughters-inPage 35 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form law match these exacting standards. Indeed, several viewers selfconsciously recognized and took pleasure in the fact that this film portrayed an ideal of family life. In her…reflections on HAHK, [Daljit Kaur] repeatedly emphasized that the film shows domestic rituals and family relationships as they once were and as they should be, but not as they presently are in a degenerate world. Uberoi reads ‘nostalgia’ into many of these remarks but if the film invokes fond memories of a bygone past, one is left wondering about the location of this past. Can it be the ‘feudal’ or the ‘pre-capitalist’ past in India that HAHK is invoking so fondly? We have already seen Indian dramaturgy and poetics taken up by ‘model situations’ or qualities ‘truer than the real’, and we wonder if HAHK is not merely continuing the same tradition. But if the ‘message’ transmitted by the film concerns an ‘ideal’ we still ask whether there is a historical ‘pre-capitalist’ model to which the ideal conforms. My own arguments lead to the understanding that the kind of transcendental truths that traditional dramaturgy or poetics posited were, by definition, ‘immutable’ and that, consequently, they continue to represent the ‘ideal’ to audiences (as those in HAHK apparently did). It is perhaps only incidental that the conception of these immutable truths happened in a ‘pre-capitalist’ era.

Interestingly, Uberoi discovers that spectators partial to HAHK are unable to see many of the sexual overtones in the film that she herself detects immediately.102 Her perceptions are, of course, partly shared by a certain kind of more ‘sophisticated’ and critical spectator but HAHK means something quite different to those who respond wholeheartedly to the film. What Uberoi perhaps does not recognize is that she reads HAHK as she might an American film where, because ‘meaning is produced by the spectator’, everything seen on the screen bears interpretation. The spectators she interviews, on the other hand, (p.68) seem aware that the signs that invite reading are only those constituting the relayed or transmitted message. This is not to say that they cannot respond to the other ‘signifiers’ of which Uberoi takes note but which they consider only ‘attractions’. Apart from the spectators not being vocal on certain matters (matters they might consider ‘embarrassing’ for instance), they may also be taking these signifiers to be autonomous and to be kept apart from the transmitted meaning, clearly recognized because it is also familiar. In the final analysis the spectator may be disinclined to admit anything outside the ‘message’ just as s/he declines to ‘read’ the static in a radio broadcast. Notes:

(1.) Ashis Nandy, ‘An Intelligent Critic’s Guide to Indian Cinema’, Deep Focus, 1 (1), December 1987, Paper presented at INTACH seminar on Visual Anthropology. Nandy suggests that this middle cinema is not a compromise with art cinema but, rather, a logical extension of popular cinema of the 1930s.

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Narrative Convention and Form (2.) A rudimentary account is provided in Balwant Gargi, Folk Theatre of India, Calcutta: Rupa and Co., 1991, p. 39. See also Cathryn Hansen, Grounds for Play: The Nautanki Theatre of North India, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1993, p. 120. (3.) Hindi cinema has perhaps roughly the same relationship to the regional cinemas as classical literature (and myth) in India has to ‘folklore’. A.K. Ramanujan notes how folklore ‘domesticates’ classical literature when it draws from it. See A.K. Ramanujan, ‘Two Realms of Kannada Folklore’, in Stuart Blackburn and A.K. Ramanujan (eds), Another Harmony: New Essays on the Folklore of India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 65–6. (4.) Lothar Lutze, Interview with Raj Khosla, in Lothar Lutze and Beatrix Pfleiderer (eds), The Hindi Film: Agent and Re-agent of Cultural Change, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985, p. 39. (5.) Chidananda Das Gupta has a term, ‘the All-India Film’, for mass-produced post World War II Hindi cinema, which was often duplicated by the regional cinemas. (6.) Roy Armes, Third World Filmmaking and the West, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987, p. 7. (7.) Ravi S. Vasudevan, ‘An Imperfect Public: Cinema and Citizenship in the “Third World”’, Delhi: Sarai Reader, 2(1), February, 2001, p. 60. (8.) Lothar Lutze, ‘From Bharata to Bombay: Change and Continuity in Hindi Film Aesthetics’, in Pfleiderer and Lutze (eds), The Hindi Film, p. 5. (9.) David Bordwell, ‘The Classical Hollywood Style’, in David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988, p. 12. (10.) Ibid., pp. 59–62. (11.) Ravi S. Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities: The Hindi Popular Film of the 1950s as Popular Culture’, in Ravi S. Vasudevan (ed.), Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 105–6. (12.) Christopher Pinney, Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Pinney notes: ‘… photography never seems to merely duplicate the everyday world, but is, rather, prized for its capacity to make traces of persons endure, and to construct the world in a more perfect form than is possible to achieve in the hectic flow of the everyday,’ p. 149.

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Narrative Convention and Form (13.) Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, pp. 105–6. Vasudevan’s argument depends on his detailed analysis/interpretation of one 9-shot segment from Andaz. He identifies a single shot with the ‘tableau’ while my own understanding of the ‘tableau’ is as a narrative moment, that can be represented even by a longer sequence. (14.) Roland Barthes, Image Music Text, trans., Stephen Heath, London: Fontana, 1977, pp. 70–3. One of the pregnant moments cited by Barthes is from Eisenstein’s The General Line when the peasant woman allows her skirt to be ripped up for material to help repair the tractor. Barthes remarks that the gesture ‘bears the weight of a history: its pregnancy brings together the past victory (the tractor bitterly won from bureaucratic incompetence), the present struggle and the effectiveness of solidarity.’ Barthes, significantly, does not equate the tableau with a single shot. (15.) Bordwell, ‘The Classical Hollywood Style’, p. 48. (16.) Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, p. 108. (17.) For instance, the shot of the father’s arms through prison bars in Awaara (1951) when he stretches them towards his hostile son—who turns away. (18.) Bordwell, ‘The Classical Hollywood Style’, pp. 42–3. It may be noted that films like Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) or Max Ophuls’s Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) have extended flashbacks. My own explanation is that the flashbacks in the films are framed (a single flashback in Letter from…and several independent flashbacks in Citizen Kane) in such a way that they do not interrupt the narrative. Virtually the entire story is, in effect, recounted through the flashback with the framing present moments only justifying the recounting. In Andaz, the flashback is an interruption because a long segment of the past is sandwiched between equally long segments of the present. (19.) Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, p. 108. (20.) Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, New Delhi: Penguin, 1997, p. 8. (21.) I must add that this is not derived from Jameson’s hypothesis that ‘Third World’ texts are most usefully read as national allegory (Frederic Jameson, ‘World Literature in the Age of Multi-national Capitalism’, in C. Kolb and V. Lokke (eds), The Current in Criticism, West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1987, p. 141). Jameson draws his conclusions in the course of his arguments about global capitalism while Indian films were apparently ‘allegorical’ even as early as the 1930s and 1940s. (22.) This is not as contentious as it sounds because such readings have been given to a work of ‘fantasy’ such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings though the author himself denied any political intent in his work. For instance see Ishay Page 38 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form Landa, ‘Slaves of the Ring: Tolkien’s Political Unconscious’, Historical Materialism, 10(4), December 2002, pp. 113–33. (23.) For a basic account, see Stanford M. Lyman, ‘The Road to Anhedonia: Patterns of Emotional Conflict in American Films 1930–88’, in David D. Franks and Viktor Gelas (eds), Social Perspectives on Emotion: A Research Annual, 1, Greenwich, Connecticut: Jai Press Inc., 1992, pp. 179–80. (24.) M. Madhava Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, prefers to use the term ‘feudal family romance’ to designate the Indian domestic melodrama. This seems to imply that the family as portrayed in Hindi cinema has some sort of historical correspondence with the family in the feudal age, pp. 30–1. (25.) Rachel Dwyer, All You Want is Money, All You Need is Love, London: Cassel, 2000. (26.) See Janice Radway, Reading the Romance, London: Verso, 1987, p. 48. (27.) In his study of qissa, a kind of cheap literature still produced in Urdu and Hindi, F.W. Pritchett notes that the core of the genre consists of works in the main line of descent from the Persian qissas, stories of noble heroes having marvellous adventures and finally achieving their goals (e.g., the stories of King Vikram). In the ‘outer layer’ of the category, sexual encounters replace marvellous adventures. Pritchett, significantly, does not cite any kind of fiction resembling the ‘penny romance’. F.W. Pritchett, ‘Qissa and Mass Printing’, in Marvelous Encounters: Folk Romance in Urdu and Hindi, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985. (28.) Leo Braudy, The World in a Frame: What We See in Films, New York: Doubleday, 1976, pp. 46–7. (29.) J.P. Dutta’s urban ‘gangster film’ Hathyar (1989) achieves closure uncharacteristically— but also at the level of the ‘family’—by having the male protagonist and an older father figure die together in a police shootout. Kaante (2002)—the Hindi Reservoir Dogs—ends in a brief flashback in which the bank robbers sit contentedly by the riverside with the oldest bank robber (the father figure) presiding affectionately over them. (30.) Roland Barthes, ‘Myth Today’, in Mythologies, London: Paladin, 1973, p. 143. (31.) See Thomas Schatz, ‘Film Genre and the Genre Film’, in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen(eds), Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 647. As Schatz notes, ‘The Western hero,

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Narrative Convention and Form regardless of his social or legal standing, is necessarily an agent of civilization in the savage frontier.’ (32.) Heide Fehrenbach, Cinema in Democratizing Germany, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995, p. 150. (33.) Karl G. Heider, Indonesian Cinema: National Culture on the Screen, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991, pp. 39–57. (34.) Ali Abu Shadi, ‘Genres in Egyptian Cinema’, in Alia Arasoughly (ed.), Screens of Life: Critical Film Writing from the Arab World, Quebec: World Heritage Press, 1996. (35.) David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film, London: Methuen, 1985, p. 157. (36.) Kristin Thompson, ‘The Formulation of the Classical Style’, in Bordwell Staiger, Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema, p. 170. (37.) Bordwell, ‘The Classical Hollywood Style’, p. 13. (38.) Ibid., p. 13. (39.) Thompson, ‘The Formulation of the Classical Style’, p. 170. (40.) See Robert Scholes, ‘Narration and Narrativity in Film’, in Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen (eds), Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 395. ‘When we say that a work is “episodic”… we mean that the work frustrates the narrativitous urge for causal connection and we consider this a fictional deficiency (though obviously there may be other non-fictional compensations in any given work).’ (41.) Paisley Livingston, ‘Characterization and Fictional Truth’, in David Bordwell and Noël Carroll (eds), Post Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996, pp. 149–50. (42.) See Rosie Thomas, ‘Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity’, Screen, vol. 26(3–4), 1985, p. 121. Thomas, who does not see this translation into passive voice, cites filmmakers who say that the essence of Indianization lies in (1) the way the story line is developed; (2) the crucial necessity of ‘emotion’; and (3) the skilful blending and integration of songs, dances, fights and other ‘entertainment values’ within the body of the film. (43.) John W. Hood, The Essential Mystery: Major Filmmakers of Indian Art Cinema, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2000, p. 3. (44.) Ashis Nandy, ‘The Popular Hindi Film: Ideology and First Principles’, in India International Centre Quarterly, Special Issue, 8 (1), March 1980, p. 90. Page 40 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form (45.) S.N. Dasgupta, Fundamentals of Indian Art, New Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1954, p. 37. Also see P.K. Agrawala, Aesthetic Principles of Indian Art: Their Primary Quest and Formation, Varanasi: Prithivi Prakashan, 1980, p. 54. (46.) The example cited pertains to narrative and narrative construction but the basic perception has wider connotations. The following quotation is from a Western sculptor who sees the ‘pregnant moment’ (here the equilibrium between two opposing forces) as the key moment for capture in an artistic representation: ‘Two sculptors are carving a sphere out of stone. One of them wants to achieve the most perfect form of the sphere and sees the meaning of his work in turning a mass of stone into a perfect sphere. The other is also carving a sphere but only to convey the inner tension expressed in the form of a sphere filled to bursting point. The first will be the work of a craftsman and the second, that of an artist.’ Interview with sculptor Ernst Neizvestny published in Soviet Life, cited by John Berger, Art and Revolution: Ernst Neizvestny and the Role of the Artist in the USSR, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969, p. 109. (47.) Alfred Hermequin, The Art of Playwriting, Boston: Mifflin Co., 1897, p. 89, cited by Kristin Thompson, ‘The Formulation of the Classical Style’, in Bordwell, Staiger, Thompson (eds), The Classical Hollywood Cinema, p. 169. (48.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, pp. 50–1. (49.) Anuradha Kapur, ‘The Representation of Gods and Heroes: Parsi Mythological Drama of the Early Twentieth Century’, Journal of Arts and Ideas, 23–4, 1993, p. 92. (50.) See David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film, London: Methuen, 1985, p. 157. Hollywood screenplay-writing manuals have long insisted on a formula and the archetypal plot consists upon an undisturbed stage, a disturbance, a struggle for the elimination of the disturbance, and its actual elimination. The disturbance in classical cinema may correspond to what I termed the ‘first cause’ in Indian popular cinema. The difference is that the fact of the initial disturbance is not important enough to be recalled subsequently in classical Hollywood film narrative but the first cause is invoked time and again in Indian popular cinema. (51.) M. Christopher Byrski, ‘Sanskrit Drama as an Aggregate of Model Situations’, in Rachel Van M. Baumer, James R. Brandon (eds), Sanskrit Drama in Performance, New Delhi: Motilal Banarasidas, 1993, p. 144. It is apparent that the ‘disturbance’ in classical film narrative is quite different from the ‘seed’ that grows into the plot material in Indian popular cinema although it occupies approximately the same position in the unfolding film. (52.) Chidananda Das Gupta, The Painted Face, New Delhi: Roli Books, 1991, p. 59. Page 41 of 46

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Narrative Convention and Form (53.) This finds an echo in the way characters are represented in Sanskrit theatre. Here, for instance, is a description of how Vasavadatta, the heroine of Bhasa’s play, The Vision of Vasavadatta, was conceived in a present-day production. The heroine’s emotions do not ‘develop’ through the dramatic action. They are so essentially a part of her that they are actually encoded in her costume. Shanta Gandhi, ‘A Sanskrit Play in Performance’, in Rachel Van M. Baumer and James R. Brandon (eds), Sanskrit Drama in Performance, New Delhi: Motilal Banarasidas, 1993, p. 130. (54.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 48, n16. (55.) Rachel Dwyer, ‘Shooting Stars: The Indian Film Magazine, Stardust’, in Rachel Dwyer and Christopher Pinney (eds), Pleasure and the Nation: The History, Politics and Consumption of Public Culture in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 275–6. (56.) James W. Carey, Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society, Winchester (MA): Unwin Hyman, 1989, p. 43. (57.) Kapur, ‘The Representation of Gods and Heroes’, pp. 85–107. (58.) Some assumptions from proscenium theatre are carried over into classical Hollywood cinema as well. See Bordwell, ‘The Classical Hollywood Style’, p. 56. It should be noted that while classical cinema may be using formal devices derived from proscenium theatre, it does not conceive of narrative space as theatrical space (incorporating frontality) because off-screen space always figures in narration. (59.) Indu Shekhar, Sanskrit Drama: Its Origin and Decline, Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1977, p. 82. (60.) Lothar Lutze, ‘From Bharata to Bombay: Change and Continuity in Hindi Film Aesthetics’, in Pfleiderer and Lutze (eds), The Hindi Film, p. 8. The quoted text is from the Natyashastra, pp. 113–14. (61.) Edwin Gerow, Indian Poetics, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1977, p. 220. (62.) Eliot Deutsch, ‘Reflections on Some Aspects of the Theory of Rasa’, in Rachel M. Van Baumer and James R. Brandon (eds), Sanskrit Drama in Performance, Delhi: Motilal Banarasidas, 1993, p. 217. (63.) See also M.C. Byrski, ‘Bombay Philum—The Kaliyugi Avatara of Sanskrit Drama’, Pushpanjali, 4, November 1980.

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Narrative Convention and Form (64.) This is how essentialism in its extreme form has been defined: ‘Reifying to an immutable nature or type.’ Terry Eagleton, The Illusions of Postmodernism, London: Blackwell Publishers, 1996, p. 103. (65.) Shekhar, Sanskrit Drama, pp. 71–81. (66.) Neepa Majumdar, ‘The Embodied Voice: Song Sequences and Stardom in Popular Hindi Cinema’, in Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight (eds), Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001, p. 163. (67.) Ibid., p. 165. Majumdar also notes that in Hollywood cinema, ‘authenticity’ of performance is founded on the audience’s assumption of an actual match between the voice and the body of the individual rendering the song on the screen. She cites the denial of an Academy Award nomination to Audrey Hepburn for her role in My Fair Lady when it was revealed in the press that she did not sing her own songs. (68.) David Bordwell, Planet Hongkong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000, also cites the personality faults routinely overcome by the protagonists in various films— shyness (While You Were Sleeping), manipulativeness (Tootsie), lack of confidence (Back to the Future), arrogance (Groundhog Day), rash overconfidence (Speed). (69.) Shekhar, Sanskrit Drama, p. 58. (70.) Rosie Thomas, ‘Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity’, Screen, 26 (3–4), 1985, p. 130. (71.) Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess, New York: Columbia University Press, 1985, pp. 11– 12. (72.) Characteristics identified by Sergei Balukhatyi (Poetics of Melodrama) and cited by Daniel Gerould, ‘Russian Formalist Theories of Melodrama’, Journal of American Culture, no.1, 1978, 158. Anthologized in Marcia Landy (ed.), Imitations of Life: A Reader on Film, Television and Melodrama, Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1991. (73.) Ibid. (74.) Arthur A. Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1958, pp. 352–3. (75.) Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination, p. 15.

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Narrative Convention and Form (76.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 56. Prasad cites Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. (77.) Ibid., pp. 70–1. The term ‘melodrama’ is more appropriate to a film like Andaz than the term ‘romance’. Prasad still calls the film a ‘feudal family romance’ rather than ‘feudal family melodrama’. One senses that this is simply because of the incompatibility of the term ‘feudal’ with a form associated with the democratization process in Europe. Such are the difficulties associated with using theories historically specific to the West to explain local phenomena in India. (78.) David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film, London: Methuen, 1985, p. 70. ‘The narration will also be quite unrestricted in range, closer to an omniscient survey, so that the film can engender pity, irony, and other “dissociated” emotions.’ (79.) See Lalitha Gopalan, Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema, London: British Film Institute, 2002. Gopalan is more concerned with how some contemporary directors like J.P. Dutta have used the ‘interruption’ creatively to bridge genres. Also see M.K. Raghavendra, ‘Generic Elements and the Conglomerate Narrative’, Deep Focus, 4(2), 1992, pp. 21–33. (80.) Vijay Mishra, Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 157–9. See also Vijay Mishra, ‘Towards a Theoretical Critique of Bombay Cinema’, Screen, vol. 26(3–4), 1985, pp 133–46. Mishra actually goes a step further than simply describing the Hindi film by the term. He sees the whole body of Bombay cinema as a single metatext or narrative syntagma. Each individual movie is a play on the discursive practices that make up the rest of the metatext. (81.) Term used by Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 135, n19. (82.) Anil Saari, ‘Concepts of Aesthetics and Anti-Aesthetics’, in Pfleiderer and Lutze (eds), The Hindi Film, p. 25. (83.) M.K. Raghavendra, ‘Time and the Popular Film’, Deep Focus, 4(1), 1992, examines how Subhash Ghai’s Saudagar (1991) contrives to introduce contemporary matters like ‘Ping-Pong diplomacy’ and ‘peace-keeping forces’ into its narrative, pp. 10–17. (84.) Byrski, ‘Sanskrit Drama as an Aggregate of Model Situations’, p. 143. (85.) For an inquiry into how genealogy is made to figure in Hindi cinema see Vijay Mishra, ‘Towards a Theoretical Critique of Bombay Cinema’, Screen, 26(3– 4), 1985, pp. 133–46.

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Narrative Convention and Form (86.) As illustrations, the moral discourse in Jurassic Park is against genetic engineering, which has become a historical concern today. In Spiderman, the villain becomes what he is because he is the victim of a ‘hostile takeover’. Star Wars gives Darth Vader a Nazi helmet. (87.) Patricia Uberoi, ‘Imagining the Family: An Ethnography of Viewing’, in Rachel Dwyer and Christopher Pinney (eds), Pleasure and the Nation, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 309–51. (88.) Ibid., pp. 326–7. (89.) Sisterhood does not enjoy the status of brotherhood because a woman is normally held to belong to her husband’s family. Sister–sister or brother– sister relationships are therefore much weaker in popular cinema. This means that, in popular cinema, the friendship between women cannot have the same moral connotations as ‘dosti.’ (90.) Benjamin Rowland, The Art and Architecture of India, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967, p. 28. (91.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 74–5. Prasad is not taken up with devotion but uses the notion of darshan to examine another phenomenon. (92.) See Philip Lutgendorf, ‘A “Made for Satisfaction Goddess”: Jai Santoshi Maa Revisited, Part 2’, Manushi, 131, 2002. Lutgendorf duly notes this shot composition and editing strategy in Jai Santoshi Maa (1975), p. 28. (93.) Chidananda Das Gupta, ‘Form and Content’, in Aruna Vasudev (ed.), Frames of Mind: Reflections on Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Indian Council for Cultural Relations, 1998, p. 48. (94.) Carmel Berkson, The Life of Form in Indian Sculpture, Delhi: Abhiman Publications, 2000, p. 17. (95.) This is consistent with the worldly character of Hinduism elaborated upon by Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Hinduism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 15–16. (96.) This is contrary to a feature noticed in the Brahminical temples, that is, the notion of the ‘remote’ god enclosed within the sanctum sanctorum and accessible only to the presiding priest. Richard Lannoy, The Speaking Tree, New York: Oxford University Press, 1971, pp. 60–1. Popular cinema violates these rules to make the deity more accessible. (97.) Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai, ‘Sholay and the Discourse of Evil’, in Sholay: A Cultural Reading, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1992, pp. 31–68.

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Narrative Convention and Form (98.) Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, p. 110. (99.) This also corresponds to what we see in the epics where the wicked ideas that move the action are put into people’s minds by ‘agents’. A maid named Manthara puts the thought of Rama’s exile into his stepmother Kaikeyi’s head (in the Ramayana) and Shakuni’s evil counsel is similarly responsible for what the Kauravas do to the Pandavas (in the Mahabharata). (100.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, pp. 48–9. (101.) Patricia Uberoi, ‘Imagining the Family’, pp. 309–51. (102.) Ibid., p. 318.

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Indian Cinema before 1947

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

Indian Cinema before 1947 In Search of a Definition M.K. Raghavendra

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.003.0003

Abstract and Keywords This chapter discusses Indian cinema during the silent years where individual songs (a characteristic trait of Indian popular cinema) were absent. It begins with Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, the pioneer of Indian cinema who dwelled on mythology and introduced the concept of ‘frontality’. Several films made before 1947, particularly those by Phalke, are discussed in detail. The frontal cinematic address, iconic representation, realism, and the mythological themes of the early or ‘primitive’ films are examined and contrasted with Indian films made by Franz Osten. The transformations in Indian popular cinema in the late 1930s, most importantly, the introduction of sound in Indian cinema is also covered. This period also witnessed social reform, crisis of masculinity and sexual identity, the breaking away from an authoritarian father, and the rise of Muslim influence— all contributing to the gradual transformation of Indian popular cinema. Keywords:   silent years, frontality, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, frontal cinematic address, iconic representation, realism, mythological themes, primitive films, Franz Osten, sound cinema

The Pioneers and ‘Primitive’ Cinema While Indian cinema in its mature years takes a shape that is its own, a point may have existed at which it had not yet departed from non-Indian models. Mainstream Indian cinema cannot be imagined without songs but there were no songs in the silent era1 and narrative structure could have taken a diversion after the advent of sound. Considering that I have chosen to ignore the role of individual songs in Indian cinema, this assertion may sound contradictory. Still, Page 1 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 the presence of songs has generally allowed a degree of aggregation otherwise difficult and may have contributed to film narrative becoming more ‘episodic’. Could the absence of songs have left silent cinema tighter, bringing it closer to early Hollywood? The pioneers in Indian cinema began their work with precedents and with examples before them and these examples could only have been Western. We may therefore expect the earliest Indian films to exhibit characteristics since eschewed. The major difficulty with doing an exhaustive study of the earliest Indian cinema is the paucity of prints of films belonging to the period prior to 1930. Most writing on Indian silent cinema relies, consequently, on second-hand accounts that are hardly reliable if we are to uncover new truths or draw new conclusions and we must therefore look at the films actually in existence. Since I rely on the primary evidence of the available films themselves, many important films may not be taken into account because what is (p.70) known about them is largely hearsay. D.G. Phalke is a crucial figure and the section dealing with the implications of his films cannot but depend upon existing critical work on the subject. My dependence on some second-hand accounts may therefore be condoned. To begin with the silent era, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, or Dada Saheb Phalke as he is usually called, is credited with making the first feature film Raja Harishchandra (1913). The film may have run to about an hour although (according to the Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema) only 1475 feet of the original film still survives. The other Phalke silent fiction films to have survived in bits and pieces (in all running to less than three hours) are Pithache Panje (1914), Lanka Dahan (1917), Sri Krishna Janma (1918), Kaliya Mardan (1919), Sant Eknath (1926), and Bhakta Prahlad (1926). Phalke saw the future of Indian cinema in the mythological and put elements of magic into his films like Georges Meliés. Phalke’s films seem less ‘cinematic’ than those of his contemporaries and he can appear to some students as more of an entrepreneur to whom cinema was the industry of the future. Phalke reportedly saw a film called The Life of Christ around Christmas in 1910 and became excited at the prospect of seeing ‘Indian images’ on the screen. The ‘primitive’ period in American cinema is understood to have concluded by 19082 but Phalke’s films still show none of the characteristics of a more mature cinematic style—evidence of cross-cutting in particular—although later Indian films of the 1920s do exhibit them. Phalke’s camera is immobile; it usually maintains a fixed distance from the object although there are a few close-ups. Kaliya Mardan, which is about the childhood of Krishna, features his own daughter Mandakini Phalke and begins with a brief prologue demonstrating the seven-year old Miss Phalke’s acting skills—her countenance registering, in quick and arbitrary succession, happiness, affection, and anger.

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Indian Cinema before 1947 Phalke’s films are usually shot in the open with tacky sets and with men playing feminine roles. While we cannot but appreciate Phalke’s pioneering efforts, they remain at first glance too ‘primitive’ to reveal very much about the early tendencies of Indian cinema except for its bias in favour of the mythological and ‘frontality’—a crucial issue to be examined later. The filmmaker’s intent must be realized for us to catch a film’s full import but, in the case of Phalke’s silent films, the spectator finds himself/herself making too many allowances for the (p. 71) handicaps faced by the filmmaker. Still, it has been convincingly shown that there is a great deal more to Phalke’s films than the ‘primitiveness’ of his cinema. D.G. Phalke has sometimes been seen as an enormously controversial figure by film critics. Chidananda Das Gupta, one of his severest critics, holds his influence to be particularly baleful because it was Phalke who introduced frontal cinematic address into Indian cinema although this, as we shall see, was interrupted by a brief dalliance with a more dramatic kind of storytelling. According to Das Gupta, Ravi Verma’s and Phalke’s iconic frontality is also not of Indian origin. In the European tradition, the saint or the subject of the portrait looks directly at the beholder. Indian gods face the devotee, ready to receive the prayer but do not look directly at him. When Prahlada faces Vishnu and Lakshmi in profile in Bhakta Prahlada, there is an instant sense of eye contact.3 That Phalke’s gods look directly at the supplicant is consistent with my observation (in the previous chapter) about the representation of gods. Phalke’s iconic frontality may not have found favour immediately but it apparently helped to define Indian cinema in later years. But if Dadasaheb Phalke was not merely an entrepreneur but was stylistically influential, it nonetheless took several years for his influence to be felt.

‘Frontality’, ‘Realism’, and the Early Mythological Chidananda Das Gupta’s unforgiving view of Phalke is becoming a minority view because of the attention since paid to the frontal mode of address employed in Indian cinema. Three writers/theorists— Anuradha Kapur, who has attempted to show how it developed in the Parsi theatre of the early twentieth century, the art critic Geeta Kapur, and the film critic Ashish Rajadhyaksha have produced significant critical work on frontality in the early mythological film. Apart from examining Phalke and his progeny, the three theorists have also devoted attention to the painter Ravi Verma, apparently the major pictorial influence on Phalke’s films and on the early mythological. In writing about the frontality of Parsi theatre, Anuradha Kapur4 notes that although it was performed on a proscenium stage, Parsi theatre carried echoes of earlier open stagings. Such stagings had been habitual before the construction of proscenium theatres and frontality (p.72) was largely embodied

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Indian Cinema before 1947 in the sense of erotic complicity created when eye contact is made between the performer and the audience: In open theatres ‘frontality’ of the performer indicated a specific relationship between viewer and actor. Turning the body towards the spectator is a sign that there is in this relationship no dissembling between the two: the actor looks at the audience and the audience looks at the actor; both exist—as actor and audience—because of this candid contact. A reciprocally regarding theatre transaction of this kind is substantially different from one made in a theatre that takes an imaginary fourth wall, standing where the stage ends and the seating begins, as its governing convention. Parsi theatre companies perform in the proscenium but take as their governing convention an eye and body contact that comes from earlier open stagings.5 Some of these observations are evidently conjectural because of the absence of reliable documentation on the state of Parsi theatre in the early twentieth century. The aspect of Parsi theatre that is regarded as particularly interesting is the way in which it blended this frontality with a kind of realism derived from bourgeois European theatre. On the one hand, where the dramatic moment is contained in proscenium theatre within the limits of the proscenium arch, Parsi theatre apparently pushed the story towards the audience through its frontality. But, on the other hand, there is also the narrative unravelling chronologically— to demonstrate ‘its fidelity to the continuum of life-time as it were’6— as in other kinds of theatre. The movement towards frontality and iconic representation, in effect, goes along with the realistic/ natural unravelling of the story although the two may seem incompatible—when actors deliberately display themselves they usually hold up the unravelling of the story. Kapur notes that the idealized portrait seeking to capture an ‘essence’ combines with the ‘looking glass’ image and she suggests that this gives the narrative ‘atemporality’— takes it outside both (universal) time and space.7 I did not examine frontality in the first chapter but, judging from Kapur’s conclusions, in Parsi theatre frontality and iconic representation may have worked towards some of the same effects as in popular cinema. Still, its achievement also went further because while the realism of bourgeois theatre allows identification, the iconic representation of gods and heroes creates a ‘sense of wonder’ and ‘enacts our desire for omnipotence’.8

Anuradha Kapur also draws a parallel between what Parsi theatre achieves in this way and what the artist ‘Raja’ Ravi Varma (1848–1906) (p.73) did in the medium of oil painting because both of them attempted a scenography of the mythical past, as if to reclaim it as a nationalist proposition. Ravi Varma painted figures from mythology but he put these figures in an environment scattered with evidence of his own times. Sri Krishna and Draupadi wear clothes and jewels that might have come from the wardrobe of a nineteenth-century Indian. Ravi Varma sometimes even took objects—pens, stools, and umbrellas—from the immediate environment. The same attention to verisimilitude is also seen in the curtains used as backdrops in Parsi theatre, which attempted to capture the appearances of a real milieu.9 The combining of the sacred with the everyday Page 4 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 can be read not only as an attempt to make the mythical past believable but also to sanctify the present. Ravi Varma was a vastly influential figure and Ashish Rajadhyaksha regards him as a direct precursor of Phalke.10 In his earlier lifelike portraits Ravi Varma used the milieu only to fit the self-image of his patrons and he did not even make an attempt to integrate background (milieu) with foreground (sitter/patron). The work that he is known best by today—his paintings of Indian gods and goddesses, his scenes from the Puranas—employs the same naturalistic mode of the portraits and always seems frozen at dramatic moments in familiar narratives. They attempt to define the mythical past as something in relation to which the modern itself can be potentially located11 and are rendered valuable for this reason. In the last chapter I cited a painting by Rembrandt showing Jesus before Pilate. Ravi Varma’s paintings illustrating scenes from the Puranas attempt similar visual renderings of dramatic moments drawn from myth but the effect is different in as much as Ravi Varma’s pictures employ the idiom of frontality. Rather than the narrative dominating the picture and the moment becoming ‘pregnant’ with meaning, it is the iconicity of the hallowed figures that gives the picture its significance. In the picture Shri Krishna as Envoy (1906), for instance, only the title informs the viewer of the moment from the Puranas to which the narrative pertains. But there is no mistaking Shri Krishna with the identifying peacock feather in his crown, looking out of the plane of the picture. Even when the figures do not meet the gaze of the viewer (Radha Krishna, 1895, oleograph) they are positioned as they might be on the stage, their bodies turned towards an imaginary audience. (p.74) Rajadhyaksha sees an association between Ravi Varma’s depiction of puranic scenes and the Swadeshi movement which originated around 1895 and which wanted entrepreneurship in India to pass entirely into Indian hands. The pictures became a symbol of swadeshi to both the nobility and the local entrepreneurs who wanted to appropriate them in different ways—until the images made their way into middle-class homes as oleographs. I described Phalke as an entrepreneur earlier in the chapter and the filmmaker was given over to the concept of swadeshi. But ‘Indianness’ had two different implications for him. Apart from his struggle to establish and nurture an Indian film industry, he was also intent upon bringing ‘Indian’ images to the screen in Ravi Varma’s sense: not any ‘Indian images’ but to actually introduce what was traditionally sacred into the space of the modern. He believed he could achieve this by providing the public with ‘real’ manifestations of their beliefs and he was accordingly fascinated with ‘fulfilling the promise of bringing the known alive’.12 Film historians have noted that American cinema before 1908 largely assumed that the spectator was the equivalent of a member of the audience in a theatre. Mise en scene often imitated theatrical settings and the actors behaved as if they were on an actual stage, the framing and staging of scenes in the sets Page 5 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 placing the spectator at a distance from the space of the action, looking in as it were.13 Phalke’s own inspiration was the Marathi theatre of his times but his films cannot be understood merely as filmed theatre. Ashish Rajadhyaksha analyses Sri Krishna Janma (1918) and Raja Harishchandra (1913) in detail but relevant to my purpose here is only one conclusion that he draws. That is that Phalke had no sense of dramatic continuity and his films lack a temporal scheme. Rajadhyaksha notes that when Krishna’s foster mother Yashoda imagines her son grown up, we see that the image of the adult Krishna corresponds to the familiar icon of Gopala with a cow.14 The child exists alongside Gopala although the two icons nominally represent two different stages in the life of the same Krishna, with only the gaze of the spectator to link them. For her part, Geeta Kapur also extends the arguments about the ‘iconicity’ of Phalke’s cinema to a later mythological,15 Damle and Fatehlal’s Sant Tukaram (1936). In describing Phalke’s work, she traces the iconic element in his films to three main sources. Apart from Ravi Varma’s work, she finds them in the naïve element of early photography (p.75) where the subject is positioned in front (where subjectivity itself is associated with frontal capture). She also finds it in the pictorial conventions of idealized portraiture of the pre-Mughal and Mughal period—up till the nineteenth century—in which the subjects assume a majestic repose, transcending their individual selves to acquire the stature of types or archetypes.16

Western Influences As I have already noted, Phalke’s methods and the ‘frontality’ of his cinema did not find favour immediately with the filmmakers who followed him and many of them reject frontality. In some cases, their films sometimes also have an identifiable temporal scheme with a chronological narrative. Other early silent films are also available in bits and pieces but some of them—Kalipada Das’s Bengali Jamaibabu (1931) are interesting. This film is a Chaplinesque comedy involving a bumbling rustic who comes to Calcutta to look up his wife who lives with her father. The film may be amateurish but it shows us that, at one moment in Indian film history, a comedian could be conceived as the central figure in film narrative. Jamaibabu uses real locales in Calcutta quite effectively and employs some of the strategies of classical cinema like cross-cutting and close-ups. It defines space in such a manner that décor can be eliminated in individual shots; it incorporates a scene in which the hero makes love to his wife and this is done through a close-up of two pairs of entangled feet. The hero’s wife has a sister and this sister’s husband is also on the premises exercising his conjugal rights. The director cuts briskly from the hero’s bedroom to ‘elsewhere’, to the quarters of the other couple, now locked in an ardent kiss.

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Indian Cinema before 1947 The available print of another film Pitru Prem (directed by Harilal M. Bhat, 1929) is better preserved. This film is a ‘social’ arguing for communal harmony and has evidence of camera mobility comparable to classical Hollywood cinema. Although space is not defined as continuous and the narrative is demarcated between two distinct areas—one occupied by the benevolent patriarch and the other occupied by his dutiful daughter-in-law17—each space is, by itself, defined distinctly. When the film tries to show us the generous-hearted tycoon giving money away to the poor, the camera closes in on a hand (p.76) digging into a bag of coins. This elimination of the décor heightens the drama and this is rendered possible because space within the scene is defined in the classical way rather than in the way later films like Andaz define it. The films that really indicate that, prior to the sound era, Indian films owed more to Hollywood are two from the Pune-based Agarwal Film Company. Ghulami Nu Patan (dir: Shyam Sunder Agarwal) and Diler Jigar (dir: G.P. Pawar) were both made in 1931. They were, however, preceded by three other important films (Prem Sanyas in 1925, Shiraz in 1928, and Prapancha Pash in 1929) by a German director named Franz Osten who worked on scripts written by the Indian scenarist Niranjan Pal. Himanshu Rai had a hand in all three films, also producing Shiraz and Prapancha Pash under his own banner. What is especially interesting about Osten is that while these three films are largely orientalist exercises, he stayed on in India to make sixteen more films in Hindi including a mythological Savitri (1937) and ended his career in India with Kangan (1939). Osten’s later films fit entirely into the familiar proscenium/ frontal format, which had established itself by the late 1930s. Prem Sanyas begins with a ‘documentary’ prologue—a group of nameless tourists arrive in contemporary India. A priest tells the story of the Buddha, which is narrated in flashback. The story is related through a series of episodes. The film is shot on location in various parts of India and seems to belong to the category represented by Joe May’s The Indian Tomb (1921), produced by the UFA—until we recognize how easily its scenario (unlike that of May’s film) fits into the patterns observed in the last chapter. Not only does the film fulfil expectations at every level but a sage’s ambiguous prediction foretelling Gautama’s birth and achievements can also be identified with the ‘first cause’. The individual episodes are not linked causally to one another but are arranged as separate tableaux transmitting the meaning of the Buddha’s life to the spectator. Gautama (Himanshu Rai) does not ‘acquire’ stature in the course of the film and it is as though a right alignment of circumstances helped in its manifestation. The tension between his true calling and doubt (as in the story of Joan of Arc, for instance) is notably absent. The film concludes with Princess Gopa joining Gautama as a disciple and this also replicates the familiar motif of the family reunion. Since the film is shot on location, it is difficult to see the individual spaces as defined by their ‘qualities’ (p.77) although the film also makes no attempt to define the total space in the manner of classical cinema— Page 7 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 this is despite the film containing cross-cut sequences. The film therefore provides evidence of two different kinds of sensibilities working at crosspurposes. The German Franz Osten and his Indian scenarist Niranjan Pal apparently saw their collaboration very differently. The latter had a big hand in the film and apparently had serious disagreements with Osten about its vision: During the production of [Prem Sanyas] I had very serious differences with [Osten] which exasperated me to such an extent that finally I had to practically retire from the production…My quarrels with him were not concerned with film technique. They were more serious than mere questions of camera angles and such matters. To mention one thing: I chose Mrs. Sarojini Naidu’s nephew—a baby boy of about two years…and a beautiful specimen of healthy childhood— as the baby Buddha. But Herr Osten was horrified. ‘Why, everyone in Germany would take him to be a German child…We must have a dark little boy as Gautama,’ declared Osten…Osten had his own way and a sickly child of an elephant trainer was ultimately chosen to represent baby Buddha.18 At first glance the anecdote related by Niranjan Pal only seems to demonstrate Herr Osten’s racist inclinations (Franz Osten later joined the Nazi Party).19 Still, it can also be read differently. Osten may have felt that even a sickly infant could represent the Buddha as a child because it was only the process of his development that is important in the life of the sage. Niranjan Pal perhaps believed that a child growing up to become the Buddha must be innately ‘beautiful’—because the essence of the sage could not be entirely absent in the child. Where Franz Osten only saw an ‘Indian child’ Niranjan Pal apparently saw ‘the baby Buddha’.

Franz Osten’s Shiraz eschews some of the ‘authenticity’ of Prem Sanyas although it is also the product of a European visual sensibility. Both Shiraz and Prem Sanyas (as was Prapancha Pash) were meant for European audiences and had alternate English titles. Prapancha Pash was exhibited abroad under the name The Throw of Dice and tells the story of a virtuous king so fascinated by the game of dice that he gambles away his entire kingdom, his own freedom, and his beloved to a scheming king from a neighbouring kingdom. Although they were much talked about and seemed more ‘cinematic’, the three silent films directed by Franz Osten and produced by (p.78) Himanshu Rai did not have the same success in India that they had in Europe. Although this is difficult to establish—because foreign films were then dominating the Indian market—the response of Indian audiences has been interpreted as an indication of its ‘true’ preferences.20 Indian cinema had not yet decided in favour of the frontal style in the 1920s but there is something transparently alien about Franz Osten’s first three films. If Indians could consider Osten’s style of filmmaking strange at the time, there is Page 8 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 evidence that his scenarist Niranjan Pal saw silent cinema differently from the director, apparently without realizing it: Take for instance the case of a paralytic, absolutely helpless, unable even to lift a finger. His sick child lies in her cot, equally helpless. Gasping for breath she faintly cries out ‘Daddy, thirsty, so thirsty.’ A bottle of water within his reach—within her reach too. But both are helpless. ‘Water,’ the father speaks in semi-whisper. The child dies. The father repeats once again, ‘Water,’ and presently water comes rushing in torrents—rainwater— through the thatched roof of the cottage. The noise deafens our ears and the voice of the father rises above the din and he keeps on repeating the word. ‘Water’. A scene like this can never be successfully portrayed in a silent film without resorting to improbabilities. In the absence of words the scenarist will have to pack this very scene with action. [No] doubt in the case of the silent picture even the father—stricken though he is with paralysis—will be made to get up from his seat, grab hold of the water bottle, fall over a chair, and yet not succeed in giving the water to quench her dying thirst. Unless these things were done, the desired effect will never be got.21 Strangely, what Niranjan Pal says is true of the stage and of the style of filmmaking (which includes frontality) adopted by Indian cinema but untrue about the kind of films that Franz Osten himself tried to make. The ‘proscenium style’ of filmmaking has a relatively immobile camera and only human movement obtains the effects. In the more cinematic rendering of narrative employed even by Osten’s contemporaries in the West, the movement of the camera introduces ‘action’ and ‘drama’ through cutting, through close-ups of objects (the water bottle, the thatched roof, the torrents) and an appropriate editing strategy. The immobility of the human characters will perhaps then be of little consequence.

Prem Sanyas also contains traces of the mythological—the shower of flowers from heaven that follows the death of Gautama’s mother— (p.79) but the filming suggests that a visual aesthetic other than frontality could be associated with the mythological, although this option was not exercised by Indian cinema later on. Some uncommon footage discovered in Kolhapur, restored and brought into the collection of the Film Archives of India in recent years, also shows the course that Indian cinema might have taken but chose not to. Baburao Painter’s Muraliwala (1927), like Phalke’s Kaliya Mardan, is also about Krishna’s childhood but it is notable for the realist aesthetic it brings to mythology. Only about forty minutes of the film are now available, these sections show Krishna and his friends playing pranks upon the local people and Yashodha is a harassed mother who cannot contain her foster child’s exuberance. The images are also not flatly composed and there are several sequences in which people enter the frame perpendicularly, from the axis of vision of the camera.22 Krishna wears a peacock feather but he is not the immobile creature posing for the camera that he is in Kaliya Mardan and most other films. Baburao Painter’s film employs a Page 9 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 kind of lyrical realism that cannot fail to impress a cineaste today but Muraliwala nonetheless also declines to address the ‘sacred’ in its subject matter. ‘Realism’ is a term with various meanings and Phalke, as we have seen, regarded his own films as ‘realistic’ not because they dealt with plausible events but because they made events that had only been conceptualized, real. Muraliwala clearly has two different levels of ‘realist’ discourse that are not reconciled. On the one hand is the vivid portrayal of rustic life, the grasp of crowd dynamics through a human eye; on the other is its ‘realization’ of myth— giving material shape to ancient beliefs and sacred stories. The irreconcilability of the two aspects may have finally dawned upon the director because in his later films of the sound era, Baburao Painter appears to opt entirely for flat compositions and the frontal style. Baburao Painter made Pratibha (1937) two years before Franz Osten made his last Indian film Kangan (1939) but what is evident from both films is how the filmmakers had surrendered a more cinematic mode of representation for a more theatrical one. Both Osten and Painter began their careers by subscribing to more realistic and more ‘cinematic’ methods of representation. Gradually, however, the ‘Indian’ frontal/proscenium mode asserted itself in their work and their later films are finally in tune with mature Indian cinema although there will be many (p.80) critics (like Chidananda Das Gupta) who will continue to wonder if this ‘maturity’ was such a good thing after all.

The Agarwal ‘Historical’ Films Franz Osten was a European and the aesthetics of Prem Sanyas, Shiraz, and Prapancha Pash are understandable but, more importantly, the two films from the Agarwal stable Ghulami Nu Patan (‘The Fall of Slavery’) and Diler Jigar (‘Gallant Hearts’) exhibit similar characteristics although they were entirely Indian. Ghulami Nu Patan explicitly defines a time and a location; it is set in 1818 and deals with the ‘Gola system’ in the Marwar region through which people were driven into slavery for not paying exorbitant taxes to the king. Ghulami Nu Patan is made with considerable dexterity and contains dynamically edited chase sequences and, until we accept the frontal style of filmmaking as the quintessentially Indian style, we wonder why later Indian films did not retain the mobility of Ghulami Nu Patan. Diler Jigar also shows much of the same deftness in storytelling although it is more of a ‘stunt film’. Diler Jigar begins with the close-up of (King Bholanath’s) hand throwing coins to his subjects—the same image we saw in Pitru Prem. Moments afterwards Kalsen is introduced through a cut emphasized by the subtitle ‘In another part of the palace…’. In the ‘historical’ cinema of the later years (K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam, 1960), ‘elsewhere’ is banished from the domain of the narrative. Everything is taking

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Indian Cinema before 1947 place here and now and ‘another part of the palace’ (which implies continuous space and simultaneity) does not exist. Ghulami Nu Patan and Diler Jigar can be exciting discoveries to a cineaste because of what they show about Indian cinema’s early years. While the film respects the conventions of realist storytelling much more than later-day examples, it is inaccurate to assert that causation is respected in the narrative.23 I have already tried to demonstrate that many of the early silent films attempt to define space within each scene; they employ close-ups and cross-cutting effectively and also follow a discernible time scheme. What the films nonetheless do not do (except, briefly, Shiraz) is to employ causation as an operating principle in plot construction; they are episodic and rely on the strategy of the ‘first cause’. Ghulami Nu Patan and Diler Jigar are nominally ‘historical’ films but we see how their narratives are actually activated by family issues. The (p.81) same remark can also be made about a later, more celebrated, historical film, Sohrab Modi’s Sikandar (1941). This film is about Alexander the Great’s invasion of Punjab and concerns itself with the Macedonian coming into conflict with King Porus. In order to conform to the format of Indian cinema, the film begins with a romance between Alexander and a Persian girl named Rukshana. Alexander is warned against becoming involved with women by his teacher Aristotle, who once came to grief in his relationship with one. Rukshana demonstrates the wisdom in this counsel by inducing Aristotle to ‘be a horse’ and riding him around the palace garden. This ‘first cause’ leads to Alexander’s renunciation of romantic love and the narrative also achieves closure through Alexander rediscovering it when Rukshana reappears on the scene at the conclusion of his campaign in India.

The Coming of Sound and Music The first talkie was Ardheshir Iran’s Alam Ara (1931) but no prints of the film remain. The films of the early sound era gradually adapt to the favoured frontal/ proscenium format although the transition is not yet complete until the late 1930s. In V. Shantaram’s Amritmanthan (‘The Churning of the Ocean’, 1934), the first image on the screen shows a close-up of an idol of the fearsome goddess Chandi. The camera then tracks backward and the total space is gradually revealed—a temple in which hypnotized members of a secret cult pray to the goddess. This betokens a cinematic style very different from the kind seen in Phalke’s films or even later cinema of the 1930s and 1940s, and frontality, while being in evidence, is still subdued. The classical defining of space is nevertheless restricted to each sequence and there is no effort to define the narrative space in its entirety. The locations (now represented by elaborate sets) are also increasingly defined in terms of their qualities—the Chandika temple, the King’s chamber, the open forum in which the sacrifices (animal and human) take place, and the forest. The individual scenes are now laid out as discrete tableaux within these separately defined spaces and this helps to render ‘meaning’ more Page 11 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 unequivocally to the spectator than Diler Jigar or Ghulami Nu Patan are able to do. Coming to the kind of speech employed in the early talkies, Amritmanthan is dramatic in its content and tells the story of the high (p.82) priest of a Chandi cult (Chandramohan) who persuades one of the members to assassinate the liberal-minded King, who intends to put an end to human sacrifices. The subject matter in Amritmanthan is violent but the speech is not tersely dramatic (as in later cinema) but rather singsong and conceived essentially as verse. The songs merely continue the versified speech and since speech is ‘already interpreted’, each song, usually occurring at the end of each tableau, only serves to summarize its import. The use of songs in the earliest talkies also does not bear much of a relationship with film songs, as we understand them today. The early talkies were often structured as verse plays and the tendency to move away from the monotony of spoken prose towards a metrical structure has been noticed in cultures with strong oral traditions. According to Ashok Ranade, …instead of dry metricality, [the film-song] opted for simple but perceivable rhythm and equally simple but clearly felt tunes. In this way even though it did not become a song proper, the song was a little more musical than metrical recitation. [This]…continued until the hold of the oral tradition weakened with the advent of literary cinema. It was then that song spaces were created in the dialogues, naturalistic causation was sought for, in using singable material. Carving out musical occasions is also done in oral traditions but it is less deliberate. This is so because, briefly stated, a very important principle operating in any oral tradition is to treat the voice-speech-verse-song categories as degrees on the same continuum of content-projection…To make a generalization, the tendency after the forties has been to make each composition musically attractive so that people should retain it as a song. The desire was to compose an item that is self-sufficient in its melodic draw and which can therefore be received, reproduced and remembered in isolation, irrespective of the filmic setting in which it is intended to appear…Music has become so liberated from the constraints imposed upon it by virtue of its being in a film that it has ceased to be film music!24 In the first decade of sound cinema, Neepa Majumdar notes,25 song sequences were performed by singing stars like K.L. Saigal, who sang their own songs and the question of ‘authenticity’ was cast in terms similar to Hollywood cinema. The issue of ‘ghost voices’ was controversial and even in 1944, spectators were apparently asking if the trick was not harmful to cinema. Still, the disjunction between voice and body was in place quite early—Nitin Bose’s Dhoop Chhaon (1935) using playback singing for the first time successfully—and the controversies were not really detrimental to cinema. These observations once again provide evidence of Indian cinema discovering the methods (p.83) appropriate to its own needs after an initial dalliance with techniques favoured by Hollywood. Page 12 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 But the use of film songs in the earliest films of the sound era also cannot be understood in the way the use of the song in the Hollywood musical has been. Some critics believe that the gap separating the film’s narrative material and its musical numbers is part of the Hollywood genre’s definition. The narrative/ number opposition has been seen as representing the opposition between the text’s ‘super-ego’—its allegiance to an ethic of socially defined reason—and the film’s ‘id’— its inclination to provide the characters as well as the spectator more imaginative freedom.26 As regards the Indian traditional performance, it has been suggested that vocal expression takes many forms on a single continuum (speech–dialogue–poetic recitation–intoned speech–song) and that for the Indian spectator, the psychological distance between speech and song is considerably less than for the Western spectator.27 Explanations have been tendered for Indian cinema’s opting firmly for the musical mode with the coming of sound. Musicals were apparently popular elsewhere but only in India did it become the sole form of cinema. One of the reasons cited for this phenomenon is that the coming of sound had the effect of dividing the vast film audience of several hundred million spread over India, Ceylon, and Burma into a dozen or more linguistic communities. This is seen to have initiated two contradictory tendencies that still continue.28 On the one hand there is the all-India film centred in Bombay and made in Hindi with fewer local roots but performing something like a unifying function. On the other hand, there is regional cinema in a local language, serving a local culture but still with an audience of many millions. The regional film has a much smaller budget than the all-India film because of its restricted local market, and even in the mid-1980s, a big budget Hindi film cost about four times as much as its regional counterpart.29 Although the potential Hindi-speaking population is by far the largest, it remains less than half of the total Indian population. It has been hypothesized that it was only to bridge the language divide that the distinctive form of the song-and-dance film was devised. Even if the dialogue is ill comprehended, the music and dance will still have a direct impact.30 This explanation accounts for why the Hindi film should adopt the song-and-dance format but fails to answer two other questions. Why should regional language films do the same when (p.84) they are only addressing local audiences? Also, why should songs and dances—on their own—have such deep impact upon Indian audiences?

The Advent of the Reformist Social Indian popular cinema is admittedly difficult to categorize along generic lines because of the tendency of generic motifs to ‘aggregate’. But if elements pertaining to individual genres are to be acknowledged, we can say that, apart from the mythological, it is perhaps the ‘social’ that has been the most dominant category. The ‘social’ is a loosely defined term for domestic melodrama within a

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Indian Cinema before 1947 contemporary setting, where social issues are raised and debated and the attitude towards them is that of reformism. It is difficult to provide more than a facile summary of a good deal of social history at this point but even a little background information may be of some assistance. The Reform movement in India is regarded as having been initiated in the colonial era by Christian missions31 and institutionalized education (supported later by the British government). This was apparently tailored subsequently for the Indian middle class with the arrival of Raja Rammohun Roy (1772–1833) and his founding of the Brahmo Samaj. The reformist social cinema of the 1930s has several literary antecedents. These include Bengali literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—embodied in the work of writers like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, and Sarat Chandra Chatterjee; Marathi novelist Hari Narayan Apte; and the Hindi/Urdu novelist Munshi Premchand.32 The reformist social of the 1930s gradually developed into the more rousing domestic melodramas of the post-Independence era like Andaz and Awaara. The fact has not attracted much notice but the ‘reformist’ inclinations of the social declined noticeably in the later 1940s, and this runs parallel to the corresponding decline of the Hindi mythological and the Marathi saint film.33 It should however be noted that mythological films from south India (in Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada) have a different history and are excluded from the scope of this observation. Before examining reformism in the pre-Independence talkie, it would be useful to briefly look at the meaning of social reform in the colonial period—at least to the extent that it assists in understanding cinematic trends in the 1930s and early 1940s. The colonial age was (p.85) an age of optimism in Europe and those convinced that the ‘barbarians’ would one day be civilized were not only the advocates of colonialism. Even radical critics of Western society were persuaded that colonialism was a necessary stage in the evolution of Asiatic society.34 Within India as well, Rammohun Roy, one of the earliest and most famous advocates of reform was partly taken up with ‘reforming the Indian personality’. Apart from his tireless opposition to institutions such as sati, Rammohun Roy also founded the Brahmo Samaj and it has been shown that Rammohun Roy’s advocacy of advaita (monism) was partly a way of opposing the idolatry of folk Hinduism.35 By invoking the authority of the Vedas and Upanishads and according prominence to Sankara’s monism, Rammohun Roy also gave Hinduism the appearance of a unified religious system and provided future religious and social reformers with a powerful tool for social intervention. He introduced ‘into the culture of India’s expanding urban middle classes—for the sake of those alienated from the older lifestyle and values by the colonial intrusion into eastern India—the ideas of an organized religion, a sacred text, monotheism and, above all, a patriarchal godhead.’36

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Indian Cinema before 1947 If Rammohun Roy was embarrassed by the ‘heathen mythology’ that was his inheritance,37 the religious reformers who followed—Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1824–83) and Swami Vivekananda (1863– 1902)—attempted to ‘Christianize Hinduism’.38 It was to be expected that this spirit of reform would find correspondence in the literature of the period and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838–94) was partly preoccupied with projecting the qualities of Christianity into the Hindu past, into a lost golden age of Hinduism. Bankim Chandra’s version of Krishna, for instance, rejected every trait of the god that did not meet the requirement for a Christian god, namely being perfect. His goal was apparently to make Krishna a non-pagan, male (rather than androgynous) god who would not humiliate his devotees before ‘progressive Westerners’.39 There were other reformers like Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar (1820–91) who resisted this but the prevailing tendency in the reformist school was to look to the colonizers with a sense of inferiority and respond by positing a golden age for Hinduism, an ancient version of the modern West.40 Another aspect of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century reformism was the accent upon women performing public roles. Ashis Nandy (p.86) makes an association between Rammohun Roy’s efforts here and his desire to eliminate the ‘homicidal mother and the acquiescent father’ from the scheme of Hinduism, to posit a deity that was patriarchal. The emphasis upon a new social role for women can also be seen as partly compensatory: [Brahmoism] attacked the matriarchal status of women in the family and religion by emphasizing their role in the world of public activities, and it sabotaged the sacred symbols and images with which Bengali women identified and sought compensation from in their narrow and constricted lives. Instead of their magical powers and magical capability for doing harm, they had in Brahmoism the justification for wielding real and direct power as individuals with the right to live their own lives.41 It has been argued that the cosmic principle in Hinduism is largely feminine and the deities that preside over critical aspects of existence are usually maternal figures.42 In contrast, the Judeo-Christian godhead is more patriarchal. Reformers like Rammohun Roy, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, and Aurobindo were apparently preoccupied with the womanly identity (an increasing role for women in society and/or installing motherhood as the godhead) and this has been traced to the conflict arising in the colonial period between the two principles.43

Returning to the reformist social of the 1930s, we see a large number of films dealing with the same issues as had engaged the reformers earlier. Amritmanthan is taken up with the issue of human sacrifice to the goddess Chandi. In one sequence we see a storm erupting miraculously to save the hero from being sacrificed and its implication is that it is the self-seeking high priest and not the goddess who clamours for human blood. Films like Chandidas (1932) and Achhut Kanya (1936) take up the issue of caste discrimination and tell Page 15 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 stories about the love between Brahmin men and ‘low-caste’ women being opposed by society. V. Shantaram’s Duniya Na Mane (1937) is about a young woman tricked into marriage to an elderly widower and her dogged resistance to him. Mazdoor (1934) and Nitin Bose’s President (1937) are about capitalism and labour relations. Samaj Ki Bhool (1934) supports the widow’s right to remarry and Dharti Mata (1938) calls for technological revolution in the agrarian sector. The term ‘reformist’ may suggest the advocacy of reform at the societal level but this is not what the films actually (p.87) propose. It is more accurate to describe the films as using the form of the domestic melodrama to deal with social issues, the resolution being achieved through a change of heart at the level of the family. This is consistent with what I observed in the first chapter while dealing with the representation of time in popular cinema. Many of the films (like those of V. Shantaram) of the period employ an idiom closer to realism and are taken up with the emancipation of women. But regardless of the actual thrust of each film, the emphasis is often directly or indirectly upon weak men and their relationships with strong women. As examples, the women are sometimes betrayed in their expectations of men or they simply take on responsibilities that should rightly have been men’s. Since most of these other films do not actually argue for the emancipation of women, we need to explain the motif of the weak man/strong woman in ways other than the emancipation of women being high on the reform agenda in colonial India. This naturally involves examining films that are not alike but that exhibit the same motifs. The four films chosen are Mehboob Khan’s Aurat (‘Woman’, 1940), Damle and Fathehlal’s Sant Tukaram (1936), P.C. Barua’s Devdas (1935), and V. Shantaram’s Admi (‘Life is for the Living’, 1939). The ‘first cause’ in all the four films is a discourse about a man’s ‘weakness’ (rather than the woman’s strength) and this means that the emblem of the weak male is a constituent part of the message relayed to the spectator.

Crisis of Masculinity Aurat was later remade by Mehboob Khan as Mother India (1957) but there are key aspects to Aurat not reflected in the later film. Both films tell the story of a strong woman named Radha (Sardar Akhtar) who brings up two sons on her own but is forced to shoot and kill one of them when he turns a criminal and abducts a defenceless woman. The aspect that interests me in the film is that while Radha’s husband Shamu is incapacitated by an accident in Mother India and deserts her in order not to be a burden, Aurat presents him as weak and he deserts the family when his responsibilities prove too demanding. In fact, the first scene in Aurat shows him being chastised by his old mother because it is his wedding day and he has not the gravity to prepare himself in time for the ceremony.

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Indian Cinema before 1947 (p.88) Sant Tukaram has aspects that run parallel to Aurat although its hero is not weak but ‘otherworldly’. The film has already been invoked more than once before but the aspect that concerns me here is not how the saint is portrayed but the way his wife Jijai (Gauri) is represented. The film begins by presenting Tukaram (Vishnupant Pagnis) as an emblem of otherworldliness and we see his wife relieving him of the burden of responsibility through her practical conduct. Tukaram is not ‘weak’ as we understand it but his thoughts are so much with God that Jijai must compensate for his incompetence as a family man. When Tukaram leaves for heaven, Jijai chooses to remain in the world to fulfil her earthly obligations and she appears to choose the more difficult path although it has fewer rewards attached to it. To complete the comparison between Aurat and Sant Tukaram, the two films may belong to different categories but the relayed meaning in both films pertains to the male protagonist’s inability to cope with responsibilities normally apportioned to men and these being taken up by the woman. The other two films I have chosen are also far from similar but they both prominently exhibit the motif of the weak man unable to fulfil the expectations he arouses in a strong woman. P.C. Barua’s Devdas and V. Shantaram’s Admi are acknowledged classics of the early talkie era but Devdas relies heavily on devices like coincidences and premonitions, corresponding to high melodrama, while Admi employs a mode of storytelling closer to reformist realism. Devdas is based on a novel by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee and tells the story of the scion of a landowner’s family, unable to wed his childhood sweetheart Parvati (Jamuna) because her family is lower placed. Devdas is unable to stand up to his tyrannical father and is summarily packed off to Calcutta to acquire sophistication. Devdas is unhappy but, in a weak moment, writes to Parvati disavowing his love for her. Parvati therefore marries an elderly widower, takes up her duties as mistress of his estate, and discharges her responsibilities with earnestness. Devdas is unable to contend with this turn of events and lapses into drink in Calcutta, coming into the company of a courtesan named Chandramukhi who understands his innate goodness and the permanent state of distress to which he is condemned. Devdas finally leaves Chandramukhi and embarks upon a long and aimless train journey even as he is terminally ill, arriving finally at Parvati’s doorstep, to die there and be discovered (p.89) by her. Devdas is a deeply affecting film but pertinent to my reading here is only the weakness of its male protagonist and the innate strengths demonstrated by both the heroines time and again. Admi does not seem, at first glance, to resemble Devdas. The film is a love story involving a police constable named Moti and a courtesan named Kesar and begins with a police raid upon a gambling den, when he shields her. Kesar lives in a nearby brothel and she and Moti have several meetings before he induces her to leave and take up residence elsewhere although their relationship eventually fails. The urban sequences in the film are often strikingly lit with Page 17 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 heavily contrasting shadows and the performances by Shanta Hublikar (as Kesar) and Shahu Modak (as Moti) are wonderfully restrained. Pertinent here is the hero’s weakness in the face of the heroine’s expectations and the echo that this motif finds in Barua’s Devdas. The initial scene in Admi in which Moti rescues Kesar can be seen as the ‘first cause’ in the narrative because it hints at a troubled relationship developing between the two. All the four films I have chosen are about ‘weak men’ and ‘strong women’ but it should be remarked that the perceived ‘weakness’ in the male is not necessarily presented as such in the films (except in Aurat) because the absence of ‘masculinity’ in Tukaram nominally takes him closer to God. I have been dealing with the films of the ‘reform’ era and some straightforward reformist films also have comparable discourses. Many of these films provide instances where a woman’s goodness and strength of purpose see a man being transformed, and this is true not only of an obvious ‘women’s emancipation’ film like Duniya Na Mane but also of others. The three films that I refer to are N.R. Acharya’s Azad (1940), Jhoola (1941), and Franz Osten’s Durga (1939). The first is a story of three friends—the liberal Vijay (Ashok Kumar), the conservative Loknath, and the careerist Jagdish. Loknath and Jagdish break off ties with Vijay when he marries a damsel in distress (Leela Chitnis) whose past they consider murky. Several years later Vijay’s son saves Jagdish’s daughter from a miscreant on a railway journey and this leads to ties being re-established between Vijay and Jagdish. But the crowning moment comes when Vijay’s wife nurses the ailing Jagdish and both Jagdish and Loknath are finally transformed into liberals with the correct attitude towards women. (p.90) The villain in N.R. Acharya’s Jhoola is the philandering son of a zamindar who is finally made to see the error of his ways by the woman he once deceived. In Franz Osten’s Durga the young heroine Durga (Devika Rani) is a tomboy and an orphan looked after by a heartless moneylender and widower—who intends to marry her when she attains majority so she can ‘look after his child’. The film does everything in its power to make the spectator fear for the girl in the moneylender’s home. But her goodness finally overcomes him and he not only arranges her wedding to the young local doctor but also becomes kind and caring towards his clients. The transformation of a man by a woman perhaps extends the motif of the strong woman/weak man discovered in the other four films. Another factor to be noted is that many of the reform films have the actor Ashok Kumar playing the protagonist, and the 1930s were the period when this actor dominated Hindi cinema. Compared to the male stars dominating Hindi film later on, stars like Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand who are more masculine in their appeal, the young Ashok Kumar has an almost androgynous presence and this also allows the films to suppress the ‘masculine side’ of the story. The notion of Page 18 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 the actor as ‘parallel text’ has been used to study the way stars like Amitabh Bachchan influence the text.44 Ashok Kumar was not a superstar like Bachchan but he was durable as a presence and his persona contributes to filmic discourse right up to the 1960s. Ashok Kumar does not play Devdas but Barua’s film uses (to a smaller extent) K.L. Saigal’s presence in the same way. There is also a wonderful sequence in Devdas in which listless men lie around in Chandramukhi’s kotha and one of them sings indifferently. Few of the men watch him or pay attention and a foppish client with a greasy forelock sags over the carpet, virtually in a stupor. Since there is no indication that these other men in the kotha belong to a single class, this can perhaps be read as a commentary about the ‘masculinity’ of a whole race. The meaning of P.C. Barua’s Devdas becomes more apparent if it is placed alongside Bimal Roy’s 1955 version with the charismatic Dilip Kumar. Dilip Kumar plays the protagonist luminously but with tragic grandeur and Devdas, even in his ‘weakness’, overwhelms Parvati and Chandramukhi. This is very different from the discourse in Barua’s film. If these films point to a ‘crisis of masculinity’ reflected in the early talkies, the hypothesis also finds other kinds of support. We already (p.91) saw that in Sikandar, Alexander the Great renounces love because of the unseemly power women exert over men. The films of the saint genre—Dharmatma (1935), Sant Dnyaneshwar (1940), apart from Sant Tukaram—show their protagonists as androgynous and this does not find disfavour because androgyny is a constituent part of the great and little traditions of saintliness in India.45 Homi Wadia’s female vigilante films (Hunterwali, 1935; Miss Frontier Mail, 1937; Hurricane Hansa, 1937; Diamond Queen, 1940) with ‘Fearless’ Nadia as a feminine Zorro and extending the heroine’s role in Diler Jigar flourished in the same period. The female vigilante is perhaps only a converse way of representing masculinity in crisis. The crisis of masculinity emerges very strongly in the cinema of the 1930s and evidently needs explanation. Ashis Nandy has some insightful comments to make about the relationship between sexuality and political dominance in colonial India: The change in consciousness that took place can be briefly stated in terms of three concepts which became central to colonial India: purusatva (the essence of masculinity), naritva (the essence of femininity) and klibatva (the essence of hermaphroditism). The polarity represented by the antonymous purusatva and naritva was gradually supplanted, in the colonial culture of politics, by the antonyms of purusatva and klibatva; femininity-in-masculinity was now perceived as the final negation of a man’s political identity, a pathology more dangerous that femininity itself.46

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Indian Cinema before 1947 The ordering of sexual identities in colonial culture assumed that manliness was superior to womanliness and womanliness, in turn, superior to femininity in man. Nandy examines the notion and also demonstrates how Gandhi later questioned it by using two different kinds of ordering for two different purposes—both of which underplayed masculinity. In the first one, manliness and womanliness are equal but the ability to transcend the man-woman dichotomy is superior to both. The second was invoked specially to justify the anti-imperialist movement and it declared the essence of femininty to be superior to that of masculinity, which was superior to cowardice or the ‘failure of masculinity’.47

Whatever the political repercussions of the social discourse initiated by colonialism in British India, it apparently created a crisis of masculinity in Indian cinema. Significantly, when we examine the (p.92) cinema of the 1940s, we find that the motif of the weak man/strong woman leaves it around 1942–3, when the last feminine action film starring Fearless Nadia, (Jungle Princess) was also released. This is also the time when reformist realism departed from Hindi cinema because V. Shantaram’s (the doyen of reformist cinema) Padosi (1941) was followed two years later by Shakuntala (1943), a version of Kalidasa’s play and a completely different kind of film. Works like Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar (1946) and K.A. Abbas’s Dharti Ke Lal (1946) may seem to contradict the observation but they belong to another category with strong affiliations to the Communist movement and are not ‘reformist’ films. We have seen that one of the key purposes of the early mythological was to sanctify the space of the ‘modern’ and this space can now be identified with the colonial space. The ‘sanctification’ of the colonial space through frontality and mythological address may have correspondence with what the reformists partly tried to do in the social space (to ‘measure up morally’ to the colonizers) and also with the abrupt changes of heart witnessed in the reformist social. The sense of inferiority of the colonized in relation to their colonizers also manifested itself as a ‘crisis of masculinity’ in Indian cinema. A relationship between the various phenomena is perhaps reasonable to assume now—although I still need to explain why all this should have changed around 1942–3 with the decline of both reformist realism and the mythological, and an end to the ‘crisis of masculinity’. We may conjecture that the ‘primitive period’ in Indian cinema lasted until the early 1930s in as much as we are only able to read the social discourse in films from the early sound era onwards succinctly and with some consistency. Franz Osten’s first three films or Diler Jigar, for instance, do not seem to permit it. In the ten-year period ending 1942–3, Indian cinema becomes surer in its methods but it is still difficult to detect quick transformations in the characteristic motifs (as is possible in later cinema). The tendencies of the entire period have therefore been associated broadly with the ‘colonial experience’. The colonial period concluded officially in 1947 but the transformations noticed around 1942–3 are abrupt and I find it useful to connect them to the reverses faced by Page 20 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 the colonizers in the War—the Japanese conquest of Burma in 1942, when an invasion of India was also imminent. (p.93) A new chapter had already been heralded in the War with the entry of Japan and America in December 1941. On the one hand India was now intimately concerned with events; on the other hand the British government was now subject to American suggestions and pressures which were not long in being applied. Mahatma Gandhi’s pacifism was thrown overboard by the Congress almost overnight and the British could no longer maintain the sacred formula of ‘after the war’. Churchill’s own position in England was weakened by the loss of Singapore and Burma…It was in these circumstances that the despatch of Sir Stafford Cripps on a mission with a radical offer was announced on 11 March 1942.…It was thought that the majority of Congress leaders favored a deal but that Gandhi, absent at the beginning of the discussions, turned the scale. He is said to have remarked that the offer was like drawing a check on a failing bank. The discussions took place in the shadow of the Japanese conquest of Burma. If the British were prepared to concede so much then, would they not concede complete control when the Japanese were ready to invade India in October after the monsoon?48 The ‘Quit India’ movement that followed thereafter was expected to coincide with the Japanese advance in autumn the same year. ‘After all,’ Gandhi is reported to have remarked, ‘this is open rebellion.’49 If by 1943, Indian cinema had rid itself of its crisis of masculinity, this coincides with the general perception that freedom could be actually snatched from the British. The colonizers were not so formidable (or more ‘masculine’) after all and there was now scarcely any reason to feel ‘inferior’ to them. The hypothesis that 1942–3 was a ‘turning point’ is supported by another film, Mehboob Khan’s Taqdeer (1943), that I will also be examining in due course and that seems to actually register the transformation.

Breaking with the Authoritarian Father When I suggested an association between Devdas’s weakness in Barua’s film and the crisis of masculinity apparently brought about by colonial rule, I did not also propose that Devdas’ authoritarian father might be a covert way of representing the colonizers because none of the other films contained a similar representation. But interestingly, two important films from 1943 contain the motif of the son who breaks free of his authoritarian father; the films I have in mind are Gyan Mukherjee’s Kismat and Mehboob Khan’s Taqdeer. The protagonist of Kismat is a thief and this has prompted critics to examine its ‘discourse (p.94) on evil’50 but the approach does not take into account when the film was made and may be faulted for being ahistorical. The hero as a thief is not an unusual narrative device in Indian cinema and there are other films that also fit the description—Raj Kapoor’s Awaara (1951) and O.P. Ralhan’s Phool Aur Patthar (1966) are instances. The hero as criminal is also a common ploy in the

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Indian Cinema before 1947 cinema of the 1980s. These portrayals occur at different times and although they may appear comparable, they usually mean different things. Kismat is unusually constructed because it does not begin with the ‘first cause’, which is instead revealed through a flashback in the middle of the film. Madan’s father was authoritarian and the child therefore rebelled and deserted his home. When the film begins Madan (who now calls himself Shekar) is already a hardened thief and emerges from jail. Shekar/Madan (Ashok Kumar) is a criminal and this places him perennially in conflict with the law. The police are also assisting Madan’s father in tracking down his son. Since (as we shall see) the police (along with the judiciary) are the emblems that popular cinema uses to represent state authority, an association is made here between the police and the authoritarian father. This confers a new meaning upon the motif of the hero’s criminality and it is no longer possible to read Kismat as being about ‘evil’. When the police inspector finally discovers that Shekar is Madan, the hero’s first response is a complete denial, claiming that he actually stole the locket identifying him. Only when the authoritarian father demonstrates convincingly that he is now much more benevolent does Shekar return to the family fold. Taqdeer (Destiny) is cleverer than Kismat in as much as the despotic father and the authority of the state are combined in one figure—Judge Jumnaprasad. The judge and theatre-owner Badriprasad accidentally exchange children in the confusion of the Kumbh Mela. The judge brings up the theatre-owner’s son and the theatre owner brings up the judge’s daughter. The judge’s son is goodhumoured and a prankster but is also afraid of his father. Taqdeer concludes with the children being restored to their respective fathers and a marriage being solemnized between them. The son Babu (Motilal) seems not only glad to lose his adoptive father but is also indifferent to acquiring an ‘actual’ one and, if anything, the narrative celebrates his newly found independence. Another significant feature of the film is that the judge’s wife has been insane ever since the loss of her daughter and she believes that (p.95) Babu is actually her daughter Shama. At the climax, the mother regains her sanity and also comes to recognize that Babu is a man. Babu’s ‘masculinity’ and his independence are acknowledged concurrently and the crisis of masculinity to which I alluded gives the twist new meaning. Taqdeer apparently registers the regaining of masculinity by the Indian male! Before we go on to examine cinema after 1943, a few remarks need to be made about political conflict in the years before 1947. More important to the history of India than the growing strength of Indian nationalism in 1941–2 was the ascendancy of the Muslim League and its leader Muhammed Ali Jinnah in about the same period. While this rise is sometimes attributed to tactical mistakes made by the Congress, which underestimated the chances of the League and declined to enter into coalitions, there are other factors that are significant for our purpose. In the first place, Jinnah and the League openly came into conflict Page 22 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 with the Congress by 1939. Being a dependency, India was legally involved in the declaration of war by Britain. But the Viceroy announced the fact so baldy in 1939 and without any show of consultation with the Assembly that he gave offence and the Congress responded by ordering the provincial ministries to resign in October as a sign of protest. Jinnah decided to celebrate the Congress resignations as ‘Thanksgiving Day’ and this was successful and widely observed. The Muslim League therefore responded to the Congress negation of the British with a negation of the Congress.51 This could not but make Indian nationalists regard the Muslim League as opportunistic and an ally of the British. Kismat includes a sub-plot involving Madan’s younger brother whose attitude towards his domineering father is more accommodating, and which can be read as the conduct of the Muslim League—as imprinted upon the Hindu consciousness. The Muslim League went on to rule Pakistan after 1947 and we find later films also allegorizing the relationship between India and Pakistan as one between two estranged brothers. The other political factor of pertinence here is that the Muslim community in India had a very small middle class and apart from medical doctors, lawyers, or clergy, everyone of ability apparently gravitated to high posts in the government or the army.52 This meant there was a large class gap between the leaders of the Muslim League and their followers. Jinnah was himself elegant and Westernized53 and (p.96) far from the devout Muslim that the future leader of a theocratic Islamic state would be, while the bulk of his following was different. This is important for my discussion later in the chapter.

Venerated Parent as Message Bearer One noticeable feature in the cinema of the 1930s and the early 1940s is the absence of the venerated figure/relationship performing the role of ‘message bearer’. The parent becomes a message bearer only when his/her presence is vested with a more sacrosanct significance than that of ‘surrogate context’. As suggested earlier, the message is contained in the first cause but it does not always need a bearer. In Aurat and Devdas, for instance, the message pertains to the man’s weakness and the films do not have a place for the venerated message bearer. But when the message is borne by a venerated character (often a parent) or a relationship (usually parent-child or dosti) the individual or the relationship allegorizes a more sacred notion. The ‘message bearer’ finally emerges in Indian cinema after 1943 and I hope to make the notion clearer through readings of two films of the 1940s, both by Mehboob Khan—Humayun (1945) and Anmol Ghadi (1946). After 1943, the Muslim question became gradually more important in India and this led to Indian cinema explicitly affirming the Muslim ruler’s place in India’s tradition. The most important films to perform the function are Tansen (1943), Humayun (1945), and Shahjehan (1946). It is now acknowledged that the historical film provides a rich source of knowledge into the way a society Page 23 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 reconstructs its self-image by projecting into the past the imperatives of the present and there is, consequently, a basic past/present duality operating in it.54 The three films mentioned are all nominally ‘historical’ but they also pose the question of the Muslim in India through the motif of the family. Mehboob Khan’s Humayun is perhaps the most important of the three films and bears examining here. Humayun begins with Babar’s army overrunning a Hindu kingdom but Babar magnanimously reinstalls the Rajput princess (Veena) as monarch and also becomes a ‘father’ to her. Humayun (Ashok Kumar) therefore becomes her ‘brother’ although the princess’s fiancé, a neighbouring Rajput prince named Randhir (Chandramohan), swears vengeance upon him because Humayun was responsible for his father’s (p.97) death in battle. But shortly thereafter, Humayun falls seriously ill and recovers only when Babar offers God his own life in exchange for his son’s. Humayun therefore ascends the throne when Babar dies, to continue to rule in his father’s way. Babar announces early in the film that he is not a plunderer and that he has come to Hindustan to stay on and Humayun also declares to Randhir (when he refuses to do battle with him) that he will never leave India. The historical Humayun actually lost his throne for five years to an invader named Sher Shah and the film attributes this defeat to his distracting love for a commoner named Hameeda Bano (Nargis) who refuses to marry someone so much above her. Humayun’s defeat is also attributed to his generously rushing to the rescue of his ‘adopted sister’, the Rajput princess, when attacked by a treacherous Hindu king named Jaisingh. Humayun’s eventual recapture of power is not dramatized but simply related by a voice over. The Rajput princess sings a song to the child Akbar and Humayun also makes the child hoist the Hindu flag over the Rajput battlements and Hindu–Muslim amity is affirmed. Humayun is much more explicit in its intentions than a film like Taqdeer or Kismat and this makes it a less interesting text to interpret. But it is nevertheless a significant film to examine at this point because we see the human bearer of the film’s message emerging for the first time in our study. The reason for the veneration that Babar commands in the film is not difficult to explain. The film is asserting that the Muslim’s place in India is inviolable and Babar is venerated in the film because he is the original bearer of this message. More importantly, he is also revered because the object or notion to which the message relates is itself sacred—the future nation or ‘Hindustan’. In the earlier cinema, we detected no notion or idea represented as inherently sacred and the mythological/saint film responded to this absence by attempting to ‘sanctify’ the colonial space. Another illustration is the difference between Aurat and Mother India. If the Radha of Aurat is less revered than the Radha of Mother India, it is because only the latter Radha is the bearer of the film’s message and the message pertains to the Indian nation. Mother India appeared several years after Independence but we find the Page 24 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 ‘future nation’ already presented as a sacred idea in films like Humayun and Anmol Ghadi. Mehboob Khan’s Anmol Ghadi (‘Precious Time’) also illustrates the function of the message bearer although the film’s discourse is less (p.98) obvious. The film is about the childhood attachment between two children—the poor Chander and the affluent Lata. Lata presents Chander with a watch just before her family migrates to Bombay and Chander is left alone. Chander (Surendra) grows up and, thanks to his toiling mother, he acquires an education but continues to long for Lata until he also migrates to Bombay. A rich friend named Prakash induces him to move to the city where he finds employment managing Prakash’s musical instruments business. A client named Basanti falls in love with Chander and Basanti is Lata’s friend. Lata (Nurjehan) now writes best-selling novels under the pseudonym of Renu Devi, she herself has still not got over Chander. Chander’s mother is old and fragile and she falls ill but Chander is too preoccupied with finding Lata to attend to his mother. Prakash draws Chander’s attention to the old woman’s condition but Chander is still too taken up with finding his lost love. Chander and Lata finally meet but, by this time, Lata is engaged to marry Prakash. Chander is in despair and returns to his mother but the old woman is now gravely ill. Lata wants to follow him but other loyalties assert themselves and she resigns herself to her destiny. Chander takes his mother away from Bombay, and mother and son return to their village where Chander’s mother goes to ‘join her husband in heaven’. Before she ‘goes away’, Chander’s mother reminds him of her earlier counsel—that the rich and the poor will always be removed from one another. Chander returns briefly to Bombay to attend Prakash’s wedding and he presents Lata with the one gift he can afford— the watch she gave him as a child. Anmol Ghadi is, to my mind, without parallel in Indian popular cinema in as much as it shows the male protagonist more attentive to the heroine than he is to his sacrificing mother. But to make complete sense of the motif in Anmol Ghadi it is useful to go back to the strategy of locating the ‘first cause’. The ‘first cause’ in the film is not far to seek—the boy Chander pursues the child Lata even though her father disapproves of him, and his mother advises him weakly that he should keep away from the rich. The figure of the mother is recognizable as the bearer of the film’s message but a crucial aspect in her representation must still be understood. Chander’s mother labours for her son’s education but her toiling is shown in an unusual way—she mills wheat into flour so that he may not go hungry. There is also some dialogue in which the mother emphasizes the value of wheat, the way in which it (p.99) becomes atta and then roti and is therefore crucial to a person’s sustenance. ‘Bread-provider’ is often a way in which the land is depicted to make it appear sacred. The motif of mother-asbread-provider can hence be read in a useful way and this is that Anmol Ghadi is equating the relationship between Chander and his mother as the one between a person and his land. The question to be posed is why Chander loses his mother Page 25 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 and the answer is that this is because he follows ‘rich people’ whose loyalties are to their own class. Anmol Ghadi appeared in 1946 when the Muslim League pressed for a second nation and it apparently addresses ‘poor people’ who would fare better being loyal to ‘their land’ than follow the ‘rich’, who have only their own interests at heart. Interestingly, Chander’s song when his mother departs does not invoke a corporeal mother but simply inquires about ‘true kinship’. It may be asked why Chander is not made a Muslim in the film and one explanation is that the director (Mehboob Khan) and the story-writer (Anwar Batalvi) were Muslims and that they represent the protagonists simply as ‘people’ and not as ‘Muslims’. It should also be noted that only in the genre of the ‘Muslim social’ (for example, Mere Mehboob, 1963) is a Muslim merely a ‘person’ and a Hindu, a ‘Hindu’. It is also significant that the ‘rich’ in Anmol Ghadi are not presented as selfseeking but sympathetically, as good people with loyalties only natural to them. My interpretation accounts for many things but it still leaves questions unanswered, and one of them is why Prakash is shown to be more attentive to Chander’s mother than Chander himself is. It is difficult to provide a satisfactory answer here but the only solution is perhaps that Prakash’s conduct helps to emphasize Chander’s own conduct and suggests that there is no inherent hostility between the rich and the poor. Indian popular cinema does not take an ambivalent position with regard to right and wrong (which find correspondence in good and bad) but in Anmol Ghadi, we also see an individual denoted as ‘good’ conducting himself in a way judged as ‘wrong’ and this seems to be without precedent. My own understanding is that ‘wrong’ conduct is towards a new entity introduced into the narrative, and the subsequent redefining of the moral framework to admit a reference to this entity. The new entity demanding loyalty in Anmol Ghadi is the mother and since an association has been made between the figure of the mother (p.100) and the future nation, we may surmise that the idea of the nation plays some part in redefining the moral framework within film narrative around 1947. We shall discover that the issue of loyalty (in some form or other) often surfaces after 1947 and that it is usually possible to read the involvement of the nation into melodramas whenever loyalty is the central issue.

Realism in the 1940s and the Emerging Nation I conclude this chapter by examining a kind of realism that we see in the 1930s and 1940s. I earlier observed that a kind of realism with its emphasis on ‘reform’ flourished in the 1930s. The term ‘realism’ is perhaps misleading because this cinema follows the methods of the rest of Indian cinema of the period—with the difference that it relies much less on melodramatic devices like accidents and coincidences, although such devices are not entirely absent. V. Shantaram’s Admi (1939) represents one of the more impressive attempts at reformist Page 26 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 realism in Indian cinema’s early years. But there is also a starker kind of realism beginning in the 1940s that owed its existence to the Communist movement in India. These films exhibit the dominant themes of the realist mode (the struggle between haves and havenots, the country and the city, tenants/peasants and their exploitation by landlords/moneylenders) but they were not popular.55 Colonial censorship could not have been lax but the evidence of films promoted or supported by the Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association (IPTA) and its less influential forerunner the Progressive Writer’s Association (PWA) suggest, that, prior to 1947, censorship was tolerant as long as directly seditious material was not exhibited. The Communists were perhaps also not the British government’s primary enemy and the administration may have turned a blind eye to films purporting to be radical and some of these films are therefore more powerful than many examples of political cinema from independent India. IPTA’s excursion into cinema includes the collective effort Dharti Ke Lal (1946) produced by it and directed by K.A. Abbas (his debut venture). The radical films emerging from the Communist movement in the 1940s and 1950s were unpopular with the public and this may mean that they were at odds with the spirit of their times. Dharti Ke Lal differs in a crucial way from the other films of the same period in that we find (p.101) signs of a new nation emerging in films like Humayun and Anmol Ghadi although there is no evidence of it in Dharti Ke Lal. The later radical films of the 1950s (like Do Bigha Zamin, 1953) are similar in tone to Abbas’s film and they are equally at odds with other films of their own times. These films are uncompromisingly radical but they have one ‘weakness’—for which audiences apparently punished them—and this is that they consistently betray a lack of faith in the emerging nation. Radical historians have warned against the tendency to deny the plurality of India by recognizing only the ‘centre’ as the basis of a meaningful reconstruction of Indian history; they have warned against treating all events prior to 1947 as part of the ‘biography’ of the emerging nation-state.56 While these warnings should be heeded, we nonetheless see evidence in the cinema after 1943 that the Indian nation already existed as an ideal construct among its audiences and the films that deny this do not apparently find favour. One of the hypotheses worked upon by critics like Prasad and Chakravarty is that Indian popular cinema assisted in the production of the nation for the independent state57 but we find evidence here that cinema was ‘producing’ it even before the independent state came into existence. Notes:

(1.) Silent films were, of course, never really silent because live orchestras usually accompanied the screenings. But if songs were sung during Indian silent film screenings, no separate spaces were carved out for them in the narrative. We may therefore surmise that songs were not rendered on-screen in Indian silent cinema—as they were in the talkie era. Page 27 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 (2.) Kristin Thompson, ‘From Primitive to Classical’, in David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, Kristin Thompson (eds), The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988, p. 157. In the primitive period (1894 to 1908) films appealed to audiences primarily through simple comedy or melodrama, topical subjects, trick effects, and the sheer novelty of photographed movement. (3.) Chidananda Das Gupta, ‘Form and Content’, in Aruna Vasudev (ed.), Frames of Mind: Reflections on Indian Cinema, New Delhi: UBS Publishers’ Distributors Pvt. Ltd., 1995, p. 121. (4.) Anuradha Kapur, ‘The Representation of Gods and Heroes: Parsi Mythological Drama of the Early Twentieth Century’, Journal of Arts and Ideas, 23–4, January 1993, pp. 85–107. (5.) Ibid., p. 92. (6.) Ibid., p. 92. (7.) Ibid., pp. 99–100. (8.) Ibid., p. 97. (9.) Ibid., p. 101. Kapur cites an extreme incursion into realism where a life-size replica of a Bombay street was reproduced on a backdrop. (10.) Ashish Rajadhyaksha, ‘The Phalke Era: Conflict of Traditional Form and Modern Technology’, Journal of Arts and Ideas, 14–15, 1987, p. 61. (11.) Ibid., p. 63. (12.) Ibid., p. 67. (13.) Thompson, ‘From Primitive to Classical’, p. 158. (14.) Rajadhyaksha, ‘The Phalke Era’, p. 71. (15.) The term ‘mythological’ incudes two different categories—the tales taken from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and the Puranas and the second category (also called the ‘devotional’) which pertains to legendary biographies of poet saints in the Bhakti tradition. See Philip Lutgendorf, ‘A Superhit Goddess: Jai Santoshi Maa and Caste Hierarchy in Indian Films’, Manushi, no. 131, 2002, pp. 11–14. (16.) Geeta Kapur, ‘Mythic Material in Indian Cinema’, Journal of Arts and Ideas, no. 14–15, 1987, p. 84.

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Indian Cinema before 1947 (17.) See Ashish Rajadhyaksha, ‘India’s Silent Cinema: A “Viewers View”’, in Suresh Chabria (ed.), Light of Asia—Indian Silent Cinema 1912–1934, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd, 1994, p. 30. (18.) Niranjan Pal, ‘Psychology versus Action in Scenario Writing’, Filmland, Puja issue-1931. Reproduced in Samik Bandopadhyay (ed.), Indian Cinema: Contemporary Perceptions from the Thirties, Jamshedpur: Celluloid Chapter, 1993. (19.) Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 156. (20.) Suresh Chabria, ‘Introduction’, in Chabria, Light of Asia: Indian Silent Cinema 1912–1934, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1994, p. 15. (21.) Pal, ‘Psychology versus Action in Scenario Writing’. (22.) In fact, some of Muraliwala’s methods correspond to those of classical cinema in as much as the narration ‘places the spectator within or on the edge of the narrative space’ and uses stylistic devices to ‘extend that space out towards the plane of the camera as well as to move the spectator’s viewpoint periodically into the narrative space.’ Thompson, ‘From Primitive to Classical’, p. 158. (23.) This is an assertion made by Ashish Rajadhyaksha, ‘India’s Silent Cinema’, p. 34. (24.) Ashok Ranade, ‘The Extraordinary Importance of the Indian Film Song’, Cinema Vision India, I(4), October 1980. (25.) Neepa Majumdar, ‘The Embodied Voice: Song Sequences and Stardom in Popular Hindi Cinema’, in Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Arthur Knight (eds), Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001, pp. 166–8. (26.) Martin Sutton, ‘Patterns of Meaning in the Musical’, in Rick Altman (ed.), Genre: The Musical—A Reader, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul in association with British Film Institute, 1981, p. 190. (27.) William O. Beeman, ‘The Use of Music in Popular Films—East and West’, India International Centre Quarterly, Special Issue, 8(1), March 1980, p. 83. (28.) Roy Armes, Third World Filmmaking and the West, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987, p. 110. (29.) M.A. Oomen and K.V. Joseph, Economics of Indian Cinema, Delhi: C-DIT Series, Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd, 1991, p. 23. Page 29 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 (30.) Armes, Third World Filmmaking and the West, p. 111. (31.) Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, illustrates this with the following institutions: the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the London Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the Wesleyan Mission, the Free Church Mission of Scotland, p. 203. (32.) For a useful study of the reformist novel see Meenakshi Mukherjee, Realism and Reality: The Novel and Society in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985. (33.) It is difficult to put dates on when genres begin or conclude but I draw this inference from the careers of Damle, Fatehlal (also an art director), and Vijay Bhatt who are associated with the mythological and V. Shantaram who is associated with both the mythological and the reformist social. Not including Shantaram’s Shakuntala (1945), which is an adaptation of Kalidasa’s Sanskrit play and not strictly a mythological dealing with gods and heroes, the last mythological produced by any of them is Vijay Bhatt’s Ramrajya (1943). The last notable saint film (judging from the entries provided in The Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema) was perhaps P.Y. Altekar’s Mahatma Vidur (1943) which also starred Vishnupant Pagnis. The last reformist social made by V. Shantaram in the 1940s was Shejari/Padosi (1941). (34.) Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 13, cites Karl Marx who believed that ‘whatever may have been the crime of England she was the unconscious tool of history’ (‘The British Rule in India’ in K. Marx, F. Engels, Articles on Britain, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971). (35.) Ashis Nandy, At the Edge of Psychology, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 23–5. (36.) Nandy, The Intimate Enemy, p. 21. (37.) Nandy, At the Edge of Psychology, p. 22. (38.) Nandy, The Intimate Enemy,. p 25. (39.) Ibid., p. 24. (40.) Ibid., pp. 25–9. (41.) Nandy, At the Edge of Psychology, pp. 22–3. (42.) Ibid., p. 35. (43.) Ibid., pp. 40–1. Page 30 of 32

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Indian Cinema before 1947 (44.) ‘I read Amitabh as a “sub-text” which destabilizes the “positive” continuities we have detected in filmic discourse. But the “sub-text” becomes a fullyfledged parallel text and displaces the filmic text itself: the actor becomes the film.’ Vijay Mishra, ‘Towards a Theoretical Critique of Bombay Cinema’, Screen, vol. 26(3–4), 1985, pp. 142–5. (45.) Nandy, The Intimate Enemy, pp. 52–3. Nandy notes that Gandhi himself rejected the macho model of true Indianness by invoking the doctrine of power through divine bi-unity, that is the doctrine that man and woman are equal but that the ability to transcend the man–woman dichotomy is superior to both, and an indicator of godly and saintly qualities. Interestingly, both Sant Tukaram and Dharmatma are also believed to contain veiled allusions to Gandhi. (46.) Nandy, The Intimate Enemy, pp. 7–8. (47.) Ibid., pp. 52–3. (48.) Percival Spear, A History of India, vol.2, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, pp. 218–19. (49.) Ibid., p. 220. (50.) Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai, ‘Sholay and the Discourse of Evil’, in Sholay: A Cultural Reading, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1992, pp. 45–9. (51.) Spear, A History of India, vol. 2, pp. 217–29. (52.) Ibid., p. 223. (53.) Ibid., p. 228. (54.) See Stephen Heath, ‘Contexts’, in Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 2, 1977, p. 38. (55.) See Sumita S. Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema: 1947– 1987, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 85. Landmark films from the category are Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar (1946), K.A. Abbas’s Dharti Ke Lal (1946), Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin (1953), and Sombhu Mitra’s Jagte Raho (1956). All these films are cited as commercial failures. (56.) Gyanendra Pandey, ‘In Defence of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu– Muslim Riots in India Today’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 26(11–12), 1991, cited by Ashish Rajadhyaksha, in ‘Introduction’, The Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 11. Also see Sudipta Kaviraj, ‘Imaginary Institution of India’, in Partha Chatterjee, Gyanendra Pandey (eds), Subaltern Studies, VIII, Writings on South Asian History and Society, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–39.

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Indian Cinema before 1947 (57.) Also pertinent here is an unpublished dissertation by Sanjukta Tultul Ghosh, ‘Celluloid Nationalism: Cultural Politics in Popular Indian Cinema’, Ohio State University, 1992.

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The First Years of Independence

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

The First Years of Independence Birth of a Nation M.K. Raghavendra

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.003.0004

Abstract and Keywords This chapter focuses on the prevailing methods and themes in Indian cinema after 1947. In this period, the mythological and social melodramatic-centred films of the early 1930s and 1940s were preceded by Independence melodrama and heightened moral polarization—a transformation that found its root within the emerging notion of an independent nation. Indian films dealt with social experiences dominating this period by allegorising them into familial terms and themes. One of the most significant Indian filmmakers of this period was Raj Kapoor, who incorporated social and governmental conflicts within the folds of familial conflict. Class conflict, political advocacy and conflict, and the concept of an independent nation were embedded within familial conflict, oedipal conflict, romance and sacrifice, and in metaphors and allegories. Keywords:   post-1947, Independence melodrama, independent nation, moral polarization, Raj Kapoor, class conflict, political conflict, familial conflict, oedipal conflict

Melodrama, Conflict, and the Nation The domestic melodrama (or the ‘social’) originating in the colonial period has already been examined. While the domestic melodrama is only one category in the 1930s and early 1940s—the mythological is another—the social begins to dominate Hindi cinema after 1947. Post-Independence melodrama may be understood as a continuation of the socials of the earlier period but there are nonetheless crucial differences. Critics have noted that Independence acquires a figurability in many films after 19471 but we need to understand what this Page 1 of 24

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The First Years of Independence means by examining the films. The most apparent difference between the reformist films of the 1930s and their counterparts after 1947 is that the melodrama in the later cinema is of a much more heightened kind— closer to Anmol Ghadi than to earlier films like Admi or Duniya Na Mane. There is apparently a greater degree of ‘moral polarization’ in Anmol Ghadi in as much as the film places an object of immense love/veneration at its centre (the mother) and gets heightened effects entirely through this placement. This, as I indicated in the last chapter, is because of the arrival of a sacred new entity—the independent nation—that becomes the object of veneration/loyalty within the narrative. One of the most important filmmakers to arrive on the Indian scene after 1947 was Raj Kapoor and a brief examination of his maiden directorial venture Aag (‘Fire’, 1948) is pertinent at this point. Aag has several interesting facets that merit analysis but the relevant aspect (p.103) here is that the film portrays a young man Kewal (Raj Kapoor) with an immense desire to be creative, cast out by his father because he performs too poorly in college to become an advocate. Raj Kapoor also introduces a conflict that is read as oedipal in the context of his later film Awaara (1951). Kewal’s father in Aag is authoritarian and his mother is nurturing but there are other factors that indicate that the conflict is not simply ‘oedipal’. I find the father’s insistence that Kewal should become an advocate significant because the figure of the advocate begins to feature in Indian films only after 1947 and Aag is one of the earliest examples. Occupations in Hindi films are not accorded to characters arbitrarily but to signify aspects of character, and consequently to connote entities constituting the social experience of the time. The judge, for instance, is the embodiment of authority and the figure therefore becomes useful to represent state authority as well. While judges and policemen are often present in the earlier cinema, lawyers are noticeably absent before 1947. Most of India’s leaders in 1947 (Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, and Ambedkar among others) were advocates and I propose that the figure of the advocate is employed to represent the ruling class after 1947 and this hypothesis is sustained by a large number of films after Independence. The conflict within the family in Aag may then be interpreted as the tussle between the creative aspect of nation building and another, darker side that places its emphasis upon ambition and control. Since the mother and the father are aligned respectively along these two contentious planes, the conflict with Kewal at its centre tends to emerge as ‘oedipal’. Like Anmol Ghadi, Aag provides no ‘bad’ people but its universe is sharply polarized between those who nurture creativity and those who exercise authority and the melodrama in the conflict is heightened because the site where it is enacted is sacred— the newly emergent nation.

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The First Years of Independence The conflict (between creativity and authority) underlying the melodrama in Aag is unusual in Indian cinema and, there being few parallels, difficult to interpret. There was nonetheless a political tussle in progress at the time between Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel because the two were waging an ‘emblematic struggle between rival conceptions of a modern India’.2 Nehru hoped to use the state creatively to reconstitute Indian society, to reform it and bring it in line with what he took to be the movement (p.104) of universal history. Patel, instead, wanted the state to simply express and ‘tend the existing pattern of Indian society, with all its hierarchy, particularity and religious tastes’.3 The confrontation between the two symbolized other kinds of conflicts as well and it is these kinds of conflicts that more often find reflection in the cinema of the period. Nehru was a socialist and favoured a developmental model based on planning while Patel was authoritarian, speaking for the landed classes and the industrialists. Patel apparently orchestrated the departure of the socialists in 1948 and was instrumental in economic planning slipping from attention by 1950.4 Nehru and Patel may therefore have been publicly perceived as spokesmen for different classes brought into conflict after 1947. Nehru lost ground in the years following Independence and was isolated but, with Patel’s sudden death in 1950, he regained control and put his ideas into actual practice by the mid-1950s. In Indian cinema, we also find conflict between different economic groups and classes figuring conspicuously only in the period between 1947 and 1950. Although many of these conflicts had their origins earlier, they find accentuated expression only after Independence and it is as though cinema was attending to them only now. For instance, the narratives of most of the reformist films discussed earlier—Devdas, Jhoola, and Duniya Na Mane—are founded in class conflict but such conflict is not foregrounded in any of them. To elucidate, Devdas is unable to marry Parvati in Barua’s film because her family is placed lower in the social hierarchy. Still, Parvati changes her class status effortlessly by marrying above her level and the final resolution also downplays the class aspect by emphasizing another side of the story. This emphasis shifts after 1947 in films like Kidar Sharma’s Bawre Nain (1950), S.U. Sunny’s Babul (1950), or Sohrab Modi’s Sheesh Mahal (1950). In each of these films, class conflict actually figures in the resolution and in two of them (Bawre Nain and Babul) the class-difference between the hero and heroine proves insurmountable. If these later melodramas are placed alongside the reformist films of the 1930s, one might say that the later films show the social stratification as actually having become more acute. There is no reason to suspect that this reflects a similar development in society and cinema is apparently not being ‘representational’. One explanation that accounts for the tendency after 1947 is that both filmmakers and audiences became abruptly aware that they (p.105) were now ‘responsible’ for the condition of the nation as it was, and these portrayals are engagements in earnest self-criticism. At the same time, there is little sign of the Page 3 of 24

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The First Years of Independence ‘warring classes’ after 1950 and this suggests a correspondence between the conflict seen in cinema and the political tussle within the government until Sardar Patel’s death.

Responsibility and Freedom Two other related observations need to be made here and the first is that, after 1947, there is an increasing tendency to locate night scenes in the city with Raj Kapoor’s Aag (1948), Barsaat (1949), and Awaara (1951) and Mehboob Khan’s Anokhi Ada (1948) being examples. Ravi Vasudevan5 notes that the emblem of the street lamp is a recurrent, metonymic element in the songbook illustrations and the movie posters of the period. He sees in the street lamp a ‘signifier of both street and of night and therefore, of a physical, social and sexual drive’.6 This interpretation may be plausible in itself but it is also ahistorical; it neglects to address the question of why the emblem of the dark city and the street lamp comes into Indian cinema so prominently only after 1947 and disappears after a few years. Anokhi Ada begins with a scene in which ‘night’ is shown to confine the poor to their quarters. The city at night may not be a perilous site in Anokhi Ada but vigilant policemen still patrol the streets. In Barsaat (1949) night is associated with ‘redlight’ districts where poor women proffer themselves while their sobbing children remain hungry. Whatever they may represent or allegorize in their totality, the dark city streets of newly independent India are an integral part of the critical portrayals of the period, portrayals that eventually betoken a newly assumed sense of responsibility in filmmaker and spectator alike towards the state of the independent nation. The second observation has to do with the rise of Dilip Kumar as the star of the era. It must be noted here that the actor’s performances in films like Babul (1950) represented (and still represent) an entirely new experience in Indian cinema in as much as he uses the naturalistic mode to work away from the types characteristic of Indian cinema— and towards representing individuals. Dilip Kumar changed his style for later films like Aan (1952), Naya Daur (1957), and Gunga Jumna (1961) where he played the type represented by the ebullient rustic and he did not repeat the kind of roles from the films of the 1940s. The (p.106) argument here is that Dilip Kumar’s naturalistic acting style in the late 1940s and early 1950s was neither assumed arbitrarily nor was it accidental but it served a definite purpose, actually contributing to the discourse in the films of the period. Its purpose can be explored through S.U. Sunny’s Babul, perhaps Dilip Kumar’s most important performance of the period. In Babul (1950) Dilip Kumar plays Ashok, a young man appointed as the postmaster in a small village. In the village he is drawn to the postman’s daughter Bela (played by Nargis) who loves him. Living in a haveli in the village is the zamindar and his haughty daughter Usha, to whom Ashok begins to teach music. The zamindar’s daughter Usha is initially not portrayed with much sympathy and she is not played by a star but by a minor actress (Munawar Page 4 of 24

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The First Years of Independence Sultana) but it is Usha whom Ashok actually loves. Usha also grows to love Ashok but, when Bela mistakenly tells her that Ashok and she are to be married, she decides to stand aside despite her feelings for him. Usha finally marries another man but, when Bela attempts to watch the wedding procession excitedly from a treetop, she falls down to her death. This dry synopsis may not suggest that there is anything very noteworthy in Babul but the film is exceptional for the way in which it suggests the warring classes within the space of the nation. Ashok and his father belong not only to the middle class but also to the upper, educated segment within the class, which fills the echelons in the state bureaucracy. Bela and her father belong to the working class and Usha and her father belong to the feudal aristocracy, a class evidently in decline. To further complicate matters, the zamindar has an accountant (‘Munimji’) who wants the postmaster to marry his daughter because Ashok belongs to his own class. The choice Ashok must exercise pertains only to which woman he should marry but the film represents the women not as individuals but as typified by class and this suggests it can be useful to read the choices confronting Ashok as an allegory. Read allegorically, Babul seems to be about the functionaries of the newly elected government attempting to be impartial but drawn increasingly into affiliations with the representatives of entrenched power. The film casts Nargis as the working class girl to whom Ashok is warm and a minor actress as the aristocratic woman whom he chooses, although this is contrary to the prevailing practice of pairing off major stars. The ploy may be intended to mean that the class associations of (p.107) each woman rather than her personal qualities lead Ashok in his choice. This can also be read as a political statement about the unexpected conduct of the bureaucracy—as experienced in the first few years of Independence. This interpretation is made plausible by Dilip Kumar’s performance in the central role, largely because Ashok is not recognizable as belonging to any character ‘type’. I have already shown that the universe of popular cinema is rigidly deterministic, that it allows little room for the exercise of choice, and the conception of character as ‘immutable type’ contributes to the discourse. I propose now that through a naturalistic interpretation of Ashok’s role, Dilip Kumar infuses the character with a freedom of choice uncharacteristic of the Hindi film and that this is brought into conflict with the other character portrayals. To explain differently, the love triangle involving two women and one man is not an uncommon motif in Indian popular cinema. But since love is portrayed as ‘absolute’, ‘eternal’, and directed towards only one object, there are no doubts in the spectator’s mind about which woman the hero will actually choose. Popular cinema keeps ‘love’ demarcated from other kinds of relationships between opposite sexes and this is possible only because the conduct manifesting them is separately typified. By indicating that Ashok’s conduct is not true to any type, Dilip Kumar gently subverts the important convention of differentiating ‘true love’ and suggests that his feelings can be Page 5 of 24

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The First Years of Independence justly interpreted as ‘love’ by either of the two women. Bela’s claim upon Ashok then becomes more legitimate than that of the second woman in most other Hindi romances. Where film heroes move smoothly into relationships denoted typically as ‘love’, Ashok is actually confronted with having to exercise a choice about ‘love’ and he is therefore made to assume an uncharacteristic degree of existential freedom within the narrative. This gets emphasis when the major feminine star who should have been paired off with him (Nargis) is the one he does not choose. Dilip Kumar’s performance in Babul is only one among many and Jogan (1950) can be cited as another example. Vijay, the protagonist of Jogan is an agnostic who falls in love with a sanyasin (female ascetic) who has renounced the worldly path and cannot reciprocate his feelings. Deedar (1951) and Andaz are other films that use Dilip Kumar’s performance to break with the typical although they do so in different ways and to other ends. (p.108) A factor that deserves attention is that the films just described are all ‘love stories’. ‘The triumph of love’ implies the existence of feelings that are equal and reciprocated from both sides but, in the four films just cited, there is an absence of reciprocation in love and this is why the closures in these films are noticeably weak and indecisive. Instead of mutual love being affirmed but remaining unconsummated due to the intervention of external agencies (family compulsions, destiny) we see love remaining unrequited and actually failing. In Andaz, Deedar, and Babul the object of a protagonist’s intense passion loves another and this is a motif that is not repeated in later years. If the films are ‘tragedies’, they are clearly not tragedies in the same mould as Devdas. We also sense deliberation in the weak closures and attribute it to the nervous excitement in a period when choices could briefly be exercised (or, to phrase it differently, one’s ‘destiny’ seemed briefly undecided). I indicated in the first chapter that the closure achieved in popular cinema by requited love operates as a barrier keeping the autonomous universe of film narrative apart from the historical one. The weakness of the closures in these films is an indication of the weakness of the ‘barrier’ and therefore also implies the strength of the historical currents at work. Sumita Chakravarty makes a broadly comparable remark about the films of the period when she says: The visceral quality of the experience of nationhood, quite apart from the abstract notion of it, is signaled in the films by changes in the narrative structure. The conventional ‘happy ending’ of the typical Bombay film, for instance, is replaced by an open endedness that is unusual in that particular context of production.7

The Site of Conflict and the Warring Players Indian popular cinema deals with any kind of social experience by allegorizing it in familial terms. Class conflict is therefore not represented in any of the films as Page 6 of 24

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The First Years of Independence ‘social experience’ but translated into an acceptable language and it often takes the shape of impediments placed in the path of a young man and a young woman who wish to marry. Since social experience must be translated thus to be recognized, the nation itself cannot be represented as itself but allegorically. A popular method of allegorizing the nation around 1950 is to represent it as a palace or a residential building of prodigious proportions—and more enduring (p.109) than its occupants—that also becomes the site of intense conflict involving different classes. Three films come to mind here—Kamal Amrohi’s Mahal (1949), Sohrab Modi’s Sheesh Mahal (1950), and A.R. Kardar’s Dastaan (1950). The first, which includes the motif of reincarnation, is nominally a ghost story and the second is about the struggle between a feudal patriarch and a neorich industrialist for the possession of a city mansion. The third is about the conflict within an affluent family when a poor orphan girl is adopted as a daughter of the house. Mahal is the most interesting of the three films and merits examination here. Vijay Mishra8 treats the film as an expansion of the gothic form—expansion because it uses the Indian theory of reincarnation— because it foregrounds the space of a mansion/castle in its title (like Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto). This approach has its merits, especially because Mahal has a largely ‘gothic’ ambience. But Mishra does not expain why there should be other films about mansions in the same period that are far from ‘gothic’. The portrayal of the mansion in Mahal, Sheesh Mahal, Dastaan is also different from the portrayal of the zamindar’s palace in Abrar Alvi’s Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (1962) in as much as we get a sense of the prior/later occupants of the mansion in the former films. It is as though the mansion was permanent but that its occupants would eventually pass on and this is not the sense in Alvi’s film. When Mahal begins, Harishankar, whose father is a judge, takes up residence in an old palace near Allahabad, lying vacant for forty years. The watchman informs him that the former owner died tragically because of a love affair, and the portrait of the former owner bears an uncanny resemblance to Harishankar himself. Harishankar (Ashok Kumar) realizes he is the former owner reincarnated and the ghost of the man’s lover (Madhubala), apparently stalking the palace every night also begins to haunt him. Harishankar falls under the spell of the palace and its ghostly inhabitant and his lawyer friend Srinath’s efforts to tear him away are in vain. Harishankar nonetheless allows his father to persuade him to marry and he goes away with his young wife to a particularly treacherous part of the hills where the young woman is required to coexist with bats and poisonous snakes. Harishankar does not consummate his marriage because of his infatuation with the ghost and his wife finally kills herself, while making it appear that Harishankar poisoned her. (p.110) Mahal is intriguing and some of its aspects are especially pertinent here. The first is that the new master Harishankar is represented as a reincarnation of an older one. The second is that Harishankar is a judge’s son Page 7 of 24

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The First Years of Independence and his closest friend, an advocate. If we read ‘nation’ for the palace, Harishankar and Srinath being associated with the legal profession suggests that they represent the ruling class. Harishankar’s resemblance to the former owner then suggests that the new ruling class in India is much like the old one that it has replaced. Another aspect of Mahal that invites reading is that the working class woman Asha (the ‘ghost’) and Harishankar’s legitimate wife (from his own privileged class) should compete so hard for his attention. Harishankar’s wife kills herself so that he will be hanged and they can be together in their next life. Interpreting this motif in the context of the tussle within the Congress, which concluded only in 1950, is useful. The hardships undergone by Harishankar’s wife in the hills may then find some correspondence with the privations threatening the privileged, were the nation to remain inordinately ‘attracted to the poor’.

The Ruling Class Harishankar’s representation as a ‘reincarnation’ of the colonial power should not be understood as adverse criticism of the ruling class in India. The Western orientation of leaders like Nehru was largely understood and accepted by the populace. Another film, Mehboob Khan’s Anokhi Ada (1948) also suggests the ‘socialist’ and ‘Western’ side of the ruling power though it is unlike Mahal in every other respect. The film begins on a dark city street lit by streetlights with a man in casually worn Western clothes singing cheerfully. The man identifies himself to a passing policeman as ‘Laatsaheb’ (‘Lord Saheb’) and demonstrates his concern for the underprivileged by providing roti to the heroine (Naseem Banu) and her hungry younger brother who have just lost their father. A little later Laatsaheb (Prem Adib) runs into a former acquaintance, a man who informs him of his mother’s illness. We also learn from the conversation that Laatsaheb is no ordinary person and that he comes from a very affluent family. On the train Laatsaheb runs into the heroine once again and declares his love for her but a railway accident separates the two and also makes the girl suffer from amnesia. The heroine now comes in contact with another (p.111) man, a professor (Surendra) who also wishes to marry her. The conflict in the narrative comes from the tussle between the two men who care for her in their different ways. If Laatsaheb is a friend of the poor, the ‘Professor’ wears a sola topi and is portrayed as a figure of benign authority. The heroine does not recognize Laatsaheb and is therefore unable to understand her own feeling of warmth towards a ‘stranger’. The film now arranges another minor accident and she recovers her memory. The Professor is now forced to make a discreet exit and Laatsaheb finally regains the heroine. The conflict between the two men in Anokhi Ada can be interpreted allegorically and the heroine as the Indian people ‘orphaned’ after Gandhi’s death, but more significant is the way Laatsaheb is portrayed. When Laatsaheb reaches his family home to see his ailing mother, his father is briefly represented as disapproving and authoritarian but Laatsaheb’s mother dies immediately Page 8 of 24

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The First Years of Independence thereafter and the old man’s conduct changes abruptly. He now declares that money is of no avail if not used correctly and retires to Benares to pursue a life of sacrifice. The next time we see Laatsaheb, he is providing succour to the poor and, significantly, is surrounded by children. He does not live in his family mansion but in a dilapidated dwelling among the poor where a local woman attends to him. Despite all this, Laatsaheb is always in Western attire complete with neckwear—although his tie is always askew. Laatsaheb finds some agreement with the public image of Jawaharlal Nehru because Nehru was born into a prominent lawyer’s family. It was known that his father Motilal Nehru followed his ‘impetuous’ son into Gandhi’s fold when he joined the Civil Disobedience movement in 1920, through Gandhi’s persuasion,9 gave up practising law, shed his Western attire, and gave away his horses and his carriages. Jawaharlal Nehru was educated in England at Harrow and Cambridge and developed an affinity to models of social democracy derived from post-War Western Europe, although his socialist views were fortuitously associated in the eyes of the public with the Soviet Union.10 Significantly, Nehru also enjoyed publicizing his own fondness for children and his birthday is still celebrated in India as Children’s Day. From this description, Laatsaheb emerges as Jawaharlal Nehru tailored to fit popular film convention and the term ‘Laatsaheb’ itself suggests the Indian aristocracy overlaid with a Western outlook. It is, of course, (p.112) incorrect to understand Laatsaheb’s attributes as corresponding to those of Nehru as an individual. He may simply represent Jawaharlal Nehru perceived and interpreted as a ‘type’ in accordance with film convention, and Jawaharlal Nehru as a protector after Indians were orphaned by Mahama Gandhi’s death.

National Identity and National ‘Mainstream’ Class conflict is one political motif seen in the films of the period and the notion of an inclusive ‘Indian’ identity is another. Raj Kapoor’s Barsaat (‘Rain’, 1949) begins lyrically with a landscape, a dusty road, and two young men cruising along in an open car. The two are engaged in a moral argument about love and the conventions associated with it and it is evident that one of them, Gopal, is a libertine. The two disembark at a rest house and Gopal (Premnath) leaves to spend the night in the home of a local girl Neela (Nimmi) and this is plainly not his first visit. The other young man Pran (Raj Kapoor) takes up his violin and begins to play with great abandon. Barsaat is not definite about its actual narrative space and the second episode is set in another region as idyllic as the first, in another ‘rest house’ visited by the two men. In this place Pran meets Reshma (Nargis) when she falls into a body of water and he risks his life to save her. The sequences are interspersed with discussions between Pran and Gopal in which Pran’s warnings about the weight of love are casually dismissed by Gopal. Neela is also shown in musical interludes, still waiting for Gopal but feeling increasingly abandoned. Each time Page 9 of 24

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The First Years of Independence Pran returns to the idyllic space to which Reshma belongs, he takes up his violin and plays a few snatches that become a cue for Reshma to come. But, gradually, Reshma begins to encounter resistance from her father with regard to these trysts. When paternal pressure builds up unbearably she attempts to get away by the river but finds herself swept away in it. A local fisherman named Bholu eventually pulls Reshma out of the water. Bholu believes she now belongs to him by right and decides to make her his wife. From this point onwards the logic of the narrative becomes more complicated and this makes a straightforward reading of the film difficult. Reshma is to be married but Pran arrives in time to save her although he is himself injured in a car accident. Reshma leaves with (p.113) Pran, stays on in the urban space, and her love sees him being restored to health. Gopal now sees true love at close quarters and is gradually convinced of the immorality of his ways. He decides to marry Neela but, reaching her too late, discovers that she has taken her own life. The film ends with Neela’s cremation and Gopal grieving over her pyre. Barsaat is a strange film for several reasons and the chief of these is that Pran and Gopal are given no antecedents in the shape of family backgrounds. We only know that they are affluent, because of their lifestyles, and that they come from an urban milieu. The lack of family antecedents also implies the absence of a context and the way in which the two are drawn forces us to read them not as individuals with characters but as embodying attitudes. The two enjoy unprecedented freedom within the narrative because they are not at the receiving end of dispensations. Few events actually ‘happen’ to them, their fates are not determined as they are in popular cinema, and the burden of action is heavily upon them. We can say that the men have power and authority and that they demonstrate this through their power over the women. The women themselves are dependent upon the men, in effect behaving as their minions, and the difference between the two men lies in the way they hand out dispensations. If Gopal is the more insensitive of the two, the attachment between Pran and Reshma is also not a relationship between equals because Reshma frequently demonstrates her feelings through a gesture of surrender— by throwing herself at his feet. Neela and Reshma come from uncertain spaces but we conclude from their costumes that their identities are ‘ethnic’. The contaminated modern or urban space to which the men belong is distinguished from the unspoiled ‘pastoral’ space occupied by the women and transitions between the two spaces are by automobile. Pran and Gopal make unexplained journeys into the ‘other’ space, the two spaces are exceptionally undefined in as much as they are not even given separate fictional names. About the two spaces we could say that if one of them is represented by the epithet ‘modern’ the other is the refuge of those with ethnic cultural identities. Those who reside in the ‘urban’ or ‘modern’ space

Page 10 of 24

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The First Years of Independence exert power over those who reside in the ethnic space and the relationship of dominance is acceptable to both groups. The film becomes understandable if the relationship between the two spaces is identified with the one between the Indian nation and (p.114) its constituent regions; it makes sense if it is interpreted as a national allegory. The identities of the men are then read as ‘pan-national’ just as the ethnic identities of the women become ‘regional’. The ‘nation’ itself needs no context and the denial of families or a definite past to either Pran or Gopal vindicates the view that they are not merely modern Indians but that they actually stand for the modern nation. When Reshma joins Pran permanently, she sheds her traditional attire and we see her abruptly donning the ‘national dress’—a sari. This can be interpreted as the assimilation of the ethnic identity within the national mainstream. The arguments between Pran and Gopal about ‘love’ are neither personal nor concerned with love as an emotion but entirely ethical. They elaborate upon how one’s beloved should be treated and confer the status of a ‘subject’ upon her. While Reshma’s ethnic identity is not made explicit she is also presented for the first time floating on a shikara and this, to the tourist, only represents the disputed Kashmir valley. The Kashmir question has been a contentious one for the Indian Union from 1947 onwards. While the remaining princely states were persuaded to accede to India before Independence, the three exceptions were Junagadh, Hyderabad, and Kashmir. Kashmir was the most serious dispute because it was a fringe state with a majority Muslim population and a Hindu ruler. The Maharaja of Kashmir played for a time with the Indian Union until irregulars from Pakistan invaded it in 1948 and raced towards the capital Srinagar. The Maharaja appealed in panic to India, hastily acceded to the Indian Union and airborne Indian troops drove out the Pathan invaders in the nick of time. From then on, India has stood firm on the legality of Kashmir’s accession and has repeatedly branded Pakistan the aggressor since the Pathans came from Pakistani territory. Pakistanis, for their part, see Kashmiris as of their own kind (Muslims) and the valley of Kashmir as therefore belonging to Pakistan.11 Returning to Barsaat, the fisherman Bholu is shown to share Reshma’s cultural identity but Reshma prefers Pran’s attentions to the fisherman’s and it is Pran who eventually rescues her from Bholu. Reshma’s rescue and the shedding of her cultural identity can be likened to Kashmir’s accession to India after the Indian state ‘saved Kashmiris from their own kind’. Pran and Gopal exercise ‘power’ (Pran benevolently, Gopal heartlessly) and their urban space can be interpreted as representing (p.115) the administrative space of the modern nation, perhaps a contaminated space with its ‘Gopals’ doing their utmost to turn it the wrong way but nonetheless a space with a future for ethnic people who ‘desire’ the Indian nation.

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The First Years of Independence The Infant Nation and the Immature State I remarked in the first chapter (while examining Andaz) that making India a ‘modern’ nation was one of Jawaharlal Nehru’s principal preoccupations. Nehru had other ambitions as well because he did not want the country to surrender its sovereignty by depending too heavily on foreign capital. The state needed to create conditions for economic expansion—not through wholesale nationalization but through a ‘mixed economy’ including state investment, providing a counterweight to the cyclical swings, and fashions of private investment.12 Up until 1950, Nehru was unable to make headway because of his continuing conflict with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who had his own notions about the future shape of the nation. Nehru was apparently so beleaguered in these early years, faced with so many conflicting ideas on the principles (economic and political) upon which the nation should be constituted, that by early 1950 he despaired of being able ‘to see the overall picture’.13 Much of this confusion in the direction taken by the nation is in evidence in the films of the period with class-directed arguments being covertly presented to the spectator through melodrama and archetypal representations. Sometimes even the same plot devices—like those in Andaz—are employed to promote different and often even entirely contrary discourses. The motifs in Andaz are already familiar to the reader and I interpreted the film briefly as allegorizing the threats perceived in Nehru’s modernizing project. Ravi Vasudevan observes that the film, while emphasizing the glamour of the modern, also uses Neena’s character to set limits to the image of Indian modernity.14 There is more than one party scene in the film where the ways of the Westernized class are presented as glamorous but the apparent discourse emphasizes the grief caused by the heroine’s ‘modern’ ways. The film is therefore simultaneously courting those who saw modernization as India’s panacea and those who were alarmed at the same prospect. Its ruse is to present the ‘perils of modernity’ through the narrative while dealing (p.116) with its ‘benefits’ as spectacle. This aspect of the film is self-evident but there is yet another aspect, a more covert one that needs to be described. In the narrative of Andaz (1949), the relationship allegorizing India’s dalliance with modernity is the unusual one between Neena (Nargis) and Dilip (Dilip Kumar). I have already elaborated upon Dilip Kumar’s style of performance in the context of Babul but his performance in Andaz is different in as much as it is not the character’s ‘freedom to choose’ that is emphasized in the film. I noted earlier that Dilip Kumar’s naturalistic performances from the 1940s and early 1950s were an effort to break away from the types that dominated (and still dominate) Hindi cinema. Unlike Rajan (Raj Kapoor), Dilip in Andaz is not true to any recognizable type but, because his character is also so scantily defined, he emerges as an uncharacteristically mysterious figure. This could have been perceived as an inadequacy of the film if Andaz had not provided an indication that the mystery is intentionally created. Not only does the film decline to Page 12 of 24

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The First Years of Independence provide Dilip with any affinities beside Neena (a home or any kind of family) but when Neena inquires about what he does, he remarks that he has just returned from Africa. I propose that the only Africa not ‘dark’ to spectators in 1949 was ‘South Africa’ (because of Gandhi’s connection with it) but Dilip simply says ‘Africa’. This is emphasized once again when Neena exaggeratedly draws Shiela’s attention to Dilip’s ‘African’ connection. Since Neena’s relationship with Dilip has been read as an apparent allegory of India’s dalliance with modernity, I am tempted to interpret the incertitude represented by Dilip as corresponding to the doubts besetting the modernizing project. Still, to make an admission that this interpretation does not exhaust the meaning of Andaz, Neena’s ‘affection’ for Dilip emerges as more credible than her ‘devotion’ to the self-absorbed Rajan, whose conduct is often infuriating. If audience sympathies are more with Dilip than with Rajan, the likelihood of the film deliberately subverting the apparent discourse and promoting an ‘oppositional reading’ cannot be discounted. In such an eventuality, Neena’s dogged adherence to Rajan (and tradition) may not be meant to invite sympathy. Rajan is also distinctly heartless when he speaks out against her in court and the ‘upholding of tradition’ in the film may not therefore be straightforward although the relayed meaning of Andaz concerns itself entirely with modernity’s perils. (p.117) I remarked earlier that the films of the period often use the same plot devices towards different discourses and it is not Neena’s relationship with Dilip but her loyalty to Rajan that finds echoes in other films. The plot device recurring in films like Andaz, Bawre Nain, and Dastaan revolves around an innocent woman, orphaned as in Anokhi Ada and intensely loyal to a puerile individual who begins to suspect, unjustly, her fidelity to him. The woman’s entreaties are in vain and the man discovers his own unfairness eventually (and always too late) and he is punished for his suspicions. In Andaz Rajan’s wife is sent off to prison and he has the task of bringing up their daughter alone. In Dastaan and Bawre Nain the innocent woman dies before the male protagonist can reunite with her. It is not easy to read the films sharply as allegory but the male protagonist is always the object of intense loyalty and heartbreaking appeals are made to him. The woman who makes the appeal in Andaz owns a business empire while the one in Bawre Nain is rustic and poor but the men are similar in that they are both immature and both of them are made to suffer little. The men may, in a sense, be compared to the hero in Barsaat because the relationship between the man and the woman in each film is onesided and without recourse to the woman. The man in each of the films is therefore easily read (as in Barsaat) as representing the youthful nation state, readily enlisted (even by the unscrupulous as in Bawre Nain) because its judgements are prone to be immature and hasty. Echoes of the same motif are also found in Raj Kapoor’s Awaara (1951) and this film will be examined next.

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The First Years of Independence Oedipal Conflict Awaara, one of the most celebrated melodramas in Indian cinema, was made after Jawaharlal Nehru had apparently taken a firmer hold over the government. Raj Kapoor directed the film but an avowed socialist K.A. Abbas, who had also directed Dharti Ke Lal in 1946, scripted it. Awaara begins with a scene set in court where a dishevelled young man named Raj (Raj Kapoor) is being tried for attempting to assault Judge Raghunath (Prithviraj Kapoor). He has no advocate to defend him but a young woman Rita (Nargis) steps in and takes up his case. Judge Raghunath is summoned to the witness box and questions are put to him. Was it not true that the judge once cast his own wife (p.118) out of his home? What was her condition when that happened? This necessitates a flashback and the judge reveals that his wife Leela was pregnant, but with someone else’s child. Raghunath believes that criminality is an inherited trait and, when he was still a lawyer, he helped convict a man named Jagga simply because the latter’s father was a known offender. Jagga becomes a daku, swears vengeance, and manipulates matters so that the judge turns out his own pregnant wife in the mistaken belief that her unborn child is Jagga’s. The child grows up to be Raj who, under Jagga’s tutelage, becomes a thief. Jagga believes that he has proved the judge’s social theory about inherited behaviour wrong and provides assistance to Raj’s mother when her son is in custody. Awaara locates itself in familiar territory because we know about popular cinema’s convention of granting the real father privileges that are denied to the foster father.15 In each of the films reflecting the convention, a criminal brings up a law enforcer’s child after doing the real father harm. The child eventually discovers the true circumstances of his adoption and causes his adoptive father’s death. To repeat my earlier observation, the convention can be traced to the popular film’s oft-repeated viewpoint that the basis of one’s moral vocabulary is in lineage and birth. This convention may owe something to the feudal tradition but it can also be attributed to the ethical thrust provided by parentage in popular film narrative. Awaara commences by bluntly questioning the politics of the convention but its achievement remains doubtful. Jagga’s father was a criminal and Raghunath therefore believed Jagga guilty and had him convicted. Circumstances eventually force Raj to kill Jagga (K.N. Singh) but, before the event happens, Jagga acts with such innate venom that the judge’s social theory is actually upheld. Raj, being really the judge’s son, is ‘inherently’ decent although he has a life of crime thrust upon him. He cannot but genuinely atone for his criminal past and he even decides to become a lawyer. The second sub-narrative in Awaara concerns Raj’s love for Rita, once his schoolmate, although she is the daughter of a rich advocate and he only the denizen of a slum. The child Raj tried to pay for his education by shining shoes but was expelled from school for the demeaning act. Rita also leaves school for Page 14 of 24

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The First Years of Independence different reasons and he does not see her again until they are adults, when he picks her purse and the subsequent events bring them closer. Rita is now the ward of (p.119) Judge Raghunath who perceives Raj as a threat because of his uncertain lineage. Raj is not aware of the true relationship between himself and the judge and learns of it only at the time of his mother’s death (after being accidentally run over by the judge’s car). The judge was to have tried Raj for Jagga’s killing but Raj is so incensed by his mother’s death that he attempts to kill Raghunath. It is for this act that he is being tried at the film’s commencement. Unlike the other films examined in the context of 1947, much of the social discourse evidenced in Awaara is emphatic and deliberate. Awaara is particularly rich in melodramatic motifs and an important one running through the film is Raj’s urge to ‘belong’. Ravi Vasudevan notes that in Hindi cinema the mother’s domain is virtue and the father’s is sometimes respectability.16 The narrative of Awaara is morally anchored in the figure of the mother but our attention is repeatedly drawn to a photograph of the young Rita that also takes the place of Raj’s conscience and which is the only object remaining to remind Raj of his childhood. The important fact is that even after Raj has met the adult Rita, it is not the adult (played by Nargis) but the photograph of the child that continues to represent his ‘conscience’. The picture does not apparently represent the individual Rita as much as signify a moment of lost innocence to the hero.17 The picture also comes in the way when Raj raises his knife to strike Judge Raghunath. Significantly, the film associates the picture with the child Rita’s birthday party to which Raj was admitted despite having no gift for the girl. The picture not only represents a moment when he was innocent but also a time when he was accepted although poor. It has been observed about Awaara that the political discourse is not as radical as it purports to be18 but the film nonetheless includes covert features that, when interpreted, emerge as boldly critical. To explain, oedipal motifs are regarded as present in Awaara in two different ways. While the suggestion that Raj’s killing of his ‘surrogate father’ Jagga is patricide19 does not merit serious attention, the conflict between Raj and Raghunath around the figure of the virtuous mother is recognizably oedipal even while it draws from the Ramayana. But since I earlier noted that oedipal conflicts begin in Indian cinema only after 1947 and discovered the first symptom of this in Aag (1948), I am inclined to examine further why the oedipal conflict in Awaara emerges so forcefully. I rely on one fact that most readings (p.120) of oedipal conflict in Awaara choose to ignore—that Judge Raghunath is a judge. A hypothesis that I have depended upon in my interpretations is that the judiciary and the police represent the moral authority of the state in Hindi film narrative. Awaara begins with a stirring bit of melodrama—the judge mounts the witness box in a courtroom where he is mercilessly interrogated and made to Page 15 of 24

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The First Years of Independence reveal his most shameful secret. Raj is sentenced to three years hard labour in the same courtroom but before this happens, Judge Raghunath is himself judged and made to admit his moral guilt—for having made Raj what he is. The courtroom becomes, in effect, the sacred site where a mythical interface is set up between state authority and the public and the democratic implication is that not even state authority is exempt from being judged before the public. This is apparently not the interpretation of the courtroom favoured by other critics. Gayatri Chatterjee,20 for instance, believes that in pre-Independence cinema it is the site from which foreign/Western rule exercised its control; in post-Independence cinema, she sees it as representing the legacy of the British legal system, the attitude towards this legacy always remaining ‘ambivalent and problematic’. Since Chatterjee does not cite films from pre-Independence cinema in which the courtroom figures, I shall proceed with the argument that the courtroom gains significance—as a moral site—only after 1947 although the judge as a figure allegorizing state authority is present in earlier films like Taqdeer. Also, the portrayal of the courtroom in the 1950s is hardly ‘ambivalent’ since the judge is himself subject to its disinterested justice in Awaara. Courtroom scenes dominate Indian popular cinema for several years in the 1950s. They usually occur at the climax of the film and implicated in these scenes is the notion of ‘the truth’. As another extreme illustration, the Tamil film Parasakhti (1952) has a climactic courtroom scene in which the hero indicts various representatives of ‘the system’ and each of these representatives lowers his gaze in acknowledgement, as though in admission of the truth at the only site where it cannot be denied. Miscarriages of justice do occur but these occurrences are not attributed to the judicial system being flawed but are explained in other terms. The argument offered here is that the courtroom could not have acquired this moral authority under colonial rule; only the (p.121) independent nation could have imparted the significance to the scenes. Parasakhti is set in pre-Independence India but it clearly reflects the attitudes of its own times because it treats even the pre-Independence courtroom as a sanctified space. Returning again to Awaara, the second radical aspect is the way it treats the mother. Ravi Vasudevan describes Raj’s mother Leela in Awaara as the original repository of the moral look but also observes that Rita’s picture reiterates or doubles her function.21 I have already indicated that Rita’s picture represents Raj’s conscience but Leela’s presence has, apparently, a deeper significance than merely being the centre of the film’s moral discourse. When examining Mehboob Khan’s Anmol Ghadi, we saw the figure of the sacrificing mother and understood how her representation as bread provider suggested that she allegorized the land. Significantly, Leela in Awaara is also shown to be milling wheat—although in only one brief sequence. More important is another scene in which the child Raj returns home and Leela tells him that his food is kept aside Page 16 of 24

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The First Years of Independence but that she herself has not eaten. She therefore requests Raj to leave some rotis and some vegetable for her after he has satisfied his own hunger. When Raj actually searches the kitchen he finds no food there at all and this prompts him to steal for the first time. If we are justified in seeing the mother in Anmol Ghadi as personifying the land, the mother in Awaara also does so but the land is now tragically unable to provide. If this sounds too extreme a statement for Hindi cinema of the 1950s, it was K.A. Abbas, who directed Dharti Ke Lal who also scripted Awaara. Dharti Ke Lal, has a similar discourse to offer although its methods are not allegorical but naturalistic. Given this interpretation of the mother in Awaara, the position of Judge Raghunath in the story takes on new significance. Judge Raghunath is, incidentally, Leela’s second husband because he states under oath that she was a widow when he married her. If the virtuous Leela personifies the land, Judge Raghunath is evidently only its second master. Further, while Leela lives in a slum with her child Raj, Judge Raghunath lives a life of luxury. This could have been attributed to Hindi cinema’s love of ostentation if Raj had not asked Rita how a judge became so wealthy and Rita had not assured him that Raghunath ‘does not take bribes’. The more closely we examine Awaara, the more clearly does Judge Raghunath emerge as apathetic state authority, (p.122) characteristically unmindful of the land and those dependent upon it. Even his faith in lineage reflects the entrenchment of the upper castes in the government. Once these interpretations of Judge Raghunath and Leela are admitted, Raj’s relationship with the two emerges as going beyond an ‘oedipal conflict’ and Awaara means something more immediate. The characters and the situations are presented in archetypal terms and mythological associations are also made22 but it is still useful to read this side of the film as covertly political.

The Professional Criminal and the Law An aspect of Awaara not discussed so far is that it is one of the first films in Hindi cinema where the villain is represented by the figure of the professional criminal. The villains in the reformist films are social types (the affluent widower in Duniya Na Mane, the zamindar’s son in Jhoola) used to problematize certain key areas where social reform was possible and the change of heart brought about in the villain was the way chosen to represent ‘reform’. In the socials after 1947, such changes of heart disappear from the narrative but the villains are still identifiable as social types (the manipulative city woman of Bawre Nain, the aristocratic dowry hunter in Sheesh Mahal). One recognizes the underlying social conflict betokened by these characters and, whatever the outcome of the story, there is still a confidence in the films that the underlying social conflict is itself resolvable. In Awaara, Jagga’s conduct throws doubt upon his contention that it was Judge Raghunath who made him a criminal. He is initially described as a ‘daku’ and rides on horseback but later becomes an urban criminal who robs banks. The spectator tends to regard Jagga as deliberately placed within the narrative simply to do ‘evil’ to Raj and Leela, and in my reading of Awaara Page 17 of 24

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The First Years of Independence Jagga is the one quantity not immediately interpretable in social terms. He is also the only entity that cannot participate in any resolution and his removal is so essential to the story that its resolution depends upon it. Since Awaara can be imagined without Jagga (Raghunath and Leela’s estrangement could, for instance, have been brought about by misunderstandings) what does the criminal’s presence imply? Jagga emerges as an element deliberately introduced into the narrative to shoulder the blame so that Judge Raghunath gets the absolution that he does not deserve. To phrase this differently, (p.123) considering that the relationship between Raghunath and Leela allegorizes an actual conflict within the space of the nation, Jagga’s convenient presence suggests that the conflict lacks an applicable social solution. This reading of Jagga’s role is not important to Awaara itself but it has relevance to my interpretation of the more extravagant villains of later-day Hindi cinema, especially in the 1970s and thereafter. Guru Dutt’s Baazi (1951) is another film that introduces the professional criminal into the narrative. Although I will be examining his films only in the next chapter, the most significant departures in narrative form in the cinema of the 1950s come from Guru Dutt. His directorial effort Baazi also introduces the figure of the professional criminal at around the same time as Awaara. In Baazi the hero Madan (Dev Anand), a professional gambler, and the doctor Rajani (Kalpana Kartik) are brought closer because Madan’s sister is ill with tuberculosis and needs medical assistance. A policeman Ramesh also loves Rajani and Rajani’s rich father (K.N. Singh), who is secretly the proprietor of a nightclub named ‘Star Hotel’, favours Ramesh. Rajani’s father contrives to have the hero framed for a murder for which he is himself responsible and Madan is sentenced to death. The policeman Ramesh is however not convinced and arranges a trap for the villain (a few hours before Madan is due to be hanged) and arrests him although this means an end to his own dreams of marrying Rajani. Further, Ramesh misleads the villain by feigning to be assisting his ‘father-inlaw’ but, at the crucial moment, asserts that his duty to the state is primary and must take precedence over personal interests. This act of Ramesh corresponds to a new sense of gravity in being a policeman and runs parallel to the new sanctity associated with the courtroom. It is in the films around this time that surrendering to the police also becomes an admission of moral guilt (for example, Footpath, 1953). The villain in Baazi is unlike Jagga in as much as he is more human, though still beyond the pale of reform and eventually necessitating removal. Popular Indian cinema provides for two categories of villains: those whose misdeeds can be attributed to factors such as greed, miserliness, and pride and those who are simply ‘evil’. The first kind is often related to a protagonist by ties of blood and is eventually able to change. The second, more shadowy kind subscribes to no family ties and is also responsible for the more dastardly acts (like premeditated murder). Jagga may be one of the earliest from the second category (p.124) but Page 18 of 24

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The First Years of Independence the villain in Baazi seems to belong to both categories, although his facile removal also underplays his blood relationship with Rajani.

The Arrival of Modernity Baazi is an early film intended as a vehicle for its star Dev Anand but it contains elements not found in the cinema of the period. Most of Guru Dutt’s early films have the appearance of being shot on location and song/dance sequences are filmed in spaces used by the narrative although ‘picturesque’ qualities are absent in them. Ravi Vasudevan makes an observation about films of the 1950s, more applicable to Awaara and Baazi although Anokhi Ada and Barsaat also provide the street with the same qualities. Whatever the degree of fabrication, the street scene of the 1940s and the 1950s is animated by the activity of newspaper hawkers, vegetable peddlers, construction workers, mechanics, urchins and shoe-shine boys, petty thieves, pedestrians going about their business. Vehicles—cycles, trucks, cars, trolleys, buses, and significant places—railway stations, cafes, the red-light area, are also deployed in the semantics of the street and of movement.23 These elements often go along with low-key lighting and chiaroscuro effects that show the influence of American film noir although the resemblance stops there.24 The observation to be made is however that the kind of imagery just described can be associated with a new vision of ‘modernity’ more palpable than the allegorical version in Andaz. In Andaz, the arrival of modernity is treated only as a theoretical possibility while the later films (especially those after 1950) apparently regard it as certainty. It is this ‘modern’ milieu that also becomes the home of urban criminals like Jagga and the shadowy owner of ‘Star Hotel’ in Baazi.

The narrative of Baazi is polarized between those who are traditional (Madan’s sister and Madan actually) and those who are ‘modern’ (the villain and the dancer Leena). Interestingly, the heroine Rajani is also ‘modern’ (a doctor) although this is ‘good’ modernity as opposed to the ‘bad’ one. Madan’s brief relationship with the dancer is perhaps a way of allegorizing both the attractions and the threats of the wrong kind of modernity, while his fruitful relationship with Rajani suggests that benefits accrue from the right kind. That Rajani is the daughter of (p.125) Star Hotel’s proprietor suggests that both good modernity and bad modernity derive from the same source but that the traditional Indian must make the right choices. The advent of modernity into India during the early Nehru era brings the city into focus as never before but the hero’s mobility between social spaces in films like Baazi and Awaara also problematizes the notion of social identity. Much of the action in these films takes place in the street, sometimes interpreted as the unstable terrain where social mobility is possible. Most of the characters in

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The First Years of Independence these films (originally middle class and respectable) go through upheavals and their social identities are questioned or threatened.25

Subjects of the Independent Nation With the independent nation achieving some stability, Indian cinema exhibits characteristics not in evidence before 1947. One of these characteristics is admission of the notion of subjecthood into the narrative and another is the manner in which the institutions of the state are invoked. It is pertinent that although the films are not involved directly with the modern Indian state, the issues of rulership and subjecthood are problematized in a new way and an especially revealing film is Vijay Bhatt’s Baiju Bawra (1952). Baiju Bawra is about a young man from a rustic background (Bharat Bhushan) who, during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, challenges the supremacy of the court musician Tansen and defeats him in a musical contest. A more detailed account of the film is out of place here and we may restrict ourselves to examining how the film makes clear-cut distinctions between ‘the common folk’ and the agents of governance. Apart from doing this through costume, the realm of the people is also represented by spaces open to the sky while enclosed ‘urban’ spaces represent the dominion of state power. Baiju’s songs (which are marked out as ‘people’s music’ and rendered spontaneously) are straightforward film music while court music is shown to be classical. Classical music in Indian cinema is inevitably part of a formal performance within the narrative and is not, like film music, represented as the spontaneous expression of an emotional state.26 Film music is ‘natural’ but classical music is cultivated. Devotional film music is also more religious than classical music, which is represented as secular. (p.126) As Baiju Bawra demonstrates, devotional film music is for God but classical music can only be for the Emperor. All these are conventions and Baiju Bawra uses them to represent the court musician and his music as directly dependent upon state patronage and, therefore, removed from the people. The film does not ridicule Tansen but there is implicit satire in the episode where a court lackey with musical pretensions bursts into discord and labels his music raag ‘sarkari Kanada’ (‘sarkari’ is ‘govenmental’) when Tansen himself is shown composing the raag ‘Darbari Kanada’ (‘darbari’ is ‘courtly’). Baiju ‘learns’ classical music from a man of god named Swami Haridas, not for its own sake but for the sake of revenge, and after he has gained acceptance within the walls of the Emperor’s palace he returns to his own village for the denouement. The film does not show government as ‘imposed’ upon the people but as ‘removed’ from them (as classicism in music also is) and one therefore detects a critique of the state within the film that could perhaps only have come after a taste of Independence. I propose that the critical discourse in the film would have been impossible before 1947. This is not because such a statement would have been disallowed but because the accusation of the government being

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The First Years of Independence ‘removed from the people’, might not have touched a chord with audiences if made about a colonial government. Although an absolute monarch represents ‘the government’ in Baiju Bawra, the state is still an impersonal entity. This can be contrasted with a film like Sohrab Modi’s Pukar (1939), which is about events in the time of the Emperor Jehangir, and there is no evidence of an impersonal ‘government’ mediating between the Emperor and his subjects. The redressal of grievances by the Emperor is treated as a one-to-one affair with each individual subject. Modi’s film does not address the notion of subjecthood under an impersonal state apparatus as Baiju Bawra does. Another film of some importance is Mehboob Khan’s Aan (1952). This film is a kind of adventure yarn dealing with a Rajput hero played by Dilip Kumar. The villain is Prince Shamsher Singh, who deposes the king and seizes power, and the film also introduces an anglicized princess who despises the rustic ways of the hero. When the prince (Premnath) kidnaps the village maiden (Nimmi) and she dies attempting to save her honour, the hero kidnaps the princess (Nadira) and makes her (p.127) ‘live the life of an Indian woman’. In Aan, as in Baiju Bawra, we find an argument about rulers grown distant from their subjects. Both films— Baiju Bawra and Aan—are about doings under benevolent monarchs and not under democratic rule, but I presume that subjecthood under the two political dispensations is a broadly similar experience. Baiju Bawra and Aan came after a taste of democratic ‘self-rule’ and the experience goes back into the films to reinforce a critique of the democratic state. This interpretation of Aan, I must clarify, differs from other readings.27 The response of popular cinema to the aftermath of 1947 is especially revealing though ‘Freedom’ and ‘Partition’ do not feature as popular subjects. We have much to learn about the early years of Independence from Indian popular cinema and the information is actually made more reliable because of this cinema’s avoiding ‘Independence’ as a subject. If popular cinema had dealt directly with Independence as an experience, we could not have been certain of the honesty of its portrayals and we might have been unsure of the extent to which it was towing an ‘official’ line. Since we see it deal with the experience only indirectly—in terms of romances and sacrifices, friendships and family ties, metaphor and allegory—the truths excavated from it are perhaps more secure. Notes:

(1.) Sumita S. Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema: 1947– 1987, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 99. (2.) Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, New Delhi: Penguin, 1997, pp. 33–4. (3.) Ibid., pp. 33–4.

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The First Years of Independence (4.) Ibid., pp. 75–6. (5.) Ravi S. Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities: The Hindi Popular Film of the 1950s as Popular Culture’, in Ravi S. Vasudevan (ed.), Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford UniversityPress, 2000, p. 120, n. 61. (6.) Ibid., p. 115. (7.) Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, p. 99. (8.) Vijay Mishra, Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 52–5. (9.) K.A. Nilakanta Sastry, G. Srinivasachari, Advanced History of India, Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1973, p. 721. See also web-site www.itihas.com/modern/nehruprofile. (10.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 77. (11.) Ibid., p. 242. See also R.C. Majumdar, H.C. Raychaudhuri, Kalikinkar Datta, An Advanced History of India, New Delhi: Macmillan India, 1983, pp. 987–90. (12.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 77. (13.) Ibid., p. 75. (14.) Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, p. 109. (15.) Examples include Manirathnam’s Tamil film Nayakan (1987), the Kannada film Gandhadagudi (1973), directed by Vijay and J.P. Dutta’s Yateem (1988). In fact, the only film in my recollection to subvert this convention is Yateem where a dacoit’s son grows up to become an honest police officer despite the suspicion with which he is viewed. (16.) Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, p. 110. (17.) To Ravi Vasudevan (Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, p. 113), the photograph represents ‘a time of innocence, before the advent of the oedipal contest with the father and the drives of desire and aggression’. (18.) Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai, Sholay: A Cultural Reading, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1992, pp. 53–4, describe Raj Kapoor’s cinema as a ‘cinema of security’ because it also reconciles social protest with maintaining the status quo. See also Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai, Raj Kapoor’s Films: Harmony of Discourses, New Delhi: Vikas Publishers, 1988.

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The First Years of Independence (19.) Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, The Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 300. Also see Gayatri Chatterjee, Awaara, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1992, pp. 29–34. Chatterjee explicitlty labels Jagga as the surrogate father to Raj and justifies it by citing his position as Raj’s benefactor when Raj is in trouble. This entire sequence— involving Jagga’s second appearance in the film—is filmed to show Jagga in sinister light and this makes the reading problematic. Or rather, if he is a surrogate father, he is hardly from the same mould as the Kailas Nath in HAHK (See Chapter 1). (20.) Chatterjee, Awaara, p. 18. (21.) Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, p. 112. (22.) I earlier remarked that Awaara repeats the motif of the virtuous woman whose fidelity to a man is unfairly suspected, an act for which the man is eventually punished. In Awaara, Judge Raghunath is persuaded to cast out his wife by a prying neighbour who remarks that even Seeta (in the Ramayana) had to go through an ordeal by fire before her innocence was established. Ravana kidnaps Seeta in the Ramayana just as Jagga kidnaps Leela in Awaara, inducing Raghunath to suspect that Leela’s unborn child is Jagga’s. See also Vijay Mishra, ‘Towards a Theoretical Critique of Bombay Cinema’, Screen, vol. 26(3–4), 1985, p. 138. (23.) Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, p. 115. (24.) Ibid., p. 110. (25.) Still, as Ravi Vasudevan notes, ‘very rarely does the transformation of identity extend as far as a specifically working-class moment in the trajectory of loss. Loss and uprootment are contained by a moral opposition between the proper middle-class image of respected householdership and its other, the thief, who battens on that which is not his.’ Ibid., p. 111. (26.) This finds correspondence with the Hollywood musical where a hierarchy is set up between the spontaneity and immediacy of the popular music of the streets and the staged performances of the theatre, between amateur and professional singing. The films starring K.L. Saigal like Street Singer (1938) also relied on the implicit hierarchy between the ‘natural’ and the ‘trained’ voice. See Neepa Majumdar, ‘The Embodied Voice: Song Sequences and Stardom in Popular Hindi Cinema’, in Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Arthur Knight (eds), Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001, pp. 166–8. (27.) Jyotika Virdi, The Cinematic ImagiNation, Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003, pp. 45–6. According to Virdi, the princess’s domestication should be read as the routing of colonialism although she does not explain why the ‘colonizer’ should Page 23 of 24

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The First Years of Independence be made to ‘live the life of an Indian woman’ if the film were simply an attack on tyrannical colonial rule by the British.

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The 1950s and 1960s

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

The 1950s and 1960s The Idea of ‘India’ M.K. Raghavendra

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords This chapter is devoted to the films of the 1950s and 1960s. Films during the Nehru era were optimistic about India and its modernity. Common issues tackled in the popular films of this era include secularism, national identity, and land reform. The period after 1962 witnessed a change in the characteristics of popular cinema, largely to do with the Indo-Chinese War. India's defeat brought the period of optimistic nationalism almost to an abrupt close. Although the Chinese debacle dampened national sentiments, Indian films were not threatened by trauma. Rather they simply retreated from social responsiveness and shifted the locality from the city to scenic spots and hill stations. Keywords:   1950s, 1960s, Nehru era, secularism, national identity, land reform, post-1962, IndoChinese War, social responsiveness

The Preoccupations of the 1950s If the early years of Independence emerge as a period in which warring classes or groups made contrary claims upon a youthful state, the reduced turbulence of the ten years after 1950 is reflected in the motifs exhibited by popular cinema in the period, which are also relatively stable. Films like Awaara and Baazi apparently fit in the later period because neither of these films display the motifs identified in Babul, Mahal, Bawre Nain, or Sheesh Mahal. Despite its radical declamations on behalf of the disadvantaged, Awaara is about the privations unfairly forced upon representatives of a single privileged class. The protagonists of Baazi may belong to different social classes but the film also Page 1 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s declines to problematize the difference. The same characteristic continues well into the 1950s. Although the issue of ‘social disadvantage’ continues to engage much of this cinema, most films deal exclusively with the experiences of a single social group (sometimes a proletarian class) and those outside it are reduced in stature to an ‘other’. To explain through an illustration, the device of two women of different classes making their claims upon a single hero (as in Mahal, Bawre Nain, and Babul) is not in evidence after 1950. In the last chapter I tried to follow the chronology of the films but such an approach is less necessary between 1950 and 1960 because individual films separated by as many as seven to nine years often display the same identifiable motifs. Baazi (1951), Aar Paar (1954), and (p.129) Kala Bazaar (1960) appear to fit into one pattern although they are chronologically far apart. A similar remark may be made about Anarkali (1953) and Mughal-e-Azam (1960) not only because both films are about the love of Prince Salim for the slave girl Anarkali but also because they do not differ in emphasis. The stability of the motifs suggests that the years were relatively uneventful after 1950, the year of Sardar Patel’s death. The Congress Party secured overwhelming mandates in 1952 and 1957 and the Prime Minister’s hands remained strong. The years between 1950 and 1962 were given to optimism and Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy initiatives played a part in this national self-esteem. The innumerable visits by high-ranking state visitors made India seem particularly relevant and important to the Indian political commentators of the day.1 The films of the 1950s are usually optimistic about ‘India’ but that is not to deny the misgivings voiced in some of them. The major issue preoccupying the Nehru era was the encounter with modernity and this is reflected in the films of the period although in different ways. The other issues addressed are those of secularism and national unity and some films also engage with the issue of land reform. This chapter is devoted to cinema up to the late 1960s but something apparently changes after 1962. I therefore propose to begin by examining the films of the earlier period since they pertain to the period in the Nehru era given to optimistic nationalism.

Moral Authority and the Institutions of the State In the last chapter I described how the courtroom and the police increasingly represent the moral authority of the independent state after 1947 and the tendency continues to an even greater degree after 1950 when the institutions are constantly affirmed. One kind of affirmation is achieved when the law enforcer himself (usually a judge or policeman) becomes the subject of moral scrutiny in the sacred site of the courtroom. The films that can be cited here include Raj Khosla’s CID (1956), a crime drama where the police inspector is unfairly implicated in a ‘lock-up death’. Significantly, the inspector is shown in civilian clothes as if to suggest that the individual rather than the institution is being implicated. Another film to use the motif of the servant of the law (a judge) being subjected to moral scrutiny through a courtroom trial is Yash Chopra’s

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The 1950s and 1960s Dhool Ka Phool (1959) and I will (p.130) be examining the film in detail in another context subsequently in the chapter. In the last chapter I remarked that only after Independence does surrendering to the police become an admission of moral guilt and that is how many films conclude. In Zia Sarhadi’s Footpath (1953), Noshu (Dilip Kumar) is an impoverished writer who joins a gang of profiteers hoarding medicines during the War and grows very rich. The film is set in pre-Independence India but it emphasizes a viewpoint specific to the 1950s when the law becomes the final moral arbiter. Another film that can be cited here is Ramesh Saigal’s Phir Subah Hogi (1958), based on Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Significantly, Ramu (Raj Kapoor) is a law student in the film and only surrenders in court when he discovers that an innocent man will be convicted in his stead. The two historical films about Prince Salim and Anarkali also elaborate upon the disinterestedness of state justice. Both films— Anarkali (1953) and Mughal-eAzam (1960)—are about Prince Salim falling in love with the slave girl Anarkali although his father, the Emperor Akbar, frowns upon their relationship. It may be asked how falling in love with a slave girl constitutes a ‘misdemeanour’ in the eyes of the law but his own father—in both films—sentences the Prince to death. The instruction is apparently that no one, however highborn, can be above the state’s justice. In both films, Akbar is also associated with the notion of ‘Hindustan’ (or India) and the Emperor always takes his painful decisions on behalf of this entity, repeatedly invoked. In Mehboob Khan’s Amar (1954) the hero Amarnath (Dilip Kumar) is an upright advocate who assists the village folk against a ruffian named Sankat. Although he is engaged to the affluent and socially conscious Anju (Madhubala), Amarnath has a sexual relationship with a humble milkmaid named Sonia, who becomes pregnant. Sonia refuses to reveal who the father of her child is and Amar is too cowardly to accept responsibility. The film reaches its climax when Sankat guesses that the advocate is the father and attempts to kill Amarnath, although it is Sankat who dies. Sonia is falsely implicated in the killing and she confesses in order to save Amarnath. In the final courtroom scene Amar defends Sonia and confesses to the crime when her conviction seems imminent. Amar finally marries Sonia and Anju is despondent, although with the determined air of a social worker. (p.131) The interesting point about Amar is not only that the advocate should stand trial in court but also that Sonia is not represented as ‘poor’ but only as belonging to the ‘people’. Sonia lives in a milieu where domestic animals (goats, cows, chicken) always surround her and the implication is that the land has so much to offer that humble people may not be ‘poor’. This also implies that the antagonism between the ‘poor’ and the ‘rich’ is not problematized in Amar. If Amarnath and Anju belong to the ‘ruling class’, there is no antagonism between Page 3 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s them and the ‘common people’ because Anju always has Sonia’s interests at heart and, rather than drawing Amarnath away from her, she is actually attentive to the girl’s predicament. Another interesting film in this context is Guru Dutt’s Jaal (1952), which has Dev Anand in one of his more important roles. In Jaal Dev Anand plays a notorious gold smuggler named Tony and the film begins when his companion Lisa escapes a police dragnet. The plot of the film revolves around Tony (Dev Anand), Lisa, the local belle Maria (Geeta Bali), Maria’s blind sibling Carlo (K.N. Singh), and her fiancé Simon. Despite Lisa’s warnings and with little thought for Simon, Maria becomes involved in a relationship with Tony although he is evidently not trustworthy and strikes a nefarious deal with two disreputable Arabs. The police have been several steps behind Tony but at the climax of the film they finally close in. Tony attempts to get away with Maria and the two Arabs and she is startled to discover the ease with which Tony abandons her when he is in peril. He is finally persuaded to surrender by Maria when his position becomes hopeless. The choice of a fictitious location outside India is strange but this factor allows Jaal many of its liberties. As observed earlier, the institutions of the state acquire a new gravity in the 1950s. Setting Jaal outside India therefore allows the film freedom in its portrayal of the police and Inspector Gomez is a comic figure with no clue as to Tony’s doings. Tony triumphs routinely over these guardians of the law and the more ruthless his victories are, the more ambivalent his portrayal becomes. These aspects of the film neither infuse Tony with glamour nor make him despicable in our eyes and the film’s ethical discourse becomes ambivalent. Tony stoops lowest when he abandons Maria; such amorality is startling especially considering the moral polarization prevalent in popular cinema. Still, it must also be acknowledged that, in the 1950s, the allegorized nation is often the agent facilitating the (p.132) polarization. My argument is that it is the absence of the nation in Jaal that prevents its moral ‘polarization’ and therefore also permits its uncharacteristic ambivalence. S.M. Sreeramulu Naidu’s Azad (1955) is based on the director’s own Tamil film Malaikallan (1954), which was employed as an instrument of regional political propaganda by the DMK Party much as the earlier Parasakthi (1952) was. I hypothesized in the first chapter that the Hindi film kept its discourse ‘catholic’ in order to address audiences throughout the space of the nation. This implies that the ‘regionalist’ discourse in a Tamil film serving the DMK cause would need to be toned down if remade in Hindi. By having its climax in the courtroom, Parasakthi2 demonstrates that a Tamil film can be mindful of the independent nation but still scornful of the government and the police in a way that the Hindi films of the period are not. Regional films (especially those serving the DMK cause) are stuck in a curious bind in as much as they affirm the independent nation while promoting clashing local issues (such as the DMK-inspired Page 4 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s satirizing of ‘Independence’ and ‘progress’ under Congress rule).3 Azad provides evidence that the breeze of optimism generated by Independence, although still felt, is considerably less robust when it blows away from the ‘centre’. The hero of Azad is a vigilante and when the villain kidnaps the heroine with the intention of forcing her into marriage, the vigilante hero intervenes. The police, who regard the vigilante as a ‘bandit’ initially, also change their minds when they understand his good intentions. Azad gives us another comic portrayal of the police, the inspector redeeming himself only in the final battle with the villains. What is also pertinent is the uncharacteristic notion of ‘vigilante justice’ in the film. The notion gains ground only when the official forces of justice are morally discredited and it is only in the 1980s that vigilante justice is widely promoted in Hindi cinema. Azad may be a Hindi film with major Hindi stars (Dilip Kumar and Meena Kumari) but its discourse is sometimes contrary to the tendencies of the times and this is due to its origins in the propagandist DMK film.

The City We saw the intrusion of the city into key films of the post-Independence era and the trend consolidates itself after 1950. The fascination (p.133) exhibited by popular cinema for the city was with good reason. After 1947, Nehru’s dominating nationalist ambition in turn set out to recreate the city for its own purposes: to make it not only the symbol of a new sovereignty but an effective engine to drive India into the modern world.4 The city was therefore a persuasive emblem for ‘Nehruvian modernity’. Before going on to examine the city films of the 1950s, it must be remarked that the ‘modernity’ of the Nehru era is a different modernity from the one heralded by Phalke and Ravi Varma—because the independent nation is one of its key movers. If the city is an optimistic emblem of this modernity, this is best seen in films like Guru Dutt’s Aar Paar (1954). Guru Dutt’s film also exhibits many of the characteristics of his own Baazi. There is an accentuated degree of instability in the hero’s social identity because he has no kin and when the film begins, we see him emerging from jail where he was confined for negligent driving. Kalu (Guru Dutt) is a motor mechanic and a driver by profession and he comes out of jail with a message for a shadowy villain known as ‘the Captain’ who owns a sleazy club in the city. Aar Paar is unusual for the absence of the emblems of upper/ middleclass respectability that appear necessary to Indian popular cinema of other periods. The hero is barely literate and belongs to the urban working class. His romantic interest is also not of the middle class— her father worked his way up the social ladder to acquire his own garage. By denying his hero all signs of a lineage Guru Dutt also makes his moral attributes self-acquired and this is clearly a radical departure for Indian popular cinema. The space of the narrative in Indian popular cinema, as indicated earlier, is an exalted one and the action in it is usually morally instructive to the spectator. I suggested that the parental presence is often the method by which moral values Page 5 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s are brought into the narrative. Guru Dutt’s two films decline to do so and even the ‘first cause’ is innocuous, but they do not find themselves driven into an ethical limbo. Guru Dutt’s films all depart significantly from the traditional model and a reason for this is the filmmaker’s deliberate use of the milieu. Guru Dutt’s films appear deeply grounded in the present and this is perhaps because of his responsiveness to the spaces in which he locates the action. In these films we see street scenes animated by the activity of newspaper hawkers, vegetable vendors, trucks, trolleys, cars, buses and (p.134) pedestrians. Where other films virtually eliminate the ‘noise’ from the locale to focus exclusively upon narrower motifs, Guru Dutt’s Aar Paar is involved in its urban milieu, and actually leaves the space of the narrative exposed to the winds of its times. Aar Paar may be one of the few wholeheartedly optimistic films in Indian cinema and the optimism finds its domicile in the city. Other films not quite as optimistic still find the city strangely attractive. These other films often portray the city as a shifting and ambiguous space and their protagonists are individuals with their roots in the countryside. There are two distinct categories in the films where the protagonist is newly arrived in the city. The first of these shows him/her migrating to the city from a rustic environment, as in Do Bigha Zamin (1954), and the second shows him as an outsider in it, as in Shri 420 (1951). Both these categories make it apparent that ethical values are easily misplaced in the city and it is the countryside that is morally the more dependable space. In Naya Daur (1957) the villain descends from the city to wreak havoc upon village society. A suggestion is also made in the film that the village is ‘desh’ (nation) and that the city is ‘foreign’. The city may awaken the spectator’s apprehensions but its glamour and its attractions are also self-evident in the 1950s and most films have a curious love–hate relationship with it. This strange fascination is also evidenced by the numerous films of the period that proclaim themselves through English titles, terms with urban associations— Passport, Paying Guest, Howrah Bridge, Black Market, New Delhi, Taxi Driver, Footpath, House Number 44, CID, and Railway Platform. It is also interesting that, contrary to what was said in the first chapter,5 these titles bear a metonymic relationship to the text instead of the more familiar, metaphoric one. Since the modernity represented by the Indian city is of a darker kind, it is a decadent space and, as in Baazi and Aar Paar, also the home of the urban criminal. In Raj Kapoor’s Shri 420 a Chaplin-like character named Raju comes to the city and is led astray by the decadent society types who persuade him to use his card-playing skills to earn money for them. The ‘proletarianism’ of Shri 420 differs from that of Aar Paar (and even that of Dev Anand’s films like Taxi Driver) in as much as Raju is actually a graduate and the heroine, a schoolteacher. Raju apparently has working class affiliations but, unlike the hero of Aar Paar, he is only a sympathetic outsider and not actually from the (p.135) class. His ‘proletarianism’ is like the protagonist’s in Awaara. For all his declamations Raj Page 6 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s Kapoor apparently had more reservations about portraying true proletarians than did Guru Dutt! There are other films of the same era working on different themes although the connection between them and the films just described is evident. The most striking of these films takes the shape of an urban crime thriller—Shakti Samanta’s Howrah Bridge (1958)—in which the figure of the urban gangster gains more prominence. These films create an ambience comparable to films like Baazi and Aar Paar without the ambivalent attitude towards the city that makes the latter films memorable. There is nevertheless convincing evidence that both kinds of films were influenced by American film noir because of the kind of imagery they employ, their dark ambience, the cigarette smoke always clouding the air in the indoor sequences.6 Film noir, however, is preoccupied with issues of moral choice while the determined universe of Indian popular film narrative makes inquiry on these lines impossible. The resemblance therefore remains superficial.7 My decision to look at only the ‘story’ has meant that my inquiry generally restricts itself to the plot but a question that may be asked is whether meaning does not also accrue through editing, shot composition, camera movement, etc. Do not these technical aspects intrude upon the story and alter its emphasis? Is not something crucial being lost if they are not discussed? While I admit that this doubt will be pertinent to cinema in general, I would insist that the loss suffered by not examining such technical devices and restricting oneself to the plot is less significant in the case of Indian popular cinema and this is broadly attributable to the omniscience of the camera eye. Since I have just dealt with the city films of the 1950s—including crime films like CID—which are seen by many critics to bear the imprint of American noir, I should perhaps use them to substantiate my claim. In the first chapter I described the compositions in popular cinema as largely flat; but the black-and-white films of the 1950s deliberately employ chiaroscuro lighting in the manner of American noir of the 1950s. Now, film noir cannot be imagined without the notion of character subjectivity and what the spectator sees on the screen is permeated by what a character perceives—or feels. To illustrate, a recurring motif in noir cinema is the enigmatic woman, the implications (p.136) of whose actions gradually dawn upon the male protagonist (for example Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity). I would like to argue that only character subjectivity allows for the ‘enigmatic woman’ (that is: to whom is she mysterious?). In Indian ‘noir’ not only is the camera eye omniscient but the other components of the filmic storytelling (for example the performances) also work against the creation of such mystery. To state my argument in more general terms, changing the emphasis in the plot through technical devices necessarily implicates the notion of character subjectivity. If character subjectivity is disallowed, if the omniscient eye is a necessary factor in Page 7 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s filmic storytelling, there is apparently no way of changing the emphasis—not even through chiaroscuro lighting.8 This is why I am not convinced that the striking ‘expressionist’ camera work of 1950s popular cinema is anything more than embellishment. But that is not to say that the formal/technological aspects do not contribute to the ‘content’ of popular cinema because they do, sometimes. The employment of colour in Mother India (1957) is evidently such an instance and I have already tried to demonstrate how Indian cinema changed after the most important technical innovation of them all— the coming of sound. Returning to the city films, it is not the more pessimistic visions but the happier films with Dev Anand that successfully evoke the emotions aroused by the city in the 1950s. Dev Anand’s older brother Chetan Anand, who later also directed him, was initially involved with the Indian People’s Theatre Movement (IPTA) but became instrumental in IPTA’s transition from the social realist mode of Dharti Ke Lal to a brand of cinema influenced by Hollywood filmmakers like Huston and Capra. Dev Anand’s first two important films Baazi and Jaal, directed by Guru Dutt who belonged to the same group, have already been discussed. If Jaal allowed Dev Anand’s curiously amoral persona to emerge, the star went on from strength to strength after this film through portrayals that draw upon it. It is perhaps not accidental that Dev Anand’s most important films in the 1950s—Taxi Driver (1954), CID (1956), Paying Guest (1957), Kala Pani (1958), Kala Bazaar (1960)—are all set in urban milieus and the star often combines in his persona the charm of the city and its moral ambivalence. Many of the films of this period take recourse to the motif of the ‘club dancer’ although the career of the actress Helen (long synonymous with (p.137) the ‘cabaret’ in Hindi cinema) became fruitful only afterwards. This observation ultimately leaves one wondering about the discourse of the ‘club dance’. In some films a relatively important actress (Geeta Bali in Baazi, Shiela Ramani in Taxi Driver) plays the dancer and the protagonist becomes the object of the dancer’s love. Other films have only brief dances and the dancer is not given an important role within the narrative. Since the club dance routine is not ‘glamorous’ (as in later films with actresses like Helen, Padma Khanna, and Faryal) but deliberately low, one wonders about its intent. In these films of the 1950s the nightclub is not a retreat for the wealthy but a decidedly sleazy space in which the dancer is apparently trying to create the illusion of the ‘modern’. The explanation that fits the experience of the early club dance is that it stands as a metaphor for the mixed feelings towards the modernizing imperative. In films like Baazi where the protagonist is caught between the traditional heroine and the ‘Westernized’ dancer the final triumph of ‘tradition’ is perhaps also a kind of cultural reassurance. Raj Khosla’s Kala Pani (1958) is a bolder and a more ‘progressive’ film than Taxi Driver in as much as it makes some pertinent historical references to its times and also makes fewer concessions to ‘tradition’. In the film Karan (Dev Anand) Page 8 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s discovers that the father he presumed dead has actually been in jail in Hyderabad for the past fifteen years. Shankarlal was convicted for the murder of the kotha dancer Mala when Karan was still a boy but his mother did not divulge the information because of apprehension over what the shame might do to the boy. The rest of the film is about Karan teaming up with a newspaper reporter named Asha (Madhubala) and their discovery that the public prosecutor—at the behest of a former Dewan (Prime Minister) named Sardarilal—deliberately suppressed information. After several trials and tribulations proof of Sardarilal’s guilt is handed over to Asha’s newspaper and the news is splashed all over the front page. Kala Pani is an unusual film in Indian cinema, partly because of the way in which it evokes changing times. The fifteen-year period of Shankarlal’s detainment sees enormous changes, one of which is the growth of the adolescent witness Kishori to full maturity. The inspector in charge of the case has also retired and the moment of his retirement is linked to the end of British rule in India. At one moment in the film Karan hears newspapermen discussing the situation caused by the (p.138) ‘landing of Panditji’s airplane’. As we are already aware, this kind of historical specificity is rare in Indian popular cinema. Another significant ploy is the choice of Hyderabad as the location because the Nizam’s state was one of the most reluctant to join Nehru’s India. Making the villain a Dewan from Hyderabad can be read as a covert comment on the continued use of informal power by dispossessed feudal authority and its preventing democratic justice to its own. Madhava Prasad also draws our attention to the way the film specifically mobilizes the ‘nation’ (as represented by the newspaper) instead of the diffuse ‘community’ against its villain.9 Most of Dev Anand’s films in the 1950s apply themselves to the task of building a star persona in tune with the times. A new kind of urban hero not overly bound by moral codes, he is comfortable with the idea of a fast changing world, being chameleon-like in his ability to adapt to it socially. It is perhaps in the service of this notion that several of the films—Kala Pani, Munimji (1955), Paying Guest (1957)—include extended sequences where the protagonist uses a disguise, pretending to belong to a different social group in order to achieve his ends. Instead of relaying a message, many of the ‘city films’ of the 1950s (specifically those of Guru Dutt) are inclined to simply tell a story. Hollywood apparently influenced the directors individually, but there may be other explanations for why ‘city films’ like Aar Paar or Kala Pani do not relay pre-existent meanings, making it difficult to read them as allegory. This is recognizable if Aar Paar or Kala Pani are compared to Andaz, with the latter’s lament over the incursions of the modern into the heroine’s life. Why do the city films of the 1950s differ in this conspicuous way? In the first chapter I conjectured that the ‘immutable truths’ constituting the relayed ‘meaning’ in any film were inheritances from a ‘pre-capitalist’ era. When dealing with the city films of the 1950s, I also Page 9 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s suggested that they represent a response to modernity—no longer only a possibility but had actually arrived by the middle of the Nehru era. My interpretation of the lack of sententiousness in films like Jaal, Aar Paar, and Kala Pani is that being preoccupied with the modern they also acknowledge the unsuitability of ‘pre-capitalist’ truths to the 1950s. This also explains why sententiousness returns when the ‘encounter with modernity’ is no longer an issue.

(p.139) Agrarian Conflict Most of the films examined so far are set in the city but two other films also require examination here because of what they reveal about agrarian conflict in the 1950s. Mother India (1957) is perhaps the most written about Indian film of all times. I invoked it briefly while examining Aurat but to describe it more closely Mother India is about Radha (Nargis), who is married to Shyamu (Raaj Kumar), who is from an agrarian family. Radha puts herself heart and soul into running her husband’s family but the fortunes of the family slip because of their debt to the moneylender Sukhilala. Radha gives birth to three children and the eldest Ramu is docile and obedient. The second one Birju, his mother’s favourite, is more rebellious and is prone, even as a child, to clashes with Sukhilala. The first part of the film is about the trials and tribulations of the couple and culminates in a sequence where the two attempt to move a boulder using a pair of oxen. When one of the animals is unable to bear the strain and succumbs, Shyamu attempts to use his own arms as levers and they are crushed when the boulder slides downward into the mud. The story of Mother India, familiar to most students of Indian cinema, is that of Aurat and it contains little that identifies it with the 1950s. Mehboob Khan however employs several oblique visual devices to contemporize the implications of the story and the most prominent of these is to attach a framing sequence with the entire story included within it as a flashback. The framing sequence shows us an irrigation dam being built and one of the dignitaries called in to inaugurate it is an elderly Ramu (Rajendra Kumar), seen in the attire of a leader and a public servant. This man then brings in his mother Radha, now an old woman, to open the sluice gates of the canal and the story is as remembered by her. While Ramu’s costume is that of a public servant, the dialogue invokes not the nation but the ‘village’ and Radha’s presence at the ceremony is deemed essential because she is the mother of the whole village. The film uses Gandhi’s oft-cited assertion that India lives in its villages to present the nation as the archetypal village.10 The story begins immediately after this opening segment, reverting to the present a moment after Birju (Sunil Dutt) dies and we see the water, now tinted symbolically with blood, flowing out to mingle with the soil. (p.140) There are also visual effects not seen in Aurat but that are devised only to fit the 1950s. Mother India has an elaborate dance sequence in which peasants are grouped together within a crop pattern shaped to resemble the Page 10 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s map of (pre-Independence) India. Several of the sequences showing Radha, either alone or with Shyamu, are composed to remind us of Soviet iconography involving working men and women. Their chests are thrust forward, their heads are held slightly back to help them look upward and their attitudes are cheerful and optimistic. The gigantism of the Soviet Union was publicly regarded as the inspiration for Nehru’s India of the period and these images therefore have a political resonance not found in Aurat. Also significant is the shrewd use of Technicolour in the film although this did not find favour with Western critics11 who would have preferred muted colours for ‘woe’. Still, there is little doubt that the film’s bright colour scheme was deliberately chosen. The clothes the characters wear are also invariably in bright colours—softer reds (often vermilion) and green. Apart from the colours invoking fertility, blood, and the earth, the saturated colours in the film not only announce ‘colour’ but also ‘new technology’, an issue that largely preoccupied Nehru’s India in the 1950s. The changes made in the story itself appear slight but they have significant consequences. As I explained in the second chapter. Shyamu’s inability to shoulder his responsibilities in Aurat can be traced to a ‘crisis of masculinity’ in the period and it is not appropriate to carry forward the same discourse into the 1950s. Shyamu loses his arms when he attempts to move a rock on his field to make it fit for cultivation. This has been widely interpreted as a ‘symbolic castration’, freeing Radha from her conjugal obligations.12 The reading that Shyamu is ‘symbolically castrated’ does not bear contradiction but the immediate emphasis is on its effect upon Shyamu and not on what it does to Radha. There is a sequence where the armless Shyamu is watering his oxen at a tank and Sukhilala walks in with his henchmen and casually snatches the animals from him. As if to mock Shyamu’s ‘emasculation’, he also hangs the bells adorning the oxen around Shyamu’s neck and departs. It is in the very next scene that Shyamu finally deserts Radha. Shyamu may be absent throughout the rest of the film but the vermilion on Radha’s forehead asserts that he still lives. Gayatri Chatterjee has some pertinent comments to make here. In the first place, she notes the sense of emasculation felt by the colonized in (p.141) relation to the colonizers13 that I commented upon in Chapter 2 in the context of Aurat. Second, she explains convincingly why Shyamu should disappear and not die in Mother India. Shyamu’s death would have meant widowhood for Radha; in effect a complete sapping of Radha’s life forces. The fact that Shyamu lives sees her retaining all her powers, finds her associated with sexuality and productivity and even acquiring a quasi-divine status.14 The second issue addressed differently in Mother India pertains to Radha’s chastity and the key sequence is the one after the flood when Radha’s children have nothing to eat and she offers herself to Sukhilala. In Aurat, nature intervenes in the shape of a storm and Sukhilala is so terrified by divine retribution that he changes into a better human being. In Mother India, Radha abruptly recollects her living husband and therefore thrashes the cowardly Page 11 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s moneylender. As other critics have noted, the discourse about Radha’s chastity is made central to the film15 and the most convincing interpretation draws upon the idea that the figure of Radha alludes to a variety of figures from Hindu mythology, especially Shakti.16 According to this reading the Shakti component dominates the figure of Radha because her relationship with men is one of ‘threatening power’. All the central male figures are implicitly destroyed or ‘castrated’ by association with her. Her husband loses both his arms following her insistence that they plough some barren land. The villainous Sukhilala cowers like a naughty infant when she beats him with a stick, also pleading abjectly for his daughter’s honour later when Birju kidnaps the girl. Radha also kills her favourite son at the climax because of his transgression.17 Another association also made by critics is between Radha’s chastity and her power. Hindu goddesses who have no regular consort are considered the most aggressive and fiery due to the fierce power of chastity, accumulating through sexual abstinence but which can also be tapped to male advantage.18 These motifs are sometimes also linked to postcolonial India, although not specifically to the 1950s. Radha’s ‘purity’ is associated with the purity of traditional values in an ideal society uncontaminated by colonial oppressors and her stand against violence is linked to the wide currency of Gandhi’s ideas. Ashis Nandy has noted that Gandhi asserted that the non-violent feminine principle was a much more potent force than uncontrolled male aggression19 and Rosie Thomas (p.142) employs Nandy’s notion usefully to explain how Birju’s destructive potency is destroyed even while Radha and her gentler son Ramu are celebrated and protected. It is here that the oedipal relationship between Radha and Birju becomes a useful pointer because the denial of Birju’s desire leads to the ‘displacement of his violence onto women’.20 While these arguments must be admitted, a few observations need to be made to place Mother India more firmly in the 1950s. The first observation is that the emotional power of the relationship between Radha and Birju does not come from the ‘oedipal drama’ alone because the same story in Aurat does not carry the same intensity. We have seen (in the context of Awaara) that ‘oedipal’ conflicts become intense in films especially after 1947 because the mother allegorizes the land. In Aurat, Radha is the long-suffering village woman and a mother whose lifetime is spent fulfilling her duties and obligations, first to her weak husband and then to her community. She is laughed at and people even throw stones at her. Radha in Mother India is already mother to the community when the film commences.21 Radha’s association with the land is made explicit in Mother India but what her relationship with Birju represents must also be understood. Birju in Mother India has been described as possessing the dark beauty of Krishna22 and he is not Page 12 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s represented in the same way as in Aurat, where he is bald and deliberately less attractive. Birju also selects his targets at random in Aurat and the girl he kidnaps is not Sukhilala’s offspring but the daughter of Radha’s friend Kamla. Birju in Mother India is virtually an agent of deliverance for the village.23 It is therefore apparent that, aside from making an association between Radha and the land, Mother India is also defining Birju in a new archetypal way to make him pertinent to the 1950s. Birju in Mother India is made a figure of rebellion against agrarian oppression (as he is not in Aurat) and we should look into the agrarian issues of the Nehru era to understand his presence. Jawaharlal Nehru began with a coherent economic plan but it had to be realized in circumstances where the outcome did not match his intentions. Among the major difficulties he faced was the unequal distribution of land ownership defended by a powerful social order and resulting in a very low level of productivity. Nehru put his faith in industrialization but since its benefits were bound to accrue slowly, he intended agricultural growth to compensate in the intervening (p.143) period. Redistribution of land was felt to be the most practical way out since this would also provide incentives to farmers and ultimately help India become self-sufficient in food. The legislation concerning land was put in the hands of provincial legislatures and this created the problem because these legislatures were also susceptible to local influences. Until 1957, the Congress ruled all the states and appropriate legislation might still have been possible but the Congress itself was a coalition of industrial capitalists, rural landlords, and the bureaucratic elite and its provincial leaders stood to lose the most through land reform. It became evident in the mid-1950s that the legislative approach to altering the property order had reached an impasse and, except in Kerala, land reform finally ground to a halt.24 The Bhoodan movement led by Acharya Vinobha Bhave had already been initiated in 1951 as a means by which landlords could voluntarily make over land for redistribution with a set target of 50 million acres. The first gift of land received by Acharya Bhave was located in the Telengana region of Hyderabad State.25 This being the region where a Communist-led peasant insurgency had already raged over land-related issues, there is a likelihood that the ‘Gandhian’ Bhoodan movement was also covertly designed to diffuse the possibility of peasant violence. Whatever the ‘true’ purpose of the movement, we need to recognize that the possibility of peasant violence erupting in the mid-1950s from the failure of land reforms was very real. Mother India advocates ‘nonviolence’ but hardly due to the currency of Gandhi’s principles alone. The film is covertly proposing Acharya Bhave’s ‘Gandhian’ methods as a viable alternative. Rosie Thomas notes that a ploy of Indian cinema is to throw the domain of kinship morality into crisis and cites Mother India as an example.26 The role of the family and kinship was explained in the first chapter but Mother India may be among the first films to bring the family and the ‘community’ into conflict so Page 13 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s violently. Radha being ‘mother’ to the community facilitates this. The conflict finds strongest expression at the climax when Radha declares to Birju that Roopa (Sukhilala’s daughter) belongs to the entire village and therefore deserves protection. To continue my reading of Mother India’s arguments against violence, the figure of Birju corresponds to the figure of the insurgent— attractive but nonetheless deserving of censure in the interests of the ‘nation’ (as community). Radha’s punishing of Birju then corresponds to the steps (p.144) (albeit reluctant) that the state might have taken if the continued failure of land reforms had eventually led to violent unrest in Nehru’s India of the late 1950s. The second film that I intend to examine in the context of agrarian conflict is Nitin Bose’s Ganga Jumna (1961), which has the same ‘nonviolent’ viewpoint to press. Ganga Jumna does not represent India in terms of a small village community but explicitly as the nation and this also leaves its discourse relatively naked. Nitin Bose’s film seems like a rearranged version of Mother India and uses colour in a similarly saturated way. Ganga (Dilip Kumar) and Jumna (Nasir Khan) are brothers who grow up in a village where the ruling economic interest is Hari Babu the local zamindar. Ganga supports his younger brother’s education in the city while Hari Babu’s wickedness sees Ganga turning into a dreaded dacoit. Jumna eventually becomes a police officer and comes into conflict with his older brother. When the heroine (Vyjayantimala) dies in a shootout Ganga pursues Hari Babu vengefully and deliberately kills him. Jumna himself reluctantly shoots down Ganga at the climax. Jumna also marries Hari Babu’s daughter Kamla, who does not share her father’s despicable qualities and loves Jumna. The figure of the rebel continues to be an immensely attractive one because Ganga is the character most sympathetically treated in the film. But Ganga Jumna differs from Mother India in as much as it introduces state authority explicitly into the narrative (instead of the ‘community’) through the police, upholding it when ‘duty’ prevails over kinship ties. I have already explained how fraternal relationships are sacred in popular cinema and how, in the absence of filial ties, they act as the guiding ethical force. By arranging it so that legality triumphs over fraternal ties, Ganga Jumna morally privileges state authority. Also significant is that when Ganga wrestles with entrenched economic power in the shape of the zamindar, he is not fighting on behalf of the ‘people’ but is working towards a vendetta of his own. It is for this reason that his initial actions against the zamindar do not win him public sympathy although Hari Babu is a despicable figure in the village. In fact, when Ganga attacks Hari Babu, it is the people of the village and not the zamindar’s henchmen who pursue him and force him into a life of crime. Hari Babu is also justly upbraided by the police and Jumna’s final marriage to the gracious Kamla helps to ‘de-politicize’ Ganga’s hatred of Hari Babu, in a sense legitimizing the zamindar’s (p.145) economic role. If Ganga emerges as a rebel, the film contains no implicit criticism of the Page 14 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s ‘system’ he opposes and his final ‘sacrifice’ in the interests of the nation is also fair and just. Making the figure of the rebel attractive and then allowing him to be sacrificed ‘tragically’ is perhaps a kind of ‘inoculation’ against genuine dissent. The similarities between Ganga Jumna and Mother India are apparent but the former takes a new step when it introduces state authority in the shape of the brother to prosecute the hero. Ganga Jumna has a blunter discourse to offer and this is not only because of the deliberate introduction of state authority. The moneylender Sukhilala in Mother India is transformed into the feudal landowner Hari Babu in Ganga Jumna and the representative of the law is made to contract marital ties with the landowner’s family, although after Hari Babu’s death. It is almost as though the nexus between state authority and feudal power were being solemnized in Ganga Jumna! This bluntness makes one suspect that the possibility of agrarian revolt had receded by 1961. Incidentally, it was about this time that the Bhoodan movement also ran out of steam, Acharya Vinobha Bhave having collected only 5 million acres of (largely unarable) land instead of the targeted 50 million. It does not require too much perspicacity to argue that Mother India and Ganga Jumna are ‘nationalist’ in their import but, taken together, they signify growing nakedness in the repression of the (still) romantic figure of the rebel. I also suggest that if the rebel is a more attractive figure in Ganga Jumna than in Mother India, this cannot be unrelated to the relative security of the state—with the decline of agrarian unrest.

Nation Building, National Unity Although its actual importance may lie elsewhere, Mother India also conveys the sense of a nation being feverishly constructed. There are other films that pay tribute to the idea of nation building and the protagonist in Raj Kapoor’s Aah (1953) is made a dam construction engineer in the service of this idea. Making Raj a construction engineer in Aah was perhaps typical of the times because India in the 1950s had fallen ‘in love with the idea of concrete’.27 Enormous dams were constructed and a whole new city, Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh, had been erected in the search for a modern image of India. In Aah Raj is (p.146) Chief Engineer in charge of building the ‘Saraswati Dam’. The film has sequences shot on location with Raj surveying the workers as he goes about his task of supervising the construction activity. The rest of the film is a love story in which Raj (Raj Kapoor) and Neelu (Nargis) love each other because of their shared love for poetry although it is Neelu’s glamorous older sister Chandra whom Raj’s father wishes him to marry. Raj discovers that he has a terminal disease and pretends to be involved with Chandra so that Neelu will take him to be fickle, love him less, and be able to bear the impending trauma of his death. We saw while examining Baazi that Hindi cinema of the 1950s makes a distinction between ‘good modernity’ and ‘bad modernity’ and the image of the doctor is one way of representing the former. In Aah Raj represents ‘good

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The 1950s and 1960s modernity’ but when Raj discovers his terminal illness, he tries to arrange matters so that Neelu marries a doctor named Kailash. Aah is not concerned only with the idea of nation building because it makes more than a passing gesture towards national integration. A Muslim doctor treats Raj in the sanatorium—the introduction of a peripheral Muslim character into a story dominated by Hindu characters is a frequent strategy in the period to affirm India’s secular credentials. Kamaal Amrohi’s Daaera (1953) also has a Muslim doctor and in Azad, the hero pretends to be a Muslim merchant. Shri 420 has a good-hearted Muslim pawnbroker and also includes a sequence where decadent Muslims and Hindus rub shoulders in garishly lit gambling dens. The Muslim (as in Dhool Ka Phool) is often in the role of the disinterested outsider and this finds a parallel in films dominated by Muslim characters—Mere Mehboob (1963)—where the good-hearted Hindu is similarly placed. In Anarkali and Mughal-e-Azam the discourse on ‘secular India’ emerges from the periphery and assumes centrality within the narrative because Salim was the child of a Muslim father (Emperor Akbar) and a Hindu mother (Jodha Bai). This has the sanction of history and is therefore permitted but actual wedlock between Hindus and Muslims is not in evidence in any other film. Religious belief is not the only particularity to need ‘integration’ within the notion of the ‘Indian’ because Mohan Segal’s New Delhi (1956) is about marital ties between south Indians and north Indians. The ethnic minorities had to be brought into the ‘national mainstream’ (p.147) in Nehru’s India and a way is invented by popular cinema. One image to proliferate in the Nehru era was of the Prime Minister being witness to performances (like folk dances) showcasing ethnicity, or the Prime Minister arrayed in some unusual costume or headgear, as if to demonstrate his temporary assumption of an ethnic condition. This motif finds reflection in Aah where folk dances are performed for the benefit of Raj and Neelu. A similar occurrence finds a place in Amar where villagers dance for Amarnath and Anju. This is very different from the sequences in earlier films like Mahal where the protagonists accidentally witness tribal dances on their journeys. The sense in Aah and Amar is of ‘ethnicity’ exhibiting itself to the qualified representatives of the modern nation. Another way of signifying ‘national unity’ is by means of a railway journey passing through the various parts of India. Devdas in Bimal Roy’s 1955 film passes through not only Delhi and Lahore (as in P.C. Barua’s version) but also through Bombay and Madras before he reaches Parvati’s residence. Another film that uses the same imagery of passing railway stations is Sohrab Modi’s Jailor (1958). This imagery is not present in the earlier version of Jailor made in 1938. Sumita Chakravarty also reads the protagonist’s journey in Vijay Anand’s Guide (1965) as a similar metaphor for national unity28 but the film comes much later and needs to be examined separately.

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The 1950s and 1960s I explored the motif of ethnicity’s assimilation within the national mainstream in Barsaat and detected several clues enabling me to interpret this as allegorizing Kashmir’s accession to India. In most of the later films, however, the ‘ethnic’ does not represent the culture of any particular region although one film deliberately brings up Kashmir again, and this is Subhod Mukherjee’s Junglee (1961). In this film, an uncouth (junglee) and overbearing young industrialist from the city (Shammi Kapoor) goes to Kashmir. He is civilized by an innocent tribal girl (Saira Banu) and transformed from ‘junglee-as-uncivilized to jungleeas-naturally-exuberant’.29 If Barsaat uses two men to represent two hypothetical attitudes of the modern towards the ethnic minorities, Junglee shows the attitude of one individual (representing the modern) being transformed when he encounters the ethnic. Junglee is also regarded as having a discourse to offer about Kashmir because ‘Kashmir, over which India has fought several wars with Pakistan (also), serves as the limit text of what it means to be Indian’.30 (p.148) The film is therefore about the possibility of the ethnic contributing to the mainstream, and perhaps even transforming it. The films discussed so far are usually optimistic about industrialization and progress but all the films of the 1950s do not always share this optimism. B.R. Chopra’s Naya Daur (1957) treats the issue of mechanization with unconcealed ‘Luddite’ alarm. It is the city-born villain’s introduction of industry (a saw mill) into rustic life that destroys the village. Overall, one might propose that if the city in popular cinema represents the India of the future, the village represents the India of the present.

The Modern Woman An examination of the 1950s cannot be complete without attending to the ‘modern woman’ in films like B.R. Chopra’s Dhool Ka Phool (1959). This film tells the story of Mahesh (Rajendra Kumar) and Meena (Mala Sinha) who have a college romance. Mahesh’s father is rich but Meena lives with her unsympathetic aunt and uncle, and a kind-hearted nurse, who also becomes her ‘surrogate mother’. One day, Mahesh and Meena are caught in the rain; they are drawn to having sex and Meena becomes pregnant. Mahesh goes home, promising to return and marry Meena but she waits in vain. Meena’s condition results in her being cast out of her uncle’s house and she contemplates suicide but the nurse dissuades her and also helps her give birth to a baby boy. A good Muslim named Abdul Chacha discovers the child when she abandons it and names him Roshan Ali. Meena takes up a job as a typist with a successful advocate (Ashok Kumar) and, in due course, marries him. Meena’s husband knows that Meena has had a difficult life but wants to know nothing of the details when he asks her to marry him. Now it so happens that both Roshan and Mahesh’s son Ramesh are admitted to the same school on the same morning. Ramesh is his only friend but even Ramesh dies after Roshan tries to save him unsuccessfully in a traffic accident. Meena has lost Roshan and the astrologer tells her that she can only have one Page 17 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s child. In the last part of the film, Roshan begins to consort with undesirable elements and is eventually caught for stealing. In the ensuing court case, while Abdul Chacha entrusts Meena’s husband with the task of defending the (p.149) boy, the judge is found to be none other than Mahesh. By this time Meena has heard of the circumstances of Roshan’s adoption from Abdul Chacha and realizes that the boy is her own abandoned son. Meena cannot remain silent in court and although her statement ‘that she knows both Roshan’s parents’ is covert, her husband and Mahesh are both able to understand. Mahesh and Meena are now both without children and both therefore seek custody of Roshan. Abdul Chacha is stern when he admonishes the two but Meena’s husband’s intervention—he acknowledges his responsibility as a ‘father’—tilts the balance in Meena’s favour and mother and son are finally united. I earlier relied on the strategy of locating the ‘first cause’ to identify the relayed meaning but Dhool ka Phool demonstrates why the strategy cannot exhaust the relayed meaning of a filmic text. The ‘first cause’ in Dhool Ka Phool is the casual sex between two individuals producing an unwanted child but the film includes other motifs not associated with the ‘first cause’ but still relaying meaning. The non-causal, episodic narrative construction facilitates the accretion of motifs and Mahesh becoming a judge is one insertion needing interpretation though the motif is not associated with the ‘first cause’. But since the latter motif (including the judge’s ‘trial’ in the courtroom) has already been interpreted in an earlier context, it is the ‘first cause’ of Meena’s sexual indiscretion that necessitates reading now. Dhool Ka Phool has a thesis on the position of the woman that has been linked to the modernizing imperative: The Hindi women’s melodramas were male-centered, as is indicated by the presence of Rajendra Kumar in many of them. But at the same time they raised the question of women’s desire, and…broached questions connected with the emancipation of women from the oppression of feudal orthodoxy. To that extent [the actor] himself came to stand as an emblem of female desire.31 The films of the 1950s and the early 1960s have a much more active role for women in their sexual roles and in courtship. The heroines (usually played by Nargis) in Raj Kapoor’s early films pursue the hero actively and it is often the hero who is the passive recipient of their advances. As seen earlier, even in films like Mehboob Khan’s Andaz, the heroine’s free and uninhibited ways are misunderstood by the hero and he is made to believe (like the spectator) that she is (p.150) pursuing him—when her heart is actually engaged elsewhere. There may be an element of sexism in some of these films (Awaara, Barsaat) but the sexual initiative exhibited by the woman is real and rarely evidenced in later cinema.

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The 1950s and 1960s Nargis’s vivacious persona is more suited to performing the role of the sexually active woman than Mala Sinha’s (in Dhool Ka Phool) or Vyjayantimala’s (in Sangam) but the women in the latter films are also allowed to desire men. If the admission of feminine desire into this cinema merely reflected the new emancipation of women, these portrayals should logically have led to other portrayals even more radical, because the effects of social emancipation are cumulative. Instead, we find popular cinema becoming more conservative with regard to sexual mores, and ‘permissiveness’ reaches new lows in later periods —Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (HAHK, 1994) for instance. This suggests that, rather than reflecting the emancipation of women in the period, these portrayals allegorize modernity (as did the club dancer) and we know that ‘modernity’ was a principal preoccupation of the Nehru era. Madhava Prasad observes that some of the films starring Rajendra Kumar present the male star as the object of feminine desire. Rajendra Kumar has a passive persona that assists such a discourse in a way that Dilip Kumar’s or Dev Anand’s might not have. Popular films normally acknowledge ‘love’ as the only heterosexual urge and ‘desire’ has an aspect clearly demarcating it from ‘love’. There is an element of blindness associated with desire because, unlike love, it is an urge not driven by conscious choice. We find films like Dhool Ka Phool problematizing this ‘blindness’ and providing reassurance when the woman acting ‘blindly’ is allowed to redefine her loyalties. In this and in other films, a woman’s initial loyalties are shown to be ‘inadvertent’ because her later attachments prove them to be transitory. Gumraah (1963), which deals with adultery, is another example. An explanation is that, while the motif does have a positive discourse on modernity, it also allegorizes deep-seated social fears about the severity of the modernizing imperative, providing reassurance that the exercising of choice will not be final. If films like Baazi and Taxi Driver provide reassurance when the ‘modern’ club dancer makes way for the traditional heroine, these later films similarly provide comfort that the ‘modern’ path is actually retraceable. Even if the youthful nation were (p.151) to follow it ‘blindly’, course corrections and fruitful realignments will be allowed. Since I have already examined Dilip Kumar’s roles of the early 1950s and have also tried to explain the nature of the Dev Anand persona, I should perhaps say a few words about Nargis, the most important female star of the 1950s. Female stars have not had a defining influence in popular cinema and that is largely because, even within its determined universe, the burden of the action falls overwhelmingly upon the men. As an illustration, I examined Andaz in which the protagonist has reason to suspect his wife’s fidelity. I cannot, similarly, recall any popular film in which it is the woman who has the suspicions. Likewise, it is usually the man who feels the sexual desire and the woman who is its object. But in many of the films starring Nargis (Mother India is an exception) the woman Page 19 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s displays her desire for the man and that is a motif never repeated in later films. Aradhana (1969), which we will be examining in due course, shows a woman (played by Sharmila Tagore) involved in a sexual liaison but the episode in which the man and the woman have sex is treated (if I may be forgiven the cliché) as ‘the inevitable happening’ as in Dhool Ka Phool. In the films starring Raj Kapoor and Nargis, it is the woman who pursues the man32—even as the man is narcissistic and preoccupied with himself. There are other films of the 1950s that deal with ‘feminine desire’ but one may say that the notion only reaches fruition when Nargis plays the heroine. It is this sexual energy exuded by Nargis that is harnessed to different ends in Mother India. Madhava Prasad cites two other films along with Dhool Ka Phool also featuring Rajendra Kumar and centred on the question of the woman in a modernizing society.33 The films are Devendra Goel’s Chirag Kahan Roshni Kahan (1959) and Sridhar’s Dil Ek Mandir (1963), a remake of his own Tamil film Nenjil Ore Alayam (1961). Prasad describes the former film as about a ‘forbidden romance between a widow with a child and a man who becomes fond of her child’.34 The man is a widower and the child is actually his. The widow brings it up under the mistaken impression that it is hers. It is these sleights of hand that render the ‘forbidden romance’ in the film possible. In Dil Ek Mandir the ailing husband extracts a promise from his wife that, in the event of his death, she will marry her former lover. What I find significant is that both films are (like Dhool Ka Phool) concerned with (p.152) the notion of the ‘second chance’. Interestingly, Rajendra Kumar plays a doctor in both films and the figure of the doctor also denotes ‘good modernity’ in the films of the era. Prasad notes that all these films centre the narrative on a woman caught between desire and oppressive tradition.35 My own reading is that while allegorizing the choice to be made between tradition and modernity, they privilege neither choice but simply provide reassurance that the exercising of this choice is not irrevocable. It should be noted that the issue of who gets the woman does not determine the politics of the film. It cannot be asserted, for instance, that Chirag Kahan Roshni Kahan is more ‘progressive’ because the widow is allowed to marry the doctor and that Dil Ek Mandir is on the side of ‘feudal orthodoxy’ because the woman stays with her husband. This reiterates my earlier proposal that the ‘manifest content’ of a popular film is not so much discourse as the consequence of convention and narrative strategy coming into interplay.

Retreat from Optimistic Nationalism This chapter is devoted to the films of the 1950s and the 1960s but so far has restricted itself to films until 1962. The characteristics of popular cinema abruptly change thereafter and films after 1962 therefore need separate scrutiny. The cause of the transformation was apparently the Indo-Chinese War because India’s defeat also brought the period of optimism to an abrupt close.

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The 1950s and 1960s It has just been seen that the 1950s marked a period when the popular film responded to the process of nation building, and the intrusion of the city into film narrative demonstrates this in an understandable way. The Chinese debacle led to much soul-searching in India36 and had a dampening effect on the nationalist sentiments of the 1950s and it needs to be seen how this is reflected by popular cinema. Yet, in examining Indian popular cinema immediately after 1962, no signs of trauma or the expected introspection are visible. What can be seen instead is simply a retreat from social responsiveness and the locale also shifts noticeably from the city (and the village) to scenic spots and hill stations. Still, since the locales of the 1950s have been associated with the nation and the process of nation building, it is convenient to explain the movement away from them as a retreat from nationalism. (p.153) The various ways in which nationalism informed cinema in the 1950s have been discussed. A film that uses Kashmir in a way comparable to Junglee is Shakti Samanta’s Kashmir Ki Kali (1963). The protagonist of the film (also played by Shammi Kapoor) is heir to a business empire and he goes off to Kashmir where he also falls in love with a local girl. Junglee and Kashmir Ki Kali appear similar because they are both largely filmed in the arresting landscape of Kashmir but they have very different discourses to offer, which might escape superficial scrutiny. Kashmir Ki Kali begins with a banner declaring the twenty-fifth anniversary of ‘Modern Mills’ and the young industrialist Rajiblal (Shammi Kapoor), freshly inducted into the business, beginning by announcing a generous bonus to the workers. The first scene seems a throwback to the earlier era but no further mention is made again of either ‘Modern Mills’ or the workers; the sequence in retrospect looks almost parodic. The next important scene involves the decision of Rajiblal’s mother to find a suitable bride for him. Rajiblal has his own matrimonial plans and he will only wed the girl he truly loves. His friends suggest that he go to Kashmir and stay in the family bungalow until matters cool off and this is what Rajiblal eventually does. While in Kashmir, Rajiblal meets a girl named Champa (Sharmila Tagore), a flower seller who lives with her blind father and he expectedly falls in love with her. It is at this point that the similarities of the film with Junglee suddenly cease. It turns out that Champa is not from Kashmir at all but is from a wealthy Delhi business family and that she was actually kidnapped by the blind man, soon discovered to be Rajiblal’s father. The circumstances are convoluted but it is pertinent that Kashmir does not imply what it does in Junglee. It is significant only as the appropriately scenic locale for a temporary getaway from home. The relationship between the ethnic minority and the national mainstream is also effectively made a non-issue. There are other films from the same period that use holiday spots to locate the action and also employ the emblems of the 1950s casually, as if to deny the meanings attached to them. Raj Khosla’s Woh Kaun Thi (1964), for instance, is a Page 21 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s ‘ghost story’ involving a doctor tricked and virtually driven into insanity by another doctor who hopes to inherit a fortune in the former’s stead. The doctor in the films of the 1950s is an emblem of ‘good modernity’ but Woh Kaun Thi disregards the convention. The film includes a modern dance sequence (‘bad (p. 154) modernity’ in the 1950s) in which doctors and nurses participate eagerly. Another emblem abruptly robbed of the earlier gravity after 1962 is the figure of the policeman. The police still come to the assistance of the ‘good’ but they do not occupy the same place in these later films. Madhava Prasad sees a kind of ‘doubling’ in the resolution to the narrative crisis in the ‘feudal family romance’. The traditionally given authority of the exemplary subject(s) enforces the first. The second is comically redundant and follows immediately after, being enforced by the agents of the modern law.37 Prasad finds the tendency in the ‘classical’ Hindi film but the ‘doubling’ of the resolution occurs specifically in films after 1962 when the police are not morally implicated in the narrative (as they are in Baazi, CID, or Ganga Jumna) but merely represent state authority. My argument traces the new unwillingness to see the police as moral agents to the end of Nehruvian nationalism— consequent upon the Chinese debacle. We saw that the courtroom featured prominently in the films of the 1950s. But if the police are subdued, the courtroom scene itself is largely absent after 1962 and Bimal Roy’s Bandini (1963) and Vijay Anand’s Guide (1965) seem pertinent here. Bimal Roy’s acknowledged place is as one of the fathers of Indian ‘middle cinema’, which is itself sometimes regarded as a descendant of preIndependence reformism.38 Bimal Roy was preoccupied with using cinema to translate respected literary works, not necessarily contemporary, and nearly fourteen of his films are drawn from Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, or foreign literature.39 Vijay Anand’s Guide will be examined in some detail later but there is a strange affinity between Bandini and Guide in as much as they deal with crimes for which punishment is casually inflicted. To put this differently, the protagonists in both films are decent individuals who yield to abrupt criminal impulses, but willingly accept punishment without the high drama of their guilt having to be established in court. As indicated earlier, the culminating courtroom sequence in the films of the 1950s is the process by which a mythical interface is created between the citizen and the state and the crucial occurrence at the interface is the dissemination of the ‘truth’. The state is receptive to the truth and the courtroom scene merely creates the circumstances for this affirmation. The acknowledged receptivity of the state to ‘the truth’ also places responsibilities upon its citizens because it contains (p.155) an implicit assertion that the state is their creation and not autonomous and impersonal. The law in both Bandini and Guide is too impersonal for the interface to happen. The protagonists in both films are ‘guilty’ but the self-evident nature of the guilt40 is also a ploy to elude the interface by deliberately leaving it unproblematized. In the context of what I Page 22 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s said earlier, an attempt can be detected in both Bandini and Guide to distance the citizen from the state and decline the ‘responsibility’ that the films of the 1950s readily assume for the citizen. Many of the earlier signifiers lose their significance in the 1960s but this does not imply that they are lost forever because they return later, although in modified avatars. The court scene, for instance, returns time and again although it means something different in each period. Another characteristic of the films after 1962 is the growing incidence of ‘fight sequences’ as diversionary spectacle. While dealing with Awaara, I suggested that the villain Jagga was an extraneous factor brought in to facilitate the resolution. The introduction of the villain to resolve the narrative becomes more blatant in films like Kashmir Ki Kali where his arbitrary conduct helps to bring about the resolution. Kashmir Ki Kali attempts to conceal this fact through an elaborate (and noisy) fight sequence,41 in effect diverting the spectator’s mind from the preceding action. When the villain becomes a convenient hate figure against whom everyone else is aligned, the other conflicts within the narrative are easily overlooked. The villain becomes a lazy way of facilitating the melodramatic resolution that might otherwise have become much more convoluted. If this is essentially the purpose of the fight sequence, the troublesome question is why fight scenes should become prominent only after 1962. The films of the 1950s sometimes allow hate figures but they do not opt for fight sequences as diversionary spectacle and, despite the violent confrontation between Raj and Jagga in Awaara, the resolution is achieved only in the courtroom. I propose that the convoluted resolutions of the earlier films implicate the nation (or an affiliated idea) because of its centrality, and the observation is equally true of Anmol Ghadi (where the mother personifies the land) and Mother India (where the community represents the nation). The resolution is particular and the particularity of the resolution testifies to the sanctity of the implicated notion. To phrase it differently, there is correspondence between the resolution and a cherished sentiment vis-à-vis the nation. (p.156) Since the sanctity of the implicated notion is in question after 1962, there is also no insistence upon the resolution being ‘particular’. If the handiest resolution is acceptable, such a resolution does not reflect a sentiment as those in Anmol Ghadi or Awaara do and cannot be interpreted. I propose that films like Kasmir Ki Kali (after 1962) deliberately opt for resolutions bereft of meaning through the use of violence as diversionary spectacle. Violent resolutions as diversionary spectacle remained a major attraction in popular cinema for almost three decades and the explanation just offered traces its origin to a gloomy moment in the history of the Indian nation.

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The 1950s and 1960s Closure as Objective The years after 1962 were a period of crises for India and not only on account of the Chinese debacle but also because of the failure of two successive monsoons in 1965 and 1966, leaving the economy vulnerable.42 As suggested earlier, India popular cinema reacts to the crises by retreating into a kind of social ‘unresponsiveness’ and the most interesting films of the early 1960s are perhaps those like H.S. Rawail’s Mere Mehboob (1963). These films are best described as triumphs of artifice and are all ‘love stories’. ‘Love’ as explained in the first chapter is a device necessary to bring the narrative to closure but Mere Mehboob is devoted so entirely to it that it avoids almost every other motif. It has the appearance of not even leaving a window open to its times but this remark needs further elaboration. Mere Mehboob is intricately plotted and its story is difficult to relate because of the preponderance of melodramatic contortions. In this film Anwar (Rajendra Kumar) and Husna (Sadhana) study in Aligarh and when the story begins, we learn that Anwar has loved her ever since he touched her hand accidentally. Husna wears a veil and Anwar has not even seen her face but his love for her is certain and enduring. Anwar is due to sing at a ‘mushaira’ and his Hindu friend is certain that his ‘beloved’ will be duly present. Husna is present at the singing and Anwar meets her after the programme although she continues to be veiled. Mere Mehboob plays with the notion of a love so eternal and absolute that it takes root even before the lovers have come face to face. Almost half of the film goes by before Anwar sees Husna clearly but their love has been passionate from the very (p.157) beginning. From our understanding of the conventions of Indian popular cinema, the consummation of this love through marriage is a foregone conclusion. The film nonetheless places obstacles in the path of this love and the surmounting of the obstacles constitutes the major uncertainties. The brief association, in Anwar’s mind, of the true Husna with her friend’s countenance adds to the convolutions of the narrative. The film’s virtues have to do with its mode of narration and its subject matter seems deliberately slight. Even Mere Mehboob’s ethics—restricted to courtly manners—are deliberately chosen as a kind of formal embellishment. What can nonetheless not be concealed from the spectator is that the film is primarily engaged in inventing an ingenious closure for itself. Other films of the era exhibit the same preoccupation with closure as Mere Mehboob—though they are rarely as distinguished. The entire narrative of Kashmir Ki Kali is, for instance, driven by the quest for Rajiblal’s bride. This implies that the primary concern of the narrative is to achieve closure through the wedding, perhaps explaining why Kashmir Ki Kali cannot be read usefully as allegory. Yash Chopra’s Waqt (1965) is a multi-starrer with a formula that later became famous— three brothers are separated as children and brought up by

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The 1950s and 1960s different families. Waqt is not about ‘love’ but uses the motif of the family being separated, and expends its energy to achieve closure through family reunion. Mere Mehboob answers to the description of ‘melodrama’ but, where Andaz used melodramatic motifs to allegorize the historical concerns of the present, Mere Mehboob uses them to actually disengage. My understanding is that Indian cinema sets its narratives in timeless spaces because it seeks the ‘eternal’ or the ‘permanent’ in a world constantly transformed. The need to reconcile the ‘permanent’ with the ‘immediate’ naturally produces representational anomalies and these have been my focus. The unusual portrayal of both men—as without families—in Barsaat is one anomaly that permits an allegorical reading. Returning to Mere Mehboob, it is not only difficult to find evidence of covert historical signifiers in the film but such anomalies are also hard to detect.43 The signifiers permitting allegorical reading were related to the idea of the nation in some way and, in the love stories of the 1960s, they tend to be absent. Even when they are present (as the doctors in Woh Kaun Thi), their original significance is deliberately erased. (p.158) These factors lead to the earlier conclusion that there is disinclination after 1962 to invoke the nation. It can be argued that the departure of the nation from the space of the narrative leaves the films hermeneutically poorer.

The Chinese and the Defeated Nation The effects of the Chinese debacle upon Indian popular cinema have been considered and it is appropriate to examine the one film that actually deals with it—Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat (1964). Former Marxists like Anand and Balraj Sahni made the film and it can be said that Haqeeqat appeared at the approximate moment when the Communist movement in India actually split between the Moscowand Peking-aligned factions. As is natural to most war films, Haqeequat has a large cast of characters with the principal ones being Captain Bahadur Singh (Dharmendra), a Major (Balraj Sahni), and a Brigadier (Jayant) who is Captain Bahadur Singh’s father. Captain Bahadur Singh is in love with a tribal girl who also has a younger brother. Other characters include lowerranking jawans, their wives, sweethearts, and families. The film is set in Ladakh in the period between June and November 1962 and much of it is shot on location. One of the film’s innovations is to have a single actress (Indrani Mukherjee) play the wife or the fiancée that each of the jawans has left behind at home. The film is dedicated to Nehru and has several rousing moments when a higher-ranking officer speaks of the Chinese ‘betrayal’ and invokes the need of the hour. Still, the real moral push compelling the soldiers to fight is provided by flashbacks in which a mother reveals to her son his late father’s wish that he enlist when he came of age. Making the hero’s father his own superior also confirms the need of the popular film to use the family as a driving motif—even when the issues involved are as large as war. Although the film deals with a sixmonth period and does not conclude with the end of the war, it needs to invent a closure for itself. It does this through the motif of the Captain’s love for the Page 25 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s tribal girl and the film concludes with the two warding off a Chinese attack and dying, even as their hands reach out to one another. These aspects may furnish further evidence of popular cinema’s intrinsic methods, but most interesting from today’s viewpoint is the strange manner in which the Chinese are represented. One of the (p.159) arguments advanced by the film to account for India’s poor showing in the War is the unlimited number of soldiers available to the enemy— there are more Chinese to kill than there are bullets in Indian rifles. Doubly interesting is the fact that the Chinese are mostly shown in extreme long shot—as rows and rows of tiny figures swiftly replaced when one falls to the ground. There are very few shots of Chinese soldiers actually fighting as individuals. When the Chinese are shown as individuals, this is in scenes not involving combat—for example in the scene involving the torture of the heroine. Most often, the film retreats into ‘point of view’ with a subjective Indian viewpoint. This is strange especially because the eye of the camera in Indian popular cinema is gifted with omniscience and putting together a few fighting Chinese soldiers—as J.P. Dutta’s Border (1998) does with Pakistanis— could not have been difficult. Haqeeqat seems to be afflicted by a disability to even imagine the Chinese as an army of individuals and this provides evidence of the bewilderment that the Indian public must have felt when confronted by the facts of the Chinese War. Seen in this context, the far-reaching consequences of the defeat of 1962 on Indian popular film narrative are understandable. It is difficult for a vanquished nation to come to terms with defeat and the Six Day War of June 1967 was apparently absent from Egyptian cinema for as many as four years.44 Indian cinema was perhaps better placed in this regard because its allegorical methods permit covert engagement with even ‘forbidden’ subject matter. One particularly significant film in this context is Chanakya’s Ramudu Bheemudu (1964), not in Hindi but originally made in Telugu. This film is the kind of ‘escapist’ fare that proliferated in the 1960s, telling the story of twins separated at birth. Ramudu (N.T. Rama Rao) grows up in the home of a rich industrialist as a meek individual, perpetually tyrannized by a villainous uncle. The film begins with celebrations in the factory—when the imagery on the screen does not restrict itself to the factory but includes ‘modern India’ complete with footage of national leaders. The humour in the sequence becomes apparent when the ‘proprietor’ of ‘modern India’, Ramudu, is summoned and he is so nervous that he hesitates even to appear on the stage. But the villainous uncle is upset even at Ramudu’s bashful appearance and thrashes the young man so thoroughly that Ramudu contemplates suicide. Matters are however set right when the missing twin Bheemudu (N.T. Rama Rao) accidentally (p.160) takes Ramudu’s place and hands out the same treatment to the villainous uncle. The discourse in the film is apparently directed at the weakness of ‘modern India’ (or its ‘proprietor’) and the compensating figure of Bheemudu may be

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The 1950s and 1960s interpreted as exorcising the memories of a humiliating moment in the nation’s history. Ramudu Bheemudu was remade in Hindi in 1967 as Ram Aur Shyam. The difference between the two films is that the connection between Ram and the nation is not made as explicit in the Hindi film. Further, while Bheemudu’s strength is associated with his playing the mythological role of powerful Bheema on the stage, Shyam (in the Hindi film) seems strong and confident on his own. An explanation for the transformation is that the nation had fought one more war in the period between the two films, this time against Pakistan, a war in which India also fared more creditably. Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anupama (1966) is a quieter ‘psychological drama’ about a timid girl dominated by her father who learns to assert herself. It can be understood as ‘middle cinema’ exhibiting the same motifs as Ram Aur Shyam. Still, another significant fact is that the motif/story survived when the allegorical purpose was clearly over and the story of Ramudu Bheemudu is told as late as 1972 in Ramesh Sippy’s Seeta Aur Geeta.

The Military Sangam (1964) is a much more complex film that seems more comfortable with the experience of the same war and, it brings the war in only briefly although it has much more to say about the public reaction to 1962. The narrative begins in the protagonists’ childhood with Sunder, Gopal, and Radha being friends. Sunder dotes upon Radha but she cares more for Gopal. This leaves the two boys quarrelling but when Gopal is hurt he nobly attributes it to an accident rather than to Sunder. Radha (Vyjayantimala) and Gopal (Rajendra Kumar) continue to love each other in adulthood but Gopal’s dosti with Sunder (Raj Kapoor) apparently means more to him. The issue is nevertheless not resolved because war breaks out and Sunder, with a sudden display of gravity, becomes an officer in the Indian Air Force. Before departing, Sunder extracts a promise from Gopal that he will ensure that no one comes between him and Radha. Gopal keeps his promise and, in order to reassure Sunder, he writes a letter to him as purportedly coming from (p.161) Radha. Sunder is exceptionally gallant in the war and news of his heroic death under adverse circumstances reaches the family and he is selected for a posthumous award. Love blossoms between Radha and Gopal and he writes a love letter to her, which becomes the basis of an elaborate song sequence. At this moment Sunder is suddenly reported to be living and he makes his return. Gopal is pleased that his friend is alive but he also realizes that Radha is lost to him. He declines a suggestion from Radha’s parents that he marry her and her wedding to Sunder is duly celebrated. Sunder and Radha are happy until he finds the old love letter from Gopal, but Radha tears it up before he can discover its author. Sunder now becomes extremely jealous; Gopal is concerned; he tries to tell his story to Sunder but the latter’s declaration of dosti drives him to

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The 1950s and 1960s silence. Radha goes to Gopal in sheer helplessness and at the climax of the film Gopal shoots himself to save Sinder and Radha’s marriage. Raj Kapoor had a privileged position in the film industry of the 1960s and Sangam furnishes proof of it because it was among the first films to be shot partly on foreign locales.45 As has already been noticed, the period immediately after the Indo-Chinese War was not conducive to nationalist fervour but Raj Kapoor, because of his special status, apparently put the ‘nation’ into Sangam as an idea. How does the nation feature in his film? Critics regard Sangam as a turning point in Kapoor’s career because it marked a shift away from the ‘progressive’ orientation of the 1950s when in collaboration with others similarly inclined he made Awaara and Shri 420.46 Sangam has been read as a nationalist tract because it includes the defence of the nation as a factor in the story’s unfolding and the reduction of the family’s position to one of unmistakable subordination.47 The implication of the nation in this way seems contrary to what we have understood of the tendency of the times and a deeper investigation of the claim is needed. We may begin by inquiring into the dominant motif in the film—the strange friendship between Sunder and Gopal, associated with the code of dosti: The code of dosti takes precedence over that of heterosexual love and, in the case of conflict, the latter must yield to the former. Thus in a conflict of love between male friends, the woman remains out of the picture, while the two males decide between themselves who will have her…48 (p.162) The passage just cited is inclusive in its scope and refers not only to Sangam but also to a text like Naya Daur (1957), which is cited by Madhava Prasad. As explained in the first chapter, dosti is surrogate brotherhood because it stretches back in time to before the commencement of the story. It replicates fraternal/family ties and therefore commands a loyalty that heterosexual love in popular cinema does not. There is however some inaccuracy in Prasad’s assertion because the device as employed in Sangam—the men deciding ‘between themselves who will have her’—is extreme and not customary in popular cinema. Most films (Sholay, 1975) provide no conflict between romance and dosti and separate attachments are arranged for each of the friends. Naya Daur seems an exception but even in Naya Daur the man who wins the girl is the one she actually loves and the conflict is easily resolved. It is because Sangam is an extreme case that we need to interpret its particularity.

As Prasad notes, the most difficult representational dilemma created by the film for itself lies in Radha expressing her preference for Gopal but Gopal ‘transferring his rights over her’ to Sunder virtually against her will. This is facilitated by Sunder’s ‘blindness’ to the reciprocal love between Radha and Gopal. Prasad’s reading is that the narrative drive is towards a resolution in which Radha completely submits herself to a love that she does not reciprocate because this love, backed by the ‘might of the state’ does not need to justify itself.49 The reading assumes that the military represents the authority of state— Page 28 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s when it had not done so in earlier Hindi cinema. The military had just been defeated in a major war and the times were also not conducive for such a representation. I propose that a defeated military is not an appropriate emblem for the ‘might of the state’. It is therefore appropriate to look for other meanings and to scrutinize the dosti portrayed in Sangam once again. What apparently makes Sangam extreme is the one-sidedness of the dosti between Sunder and Gopal. An examination of the film reveals that it is Gopal who makes all the sacrifices while Sunder restricts himself to making grandiloquent gestures extolling the value of dosti. Why is Gopal so accommodating and why are his friend’s interests more important to him than his own? Seen thus, Gopal’s suicide becomes a deliberate act of self-abnegation in deference to larger issues and Sunder is ultimately not ‘responsible’ for Gopal’s death. Sangam ‘closes’ (p.163) with Gopal’s suicide but if the dosti between Sunder and Gopal had been more reciprocally arranged the closure might not have been possible. It is only Sangam’s covert refusal to examine Sunder’s responsibility that actually facilitates the closure.50 My inference is therefore that Gopal’s sacrifice and not Sunder and Radha’s relationship is the relayed ‘meaning’ in Sangam. The ‘first cause’ in the film is the child Gopal saving Sunder from punishment through a deliberate lie and this also supports my hypothesis. The one-sidedness of the relationship gives the spectator a clue about the implication of the dosti portrayed in Sangam. Since the film is affirming Gopal’s loyalty to his friend, we need to look more deeply into what Sunder and Gopal represent. Prasad apparently misses a few details in the film and the chief of these is that Gopal is a lawyer. His father is a judge and he himself becomes a magistrate just after Sunder leaves for the front. The second important detail is that we know very little about Sunder’s past. Sunder has no father or mother; he is vocal that Gopal is everything (including ‘father and mother’) to him. Gopal collects Sunder’s award at the Republic Day parade and hands it over to Radha. These and other signs place Gopal in a position of assumed ‘responsibility’ with regard to Sunder and Radha.51 The third factor to be taken note of is that Radha’s father is a military man who begins to respect Sunder only after the latter enlists. In fact, when Sunder returns and meets Radha her parents exchange conspiratorial glances in the background as though they could only approve of the attachment. They still need Gopal’s ‘formal refusal’ before they consider Sunder for Radha’s husband and when Gopal gives his final ‘no’, he is in the act of donning his robes as a magistrate; the implication is that his refusal to marry Radha and his position as magistrate are associated. Further, as if to indicate that the relationship between Gopal and Radha’s father should not be read as one between individuals, Radha’s father usually addresses Gopal as ‘Vakilsab’ (‘lawyer-sir’) and Gopal addresses the old man as ‘Captain’. Once these additional ‘details’ are taken note of, Sunder does not represent ‘the might of the state’ but only the armed forces—as does Radha’s father. Gopal (as Page 29 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s magistrate) is then easily readable as allegorizing civilian state authority and his ‘responsibility’ towards Sunder can be understood as a reference to civilian state authority being ‘responsible’ for the military, or the military being subordinated to civilian control in India.52 Sangam, as (p.164) Prasad asserts, risks much by allowing the woman a romantic attachment before her marriage. But popular cinema deals with archetypes rather than with individuals and both Radha’s initial attachment and her subsequent ‘surrender’ to Sunder are not only readable in terms of personal choice but also actively support reading as allegory. Since Radha is associated with the ‘military’, the logic is that the ‘military’s claim’ upon her is more legitimate than that of civilian authority.53 Gopal’s sacrifice is apparently a declaration that, regardless of the circumstances, civilian authority will not ‘betray’ the armed forces. These observations cast doubts upon Sangam’s purportedly ‘nationalist’ address but the question that needs to be answered is why the ‘loyalty’ of the civilian leadership to the military suddenly needed affirmation after 1962. The Chinese attack in 1962 was unexpected and, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Nehru and Defence Minister Krishna Menon clung to the delusion that China would not attack.54 Political thinking was virtually in disarray and the civilian leadership dithered despite the army’s advice that it was in no position to hold on to the Northeast if attacked. The Defence Minister turned a deaf ear to repeated requests from Army Headquarters for action to meet the serious shortage of modern equipment. The nadir was reached on 13 October with Nehru’s statement—on his way to Ceylon—‘to throw out the Chinese’,55 when the battered army was already in full retreat. When the situation could not be saved, scapegoats needed to be found and Nehru asked for the resignation of the Army Chief of Staff, General Thappar, because ‘it might prove helpful in the difficult situation facing the Government’.56 Matters did not conclude here because Nehru’s position was itself in peril and the civilian Defence Minister was therefore sacrificed.57 The Defence Minister had also been paranoid about the possibility of a military coup58 and the relationship between the military and the civilian leadership had not been entirely trusting. Nehru had believed India and China were destined to be prime movers in world history and it was ironic that the relationship with China led to the culminating debacle that overshadowed the positive significance of his early years as Prime Minister.59 Nehru fell in stature and it was perhaps widely felt after India’s defeat that the civilian leadership had actually ‘betrayed’ the military. (p.165) Madhava Prasad’s analysis of Sangam is incisive (if questionable) and it is necessary to examine its other aspects. An important argument is that Sunder is the ‘blind’ lover made powerful by his blindness. Prasad’s view is that Sunder does not look for an answering desire in Radha and also sees no sign of her preference for Gopal. According to his reading, both Gopal and Radha are rendered powerless by being reduced to their own particular points of view. He Page 30 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s sees the film as employing war to ‘resurrect an absolutist subjectivity’, using the crisis created by it as the legitimizing ground for an assault on the domestic enclosure.60 To put it differently, the film uses ‘patriotism’ or ‘national interest’ as a way of repudiating the notion of mutuality and reciprocity in heterosexual love. While it should be conceded that Sunder is rendered powerful with regard to Radha, forcing himself upon her at every opportunity, Sangam is strange because there is no conflict between Sunder and Gopal— despite their being in love with the same woman. Prasad asserts that the ‘blind lover’ is a characteristic ingredient of the popular film but neglects to provide enough instances to substantiate the claim.61 The only film that provides an instance is Andaz but, unlike in Sangam, its two male protagonists come into violent conflict. In Sangam, they do not come into conflict because the meaning relayed by the film pertains to the absence of conflict. I would like to argue that Sunder’s blindness allegorizes the military’s ‘trust’ of the civilian leadership just as Gopal’s sacrifice (as I have suggested) allegorizes the trustworthiness of the civilian leadership. It is also disputable that ‘the defence of the nation’ is implicated in the narrative because no tangible enemy is invoked. The war is treated as a natural calamity62 and this is very different from Haqeeqat. It is perhaps also more accurate to describe the film’s emphasis as placed upon the unwavering commitment of the military to its entrusted duties rather than upon the nation in crisis. Prasad’s interpretation of Sangam appears a misreading induced by an ideological position assumed a priori because it is politically correct and because the tendency prevails in film study today.

Tourist or Wanderer Vijay Anand’s Guide (1965) was invoked briefly in the context of ‘national unity’ in the films of the 1950s but I also suggested that the (p.166) protagonist’s journey in the film could have other implications. The films of the 1960s are often set in hill stations and holiday spots and I attempted to interpret this as a withdrawal from the city. Guide belongs among these later films and the question to be answered is whether its showcasing of India’s natural beauty or India’s cultural treasures has nationalist implications. Sumita Chakravarty, for instance, detects in Guide’s ‘scenic extravagance an appeal to national pride, to space as nationally, because visually shared, as both an emblem and eraser of difference’.63 An examination of the film reveals facets not comfortable with this interpretation. Guide is based on a novel by R.K. Narayan and is about Raju (Dev Anand), a tourist guide given the task of escorting an archaeologist named Marco and his wife Rosie (Waheeda Rehman), who is a dancer. Rosie is the daughter of a devadasi (a courtesan) but is married off to the archaeologist Marco. Marco is Page 31 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s not an accommodating husband and Rosie and Marco reach a breaking point when she discovers him with another woman. Rosie then moves with Raju into his mohalla where their relationship attracts adverse comments from the neighbours and Raju’s mother leaves. Raju is left alone with Rosie and the two eventually decide that she will begin dancing on a commercial basis and that Raju will be her manager. All goes well until Raju learns to gamble and begins to lose money; his relationship with Rosie also deteriorates. Raju receives a visit from Marco’s advocate requesting Rosie’s signature on some papers, which will give him access to some of her jewellery now lying in a safe-deposit locker. Instead of getting Rosie’s signature as required, Raju neglects to tell her about it and forges her signature on the papers. His act is however soon discovered and Raju is sent to jail. Raju is not overcome by remorse at what he has done but, finding himself at a loose end after his release, he settles down in a rural milieu, inside an old temple and is soon taken to be a holy man. When the village is struck by a severe drought, Raju makes a grandiloquent gesture, declaring that he will not eat until the villagers stop fighting among themselves. This message duly alters as it is transmitted and word spreads that the holy man has vowed not to taste food until it rains again. Raju tries to convince the villagers that he does not deserve their adulation, to tell them that he actually went to jail, but to no avail. As Raju fasts and becomes weaker his fame spreads and (p.167) his mother and Rosie also arrive for a darshan. Rosie and his mother know he is dying but they are helpless. In the end Raju sees a vision of light and hears God’s voice; he breathes his last just before it begins to rain again. There are several aspects which merit scrutiny in Guide and one attracting attention is the representation of the devadasi cult because devadasis were once custodians of classical dance traditions. The film has been attacked for its portrayal of Rosie and for other reasons64 although the recurring complaint focuses exclusively on its ‘regressive politics’. Raju, for instance, is seen to transform from a fast-talking tourist guide into a holy man and this corresponds to a backward journey from ‘mass cultural commodification and spectacle to precolonial naivety and ritual’.65 While the criticism may be valid in other contexts, my own inquiry indicates that transformations of the kind attributed to Raju are disallowed in popular cinema. An individual, even when he transforms, can only return to his essential condition and Raju remains a fast-talking ‘guide’ till the very end. My reading of Guide is also more generous because I cannot regard Raju’s ‘martyrdom’ as untouched by irony. The voice of God, for instance, only reconciles him to his death and does not indicate that his fasting has been fruitful. Perhaps also significant is a segment close to the end when Raju is inside a Shiva temple and the deity is not the familiar statue of Shiva but a sculpted lingam. In the context of what I noted about devotion in the first chapter, this is tantamount to the film not providing reassurance that God will intervene in Raju’s destiny. The eye contact made with an anthropomorphic deity Page 32 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s in most films might have reassured the spectator that Raju would be saved and this is inconvenient. In the course of my inquiry we will also see other films where the absence of such reassurance is similarly accompanied by ‘tragedy’— the death of the protagonist(s). The other complaint against the film is that its focus on the figure of the tourist guide helps it to present a commodified version of ‘national culture’. Raju and Rosie frolic around India’s showcased architectural treasures and this certainly justifies the criticism. Raju’s relationship with Rosie has nonetheless a contributory discourse here and Raju achieves success by dressing up as a statesman and exhibiting her to several openly lascivious clients. Raju’s smoothtalking act continues as Rosie’s manager and the film makes an association between his (p.168) exhibition of Rosie and his exhibition of ‘national culture’ to tourists. This implies that the discourse of the film is not straightforwardly ‘touristic’ but is actually more ambivalent. Dev Anand, who plays Raju, has a history of ambivalent portrayals in the 1950s (Jaal) and this should also be factored into any reading of Guide. I remarked earlier in this chapter (see note 1) on the self-congratulatory note that creeps into Indian journalism in the 1950s when Nehru’s foreign policy initiatives saw India getting worldwide attention, which led to visits by heads of state. Many of the films after 1962 include sequences where white-skinned foreigners are present in ‘decadent’ Indian spaces with the connotations being negative and this becomes even more explicit in later films like Upkaar (1967). Raju dresses in white khadi and wears a rose in his buttonhole when he prepares to exhibit Rosie, sometimes to white foreigners. He exhibited ‘India’ to them before as tourist guide and he now shamelessly exhibits her. The rose in the buttonhole was recognizably a sartorial habit associated with Jawaharlal Nehru and we cannot help wondering if there is not a covert lampooning of Nehru—and his preoccupation with holding up India to the world—in this portrayal of Raju the guide. Also significant in Guide is the fact that its ‘touristic’ vision is accompanied by a suggestion that the home itself has become unstable. Raju lives with his mother but it is at the railway station that he is usually present. We see his home for the first time only when he is in a great hurry to rush off, and the second time when Rosie arrives. Rosie can be said to destabilize the home because Raju’s mother wants her to leave. Considering that the mother’s association with the home in Indian cinema usually renders it sacred, her eventual departure may be said also to point towards its ‘destabilization’. Guide cannot be categorized thus but the association of the journey with the motif of domestic instability is often a ploy of the ‘road movie’ (Thelma and Louise, 1991). The road movie is sometimes an expression of dissent because the typical wanderer of the genre searches for a ‘land’ or a ‘culture’ not Page 33 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s circumscribed by the discredited nation state.66 Raju in Guide is a wanderer rather than a tourist and his ‘homelessness’ in Guide emerges at a moment when the emblem of the nation state had lost its allure after a period of intense nationalistic optimism. Significantly, Indian cinema also produced a more typical ‘road movie’ a year later with Basu Bhattacharya’s Teesri Kasam (1966). This film is (p.169) about a nautanki dancer (also ‘exhibited’ to a lascivious public) and her relationship with an innocent rustic who drives a cart and transports her from place to place. The wandering in Guide signifies, apparently, neither ‘national pride’ nor ‘national unity’ but may be emblematic— if covertly—of the instability of nationalist sentiment after 1962.

Spectacle and the Nation Sangam began a trend in Indian cinema in as much as Raj Kapoor’s special position helped it to set new standards in tourist-driven consumerist imagery. Foreign locales became more common with the later narratives being actually driven by the change in milieu, for instance Promod Chakravarti’s Love in Tokyo (1966) and Shakti Samanta’s An Evening in Paris (1967). Jewel Thief goes a step further than Sangam and introduces expensive sets and gadgetry. Jewel Thief also benefits from Dev Anand’s ambiguous presence but more conspicuous are the hidden cabinets, sliding walls, and extravagant dances that betoken an effort to simulate ‘the foreign’ within an Indian milieu. The editing is often sharp and also interesting is the colour scheme adopted by the film: there are virtually no restrictions upon what shade may be used and the frames overflow with crimsons, bright blues, emerald greens, yellows, and even golds. This is a far cry from the employment of colour in Mother India, which actually appears moderate. The only explanation for this profligacy in films like Jewel Thief, Evening in Paris, and Teesri Manzil (1966) is that they represent the new impetus received by spectacle in the years following the military debacle of 1962. Most films, including one devoted to agrarianism like Upkaar, incorporate sequences where white-skinned foreigners are present as bystanders (usually in glitzy parties) although they serve no apparent purpose in the narrative. In Sangam, the foreign trip is a reward to Sunder and Radha and these films (perhaps similarly) rewarded audiences for enduring so many years of national crisis. In these years, therefore, ‘escapist’ entertainment flourishes on an unprecedented scale. The choice of foreign locales becomes prudent and the ‘foreign’ is also simulated through the tawdry ‘cabaret’, very different in spirit from the club dances of the 1950s. Prasad notices that the long segment in Sangam shot on foreign location has little narrative value67 and the same is true of comparable (p.170) segments from most of these other films. Drawing upon our understanding of the fight sequence we can say that the new impetus to spectacle betokens a convenient unresponsiveness to the experience of the nation and the absence of the Page 34 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s traditional signifiers (pertaining to the nation and affiliated ideas) lends credence to the hypothesis. Without the diversion of spectacle, popular films would have needed to focus entirely upon narration in the manner of Mere Mehboob and this is the more difficult course because of the absence of the signifiers. The nation vacates its position in popular cinema immediately after 1962 but reenters later in the 1960s. Manoj Kumar’s Upkaar appeared in 1967, a little more than a year after a more successful war, this time with Pakistan. Upkaar attempts to forge an authentic (and unprecedented) link between its narrative and its times when it begins with a speech of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri on the soundtrack. Although the film attempts to allegorize the history of the nation by dealing with the estrangement between two brothers— with the younger insisting upon dividing the land—much of Upkaar’s nationalism comes from the nation as spectacle and this places it very much within the scheme of the 1960s. Upkaar is torn apart by the need to allegorize the nation in archetypal terms while acknowledging it as a political reality. If the abstraction of the nation were to become ‘figurable’ to the spectator, it should be made accessible to his/her imagination and it should become representable in tangible form.68 Upkaar has two ‘nationalist’ sides and the first attempts to allegorize the history of the two nations as the story of two brothers. Another film to do so at around the same time is Raj Khosla’s Do Raaste (1969), which tells the story of a joint family with three brothers instead of two as in Upkaar. The eldest (Balraj Sahni) is well meaning and accommodating and he sends the second one abroad to study. While abroad, a woman from a rich background misleads the second brother (Prem Chopra) and he leaves the joint family to move into a more ostentatious residence while his brothers suffer privation and are finally driven out of their ancestral home. The narrative is finally resolved when the impetuous youngest brother (Rajesh Khanna) is unable to bear the insults heaped upon his family and hits back when the middle brother attacks him. The middle brother (p.171) now understands his errors but the presence of the youngest brother is significant because he can be seen to allegorize the tougher India of 1965. Nehru’s less decisive treatment of Pakistan in 1948 and his promise of a referendum to the Kashmiri people69 were publicly seen as Gandhian ‘pacifism’. There is a distinct celebration of the youngest brother’s ‘toughness’ in Raj Khosla’s film, even as the oldest brother’s approach may find correspondence with the ‘Gandhian’ one towards Pakistan. Returning to Upkaar, its other nationalist side pertains to the way it attempts to invoke the nation as a political entity through images of hungry people on a road (‘Nehru Road’), documentary footage showing the Prime Minister and recordings of his speeches, soldiers on parade and airplanes flying. These images do not inform the narrative but are simply inserted into the film as Page 35 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s spectacle. I have proceeded on the notion that the family is critical to popular cinema because it is the largest social unit independent of historical time. This is perhaps why popular cinema privileges the family over categories like ‘nation’, ‘language’ and even ‘religion’, which enter the story only through the family. The segments just cited make it appear that Upkaar’s ‘nationalism’ is drawing sustenance directly from India as a political entity but it achieves the effect entirely through subterfuge. Upkaar is best known for bringing back nationalism into popular cinema in the 1960s but it is also useful because it assists our understanding of how agrarian issues are understood differently in the 1960s. Upkaar no longer posits a conflict between the zamindar and the small farmer (as in Ganga Jumna); the conflict is now between the farmer and the trader and the issue is to simply produce enough grain to ‘feed the nation’. By the mid-1960s, agricultural policy had moved from emphasis on structural reform of the property order to technological solutions. Investment was directed heavily towards selected regions (especially Punjab and the north) to assist farmers in the ‘middle category’,70 both in terms of economic status and caste. These ‘middle’ farmers grew stronger in the Indira Gandhi era and became a powerful political lobby by the 1970s. Bharat, as a ‘progressive’ farmer with no complaint against entrenched feudal power, may be seen to belong to the class that benefited from this change in emphasis in the agrarian policy.

(p.172) The Arrival of Indira Gandhi With Upkaar we come to the end of the 1960s. This chapter has dealt with responses to the nation and it began by looking at the optimism of the 1950s. The chapter commenced in the Nehru era and concluded at about the time when his daughter came to power for the first time. It should be evident to the reader that the period saw too many changes for common ground to exist between Mother India and Upkaar, although both are nominally ‘nationalist’ in their sentiments. It is nevertheless also true that Mrs Gandhi wrought huge changes of a different kind in the Indian polity, and the 1970s were even stormier than the 1950s and 1960s. Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1966 but it is only after 1969 that she had consolidated her hold over the nation and popular cinema clearly responds to the changes wrought by her only in the 1970s. Since popular cinema during Mrs Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister needs to be especially looked at, it is appropriate to treat Indian cinema before her advent as belonging to a different era. This has been my principal justification in clubbing the cinema of the 1950s and the 1960s together—although it is only now that the justification is offered to the reader. Notes:

(1.) The tone of the following passage testifies to it: ‘In a review of 1955, I had described it as “India’s year.” Besides Bulganin and Krushchev, India had highranking visitors from Yugoslavia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Burma and Page 36 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s Indonesia. I mentioned that while Anthony Eden was personally keen to use India as a bridge with China, the British Press and diplomats were anti-Indian. The UN had ceased to be the handmaid of the Anglo-Americans and the Soviet Union had offered massive aid for the second plan unasked.’ Durga Das, India: From Curzon to Nehru and After, New Delhi: Rupa and Co., 1973, p. 325. (2.) For a study of the propagandist function of this film, see M.S.S. Pandian, ‘Parasakthi: Life and Times of a DMK Film’, in Ravi S. Vasudevan (ed.), Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 65–96. (3.) Also see Roy Armes, Third World Filmmaking and the West, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987, pp. 110–11. The different functions of the Hindi ‘All-India film’ and the regional film have also been noted. The Hindi film is seen to perform a unifying function while cinema made in Calcutta, Madras, and smaller centres can affirm the local identity through films made in local languages. (4.) Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, New Delhi: Penguin, 1997, p. 61. (5.) See M. Madhava Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 32. (6.) Cigarette smoke seems to imply the ‘modern’ in much of this cinema and could therefore symbolize industry. A parallel can perhaps be seen in Fritz Lang’s M (1931), where both the police and the criminal underworld meet in rooms clouded by smoke and the participants puff away at their cigars. Since M celebrates social organization, the clouds of smoke can also be read as a metaphor for industrial activity. If smoking ‘means nothing’, we still need to explain why it disappears from later cinema in India. (7.) For an examination of the differences see Ravi S. Vasudevan, ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities: The Hindi Popular Film of the 1950s as Popular Culture’, in Vasudevan, Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, pp. 109–10. There is however a more genuine kind of noir dealing with the adulterous woman in the new millennium and this will be examined briefly in a later section. (8.) To those readers who are not quite convinced by the argument, consider the sequence in Hitchcock’s Psycho in which Norman Bates leads Marion Crane into his office and its anteroom and she sees the stuffed birds. The scene is strikingly lit and apparently inspired by expressionism. The question to be put is whether the sequence does not, in some sense, represent Marion’s emotional response to the space. Norman Bates, for instance, could not have seen his own anteroom that way. Does not this mean that the sequence draws its sustenance from ‘character subjectivity’? (9.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 69. Page 37 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s (10.) Interestingly, there is a curious, unnoticed link between Mother India and Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955). If a film has represented agrarian India to the rest of the world, this film is perhaps Pather Panchali. Mother India was made two years after Pather Panchali and contains conscious narrative and visual echoes of Ray’s film. One of its sequences shows Shyamu’s mother returning from a journey to an unspecified place to find her son crippled, having lost both his arms. Harihar Rai, we recollect, returns home in Pather Panchali after a long absence to find his daughter Durga dead. Radha loses her youngest child to a fever caught during the rains in the manner of Durga, and Shyamu’s mother’s death is also staged in the manner of old Indira’s in the Bengali film. There is also a comic sequence involving a village school master disciplining his students in Mother India and Ramu’s rustic frolicking is filmed panoramically to remind us of Apu and Durga. Ironically, Nargis, who played the heroine in Mother India, became a Member of Parliament (in the Rajya Sabha) in 1980 and, in her first intervention denounced Satyajit Ray for displaying India’s poverty to the West instead of ‘Modern India’ exemplified by its dams. Report in Probe India, October 1980, p. 14, cited by Rosie Thomas, ‘Sanctity and Scandal: The Mythologization of Mother India’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 2(3), 1989, p. 24. (11.) James Green, in the Observer, 26 March 1961, had the following to say about the film: ‘Mother India is a rambling tale of personal woe, narrated episodically in unsuitably pretty Technicolour.’ Cited by Rosie Thomas, ‘India Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity’, Screen, 26(3–4), 1985. Interestingly, the cover of Gayatri Chatterjee’s Mother India (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2002) is virtually unrecognizable as a still photograph from the film because the colours have been deliberately muted. (12.) For instance, see Sumita S. Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema: 1947–1987, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 155. (13.) Chatterjee, Mother India, p. 50. (14.) Ibid., p. 48. (15.) Thomas, ‘Sanctity and Scandal’, pp. 11–30. (16.) Ibid., p. 17. (17.) Ibid., p. 16. (18.) Ibid., p. 17–18. Thomas also cites Chris Fuller, ‘The Divine Couple in South India’, History of Religions, 19(4), 1980, p. 327. (19.) Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 52–4.

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The 1950s and 1960s (20.) Thomas, ‘Sanctity and Scandal’, p. 19. (21.) Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, p. 153. (22.) Ibid., p. 155. (23.) Ibid., p. 153. (24.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, pp. 78–80. (25.) R.C. Majumdar, H.C. Raychaudhuri, Kalikinkar Datta, An Advanced History of India, Delhi: Macmillan India, 1983, p. 1020. (26.) Thomas, ‘Sanctity and Scandal’, p. 15. (27.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 61. (28.) Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, p. 209. (29.) Ibid., p. 48. (30.) Ibid., p. 209. (31.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 86. (32.) Thomas, ‘Sanctity and Scandal’, pp. 22–9, explains how Nargis’s reported off-screen affair with Raj Kapoor helped to epitomize freedom and lack of inhibition. Also adding to her screen image was the public perception of Nargis as a woman who had the courage to live her life openly and show total devotion to ‘her’ man although ‘her’ man would never jeopardize his marriage for her sake. (33.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 79. (34.) Ibid., p. 81. (35.) Ibid., p. 81. (36.) For instance, see Das, India: From Curzon to Nehru and After, p. 359. (37.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 218. (38.) Ashis Nandy, ‘An Intelligent Critic’s Guide to Indian Cinema’, Deep Focus, vol. 1(1), December 1987, Paper presented at INTACH seminar on Visual Anthropology, p. 71. (39.) Details found in Firoze Rangoonwala, Life and Work: Bimal Roy: A Critical Study. Details of publication absent—perhaps privately circulated.

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The 1950s and 1960s (40.) The guilt is ‘self-evident’ in Phir Subah Hogi (1958) as well, but it is still admitted only in court. (41.) The noise associated with the fight sequence in the popular consciousness is ‘dishoom-dishoom’. (42.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 89. (43.) Also see David Bordwell, Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989, pp. 8–9. As the author notes, the spectator may seek to construct covert, symbolic, or implicit meanings when s/he cannot find a way to reconcile an anomalous element with the referential or explicit aspect of the work. Although any element— whether anomalous or not—can serve as the basis of implicit meanings, implicit meaning may also be taken to contradict other sorts of meaning— whether referential or explicit. Although an allegory (like The Faerie Queene) is normally explicit, the allegorical meaning of Hindi cinema is usually implicit and needs to be excavated. (44.) Ali Abu Shadi, ‘Genres in Egyptian Cinema’, in Alia Arasoughly (ed.), Screens of Life: Critical Film Writing from the Arab World, Quebec: World Heritage Press, 1996. (45.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 86. (46.) Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema. (47.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 83. (48.) Ibid., p. 84. (49.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, pp. 84–7. (50.) There is a touch of vengefulness in a suicide born out of jealousy, this being illustrated by Asit Sen’s Safar (1970) where it is the jealous husband who, dramatically, kills himself. This act is presumably intended to drive the survivors to remorse. In Sangam, the possibility of remorse is not even considered by the survivors. (51.) Gopal’s arranging to write letters to Sunder (as purportedly from Radha) to keep him in the right frame of mind at the front can also be seen as a way of fulfilling his ‘responsibility’. There is a sequence where Sunder forces his intimacy upon Radha in a boat and Gopal gazes at the two with the warmly indulgent look of an affectionate guardian. (52.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 33. ‘Military force was essential in establishing and securing the Indian state, but the generals never ruled. The Page 40 of 42

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The 1950s and 1960s military was successfully subordinated to civilian authority, unlike the situation in many other South and Southeast Asian states.’ (53.) This is rendered possible by the heroine corresponding to type and not being an individual. (54.) Das, India: From Curzon to Nehru and After, p. 361. (55.) Ibid., p. 363. (56.) Ibid., p. 364. (57.) Ibid., p. 365. (58.) Ibid., p. 365. (59.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, pp. 39–40. (60.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 85. (61.) Ibid., p. 85 n26. Prasad cites Deedar but also admits that the blind hero in the film meets a destiny that is the antithesis of Sunder’s in Sangam. He also cites Chhalia, Dhool Ka Phool, and Devdas without justifying the comparison. (62.) There is perhaps a similarity between Sangam’s response to the nation and to war and that of the genre of the Heimatfilme that flourished in Germany where the War was treated as a calamity without an author. See Heide Fehrenbach, Cinema in Democratizing Germany, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1995, p. 150. The Heimatfilme also emerged from a defeated nation. It was about ‘Home’ but it hardly corresponded to a ‘nationalist cinema’. (63.) Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, p. 48. (64.) For instance see Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Once Again a Leap into the Postcolonial Banal’, in Peter Collier and Helga Geter-Ryan (eds), Literary Theory Today, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. (65.) See Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 358. Guide has received a great deal of critical attention but there is a useful summary of the arguments against it here. (66.) Two pertinent road movies in this context are Peter Fonda’s Easy Rider (1969), which addresses the counter-culture movement of the late 1960s, and Wim Wenders’s Im Lauf der Zeit (1976), which contains an explicit reference to the discredited German Fatherland.

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The 1950s and 1960s (67.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 83. (68.) See Frederic Jameson, ‘Class and Allegory in Contemporary Mass Culture: Dog Day Afternoon as a Political Film’, in Bill Nichols (ed.), Movies and Methods (Part 2), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Cited by Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, p. 99. (69.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 31. (70.) Ibid., pp. 90–1.

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The 1970s

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

The 1970s Crosscurrents M.K. Raghavendra

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.003.0006

Abstract and Keywords This chapter discusses the narrative patterns in popular cinema after Indira Gandhi departed from the Nehruvian mode and later became the prime minister. During this period, films centred on the woman and her ascendancy in society— films which closely correspond to the public perception of Indira Gandhi. The ascendancy of the small bourgeoisie against the populist radicalism and monopoly of the ruling class was a prominent theme, as was the rise of heroes within the middle class who wooed princesses and the ruling class. Other social issues embedded in the films were social marginalization, the authoritarian state, and criminality. Discussed as well are the restraints and challenges faced by the Indian popular cinema during Gandhi administration. In 1969, Indian films witnessed a period of crisis. New film financing was introduced to serve as an interventionist policy of the government. The period also saw the rise of middle cinema—a consequence of segmentation and state intervention through the Film Finance Corporation (FFC) policy of the government. Keywords:   Indira Gandhi, populist radicalism, ascendancy of women, small bourgeoisie, social marginalization, authoritarian state, middle cinema

Woman on Trial In the last chapter we examined the period between the mid-1950s and the late 1960s when responses to the nation dominated Indian popular cinema—although in different ways. The late 1960s and the first half of the 1970s had different implications for Indian society. This was the period in which Indira Gandhi Page 1 of 32

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The 1970s departed from the Nehruvian mode and also consolidated her hold over the country. The narrative patterns in the popular cinema of the period may, at first glance, seem too varied and confusing to be explained as owing to a single political development. Still, they were largely responses to Mrs Gandhi and her brand of populist radicalism and this chapter will eventually make it clearer to the reader. Indira Gandhi was installed as Prime Minister in 1966 almost by accident. While she had entered politics under her father’s eye (she had served as Congress president in the 1950s) and Nehru undoubtedly envisaged a public career for her, there is no evidence that she was actually groomed to rule. It was the unexpected death of the man who succeeded Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, in January 1966 that saw her being elevated to power by the powerful provincial leaders of the Congress, the group known as the ‘Syndicate’. This group had apparently chosen Shastri when Nehru was dying and it chose Mrs Gandhi under the mistaken belief that it could control her. The Congress won the general elections in 1967, although much less (p.174) convincingly than in the past. Instead of being disconcerted, Mrs Gandhi actually saw the Congress’ poor performance as an opportunity and seized it by radically altering the party’s strategy. She circumvented the regional bosses upon whom the party leadership had been dependent by shifting her rhetoric to the left. Her gambit was to dissolve the ‘vote banks’ traditionally governed by the regional bosses and appeal directly to the electorate.1 In 1969 she did the unthinkable and split the Congress over the choice of a presidential candidate for the party. Mrs Gandhi’s political conduct is not however pertinent for the moment and what is relevant is her perceived transformation from an emblem of inexperience to an individual who underwent the trials thrust upon her and still emerged triumphant. A later film named Aandhi (1975) makes a vague allusion to a woman politician resembling Mrs Gandhi but more significant are three or four mainstream melodramas dealing with a lonely and oppressed woman that appear around 1969–71. A narrative device thriving in the period just around 1970 is the ‘unwed mother’ and many of the films star Rajesh Khanna as the absent father—Shakti Samanta’s Aradhana (1969), Ramesh Sippy’s Andaz (1971), and Yash Chopra’s Daag (1973). Aradhana begins with a trial— a woman is handed a life sentence for murder and this necessitates a flashback. Vandana (Sharmila Tagore) meets a pilot named Arun (Rajesh Khanna) and falls in love with him. Arun and Vandana are privately married but Arun dies in an aircrash before their marital status can be made known. Vandana has however become pregnant and this puts her in a difficult position. She becomes a nurse in the household that adopts her abandoned child Suraj. When the brother of Suraj’s foster mother attempts to molest her, the child stabs the assailant and Vandana takes the blame. When Vandana comes out of prison, she becomes a ‘sister’ to the jailer and lives with Page 2 of 32

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The 1970s him, looking after his daughter. Vandana discovers that this girl is engaged to her own son (now also a pilot) and the rest of the film is taken up with how Suraj (Rajesh Khanna) comes to recognize his true mother. There are earlier films dealing with unwed mothers but they are unlike Aradhana. The issue of the unwed mother got attention in Dhool Ka Phool but the film was different in as much as the mother abandons the child early, consequently leading a conventional and secure life in society. Problems arise only when the respectability that marriage has (p.175) conferred upon her makes her yearn for motherhood. But in Aradhana and the two later films, the mother keeps custody of the child and this makes her position especially vulnerable. Apart from having to bring up the child alone, she faces the additional ordeal of social disapproval and she needs to be strong and courageous. It is perhaps also significant that Rajesh Khanna plays the man who fathers the child in each of the films.2 We saw earlier that the star Rajendra Kumar was represented as an object of feminine desire in the late 1950s and he played the heroine’s lover in Dhool Ka Phool. The same remark can be made about Rajesh Khanna with regard to the late 1960s and early 1970s and these three films confirm his status. If the quality marking the personae of both Rajendra Kumar and Rajesh Khanna is a benign kind of decorativeness, it must be conceded that the latter goes much further in this direction. The individual played by Rajendra Kumar can sometimes take advantage of his desirability (Dhool Ka Phool), and it is this implicit threat in his persona that still makes it less extreme than Rajesh Khanna’s. The English art critic John Berger3 describes how social convention and usage dictate that the presence of a woman be different from that of a man. According to Berger, a man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power that he embodies. The promised power, be it economic, social, moral, or physical is exterior to the man and it suggests what he is capable or incapable of doing. In contrast, because a woman’s presence ‘expresses her attitude to herself’, the extent of her power is defined by what can or cannot be done to her. Just as a woman’s ‘femininity’ is not a measure of her frailty, ‘masculinity’ is not a measure of the power a man exudes. A man’s ineffectuality, like his power, is directed outward and masculinity is perhaps a measure of this ‘exteriority’ rather than a measure of the power itself. Berger’s perceptive remark that ‘a man acts while a woman appears’ is perhaps a comment on the man’s tendency to exteriorize even the most private of emotions (helplessness, despair) in contrast to a woman’s much more inward responses. The absence of a ‘threat’ in Rajesh Khanna’s presence can perhaps be traced to the lack of exteriority in the star’s persona. Rajesh Khanna’s presence seems to embody neither power nor vulnerability and even the extent of its sexuality is Page 3 of 32

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The 1970s disputable. This is not to say that the star is ‘effeminate’ but, rather, that he is objectified in a way only (p.176) feminine sex symbols have formally been in Indian cinema. The star also has a cultivated language of gestures that works towards this ‘objectification’—a self-consciously buoyant countenance, a bashful downward glance, and a toss of the head that caricatures feminine impetuosity. Rajesh Khanna’s toneless persona gains special significance in the context of the three films about ‘unwed mothers’. The individuals played by Rajesh Khanna in Aradhana, Andaz, and Daag are not presented as epitomizing virility and masculine power. Where Rajendra Kumar could serve as the object of feminine desire, Rajesh Khanna is perhaps describable as its projected ‘manifestation’. In most other Hindi romances, the heroes encounter some initial resistance when they woo their heroines but the heroes played by Rajesh Khanna either move smoothly into romantic attachments (Aradhana) or are already into them when the narrative begins (Daag and Andaz). One conjecture explaining this aspect of the hero in the three films is that he is a feminine projection, a ‘virtual’ male whose persona leaves no imprint and who is perhaps only intended to facilitate a transition in the condition of the woman. In all the three films cited, the hero and heroine marry privately and the status of ‘unwed mother’ granted to the woman is the outcome of insufficient evidence that the wedding has actually taken place.4 This means that the heroine has not ‘erred’ as she has in Dhool Ka Phool. The couple also disregard the security of a civil marriage and this must be read as a deliberate ploy on the part of the narrative to heap difficulties upon the woman for which she is not responsible. In all the three films the heroine takes up the role of a lonely working woman only after the birth of the child—this signifying a transition from innocence to emotional maturity. Considering that each narrative sees one moment of passion as adequate to bring about the child, the child itself becomes an emblem of experience, for the commitments and the threats newly brought into the life of the woman. The man played by Rajesh Khanna only acts as the facilitator for, while he unwittingly helps the heroine into a new independence, pushes her into a threatened yet committed existence, he leaves no imprint behind and swiftly disappears from the scene thereafter. The narratives in all three films have later developments—in Aradhana, the heroine is reunited with her son and Andaz gives the woman a second romance. The man also reappears in Daag to resume (p.177) his relationship with the heroine but these developments fulfil the closure imperative and that is their major purpose. What is however pertinent at this juncture is that there was apparently a felt need in the late 1960s and early 1970s for the mythicalarchetypal representation of an independent, lonely, threatened, and yet committed woman, a woman who is also a mother. This woman is an individual with worldly experience but without any visible signs of a man having played a part in her life. If such a representation was needed at the time, popular cinema was only meeting the requirement with the means available and films of the Page 4 of 32

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The 1970s described kind proliferated. This observation becomes particularly significant if we recollect that the late 1960s was also the period in which Mrs Gandhi fought her powerful adversaries, proving more than a match for them. According to Sunil Khilnani, a popular psychology of Mrs Gandhi was also later evoked to explain the Emergency in 1975: ‘…Lonely, insecure, and believing herself to be persecuted, Mrs Gandhi cast a veil over liberty’s figure, it was said.’5 There are other aspects of these films that find correspondence in the public perception of Mrs Gandhi. When she gained prominence in politics, very little was known about her married life; her late husband Feroze Gandhi also remained a shadowy, absent figure. A similar remark can be made about the way the heroines in Aradhana and Daag are regarded by the people around them: the women apparently have shadowy, absent lovers. In Aradhana, Vandana’s son Suraj is a pilot like Mrs Gandhi’s older son also was, although Rajiv Gandhi worked for a civilian airline while Suraj is in the airforce.

The Ascendancy of the ‘Small Bourgeoisie’ We have just found evidence of how popular cinema reacted to Mrs Gandhi’s ascendancy and we now need to see how it responded to her political conduct— best described as populist radicalism. One of the biggest successes of the early 1970s was Raj Kapoor’s Bobby (1973). Bobby is a story of teenage love. Raj (Rishi Kapoor) is the son of rich parents—Mr and Mrs Nath—and Bobby (Dimple) is the granddaughter of Raj’s former governess Mrs Braganza. Raj first sees Bobby at his birthday party where Bobby has come along with Mrs Braganza. Raj locates her residence the next day, ventures thither to meet Bobby and a bond is established between the two. Also living with Bobby is (p.178) Bobby’s father Jack Braganza (Premnath), a hard-drinking man who runs a fishing enterprise. Bobby’s father is only too happy to accommodate a charming young man like Raj as a son-in-law but Raj’s own father stands in the way. Bobby takes the path of other love stories in the same mould but relevant from the viewpoint I have chosen is the discourse it offers on ‘new’ and ‘old’ wealth. On hearing of Raj’s attachment his father immediately suspects that it is Raj’s family fortune that Bobby and her father are after. Even knowledge of Braganza’s successful business fails to convince him otherwise and the film attains its moral highpoint when Nath (Pran) offers money to buy Braganza and his daughter off, even taking out a chequebook to emphasize his intent. In response, Jack Braganza pulls out a huge quantity of currency notes from his wardrobe, piling them upon the table as if to demonstrate that he and prosperity have not been strangers to each other. Jack Braganza also tells his mother that while she herself may have worked as a ‘servant’ in the Nath household and may nurture old loyalties, he himself is an independent man with no such obligations. Later in the film Raj and Bobby elope and Braganza’s response to the visit of Raj’s father and the police is to declare that if anything happens to Bobby he will see Nath in jail. This is evidently meant to impress upon the audience that Jack Page 5 of 32

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The 1970s Braganza has his own claims upon the state that are as valid as those of Raj’s father. Bobby is oddly reminiscent of Awaara in as much as it is about ‘inclusion’ in society. But where Awaara pleads for the inclusion of an individual within a class, Bobby aggressively demands that the power of an ascendant class be acknowledged. Mr Nath represents ‘old money’ but, being urban, he represents the rich industrial class rather than the feudal gentry and Braganza can be interpreted as representing the rising small bourgeoisie. It is pertinent here that Bobby was made at a time when the Government of India was pursuing an antimonopolist drive against the large industrial houses. The smaller bourgeoisie was being actively courted and the measures included the nationalization of private banks and institution of inquiries into the affairs of big business houses.6 Another interesting facet of Bobby is its refusal to problematize religious difference. Bobby and Raj belong to different religions but the objections to their marriage are grounded entirely in social and (p.179) economic factors. Indian cinema before 1947 is widely perceived to have been predominantly Hindu.7 The nation consciously adopted secularism as the creed in 1947 and Indian cinema was partly induced to reorient itself. This, however, only resulted in the Islamic and Christian ways of life being portrayed as ‘alien’ within film narrative, accounting for the way in which Abdul is given the role of the moral outsider in Dhool Ka Phool. Whenever a film has a narrative about Christians or about Muslims, the characters belong exclusively to the religious group being represented and the possibility of cross-religious affiliations is therefore evaded. We saw that Jaal is entirely about Christians and Mere Mehboob entirely about Muslims. Bobby is one of the few films to bring the religious minorities inclusively into the ‘Hindu mainstream’ of the narrative—although the Goan Catholic community is not treated as a ‘religious minority’ but as an ethnic group characterized by its colour and spiritedness. Indian cinema earlier dealt similarly with ethnic minorities (Raj Kapoor’s own Barsaat) and their assimilation into the mainstream. One explanation for Bobby underplaying religion is that economic factors had become more determining in 1973 because of Mrs Gandhi’s efforts at populist radicalism. It must however be noted that the Islamic minority resists such assimilation more strongly and is therefore not dealt with in this way even in the films of the 1970s. The film coming closest to portraying a Hindu–Muslim romance in the 1970s is perhaps Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978).

Upward Mobility The changes wrought by Mrs Gandhi upon the nation’s ethos have been extensively written about and a brief examination of some of these changes is relevant here.

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The 1970s To secure her authority (Mrs Gandhi) began to use economic policy as an active instrument for mustering political support. … After a few years in office, Mrs Gandhi had become a symbol of economic redemption for many different groups in society, which had not suddenly changed or become more radical; rather, she was addressing it in different ways, using a new rhetoric to incite its desires and connect its frustrations to the promises of the state. In the fading years of the Nehru government, and during the Shastri interregnum, agricultural policy had moved… towards the technological solutions of the ‘Green Revolution’. It directed investment heavily towards selected regions… and social groups. … The results were impressive, and by the mid-1960s these new (p.180) ‘bullock capitalists’ began to form their own regional political parties … These groups demanded entry with full honours into the ‘ruling social coalition’: they threatened to withdraw support for Congress unless they received tangible returns. The consequences were apparent in the Congress reverses in the 1967 elections. In response, Mrs Gandhi moved forward to accommodate these rural groups into national politics. She invited their leaders into positions within her Congress, and devised a menu of state subsidies to satisfy the farmers they represented. Electrical power, water, fertilizers and credit were all supplied by the state on concessionary terms, while agricultural incomes and wealth remained untaxed— the largest bounty of all. Besides the prospering farmers, other new interests also laid claims to the state’s resources.8 Judging from the passage just cited, the early 1970s represent a period when large sections of the populace not only aspired intensely for some kind of upward mobility but also saw it as within their capacity to achieve it. Returning to cinema, we find films of the early 1970s employing the motif of the middle class hero successfully wooing the heiress against the dictates of society. The narratives of popular cinema are transparently patriarchal in their discourse and the onus of action is therefore entirely upon the hero. When a rich man in Indian popular cinema marries a woman from a modest background, it is benevolence and generosity that are signified but an ordinary man who woos and ‘wins’ a rich woman is usually an emblem of achievement. Bobby is an unusual example of the former category9 but it is the latter category that comes into its own in the early 1970s. Much of Nasir Hussain’s Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973) is taken up with the second son Vijay wooing Sunita, the daughter of a crorepati (a multimillionaire). Vijay’s adoptive father works for Sunita’s father as manager and he virtually admonishes Vijay for attempting to reach so far above himself. Vijay begins his wooing through an elaborate impersonation of a rich man and Sunita initially believes Vijay to be rich but when she discovers his true status we find her caring for him as much as she ever did and ‘love’ finally ‘triumphs over wealth’.

This motif of male achievement is not always represented in ‘contemporary’ terms because Manmohan Desai’s Dharam Veer (1977) has subplots involving two ‘ordinary’ men who woo and win princesses. Along with the motif of upward Page 7 of 32

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The 1970s mobility in the films of the Indira Gandhi era, the city returns to popular cinema in the 1970s. If the city returns to the films of the 1970s—in films like Deewar (1975), Trishul (1978), and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978)—it returns differently, as (p.181) an emblem of opportunity. Each of these films celebrates the rise of an individual from deprivation to immense wealth and power and the discourse is partly about the opportunities in the city—both within and outside the law. These films will be examined in greater detail elsewhere in the chapter.

Redefining Legality As noted in the last chapter, the law all but disappears from its position of privilege in popular cinema in the 1960s. Aradhana begins with a courtroom trial in the title sequence but the role of the trial is nominal because the courtroom dialogues are left out of the film’s soundtrack. Aradhana has an extended role for the jailer but a distinction is usually made between the jailer and the policeman and although clad in khaki, the former does not represent state authority like the policeman (or the judge). This is borne out by a film like Sholay (1975) where the policeman is a grave presence but the jailer is cheerfully lampooned. The first significant film after 1962 to actually bring the ‘law’ back into focus, to centre the story on the notion of state authority is perhaps Prakash Mehra’s Zanjeer (1973). This was the first of the films to cast Amitabh Bachchan as the ‘angry young man’ but it is still a transitional film and the significance of Amitabh Bachchan will be examined later. Prakash Mehra’s film tells the story of an honest policeman, who was once witness to the brutal killing of his own parents when he was still a child. Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) is now a tough policeman who is not unduly hampered by protocol and is willing to use his fists to enforce the law. The figure of Inspector Vijay is loosely modelled after ‘Dirty Harry’ and has been characterized as a vigilante by Madhava Prasad.10 Zanjeer is a ‘revenge melodrama’ but Indian film narratives employ the ‘passive voice’ and the hero’s desire for revenge cannot ‘motivate’ the action as happens in American cinema. What happens instead is that the initial disturbance places him in a condition of excitement until revenge is fortuitously placed within his reach. He has a recurring dream which is perhaps introduced to remind the spectator of the incomplete agenda of vengeance—necessary because Vijay does not himself articulate it.11 Vijay as a ‘vigilante’ is a conclusion that merits contesting because he kills the man who murdered his parents but does this only when the life of a senior police officer is threatened. If (p.182) Vijay is a ‘vigilante’, his vigilantism is of a different order from that found in a film like Ankush (1985)—where the vigilantes are hanged. The law is implicated in the very first scene of Zanjeer and plays a crucial part in defining the ‘first cause’. Vijay’s father Ranjit is a small-time criminal released by a principled police officer for want of evidence. He is a member of a gang engaged in the adulteration of liquor and when Ranjit returns home, he hears of another child orphaned by ‘poisoned’ liquor. He therefore abandons his criminal Page 8 of 32

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The 1970s connections and it is this change of heart that leads to him being killed by the leader of the gang. Vijay witnesses the deed and he eventually becomes a policeman because the same police officer who once released his father also adopts him. The ‘first cause’ is important because the film argues for the ‘inclusion’ of the reformed criminal in another way as well. The most important aspect of Zanjeer involves Vijay’s enlistment of a criminal who owns a gambling den, a Muslim named Sher Khan (Pran). The man challenges Vijay to meet him outside without his ‘position’ to support him and Vijay accepts. It is Vijay’s physical prowess that convinces Sher Khan to mend his ways and the latter then becomes an honest mechanic. Prasad notices that Zanjeer introduces the notion of ‘the dispossessed’ through these small-time criminal figures,12 giving Vijay’s mission significance beyond the personal. There is little in popular cinema until the 1970s to compare with the morally upright figure on the fringes of legality and the reading that he represents the ‘dispossessed’ is reasonable to assume. But by showing state authority to actually employ the services of these reformed ‘criminal’ elements, Zanjeer also proposes a re-examination and an expansion of the notion of legality to include the dispossessed. Zanjeer is not alone here because Sholay employs the same motif—petty criminals enlisted by a police officer to apprehend a notorious dacoit. Vijay himself, by being both outside the law (as a marginal figure) and inside it (as state authority) helps to blur the demarcating lines of legality. Since the figure of the policeman has been consistently read as representing state authority in popular cinema, this device perhaps refers to a possible redefining, by state authority, of the role of the judiciary. Legality cannot be represented through judges because, according to film convention, judges do not represent legality but (like the police) always state authority. Indira Gandhi’s relationship with the judiciary was a stormy one after she embarked upon her ‘radicalization’ of Indian politics. In February (p.183) 1970 the Supreme Court struck down the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1969, under which fourteen top commercial banks had been nationalized. In December 1970, it struck down the presidential order of 16 September 1970—by which the former rulers of the princely states had been de-recognized. The Supreme Court’s judgements caused serious uneasiness in government circles and there was even talk in the left of the impeachment of judges, particularly those presiding over the bank nationalization case.13 The course finally chosen was for the holding of a midterm poll and the seeking of a fresh mandate to amend the constitution and push through the reforms. Mrs Gandhi received an overwhelming mandate in 1971 and the effects of the judgements were neutralized. Her tussle with the judiciary nonetheless continued and what government authorities found particularly irksome was the declaration by the Supreme Court (in the context of another case) that the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution could not be altered even by parliament through amendments. The striking down by the Supreme Court of Page 9 of 32

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The 1970s Section 17(A) of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) brought home the fact that the Supreme Court was still in a position to obstruct the government’s social objectives. It was therefore decided to appoint as Chief Justice a person who would be more cooperative with the government in the attainment of its social and economic objectives. This person was Justice A.N. Ray and he was appointed Chief Justice in April 1973, superseding three senior judges of the Supreme Court. Expectedly this was met with opposition but the government defended its decision. Mrs Gandhi declared in May 1974 (shortly after a May Day rally) that judges should also ‘fulfil the ideals of the people’.14 The opinion in the period often conjectured about a ‘committed’ judiciary that would go beyond the traditional role of simply interpreting the existing law and this corresponds to ‘redefining legality’. Zanjeer covertly proposes that only through redefining legality can the dispossessed be readmitted into the social mainstream.

Middle Cinema—Its Strengths and Weaknesses My interest is in popular cinema and the growth of new cinema and middle cinema may not have a direct bearing upon my arguments. Still, it is pertinent in as much as it provides evidence of the extent to which (p.184) cinema became radicalized in the 1970s. There is a hypothesis that the development of art cinema and middle cinema was engendered by the pressure for change within the film industry, which was induced by Mrs Gandhi’s radical initiatives. The ‘period of crisis’ for the film industry apparently began in 1969 with the new Film Finance Corporation (FFC) policy and it came to an end in 1977 when Mrs Gandhi lost at the polls and was removed from power.15 The segmentation of the audience initiated in the 1970s was caused by two factors. While one of these was the mobilization of the masses in the public space, the other was a statesponsored movement seeking to give substance to the idea of a ‘national cinema’. The two factors were related because a new approach to film financing emerged through the interventionist policies of the government.16 The FFC, which had functioned like any other government institution, merely supplementing the budgets of successful filmmakers, now entered into direct competition with the mainstream industry. Only Satyajit Ray who had developed his own aesthetic without support from any institutionalized programme had represented Indian art cinema, and the industry declared him a cultural icon without jeopardizing its own position. The cinema coming out of state sponsorship was not ‘ideologically dangerous’ (FFC policy was administered by an independent body) but it represented an economic hazard to the mainstream as likely competition.17 The two films usually cited as the first successes of FFC policy are Basu Chatterji’s Sara Akash (1969) and Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome (1969). Both were models of simplicity and authenticity and dealt with ‘ordinary people’18 in accordance with the virtues upheld by the policy.

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The 1970s There are two hypotheses with regard to the origin of India’s middle cinema. While one of them holds19 that it was a compromise between new cinema engendered by FFC policy and the mainstream, Ashis Nandy20 only sees a development of the reformist cinema of directors like Bimal Roy and V. Shantaram. The directors who contributed to this cinema were Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar, Basu Bhattacharya, and Basu Chatterjee who had all worked with Bimal Roy at one time or another. Some of them had dabbled in ‘middle cinema’ in the 1960s—Anupama and Teesri Kasam, for instance. This factor lends credence to Nandy’s arguments but we also see—in the films of the 1970s —a desire to ‘go beyond’ Bimal Roy’s model, to attempt a direct engagement with the issues of the day. (p.185) The middle cinema of the 1970s is also a ‘middle-class cinema’, a consequence of the ‘segmentation’ and attributable to state intervention through FFC policy. This implies that middle cinema is preoccupied with middle-class issues.21 The characters in the films are also presented as ‘ordinary people’— individuals—rather than as mythical types/archetypes, implying that the films are difficult to read as allegory— and also have no ‘eternal’ message to convey. Although Basu Chatterjee, Gulzar, and Basu Bhattacharya left their mark upon Indian cinema, Hrishikesh Mukherjee is more important because his films employed major stars even while going ‘beyond entertainment’. Mukherjee’s Anand (1970) is loosely modelled on Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952) and is about a terminally ill man’s efforts at bringing happiness to those around him. Anand begins with a felicitation ceremony arranged for Dr Bhaskar (Amitabh Bachchan) who has just written a book titled ‘Anand’. Dr Bhaskar is a cancer specialist and he reveals that the book is not a work of fiction but pertains to his experiences with an actual individual. The story of Dr Bhaskar and Anand is then related in flashback and this takes up the rest of the film. Anand was one of the first films to emerge from the body recognized as middle cinema and, considering its casting of Rajesh Khanna in the central role, its neglect of the conventions of popular cinema is striking. The film begins with scenes of Bombay and does not shy away from scenes of destitution. The film engages clearly with the present and therefore finds no need for the mandatory parental figures that provide popular cinema with its most durable ‘contexts’. Anand is unattached although there is a suggestion that the woman he once loved is now happily married to a ‘good man’. Anand thus comes into the film with a ‘memory’ and this is unusual. The relationship between Bhaskar and Renu as doctor and former patient is unconventional. The film also closes with Anand’s death and not with a fruitful conclusion to Bhaskar’s romance. If Anand belongs to a category that extends Bimal Roy’s cinema it must be admitted that the film departs considerably from it.

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The 1970s Anand’s companion piece is Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Bawarchi (1972), which proposes in comedy what Anand does in another realm. Bawarchi also stars Rajesh Khanna, this time as a wondrous cook named Raghu who comes into a family torn apart by squabbles and brings (p.186) peace to it. The narrative of Bawarchi departs considerably from the form we associate with Indian popular cinema although some of the latter’s conventions are still employed. Raghu’s presence has such an impact upon the family that one character, Ramnath, is not only able to perform his duties better at his office but also does the work of other people, leading to an overall improvement of efficiency. This can be contrasted with Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964) where the eponymous heroine ushers in family happiness while destroying the institution where the father is working. Both Anand and Bawarchi use the motif of the outsider bringing about reconciliation and if the reconciliation is merely romantic in Anand, it is stronger in Bawarchi where the joint family is rescued from strife. The motif of the ‘outsider-catalyst’ effecting reconciliation also drives Gulzar’s Mere Apne (1971)22 in which two youthful hoodlums (who were once friends) are reconciled by an old woman who becomes surrogate mother to one of them. The reconciliation in each of the films may not seem momentous but family unity and dosti have huge implications in popular cinema. Madhava Prasad’s reading is that these are stories of ‘national recon-ciliation’.23 One difference between them and most popular films may be that while the ‘nation’ is only present as allegory in popular cinema, these films make its space tangible. The ‘reconciliation’ in each story, if at the filial/familial level, is also made to eventually spill over. This is perhaps why the end of family strife in Bawarchi finds manifestation in the public space through ‘improved efficiency’ in Ramnath’s office. The films coming later in the 1970s do not concern themselves with ‘national reconciliation’ but still move away from popular cinema. Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Abhimaan (1973) uses Jaya Bhaduri and Amitabh Bachchan, who were then already major stars, and engages in a new kind of ‘psychological realism’ about marital conflict. My understanding of Abhimaan’s unconventionality is that it comes from the marital rupture being attributed to the psychological factor of jealousy rather than to the intervention of external agencies like accidents or misunderstandings. The hero combines in his person the twin emotions of love and resentment and this represents a degree of psychological complexity absent in popular cinema. Basu Chatterjee’s films in the 1970s—Rajnigandha (1975), Chhoti si Baat (1976) —can also be considered departures from the popular model not because they suggest that romances between working men (p.187) and working women are legitimate but also because they work against the notion of the archetypal lover. Portraying working women who participate in romances is a liberty that popular cinema does not often allow itself and such portrayals can be regarded as a first Page 12 of 32

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The 1970s step towards ‘complexity’. It was earlier remarked that just as there are occupations defining male character, occupations are provided for women that are not incompatible with romantic roles. Occupations sometimes denote emotional states and a melancholy disposition is suitable for the occupation of the nurse in Bandini. The heroes and heroines of Basu Chatterjee’s films break even these moulds. The hero of Rajnigandha (Amol Palekar) is employed in an office and the heroine (Vidya Sinha) works for her PhD. If the middle cinema of the early 1970s is accepted as a legitimate extension of popular cinema, it did attempt a radical departure although the attempt itself was brief and not entirely successful. It may even seem excessive to call these ventures ‘radical’ but if the films are seen in comparison with some of the more conservative middle class successes of the period, films like Shakti Samanta’s Amanush (1974)—which proposes a ‘reconciliation’ between state authority and entrenched feudalism—their achievements become notable. If the more political films from middle cinema (Mukherjee’s Namak Haraam)24 once appeared like a breakthrough in film entertainment, the middle cinema of the 1970s has withstood the test of time less successfully than the popular cinema contemporary to it. But this may be attributed to the films deliberately engaging with the passing preoccupations of the moment while popular cinema expresses the immutable. While the most successful middle cinema of the 1970s attempts to break free of the conventions of popular cinema, it still does not allow its characters to choose their own destiny.25 When films like Anand and Mere Apne commence, we observe the protagonists already placed within unalterable or nearly unalterable situations and the films do little to suggest that motivated action might point a way out. Abhimaan lays the responsibility for the marital troubles upon the husband’s doorstep but his acceptance of this responsibility is not accompanied by any determined action. While there is no compulsion for cinema to deal with the notion of ‘responsibility’, I propose that middle cinema, being politically more radical, suffers by also being ‘passive’ like popular cinema and that its achievements stand diminished because of this factor.

(p.188) ‘National Reconciliation’ In describing the historical circumstances leading to the ‘segmentation’ of cinema in the 1970s, Prasad clarifies that a historical construction is not simply a reconstruction of the events of any period but an attempt to ‘understand the historical significance of a constellation of events by focussing selectively on certain aspects’. What this means is that he attributes many of the changes to the impersonal historical currents at work without reference to ‘empirical’ data. He draws upon Frederic Jameson’s theory of interpretation that distinguishes between three related horizons, three concentric frameworks of textual analysis, each with its own objective.26 My own interest is in the most narrow horizon— the ground of political history—which is empirical rather than theoretically Page 13 of 32

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The 1970s derived, because empirical data is not only less conjectural but also easier to chart over short intervals. We also saw that broadly ‘historical’ interpretations (as in Sangam), by not addressing the specificity of the motifs to the particular moment, are often misreadings. When Prasad sees an intense political upheaval in the mid-1960s, he suggests that it only incidentally ‘coincided’ with Indira Gandhi’s ascendancy.27 Prasad’s historical reading of popular cinema is different from my own because I regard many of its tendencies as due to the changes personally initiated by Mrs Gandhi in the political space. I attempted to demonstrate that films like Aradhana and Daag make allusions to a ‘lonely and insecure’ woman transformed from a condition of ‘innocence’ to one of ‘experience’, implying that popular cinema responded also to Mrs Gandhi’s person and not only to the impersonal forces at work. At the same time it is evidently simplistic to see in political developments only the ‘intent’ of the leader. The strategies adopted by Mrs Gandhi’s regime (authoritarian populism based on direct appeal to the electorate over the heads of the immediate leadership) were perhaps determined by the challenge to the consensual form, but Mrs Gandhi also appealed directly to the electorate to circumvent the regional bosses of the ‘Syndicate’. The support to the Congress had slipped considerably when Mrs Gandhi came to power (supporting the view that the lower orders were ‘less inclined to vote on the basis of primordial controls’)28 but she raised it to unforeseen level, through her political conduct. Mrs Gandhi took a firm grip over (p.189) Indian politics (1968–9) when the winds of radicalism were sweeping the world and this means her strategies were allowed by the political polarization under way. The crisis in politics amounted to a ‘deep disaggregation of the socio-political structure’.29 Interestingly, popular cinema also produced texts conveniently interpreted as allegories of ‘national reconciliation’, the most apparent example being Nasir Hussain’s Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973). This film is a rearranged version of Yash Chopra’s Waqt (1965) and tells the story of three brothers separated in childhood who are finally brought together. While I read the earlier film as deliberately avoiding invoking the nation by putting its emphasis upon the closure imperative (through the family reunion), Yaadon Ki Baraat permits itself to be read as an allegory of national reconciliation. In Waqt, an earthquake destroys the affluent household of a merchant named Lala Kedarnath and his three sons are brought up separately. Yaadon Ki Baraat is similar but instead of an earthquake, it introduces a villain (a smuggler) who kills both the parents. The eldest boy in both films grows up as a ‘thief’ but the boy in Yaadon Ki Baraat still has the unfinished business of vengeance. He is in a ‘disturbed condition’ like the protagonist of Zanjeer and this is not true of the corresponding character in Waqt. Since the one in Yaadon Ki Baraat eventually plays a part in the liquidation of the villain, he is in the position of the familiar ‘marginalized’ figure readmitted into the mainstream by redefining legality. As I

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The 1970s have already explained, the second son woos a rich man’s daughter and is in the position of the upwardly mobile classes created by Mrs Gandhi’s policies. The films of the 1970s reintroduce the idea of class segregation but the emphasis is not on conflict but on reconciliation, in effect on the ‘bridging of gaps’. In many of the films of the 1970s dealing with the dispossessed and the marginalized, a proletarian individual breaks out of his class background and becomes immensely wealthy. It is interesting that, in the process of his rise, the protagonist does not come into conflict with individuals or groups representing other classes, this implying a perceived absence of conflict. We wonder why the cinema of the late 1940s, rather than being a cinema of reconciliation, is a cinema of conflict. And likewise, why the cinema of the 1970s is a cinema of reconciliation rather than one of conflict? My own interpretation depends on the understanding that Mrs Gandhi adopted a populist form of radicalism that did not undertake (p.190) restructuring of the social order but was largely gestural, her slogan— ‘garibi hatao’ (abolish poverty)—itself being ‘devastatingly unexceptionable’.30 The conflict in the cinema of the late 1940s reflected the tussle within the government between two political ideologies—the ‘right’ represented by Sardar Patel and the ‘left’ by Jawaharlal Nehru—over the course to be taken by the nation. The two ideologies being aligned along contentious planes translated as ‘conflict’ in Indian cinema. There was no such conflict within the government in the years when Mrs Gandhi reigned supreme and ‘reconciliation’ acknowledges the disaggregation without an accompanying discourse betokening political discord. The ‘national reconciliation’ in the films of the 1970s is essentially a fantasy that derives from the acknowledgement of disaggregation without the accompanying need to question the given social order. Mrs Gandhi’s Congress secured a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha in March 1971 on the basis of her radical image, but this did not translate into any concrete measures. In December 1972, the AICC (All India Congress Committee) actually re-emphasized a ten-point programme adopted by the undivided Congress in April 1967. In the following months the Congress was distinctly Janus-faced. On the one hand it called for radical measures and for the implementation of a socialist programme, and on the other it harked back to Nehru’s vision of a ‘mixed economy’. Mrs Gandhi, while addressing the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry on 31 March 1973, observed that entrepreneurship would have a big role to play ‘within the framework of the licensing policy’.31 In fact, opposition developed within the Congress from the more radical group called the ‘Young Turks’ only by 1974 and this group joined hands with Mrs Gandhi’s adversaries to eventually bring her down in 1977.

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The 1970s The Marginalization If an account of the 1970s is impossible without examining the emergence of Amitabh Bachchan, the period still belongs to the scriptwriting team composed of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar because imagining Amitabh Bachchan without Zanjeer (1973) or Yash Chopra’s Deewar (1975) is impossible. Salim–Javed created the star’s roles in the two films and it is these roles that eventually determined his film (p.191) persona. Zanjeer must be considered a transitional film because it plays with the tough cop role going back to Dirty Harry (1971)32 and it is (the Mother India-inspired) Deewar that is more important. While Zanjeer paved the way for Amitabh Bachchan’s stardom, it is Yash Chopra’s Deewar in which the ‘angry young man’ truly emerges. Amitabh Bachchan later did variations of the role in other successes like Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978), Trishul (1978), Shakti (1982), and Agneepath (1990). Deewar is by all accounts one of the definitive achievements of Indian popular cinema and understanding it is necessary at this point. Deewar begins with a framing sequence involving a ceremony in which Police Inspector Ravi Verma (Shashi Kapoor) is rewarded for gallantry. Ravi Verma’s mother and wife are also present and the inspector dedicates the award to his mother after eulogizing her in public. The mother’s memories now provide justification for a flashback and the rest of the film gives us her story. Sumitra Devi (Nirupa Roy) is the wife of Anand Babu, a trade union leader and they have two children—Vijay and Ravi. When the flashback begins Anand Babu is proving to be a thorn in the flesh of a local industrialist and, in order to get the better of this adversary, the industrialist has Anand Babu’s wife and children kidnapped and threatened with death. When Anand Babu signs an agreement to protect his family, the workers he represents regard him as a traitor and he flees the town in humiliation, leaving his family behind. This means that his children are at the mercy of the workers and a point of no return is reached when young Vijay is waylaid on his way back from school. A legend is indelibly tattooed upon the boy’s forearm declaring his father to be a thief. The family leaves for Bombay where Sumitra Devi becomes a construction worker to bring up her children. The two boys are not alike because Ravi is an achiever and longs to do well in school while Vijay is violently rebellious and grows up to be agnostic. When Vijay and Ravi reach adulthood, the former goes to work as a dockyard worker and Ravi, now educated, searches for more respectable employment. Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) woos the daughter of a police official and, in time, joins the police force as an inspector while Vijay’s (Amitabh Bachchan) resistance to a dockyard gangster named Samanth attracts the attention of a smuggler named Davar and Vijay soon joins him, in due course becoming enormously powerful. As may be anticipated, the two brothers also come into conflict when (p.192) Vijay’s case is entrusted to Ravi and the latter eventually shoots his older brother down.

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The 1970s Vijay is conceptualized in a way that makes his intensity a permanent condition and Deewar cannot therefore accommodate a conventional heroine or the exuberance of a traditional romance. The relationship that is brought in is therefore with an unconventional, ‘mature’ woman. This is true not only of Deewar but also of the other films in the same mould cited earlier. The eldest son in Yaadon Ki Baraat has the solemn business of vengeance to attend to and is denied an authentic love interest. The hero of Trishul has an ambiguous relationship with a mature working woman, and the heroes of Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Shakti, and Agneepath are all given unconventional, ‘unromantic’ feminine interests. Deewar introduces the ‘liberated woman’ Anita with whom Vijay has an affair and who becomes pregnant, but who is killed before she can turn Vijay into a family man. Deewar and the angry young man have been widely written about. One contention is that Amitabh Bachchan emerged at a time when the ‘consensual ideology’ of the Congress had broken down and that he appeared to speak for the working classes and other marginalized groups while also becoming a rallying point for the film industry as a whole.33 Deewar uses motifs from both Mother India and Ganga Jumna and it will be useful to examine Vijay’s oedipal longings in the light of the observations concerning the earlier films. I explained that oedipal longings and conflicts acquire intensity when the figure of the mother or the father allegorizes the nation (or affiliated notions) in popular cinema. Deewar begins with Ravi’s felicitation for commitment as a police officer and Ravi uses the opportunity to pay tribute to his mother. The location of the mother’s memory is identical to that of Radha’s in Mother India and Sumitra Devi may therefore be understood to similarly allegorize the nation.34 Since the mother represents the nation, her memories cannot be regarded as secret and hidden from public view and the memory is the recollection of the ‘nation’ of the story of the rebel son she reluctantly punished. We know what Birju represents in Mother India and we now need to examine Vijay’s representation in Deewar. The ‘first cause’ in the film is the legend tattooed on the child Vijay’s forearm declaring his father to be a thief, a tattoo that left an ‘imprint upon his soul’. A later film Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) is also about the permanent anguish (p.193) of a young man mistaken for a thief in his childhood and the motif of the thief is evidently an important one in Deewar. The explanation suggesting itself is that Deewar represents the other side of films like Zanjeer and Sholay where petty criminals or thieves are casually enlisted on behalf of the law. If these other films propose redrawing the lines of legality to admit the marginalized class, Deewar is an apparent lament about this very marginalization. Since Vijay’s father is presented as a trade union leader, it is apparently the organized working class that is being marginalized. This may seem contrary to the signs of ‘radicalism’ in the period but Congress policies (supported by the Communist Party of India [CPI]) were sometimes confusing. In April 1974, railway workers went on a countrywide Page 17 of 32

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The 1970s strike, but the strike was brutally crushed and the leaders imprisoned, and this action also found Communist support. After Vijay’s father deserts his family, he is inevitably seen travelling on a train and even when he dies, his corpse is found slumped inside a railway compartment. Another feature about Vijay needing explanation is his career as a ‘smuggler’. Apart from the crackdown on smuggling in the period and the enactment of a special law (The Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention Of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 or COFEPOSA), smuggling is associated with ‘Western behaviour’ because smugglers cross the boundaries between East and West.35 There is perhaps also an immediate reason for the negative connotations in ‘Western behaviour’ and this is Mrs Gandhi’s rhetoric being ‘anti-American’ in the 1970s. The CPI became an ally of the Congress and staunch Communists like Mohan Kumaramangalam ‘infiltrated’ the party36 with the long-term objective of pressuring the government towards more radical ends.

Look Back in Anger The angry young man had a long tenure in Hindi cinema stretching until the end of the 1980s. Since the radical phase in Indian politics concluded within the 1970s—perhaps even in 1975 when Mrs Gandhi imposed the Internal Emergency—his presence cannot be identified consistently with authoritarian populism. Two other films that came in 1978 (after Mrs Gandhi was conclusively defeated at the polls) employ Amitabh Bachchan’s presence in a similar way but their (p.194) differences with Deewar are also important. In Yash Chopra’s Trishul (also scripted by Salim–Javed) Vijay is the illegitimate son of a woman named Shanti, deserted by an engineer R.K. Gupta who married an heiress to enter her father’s construction business. After Shanti’s death Vijay goes to Delhi to wreak vengeance upon his natural father and establishes a rival business to ruin him. Other aspects of Trishul will be examined separately but important here is the ‘oedipal revenge’ in the film,37 interpretable in more immediate terms. It is perhaps significant that the oedipal conflict is enacted in the political capital Delhi rather than in the business capital Bombay—although Vijay’s father is a businessman. My reading of the conflict relies on the ‘first cause’—R.K. Gupta deserting Shanti and the still unborn Vijay. Vijay’s declaration that he waited twenty-five years for his revenge upon his father places the desertion in the 1950s, this leading us to the significance of R.K. Gupta being a ‘construction engineer’ in the period. R.K. Gupta therefore emerges as representative of the class involved in ‘national construction’ (as the protagonist of Aah was). The charge against the class in Trishul is its neglect of its obligations towards its ‘children’. Trishul apparently traces the emergence of the marginalized class in the 1970s to this act of ‘betrayal’. Prakash Mehra’s Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) is also a film in the Deewar mould although it appeared after Mrs Gandhi’s defeat in 1977. The ‘first cause’ in the film is the child Sikandar wrongly taken to be a thief and therefore left in Page 18 of 32

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The 1970s deep anguish. Sikandar is also suspected of being a smuggler in his adult life until he furnishes evidence that the goods in his supermarket were procured at customs department auctions. The man who accused the child Sikandar of being a thief was an affluent lawyer and Sikandar pays for the old man’s treatment when he discovers him crippled and helpless more than two decades later. In Muqaddar Ka Sikandar once again the motif of the once snobbish lawyer is an apparent reminder of the arrogant ruling class of the fifties. Both Trishul and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar make references to the ruling elite of the 1950s and this may be considered unusual. What therefore needs addressing is why the ruling class of the 1950s is invoked abruptly in 1978 by both these films. The explanation that offers itself is that the Congress lost political power for the first time only in 1977 and the history of Congress rule became abruptly relevant at that time.

(p.195) Authoritarian State An important factor that has not attracted attention is Deewar’s affinity to Elia Kazan’s East of Eden (1955). East of Eden tells the story of two brothers not receiving the same affection from their father, a self-righteous gentleman and failed entrepreneur. When Cal (James Dean) the older of the two brothers earns a small fortune in wartime commodity speculation he attempts to win his father’s affection with the money but sees his gift treated with undisguised contempt. Cal’s father also extols the younger brother for enlisting in the army. Cal’s equivalent in Deewar is Vijay and the latter similarly tries to win his mother’s esteem by acquiring for her the same building that she toiled to build twenty years before38 only to find Sumitra Devi accusing him of wanting to ‘buy’ her affection. Deewar shows no explicit competition between the brothers for their mother’s affection but when she learns of her older son’s activities from Ravi, Sumitra Devi moves with him into his humbler quarters. Where our sympathies are entirely with Cal in East of Eden, Deewar makes an apparent effort to enlist our sympathies for the younger brother but the sincerity of the effort is doubtful since Vijay also finances Ravi’s education. In the most celebrated sequence from the film, Vijay confronts Ravi, lists his own acquisitions, and asks what Ravi could possibly have to compare. The younger brother’s answer is derisively brief—that he has their mother. The implications of the statement are evident enough. We know that the mother is the repository of virtue in the popular film and that Sumitra Devi resides with Ravi because he is morally the irreproachable son. Yet, we cannot help recalling that it is Vijay who demonstrated his love for her more plainly than Ravi. Sumitra Devi has never quite approved of Vijay’s conduct but the audience itself is clearly on his side. In the sequence where Vijay officially demonstrates his rebelliousness—by thrashing some gangsters extorting money from dockyard workers singlehandedly—we feel the enormity of his rage. When his mother chides him unreasonably for it a little later we cannot but be vexed. The director is shrewdly

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The 1970s allowing Vijay to upstage his mother in the sequences and also ensuring that he dwarfs Ravi. Deewar appeared during the Emergency in 1975 when state authority was discredited. A viewing of the film today makes it apparent that (p.196) there is deep disenchantment with the system which is conveyed through Vijay’s bearing and attitude while Ravi’s ‘moral privileging’ is unconvincing. The film goes through all the motions but its heart is apparently not in the purported discourse. Ravi also opens fire on a young boy who has just stolen some bread. The repentant Ravi visits the boy’s parents and although the boy’s father is more understanding, his mother curses him.39 One therefore concludes that Deewar is using every means to make Ravi’s position disagreeable without deviating too conspicuously from popular film convention. Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay (1975) also has a bearing upon our understanding of oppressive state authority around 1975. Sholay has perhaps the best-known villain in the history of Indian cinema. Sholay has often been described as ‘curry’ western and while it may be too important a film to be examined only for this reason, our interest here is in its villain, Gabbar Singh. Gabbar (Amjad Khan) bears a physical resemblance to the bandit in Leone’s For a Few Dollars More (Gian Maria Volonté) but he is nonetheless a very original creation and there are aspects to both his and the Thakur’s (Sanjeev Kumar) conceptualization that are significant from the viewpoint of this book. The first view we get of Gabbar in Sholay is rather disturbing because of his attire. Where dacoits have been routinely presented in popular cinema in dhotis with vermilion smeared prominently on their foreheads, we see him dressed in military fatigues —swinging a heavy belt as he walks by in army boots. The effect is comparable to that caused by Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) where the bank robbers are initially shown in army uniforms. In Sholay, Gabbar continues to be dressed in the same manner throughout the film and, although he wears his clothes casually and not in army fashion, we associate him obscurely with authority. Here is a description of the man from one of his creators—Javed Akhtar: ‘In [one] scene, Gabbar looks full of concern at Kaalia, while Kaalia’s only judge and executioner is Gabbar himself and says “Ab tera kya hoga Kaalia?” …Gabbar is a strange man. Showing concern when he is master of Kaalia’s fate. Will he kill him? Will he spare him? Who knows.’40 In this sequence Gabbar wonders impersonally about a fate that he himself is about to inflict upon an assistant and, as conceived, the quality that marks Gabbar’s wickedness is its impersonality. If Gabbar (p.197) is a tyrant, it is impersonal authority that he partly mimics. Another interesting aspect of Gabbar is that he is seen riding his horse only very briefly —the sequences involving him usually show him ordering his men autocratically from a fixed location, a headquarters, the location of which is virtually common knowledge. Page 20 of 32

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The 1970s Thakur Baldev Singh is a police officer but his portrayal is also strange because we always see him working alone and not from an office. He is unassisted even in his pursuit of Gabbar (in one of the flashbacks) and our reading of his association with law enforcement is that he is a maverick uncomfortable as a uniformed servant of the state. The dissociation of the police officer from the institution of the police has been attributed to the unpopularity of the law,41 the critic noting that dacoits were looked upon as heroic people who dared to stand up and fight against the landlord-police nexus. This may well have been true but the landlord-police nexus had been operating for decades and Sholay was a novelty when it came out in 1975; therefore another explanation is evidently needed. The film, as I suggested, takes pains to make obscure visual associations between the villainous outlaw, despotism, and uniformed authority. We cannot read political intent directly into the ploys but we do know that Sholay appeared during the Emergency when the state and its institutions were viewed with considerable aversion. Interestingly, while Gabbar himself is uniformed, we learn that the real dacoit who inspired Gabbar hated uniforms so much that he carved up the face of a postman because of his uniform.42 The third film pertinent here—a vastly different kind of film—was hugely popular when released in 1975. Vijay Sharma’s Jai Santoshi Maa is a mythological in which a devout woman named Satyavati incurs the wrath of three goddesses because of her devotion to another, more benevolent goddess named Maa Santoshi. The mythological had virtually disappeared from Hindi cinema by the 1950s and the sudden appearance of Jai Santoshi Maa was very unusual. The film does not take the established shape of the mythological—in as much as it is not simply a section culled from the epics or the Puranas but actually a ‘social’ with a parallel story about the doings of the gods. It has been noted that there is an apparent reflection of ‘heavenly affairs’ in the terrestrial story of Satyavati. Satyavati herself resembles the benevolent Maa Santoshi, her benefactor, and her sisters-in-law resemble the fearsome goddesses who are envious of Maa Santoshi and are also (p.198) named after them (Durga and Maya).43 Coming long after the eclipse of the mythological, the film is conceived as a domestic melodrama (albeit with devotion) and giving the three women the faces of the goddesses is perhaps a way of limiting the number of ‘variables’ in the narrative —by restricting character types. But more pertinent to my purpose are the remarks by sociologist Veena Das. The film has been analysed by her and interpreted as pertaining to a conflict between the fearsome principle of Shakti represented by the three goddesses and the Sati, represented by Satyavati: The story of Satyavati, as myth, seems to say that since the demons of our time do not have a form, they cannot be annihilated in one grand battle or even in periodic battles fought by the goddesses in their Shakti form, on behalf of men and gods… Instead, the diffused evils of our society can only Page 21 of 32

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The 1970s be purged by the equally diffused suffering of a Sati, who must suffer on behalf of society. Correspondingly, at the cosmic level, we see the defeat of powerful femininity and the emergence of a goddess who is gentle, benevolent and dependable.44 Jai Santoshi Maa is about the defeat of three fearsome goddesses by the Sati’s devotion to the benevolent Maa Santoshi. Veena Das does not make the association but Indira Gandhi was often compared to Shakti at the time of the Emergency and India’s best-known painter M.F. Hussain painted a famous series of pictures showing Mrs Gandhi as Shakti. The defeat of the Shakti goddesses and the emergence of the gentle and benevolent Maa Santoshi apparently have more immediate resonances. Jai Santoshi Maa has been revived several times after 1975 and this implies that its ‘topicality’ is not everything.

‘Implausibilities’ The emphasis on spectacle for its own sake diminishes in the 1970s but spectacle as diversion dominates popular cinema as never before, finding manifestation mainly in villains and fight sequences. The employment of the hate figure to achieve the melodramatic resolution is carried forward from the 1960s into the 1970s and the villains become more extravagant. Most early films find legitimate places for their villains in a handful of capacities. ‘Historical romances’ like the Agarwal films Ghulami Na Patan and Diler Jigar (both 1931), Osten’s Shiraz (1928) and Prapancha Pash (1929), and Mehboob Khan’s Aan (1952) and Humayun (1945) deal largely with palace intrigue and therefore need (p.199) the presence of a scheming courtier-villain. Another kind of villain readily accommodated in the earlier cinema comes from its ideological preoccupations. There are numerous films set in rustic milieus—Dharti Ke Lal, Do Bigha Zamin, Mother India, Ganga Jumna—that cannot do without the hated figure of the zamindar. Upkaar, with its fondness for agrarian-nationalist rather than socialist rhetoric, identifies the Westernized individual and the trader as the sources of evil. Naya Daur’s distrust of the city and mechanization helps it find an appropriate hate figure and we saw in the last chapter that Kala Pani chooses a representative of the feudal aristocracy as its villain. Each of the villains from the category just identified furthers the ideological ends of the narrative and he is perhaps aptly describable as the ‘class enemy’. A third kind of villain—the urban criminal—becomes prominent through the ‘city’ films of the 1950s—like Baazi (1951), Taxi Driver (1955), and CID (1956). Being crime films modelled loosely on American noir these films find the villain necessary and use the convenient figure of the urban gangster. What is pertinent at this juncture is that ‘family dramas’ rarely employ a villain in the narrative. If the category of the ‘lost-and-found’ films is considered family drama— (Taqdeer, Parasakhti, Waqt, Yaadon Ki Baraat, Amar Akbar Anthony)— in the first two (made in 1943 and 1952 respectively) there is no place at all for a major villain. But with Waqt (1965) we find the situation changing and the character played by Rehman is brought into the story. The members of Lala Kedarnath’s family are Page 22 of 32

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The 1970s separated when an earthquake strikes the town where he runs his prosperous business. A criminal named Chinoy brings up one of the three sons and the film reaches its happy conclusion when Chinoy is unmasked in court and his machinations revealed. Waqt is somewhat reminiscent of Awaara but the figure of Jagga is more central to Raj Kapoor’s film than that of Chinoy to Waqt because of the ‘philosophical debate’ running through Awaara about hereditary moral qualities. Chinoy’s position is not as central in Waqt and he is employed exclusively to force a final resolution. The villain performed the same function in Kashmir Ki Kali and in most films after 1962 the villain and the fight scene (as diversionary spectacle) work in tandem to ensure a resolution. Raj Kapoor’s Bobby provides the strongest evidence of the arbitrary manner in which the villain is brought into popular films in the 1970s. As mentioned earlier, Bobby is about the love of an upper class boy for (p.200) the daughter of a businessman representing the new wealth of the era. The film provides no convincing social argument to make Raj’s father consent to the boy’s marrying Bobby. Instead, it introduces a villain who attempts to kidnap the young lovers and the crisis created by him jolts the parents into giving their final consent. The superfluity of the villain is blatant and the film clearly admits this when it makes him answer to the same name as the actor who plays him (Prem Chopra). Where a ‘purer’ melodrama might resort to twists in the narrative to extricate its protagonists from their predicaments, Bobby uses ‘Prem Chopra’ much more economically. Notwithstanding his ‘wickedness’, Prem Chopra’s appearance is fortuitous for the lovers because it clears the way for their union. Prem Chopra also ‘happens’ to the protagonists in Bobby just as accidents and coincidences usually happen—arbitrarily, abruptly, and without fulfilling the criterion of plausibility. Since the villain’s acts are not supported by any underlying behavioural logic, the film is apparently employing him as a single composite entity to replace the intricate system of accidents and coincidences that would otherwise achieve the melodramatic resolution. The 1960s and 1970s are significant here because of the manner in which such villains (who enter popular cinema in the 1960s) tended to proliferate. Villains like Prem Chopra in Bobby, Shakaal in Yaadon Ki Baraat, and Gabbar in Sholay (1975) are different from those portrayed in most of the earlier films largely because of the paucity of information about their motivations. Further, zamindars, princely stepbrothers, moneylenders, and urban gangsters are either men with family attachments or individuals who fit into recognizable social roles but the same claim cannot be made for these new baroque villains. We have already seen how Prem Chopra is employed in Bobby— as substitute for the intricate chain of accidents and coincidences normally constituting a melodramatic closure. Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973) is different in as much as Shakaal (Ajit) provides the narrative with its entire driving power. Where Waqt uses a natural calamity (an earthquake) to separate the three children, Yaadon Ki Baraat uses the father’s murder by the villain to achieve the same ends. Since Page 23 of 32

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The 1970s the links in the story are established entirely because of the villain, we may surmise that his presence and his arbitrary acts provide easy solutions that would otherwise take a whole arrangement of coincidences and accidents. It is because the ‘practitioner of evil’ is not an actual (p.201) ‘individual’ whose actions are psychologically motivated but an embodiment of malevolent destiny or chance that he actually enjoys more freedom within the narrative than the protagonists do. While writing about the hate figures and the fight scenes of the 1960s I suggested that their origins lay specifically in the nation (or an affiliated idea) not being implicated in the narrative’s resolution. The convoluted resolutions necessitated by the implicated sacred notions were no longer essential (after the decline of Nehruvian nationalism) and the particularity of the resolution was therefore forfeited. We see the sacred ideas of nation and state authority reentering the narrative space in the 1970s but the fight scenes and the hate figures continue to function as diversions. The result is that while each film posits a real conflict (in allegorical terms), the resolution offered is rendered trivial because of the involvement of the villain and the diversions. There is an apparent correspondence between the social conflicts represented in the story and the fictional entities allegorizing them but there is no such correspondence between possible solutions to the actual conflict and the fictional resolution of the story— because of the lack of particularity in the latter. The term ‘implausible’ usually implies that the event does not fulfil the criteria of verisimilitude and ‘implausibility’ is not an accusation sustainable against popular cinema, where narratives do not seek to ‘imitate action’. Still, many of the events in these films are ‘implausible’ in the extreme sense that spectacle rather than narrative logic provides the resolution. As an instance, I suggest that the sequence in Deewar when Vijay thrashes the dozen or so dockyard goons is ‘implausible’ not only because of the incredibility of the feat; it is more implausible because only the spectacle of the fight actually ‘convinces’ the spectator of Vijay’s triumph. The tendency for spectacle to ‘compensate’ for lacunae in narration does not concern only the villain and the fight sequence. Despite the fight with the dockyard goons, I would like to argue that Vijay’s rise in Deewar is, for instance, not ‘implausible’ because it is intricately plotted. Particularly effective is the ploy of having the smuggler Davar predicting his rise from a mere shoeshine boy to a man of consequence. The question is not whether Vijay’s meteoric rise might have been actually ‘possible’ but whether the film makes it seem ‘plausible’ by placing its weight upon the narrative instead of upon diversionary spectacle. In contrast to Deewar, Trishul illustrates the strategic use of (p.202) spectacle very well and I propose to examine some aspects of the film once again.

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The 1970s Vijay in Trishul learns the truth about his birth and is intent on avenging himself upon his natural father, who is now the influential and powerful owner of ‘R.K. Gupta Constructions’. Trishul resembles Deewar but Vijay’s climb to wealth and power is much more ‘implausible’. He impresses R.K. Gupta by buying disputed land from him and setting up his own ‘Shanti Constructions’ on it, in the process thrashing a ruffian named Madhav Singh and his entire gang who have encroached upon the site, and who have resisted legal remedies. This ‘spectacular’ act is sufficiently diversionary for the spectator to ‘accept’ Vijay’s ascent although the narrative does not trouble to justify it. The film also introduces a shadowy figure named Balwant Rai (Prem Chopra), once R.K. Gupta’s envious colleague, who becomes the financier who sets up Vijay and later a cement dealer who tries to destroy him. Balwant Rai agrees to kill Vijay at his father’s behest and his versatility marks him out as the ‘practitioner of evil’ put in simply to facilitate a resolution. In a sense, Balwant Rai indicates the ‘irresolvability’ of the conflict in the narrative just as Vijay’s effortless rise to fortune is a token of the impossibility of such a rise.45 Much of this seems like simply ‘wish fulfilment’ and suggests that there was an enormous gap between the desires generated in the public space and the actual social means available to fulfil them. The ‘implausibility’ of the resolutions in the films may be simply testifying to this gap and a comparison between Deewar and Trishul could be fruitful at this juncture. Deewar proposes (through a carefully plotted narrative) that only a life of illegality can enable the dispossessed to rise to wealth and privilege while Trishul (by placing its weight upon spectacle) suggests its converse—that one must be born into wealth and privilege to be wealthy and privileged. It is perhaps the latter view that is more pessimistic. It may be incidental that Trishul disguises its pessimism as boundless optimism but the historical reasons for the representation need looking into. Mrs Gandhi’s first tenure as Prime Minister saw sweeping changes in Indian polity. It brought in some radicalism in its initial stages but, most importantly, her brand of populism unleashed enormous desires among the populace that could not be fulfilled. Her defeat in 1977 also helped electoral politics acquire a new significance: (p.203) The single most important consequence of Mrs Gandhi’s actions was manifest by the end of the first decade of her rule, and the rest of her career was spent trying to balance herself in the whirlwind: she had transformed the meaning of democracy for both the Indian State and its society, and it now signified, simply, elections. Within the state, constitutional decorum and balance were subordinated to what the political leadership interpreted as the will of the people expressed in electoral majorities. … Poor and oppressed groups had become more aware of the significance of elections, and an amorphous radicalism was

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The 1970s concocted to court them, as politicians tried to trump each other’s electoral generosity.46 As we follow the cinema of these years we see an awakened desire for upward mobility gradually being transformed into an endorsement of criminality as a means of acquiring privilege—through the notion of redefining legality. We also see a considerable degree of cynicism creeping into the cinema—the ready figure of the ‘practitioner of evil’ and diversionary spectacle assisting in resolutions when the allegorized conflict is itself too difficult to resolve. As the demands of the citizen become more impossible to fulfil, cinema steps in with ready solutions and ‘cynicism’ in Indian cinema therefore takes the shape of unbounded optimism. A film that goes a long way in this direction will naturally caricature itself and a key film of the period— Manmohan Desai’s Amar Akbar Anthony (1977)—demonstrates this.

Caricatured Optimism Amar Akbar Anthony must count as one of the most singular achievements of Indian popular cinema for the unhesitant manner in which the film stretches its conventions to their logical end. Since the film is such a jumble of subplots it is difficult to render its narrative coherently, but the following attempt, although inadequate, will give the reader a fair idea of its scope. The film begins with a poor man, Kishen Lal (Pran), being cheated and humiliated by a smuggler named Robert. Kishen Lal’s sick wife (Nirupa Roy) is intent upon killing herself because of the way in which her ailment is adding to her husband’s misery. Before she can do this, however, an accident turns her blind and also (presumably) cures her of her earlier ailment because no further mention is made of it. Kishen Lal’s three children are left abandoned near a statue of Mahatma Gandhi and a police inspector adopts the eldest boy. A Catholic priest brings up the second child and a good-hearted Muslim looks after the third. The children grow up and the (p. 204) title sequence—which commences about thirty minutes into the film— shows the three of them grown up and concurrently giving blood to a blind old woman who, unknown to each of them, is their real mother. The woman has just been involved in an accident close to where all of them have been and her life is thus saved. Needless to add, the three brothers remain unaware of the blood relationship that binds them. Kishen Lal is meanwhile taken for dead but he has become rich because of a caché of gold biscuits belonging to Robert that comes into his possession. After setting up as a successful smuggler, he humiliates Robert in the same way in which the latter had once humiliated him but Robert steals back the caché of gold biscuits from Kishen Lal and the two are now evenly matched. Kishen Lal’s three sons have, meanwhile, found three separate romantic interests (appropriate to their own religious backgrounds). Robert has an identical twin brother called Albert who is a scientist but is held captive by him. Robert is on the lookout for his daughter who was kidnapped during infancy and brought up by Kishen Lal in England. The story takes other twists and turns too numerous to relate but it ends happily with Kishen Lal and his wife (now no longer blind) reunited with their three sons and their wives. Kishen Lal is, of course, in jail but Page 26 of 32

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The 1970s he is permitted one last embrace with his entire family through the bars of his cell, which he shares with the embittered Robert. Amar Akbar Anthony is an assortment of complications and we lose count of the motifs and narrative conventions it plays with. The film toys shamelessly with every popular convention and tends to overdo everything so thoroughly that it places itself within quotation marks. A moment or two in Amitabh Bachchan’s role (as Anthony) recall, his own performance in Deewar. We recollect the celebrated sequence from Deewar in which the unbelieving protagonist harrangues God into saving his dying mother. In Amar Akbar Anthony such intense monologues before God tend to become the norm. Nirupa Roy plays the mothers in both Deewar and Amar Akbar Anthony in identical fashion. She is so pathetic and fragile that her existence is perpetually in a state of crisis. We see her first in Amar Akbar Anthony in the middle of a coughing fit announced gravely as tuberculosis. Shortly thereafter she is struck blind and tuberculosis is swiftly forgotten. Between the moment when she is struck blind (by lightning) to the moment when her eyesight is restored (by religious faith) we see the (p. 205) mother wherever she is least expected and proffering flowers to pedestrians. Amar Akbar Anthony is so full of ‘diversions’ like comic interludes, fights, songs, dances, and arbitrary interventions by the divine that it is easy to miss its ‘relayed meaning’ which, like Yaadon Ki Baraat, is nominally about ‘national reconciliation’. The ‘first cause’ in the film is the entrusting of the three children by Kishan Lal to ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ and their being adopted, respectively by a devout Muslim, a Catholic priest, and a police inspector.47 The father’s position in the film cannot be crucial because he is casually locked away in the same prison cell as is occupied by the villain. The mother can however be understood to be a deliberate symbol of India because a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Catholic are her three children and they concurrently give her blood. Since Amar (Vinod Khanna) is a policeman he can be understood to allegorize state authority while Akbar (Rishi Kapoor) and Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan)—(a Muslim and a Christian with criminal associations) apparently represent the marginalized classes.48 The film apparently proposes that the state should be ‘reconciled’ with the marginalized classes and the three children being separated when placed beside a statue of Gandhi is an apparent comment on ‘Gandhian principles’ being unable to effect the reconciliation.49 The ‘first cause’ is perhaps like the winding of the clock, with the rest of the film corresponding to its gradual ‘unwinding’ over a longer period. In most films a balance is maintained between the ‘winding’ and the ‘unwinding’ and there is no apparent excess of one over the other. The extraordinary quality of Amar Akbar Anthony is that there is so much ‘excess’ in the unwinding. If the ‘first cause’ corresponds to the problem, the ‘solution’ overpowers it by far. The implausibilities in Amar Akbar Anthony are also much more extreme than in films like Trishul and Page 27 of 32

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The 1970s because of the diversions arbitrarily provided at every turn in the story. The narrative actually appears like a series of wishes miraculously (and arbitrarily) fulfilled. Especially noticeable are the series of interventions by the divine that happen without warning. Instead of the narrative relaying the intended meaning, there is so much untoward ‘optimism’ in the relay (as ‘noise’) that the original message is distorted. The received message of reconciliation is so thoroughly hyperbolized that it virtually caricatures itself. Indian popular cinema has not distinguished itself (p.206) by a desire to mediate in social transformation and ‘cynical’ may therefore be an inappropriate and too extreme a term by which to categorize a film such as Amar Akbar Anthony. There is a mischievous sense in Amar Akbar Anthony of the incongruity of ‘immutable truths’ and this sense may be created by the wanton distortion of the relayed message. But, perhaps more importantly, the film also bears testimony to popular cinema’s insistence that its conventions must be seen as autonomous and never taken to reflect social truths, that its resolutions are distinct from socially applicable solutions. It is ironic that Indian popular cinema should choose the last year of Indira Gandhi’s first tenure as Prime Minister to make such an assertion because this choice is apparently the reflection of an important social truth. Notes:

(1.) Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, New Delhi: Penguin, 1997, p. 42. (2.) Rajesh Khanna does not always play the male role and, as an instance, Shashi Kapoor plays it in Sharmilee (1971). The dilemma of the unwed mother is nevertheless replicated in this film as well. (3.) John Berger, Ways of Seeing, London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 1972, pp. 45–6. (4.) In Andaz and Daag witnesses are actually present at the weddings. In Andaz the hero, before his death, admits to his own father that he is married. All these factors however have no effect on the lowly status actually conceded to the heroine after the birth of her child. (5.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 46. (6.) Meghnad Desai, ‘India: Contradictions of Slow Capitalist Development’, in Robin Blackburn (ed.), Explosion in a Subcontinent, London: Penguin Books, 1975, p. 19. See also Prabhat Patnaik, ‘Imperialism and the Growth of Indian Capitalism’, p. 73 in the same anthology. Patnaik argues that the nationalization of banks initiated by Mrs Gandhi in 1969 was a move forced by the smaller bourgeoisie against the growing strength of the monopoly houses. (7.) See Roy Armes, Third World Filmmaking and the West, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987, p. 112.

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The 1970s (8.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, pp. 90–1. (9.) Bobby’s virtue lies in its resisting the notion of the benevolent rich marrying the grateful poor through a particularly powerful creation—Jack Braganza. It must nonetheless be noted that Braganza’s aggressiveness is directed only towards securing equality and acceptance for his own class within the spectrum of affluent society. (10.) M. Madhava Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 143. (11.) Madhava Prasad regards the recurring dream of the horseman as driving Vijay into ways contrary to the protocol of the law but the film itself makes no connection between the dream and his conduct. Ibid., p. 144. (12.) Ibid., pp. 142–4. According to Prasad, the dispossessed are represented in Zanjeer by the female knife sharpener played by Jaya Bhaduri (‘woman on the margins of respectable society’), the Muslim owner of the gambling den played by Pran (‘the criminalized but essentially honest proletariat’), and the Christian drunkard played by Om Prakash (‘the marginalized minorities’). (13.) D.C. Gupta, Indian Government and Politics, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1979, pp. 411–13. The politician who voiced this was apparently Madhu Limaye, a socialist leader. (14.) Ibid., p. 416. One of Mrs Gandhi’s left-leaning ministers (Mohan Kumaramangalam) announced that government wanted as Chief Justice a person who would appreciate the ‘winds of change’ sweeping the country. (15.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 118, n1. (16.) Ibid., p. 121. (17.) Ibid., p. 123. (18.) From my viewpoint this implies that the emphasis was upon individuals rather than on types or archetypes. (19.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, pp. 127–30. (20.) Ashis Nandy, ‘An Intelligent Critic’s Guide to Indian Cinema’, Deep Focus, 1(1), December 1987, p. 71. (21.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, pp. 127–31. Also see pp. 160–87. Prasad describes middle-class cinema as ‘identificatory realism’, p. 130. (22.) Ibid., p. 168. As Prasad notes, the central character comes from elsewhere and brings purpose and meaning into the lives of those drifting apart. Page 29 of 32

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The 1970s (23.) Ibid., p. 165. (24.) Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Namak Haram engages in explicit trade union rhetoric. This film is loosely based on Jean Anouilh’s play (and Peter Glenville’s 1964 film) Becket and is about the friendship between an industrialist’s son Vikram and a working class youth named Somu. As a ruse to get even with an old trade union leader, Vikram gets Somu to work for him and they manipulate things so that the leader is sidelined and Somu heads the union. Somu however develops new loyalties and becomes a thorn in the industrialist’s flesh. The latter (Vikram’s father) therefore arranges for Somu’s murder. The film might have become more complex if Vikram had ordered Somu’s killing but the friendship between the two is sacred according to popular film conventions. Vikram therefore takes the blame for Somu’s killing although he is really innocent. (25.) Popular cinema is not vulnerable to this charge because it deals with types/ archetypes and not with individuals. (26.) Prasad cites Jameson on the ‘political unconscious’. The three horizons are: the ground of political history, in the yearly turnover of events; the ground of society, in its appearance as a ‘constitutive tension and struggle between social classes’; the ground of history, ‘conceived in its vastest sense of the sequences of modes of production and the succession and destiny of various human social formations’. M. Madhava Prasad, ‘Signs of Ideological Re-form in Two Recent Films: Towards Real Subsumption?’, in Ravi S. Vasudevan (ed.), Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 147–8. (27.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 118. (28.) Ibid., p. 119. Prasad cites Sudipta Kaviraj, ‘Indira Gandhi and Indian Politics’, Economic and Political Weekly, 21(38–9), 20–7 September 1986, p. 1699. (29.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Films, p. 120. (30.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 44. (31.) Gupta, Indian Government and Politics, pp. 728–9. (32.) Zanjeer also uses an idea from a minor spaghetti western named Da Uomo a Uomo (1967) seen in India as Death Rides a Horse and partly inspiring Yaadon Ki Baraat. (33.) Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 139. (34.) Deewar is often seen as working with the mother-as-nation cliché. For instance, see Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, The Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 394. Page 30 of 32

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The 1970s (35.) Beatrix Pfleiderer, ‘An Emprical Study of Urban and Semi-Urban Audience Reaction to Hindi Films’, in Beatrix Pfleiderer and Lothar Lutze (eds), The Hindi Film: Agent and Re-agent of Cultural Change, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985, p. 127. (36.) Gupta, Indian Government and Politics, p. 502. (37.) Rajadhyaksha, Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, p. 409. (38.) Interpreted by Prasad as a ‘phallic offering’. Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 149. (39.) Since the mother’s conduct is always a crucial indicator, the episode has us really wondering about Deewar’s intended discourse. If we read Sumitra Devi’s disapproval of Vijay in a straightforward way, can we not see this mother’s strong disapproval of Ravi as also legitimate? (40.) Nasreen Munni Kabir, Talking Films—Conversations on Hindi Cinema with Javed Akhtar, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 61. (41.) Fareed Kazmi, The Politics of India’s Conventional Cinema: Imaging a Universe and Subverting a Multiverse, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999, p. 100. (42.) Anupama Chopra, Sholay: The Making of a Classic, New Delhi: Penguin, 2001, p. 26. (43.) Philip Lutgendorf, ‘A “Made for Satisfaction Goddess”: Jai Santoshi Maa Revisited, Part 2’, Manushi, 131, 2002, pp. 24–37. (44.) Veena Das, ‘The Mythological Film and Its Framework of Meaning: An Analysis of Jai Santoshi Maa’, in India International Centre Quarterly, Special Issue, 8(1), March 1980, p. 54. (45.) Vijay’s ascent is charted not only through one-sided fight sequences but also through external signs of affluence—luxurious offices/apartments, expensive gifts, and foreign cars. (46.) Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 48. (47.) The more prevalent way of describing the film is that a Christian, a Muslim, and a Hindu adopt the three children respectively (see Vijay Mishra, Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 203–4). This can lead to the film being read as an affirmation of ‘India’s liberal ethos’. As I have argued elsewhere, a Hindu in popular cinema (except in the Muslim social) is only a ‘person’ but Christians and Muslims wear their religious identities on

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The 1970s their sleeves. I will argue that Amar’s being a ‘police inspector’ is more significant than his being ‘Hindu’. (48.) Akbar and Anthony are friends in their adulthood while the policeman Amar is distant and authoritarian. Amar beats up Anthony publicly and locks him up, refusing to release him even at the request of the blind woman who all of them casually address as ‘Mother’ without knowing of their true relationship with her. See note 12 above for why the minorities and petty criminals should be interpreted as the dispossessed and the marginalized. (49.) The leading political figures opposed to Mrs Gandhi in 1977 were Morarji Desai and Jaiprakash Narayan and both of them were widely regarded as ‘Gandhians’; Morarji Desai actually became Prime Minister in 1977. Manmohan Desai may be towing a ‘pro-Congress’ line here by showing the ‘Gandhian’ principles represented by the two as unable to effect the reconciliation. This hypothesis is supported by Manmohan Desai’s later film Coolie (1983) blatantly endorsing Mrs Gandhi’s populism.

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The Furious 1980s

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

The Furious 1980s Undermining the Nation State M.K. Raghavendra

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.003.0007

Abstract and Keywords This chapter discusses the films of the 1980s which were often marked by brutality and violence. Violence in these films proliferated as connotations of the prevailing social issues of the period. The motifs dominating in these films include rape, ‘female dishonour’, gang rivalry, the urban criminal, caste violence, and regional antagonism. These films attempted to capture the state of the judiciary, the police system, and the society as a whole. The films studied in this chapter in relation to the dominant violence theme of the 1980s include Insaaf Ka Tarazu, Shaan, Shakti, Yaadon Ki Baraat, Tezaab, Ankush, Agneepath, Naseeb, and Prem Rog. Keywords:   1980s, brutality, violence, judiciary, police system

The New Shape of Violence If popular films of the 1980s are to be characterized, we may say that brutality and violence tend to dominate them. Sex and violence in the movies are usually experienced ‘cumulatively’ and each era tends to outdo the earlier ones in the vividness of its portrayals. Indian popular cinema, however, behaved strangely between 1980 and the new millennium because the violence proliferating in the 1980s diminished considerably in the 1990s and the ‘clean entertainment’—that began with Hum Aapke Hain Koun… ! (HAHK, 1994) lasted longer than one film.1 Since the violence in these films takes a very specific shape, we may surmise that what happened was not simply a ‘proliferation of violence’ but that it had a definite connotative meaning. I suggest that film violence diminished in Page 1 of 26

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The Furious 1980s the early 1990s because what it connoted also lost pertinence. We need to understand the social stimulus that provoked the popular film into a thousand explosions in the 1980s but in order to do this I must begin by examining the actual shape taken by the screen violence. Sholay provides the most striking example of screen violence before 1980 but the films of the 1980s are different from Ramesh Sippy’s film. The typical examples from the 1980s are B.R. Chopra’s Insaaf Ka Tarazu (1980), N. Chandra’s Ankush (1985), Pratighaat (1987), and Tezaab (1988), Mukul S. Anand’s Agneepath (1990), two ‘youth’ films Ek Duuje Ke Liye (1982) and Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), Rahul Rawail’s (p.208) Arjun (1985), and Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Ghayal (1990). The violence in Sholay is ‘cleaner’ in as much as it is set in rustic spaces rather than in the confusing ambience of the contemporary city—as the films of the 1980s usually are. The city made its departure from popular cinema after 1962 but reappeared in the 1970s, although it did not have the same significance. In films like Deewar and Trishul the migrant hero makes the city his home and rises in it through dubious or largely unlawful means. Where the city of the 1950s was a space marked out for the encounter with modernity, these later films regard it mainly as the emblem of opportunity. The city is nominally portrayed as ‘corrupting’ but material advancement in it is made so enticing that the attractions of the city override any discourse directed at its evil. While I have associated this portrayal with the promise of upward mobility in Mrs Gandhi’s first period as Prime Minister, the films of the 1980s offer another kind of discourse and must therefore be read differently. The motifs dominating the films of the 1980s and accounting for much of the violence are classifiable as pertaining to rape and ‘feminine dishonour’, gang rivalries and urban criminals, caste violence and regional antagonisms. If many films work with more than one of these motifs, an aspect that also connects them is their tendency to portray the police and/or the judiciary as weak and corrupt. Since the earliest of such films is Insaaf Ka Tarazu, which is about a raped woman’s vengeance, we may commence looking at the films of the 1980s through this film and its progeny.

The ‘Dishonoured’ Woman Insaaf Ka Tarazu begins with a sequence in which an unknown woman is being raped by a mysterious assailant until a protector arrives and kills him. The very next scene happens in court where a decorated army officer (played by Dharmendra) is being tried for murder. The officer declares that he has killed in the service of the nation before and he will kill again to save a woman’s honour because a woman’s honour is as sacred as that of the Motherland. The rest of the film tells the story of Bharati (Zeenat Amman),2 a fashion model raped by a business tycoon named Ramesh Gupta (Raj Babbar). Bharati and her younger sister Neeta (Padmini Kholapure) move to a different city (Pune) where the former finds employment as secretary to a gunsmith. (p.209) Neeta also finds employment but she discovers too late that her employer is Ramesh Gupta Page 2 of 26

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The Furious 1980s because he rapes her as well, on her first day at work. Bharati is enraged when her younger sister returns home and she goes swiftly, finds a gun, and shoots Ramesh Gupta dead. Another court scene now ensues where Bharati is tried for murder. The judge is the same judge who acquitted Ramesh Gupta and the prosecuting attorney is the same lawyer who defended him successfully. The court however responds differently this time and the judge resigns after acquitting Bharati, forcefully declaring that a law unable to protect cannot have the authority to punish. N. Chandra’s Pratighaat is another film to propose vigilante justice for feminine dishonour. The location of the narrative in Pratighaat is not the metropolis of Bombay but a smaller town (ironically) named Dharmapura (‘City of Justice’). The other motifs that feature prominently in the film are also those of the weak police and the weak judiciary. There are numerous films that work with the same notion of vigilante justice for crimes against women and a few other examples are Ankush, Sherni (1989), and Zakhmi Aurat (1988). In Ankush the vigilantes are all sentenced to death and finally hanged. In Zakhmi Aurat the victim is a woman police officer who takes vigilante measures by castrating the rapists individually.3 A later film like Damini (1992) also has a brutal rape sequence but instead of proposing vigilante justice, the film’s discourse stops short at exposing the partisan nature of the law. While Damini will be dealt with later in a different context, my observation at this point is only that there is apparent significance in the rape victim not getting the wholehearted support of the law in each of the films. These ‘lady avenger’ films were widely commented upon in the 1980s although the responses were not uniform. While N. Chandra, one of the more important directors of the period argued that the portrayal of powerful women was a welcome break from a cinema dominated by submissive heroines,3 others tended to see the films as victimization of women masquerading as feminine power.4 The fact that women are usually objectified in most of the films lent credence to the latter view. Many of these writings seem rather superficial today5 and an essay attempting to look more deeply at the phenomenon only appeared much later. Lalitha Gopalan’s essay ‘Avenging Women in Indian Cinema’ discovers a genre emerging around the figure of the (p.210) dominant woman. According to her, a standard narrative unfolds in the following manner: Films open around family settings which appear ‘happy’ and ‘normal’ according to Hindi film conventions, but with a difference: there is a marked absence of dominant paternal figures. The female protagonist is always a working woman with a strong presence on screen. These initial conditions are upset when the female protagonist is raped. The raped woman files charges against her perpetrator, who is easily identifiable. Courtrooms play a significant role in these films, if only to demonstrate the state’s inability to convict the rapist on the one hand and to precipitate a Page 3 of 26

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The Furious 1980s narrative crisis on the other. This miscarriage of justice constitutes a turning point in the film—allowing for the passage of the victim from a sexual and judicial victim to an avenging woman.6 Narratives employing the motif of the dishonoured woman may conform to this pattern but they also show other principal preoccupations, Ek Duuje Ke liye (1982), Prem Rog (1982), Tezaab (1988), and Ghayal (1990) being examples. While Gopalan expands her arguments to include the later Telugu films starring the actress Vijayashanti,7 my own interest is in the Hindi cinema of the 1980s and I would like to look at it more closely. Gopalan makes a distinction between a film like Insaaf Ka Tarazu and another like Zakhmi Aurat because, by using the viewpoint of the younger sister, the former film infuses the crucial scene with both fear and pleasure of sexual knowledge instead of simply recognizing it as sexual violation.8 While admitting the validity of this viewpoint, my own line of inquiry leads me along a different trajectory, which is to locate the genre in the context of the 1980s rather than distinguish between films. What I find important is that the motif of ‘dishonour’9 has an accompanying discourse pertaining to the ineffectuality of the law. In describing the segment from Insaaf Ka Tarazu, Gopalan does not notice the decorated army officer stabbing the rapist to death and subsequently being tried for murder. She however notes that there is a suggestion that female rape is an ‘allegory for the beleaguered nation-state’ although she does not see the idea developed in the film.

Although the spectacle of rape in Insaaf Ka Tarazu interferes with the relay of the message contained in the first segment (the ‘first cause’), the message itself equates feminine honour with that of the nation. Gopalan’s contention that the idea is not developed cannot be refuted but popular cinema rarely carries through its ‘allegories’ because of (p.211) the closure imperative and the need for satisfying fiction. But, if the ‘genre’ is regarded in its totality, the allegorical side emerges more forcefully because there are other films in which the equation between feminine honour and the nation is made more conclusively. In Ankush, for instance, the male vigilantes avenging the dishonoured woman (who killed herself when the court cast aspersions on her character) are eventually hanged and their hanging is staged to remind the spectator of the martyrs executed by the British. Since each of the films chooses to make the law eventually culpable, their common discourse apparently pertains to state authority having become so eroded that it fails to protect the beleaguered nation. But, for my hypothesis to be tenable, there should also be other ways of allegorizing weak state authority that do not involve the dishonoured woman, and I will next seek them out.

The Weakening of State Authority The 1980s begin significantly for popular cinema as far as the portrayal of law enforcement is concerned. Two films from 1980—Ramesh Sippy’s Shaan and Subhash Ghai’s Karz—have sequences in which imposters wear police uniforms to trick other people. Such impiety is unimaginable until 1980 because of the sanctity of the uniform, but this alters dramatically in the decade, the respect for the police reaching new lows by 1990. Page 4 of 26

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The Furious 1980s A major part of the last chapter was devoted to the figure of the angry young man made popular by Amitabh Bachchan. A film that employs many of the same motifs as Deewar although to different purposes is Ramesh Sippy’s Shakti (1982), also scripted by Salim–Javed and bringing together the acting talents of the two greatest male stars in the history of Indian cinema. Shakti conforms to the same pattern as Deewar and Trishul: it features the angry young man—but it also takes the image forward. Since Shakti belongs to the same category as Deewar and Trishul, it may be anticipated that the film begins with a prologue involving a child. Ashwini Kumar (Dilip Kumar) is an upright police officer with a wife, Sheetal (Rakhee), and a young son named Vijay. Ashwini Kumar is given the task of apprehending a notorious smuggler named Yashwant of whom the police are themselves in dread. Ashwini goes (p.212) into Yashwant’s territory single-handedly and apprehends the man after subduing the resistance. J.K. Yashwant’s principal ally in the underworld, responds by abducting Vijay and demanding Yashwant’s release in exchange for the child’s life. Ashwini Kumar takes his vocation very seriously and, when the abductors ask for his reply, he dares them to kill the child rather than yield to their demand. Although Vijay manages to escape with the help of one of J.K.’s aides (a man named Narang), he hears a recording of his father’s defiant monologue and develops a deep-seated resentment not only against his father but also against the entire police force and carries the resentment into adulthood. Shakti has many aspects that deserve attention but the most important is the way in which the two main characters are drawn. Ashwini Kumar is the epitome of honesty and conscientiousness and takes his vocation so seriously that he would rather lose his only son than stray from the path of duty. Although Shakti is not explicitly critical of Ashwini Kumar’s action in the prologue, it places the blame for Vijay’s (Amitabh Bachchan) rebelliousness squarely upon the policeman. The vehemence with which Vijay’s father exhorts Vijay’s abductors to kill him (‘Haan, maar dalo usko… ’) to demonstrate his own attachment to his duties seems excessive, apparently justifying his son’s resentment. The question we ask ourselves is whether the law deserves Ashwini Kumar’s loyalty and if the life of his son were not more important. We also recollect that the father in Deewar (also scripted by Salim–Javed) betrayed the workers because the lives of his wife and children were threatened but the film did not judge his capitulation as particularly dishonourable. Shakti deliberately leaves many of these questions unanswered and allows them to work on us. Further, it does not pass any obviously adverse judgements on the forces of the law but only suggests that a negative portrayal may be justified. To illustrate, Vijay refuses to approach the police on more than one occasion even though his father is a high-ranking official. When he rescues Roma (Smita Patil) from a gang of toughs on a suburban train, she suggests making a complaint to Page 5 of 26

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The Furious 1980s the police but he responds with the cryptic remark that such a complaint would be of no use. The justification given by the narrative is Vijay’s personal attitude towards his own father but alongside it is also a covert attempt to question the sanctity of law enforcement and this new tendency is virtually enshrined in the later 1980s. (p.213) If Deewar and Trishul are companion pieces, Shakti evidently takes the angry young man’s image a step further. Mukul Anand’s Agneepath (1990) goes a greater distance in the same direction and shows the point reached at the end of the decade by a tendency that began around 1980. Agneepath is apparently like Deewar but it differs in that it neither participates vicariously in Vijay’s (Amitabh Bachchan) ascent nor gloats over his acquired wealth and power. Where Deewar is prone to celebrating the accumulation of power and glamourizing upward mobility, Agneepath emphasizes the seamier side of the city and includes an action sequence shot in the alleys of Dharavi, India’s largest slum. The film’s discourse relates to the lawlessness of the contemporary city and the violence in Agneepath is messy because the gangs are perpetually fighting on the streets. Where Deewar formally dictates that the forces of law and order must be respected, Agneepath deliberately shows the police as weak, corrupt, and not in control. When Agneepath actually identifies a single upright and courageous police officer—the Commissioner—he is shown to be so ineffectual that the services of the gangster-protagonist are needed even to keep him alive. Alongside this portrayal of the police is the aspect of Vijay’s enormous public appeal. We do not see Vijay doing anything very significant for them but crowds go on the rampage (necessitating a ‘curfew’) when he is injured, also gathering outside the hospital in numbers that might have gratified a prime minister. While these aspects may be intentionally working towards showcasing the star’s public persona,10 they induce us to regard Vijay Chauhan as an extralegal authority in a milieu where the forces of the law stand considerably weakened.

‘Extra-Legal Authority’ There are other ‘extra-legal authorities’ portrayed in the cinema of the 1980s although these figures are clad, more often, in the garb of the villain. The urban gangster of the 1980s is very different from his counterpart of the 1950s (most famously played by K.N. Singh) but this is not because the city is a different place. Unlike the urban gangster of the 1950s, the later-day villain is ‘inhuman’ and can be understood, like Shakaal in Yaadon Ki Baraat, as a device employed to further the ends of melodramatic narrative and with little social correspondence. Kancha Cheena (Danny Denzongpa) in Agneepath divides his time (p.214) between yachts, helicopters, and Mauritius and his kinship with the characters played by Ajit in the 1970s is evident. The three films by N. Chandra in the 1980s also use the urban hate figure although the earliest of

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The Furious 1980s them—Ankush—formally makes him an ‘industrialist’ rather than a gangster. The last of the three films—Tezaab (1988)—was also a big success of the 1980s. Tezaab is a strange film and perhaps too sordid to be taken for ‘escapist’ entertainment. Its narrative is a web of complications and several of its sections are related in flashback. The film begins with a group of underworld types shaking a sleeping man rudely awake and demanding that he return their money. Shyam Lal (Anupam Kher) has a daughter, a dancer named Mohini (Madhuri Dixit), and he assures his creditors of repayment when Mohini begins to earn from her performances. Shyam Lal is living off his daughter’s earnings and we soon learn that he exploited his late wife in the same way until she protested and he responded by splashing her face with acid (tezaab). The hero of Tezaab is Munna (Anil Kapoor), a feared urban gangster, also popular like Vijay Chauhan in Agneepath. Munna was once Mahesh Deshmukh, the patriotic son of a bank cashier who turned criminal after his unjust imprisonment for accidentally killing the man who attempted to rape his sister. While the narrative of Tezaab is not pertinent in its entirety, it is significant that the film clearly attributes the criminal behaviour of the hero to his unjust treatment at the hands of the law. The police in Tezaab are not only weak but they actually connive with the villains to have Munna implicated. The presence of an honest and courageous police officer (the kind also seen briefly in Agneepath) does not alter the perception, and the discourse of the film is familiar. Munna’s ‘extra-legal’ methods are justified in Tezaab by the weakening presence of legality. The films just described could be explained simply as expressing the disenchantment with the legal process and the forces of law and order prevailing at the time, but we wonder if the interpretation is tenable. In the first place, the police are represented in all the films as too weak to even protect themselves from the underworld and this is not an exact depiction of an actual situation. Second, it is difficult to put a date on ‘public disenchantment with the legal process’ but cinema exhibits the motifs within a specific period. Third, we recollect that film narratives of the 1950s deliberately privileged the law because (p.215) this was compatible with the nationalist fervour after 1947. If policemen were ‘incorruptible’ this was because state authority was morally upheld and not because policemen were popular or blameless. During the Emergency declared by Mrs Gandhi, the forces of law enforcement were quite despised but films like Deewar continue with the convention of representing them as moral authority, although a circuitous method is also devised to subvert the discourse. While this portrayal of law enforcement is true of the 1970s and of the early 1980s, we see films like Agneepath, Tezaab, and Pratighaat no longer choosing to continue in the same vein. We find them rejecting the notions of a ‘dedicated police force’ and an ‘upright judiciary’ and we are tempted to read their attitudes as directed against the state. None of the

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The Furious 1980s films just described can be understood as ‘radically’ motivated and there are apparently other reasons for the transformation in film portrayals. The figure of the urban gangster immune to the law also finds a place in the middle cinema of the 1980s in Govind Nihalani’s Ardh Satya (1983). Inspector Ananth Welankar (Om Puri) is increasingly frustrated by the impossibility of recourse against the gangster Rama Shetty and is even forced to approach him for assistance when in an official quandary. But he is so incensed by Rama Shetty’s insolence that he strangles him in rage and surrenders. Middle cinema, as indicated in the last chapter, deals with individuals rather than types and this also implies it has no ‘message’ to relay. Middle cinema is therefore unable to ‘mean’ what a popular film means. This may be why a film like Ardh Satya can create some confusion among critics unable to read its discourse.11 Mahesh Bhatt’s Saaransh (1984) is another ‘middle’ film using the figure of the powerful urban gangster, although it is closer in spirit to a domestic melodrama. The policeman hero susceptible to bribes—as in Shahenshah (1988) and Ram Lakhan (1989)—is the converse of this creation and appears frequently in the cinema of the period. In Shahenshah the corrupt police constable doubles part-time as a fearsome vigilante figure. The urban gangster and the vigilante of the 1980s are alike in as much as they both undermine the processes of the law and the figure of the corrupt policeman only serves to justify this undermining. According to political scientists, the 1980s were a period in which ‘divisive forces’ had gained impetus within the Indian polity because of (p.216) regional demands. If the last years of Janata Party rule saw squabbling between constituents (with regional loyalties) weakening the traditionally strong centre, Indira Gandhi also ruled more tentatively in her second reign. One of Mrs Gandhi’s machinations had been her initial encouragement of a young Sikh religious preacher named Jarnail Singh Bindranwale as part of an effort to weaken the faction-ridden Akali Dal, which had participated in the Janata coalition. But when she returned to power in 1980, she presumed he was dispensable and chose to ignore him after he had campaigned for the Congress. Bindranwale had however captured the imagination of many a Sikh youth by now and he encouraged them to question the authority of the Indian state and speak the language of secession. The centre was also beset by conflicting regional demands since the states that had done well like Punjab sought greater autonomy while others like Assam, which believed they had been neglected, demanded a larger share of central revenue.12 Further, one result of ‘vote-bank’ politics—wherein group identities were actively promoted for short-term electoral gain—was that the groups began to gradually assert themselves: The new political entrants considered themselves—and acted as—members of groups and communities, rather than liberal individuals. These collective identities in some cases began viciously to attack one another: in regions like Bihar, upper castes, their power threatened by the destruction of the Page 8 of 26

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The Furious 1980s vote banks they had controlled waged wars on those below them. Violence between society and the state also escalated.… India’s political parties are a good index of this diversity (of the social identities they represent)…. Democracy quickened the attraction of these social identities in various, often contradictory ways. The potentialities of religion, language and caste inspired parties to devise strategies that respectively appealed to the Hindu religion, the Hindi language or lower-caste status, in order to mobilize for power at the Centre. Regional politics also came violently alive, and very differently from the way it had in the 1950s. The claims of regional autonomy Nehru faced were reactions against the legacies of British rule, which had bequeathed the Indian state administrative territories containing different linguistic groups now discontented by their opportunities. The regional demands of the 1980s, by contrast, were explicitly directed against the central state, which since the late 1960s had meddled incessantly in regional affairs, repeatedly invoking President’s Rule…and undermining the federal division of powers.13 The ineffectual police in the popular cinema of the 1980s correspond to ‘eroded state authority’. But if the reading is correct, as we may presume from our past readings of popular cinema, we will also see (p.217) the motif of the group/caste/regional identity emerging in the popular cinema of the 1980s and these are the motifs that I will next examine.

The Gang Identity The films examined so far do not bring regional divides explicitly into their narratives but N. Chandra’s earliest film, Ankush (1985), which has much the same viewpoint as the others, sets itself in Bombay and propagates a rabidly regionalist viewpoint through the notion of gang identity. N. Chandra’s other films also feature youth gangs but in Ankush it is the gang itself rather than a single protagonist that occupies the centre of the narrative. Ankush bears a superficial resemblance to Gulzar’s Mere Apne. The narrative begins with a festive Ganesh procession in Bombay, which becomes an occasion for the heroes to have a major brawl with a rival gang. The four members of the gang earn a meagre living by helping out unfortunate locals, usually tenants or poor landlords, being oppressed by ‘outsiders’—north Indians with names like Khanna or Saxena. One day, the gang comes into conflict with the two women tenants of a building with a greedy owner. The goodness and sympathy of the two women—a social worker named Anita and her aged mother—see the young men being abruptly mollified. The two become surrogate sister and mother to the members of the gang, this being the first taste of kindness and affection that the young men have known. They learn that Anita’s father was a senior police officer in Bombay, killed when he attempted to intervene courageously in a street battle.

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The Furious 1980s Everything goes well until Anita has to negotiate with an unscrupulous (north Indian) industrialist named Saxena. Saxena’s advisor is a textile magnate named R.K. Gupta. This duo has money and the members of the rival gang are also in their pay. Anita is unaware of the danger she is in and she follows them to their farmhouse, where they contrive to overpower and rape her. Anita recovers in hospital and decides to bring charges against all those involved. The trial takes place; however not only are the accused acquitted for lack of evidence but aspersions are also cast on Anita’s character. This proves too much for the social worker; she slashes her wrists and is found dead by the gang. The four members of the gang are incensed and they kill all the men involved in Anita’s rape and surrender to the police. (p.218) They appear in court and make courageous statements about their concerns but they are all sentenced to death. The film ends with their heroic deaths on the scaffold after a last visit from Anita’s mother, whom they all regard as their mother. The last scenes are composed and shot to compare the four to India’s freedom fighters and to extol them as martyrs. Ankush subscribes to a politics identified with the right-wing political party, the Shiv Sena14 and Nana Patekar, who plays the leader of the gang, later also became one of the party’s campaigners. The film is not strictly constructed according to the ‘catholic’ tenets of popular cinema and is intended to serve the ends of political propaganda within the state of Maharashtra. It is however significant for the manner in which it combines a ‘regionalist’ viewpoint with an unhesitating condemnation of state institutions from a vigilante standpoint. Other similar films of the period like Rahul Rawail’s Arjun (1985) also advocate vigilante action while promoting the notion of gang identity. Most of these films do not however voice the same regionalist sentiments as Ankush. The ‘regionalist’ sentiments noticed in the films are incongruous because, as we have seen, the Hindi film is intended to address a wide audience within the geographical boundaries of the nation. Ankush shows a bias that is patently unsuited to an all-India film; it was therefore produced on a small budget and was only a modest local success. It perhaps answers to the description of a regional Hindi film meant for audiences in the state of Maharashtra.15 Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Ghayal (1990) is another film of the same kind although it engages in no discernible regionalist chauvinism. Ghayal and Arjun also play briefly with the notion of feminine dishonour. Each of these films separately provide evidence of the association between the motif of feminine dishonour, the erosion of state authority, and the rise to prominence of a narrower identity.

The Regional/Local Identity We have examined several films belonging to the decade and they exhibit tendencies not seen in earlier periods. Apart from the way in which the films wilfully undermine the law and order machinery of the state, they also emphasize regional characteristics. Even Agneepath (p.219) goes some Page 10 of 26

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The Furious 1980s distance in this direction because Amitabh Bachchan uses a heavily accented Bombay Hindi in the film, perhaps for the first time in his career. Although it is only N. Chandra who takes an ‘antioutsider’ stance in Ankush, the notion of the regional identity comes to the fore time and again. The hero of Agneepath is assisted in his acts by a Tamilian named Krishna Iyer (Mithun Chakraborti) who also speaks a heavily accented Hindi. Another peculiarity marking the films is their being taken up with the notion of people with a common identity banding together against their enemies. Street gangs appeared much earlier in Mere Apne but the films just described portray the activities of the groups with a much greater degree of approval. As suggested earlier, regional cinema in India works in pockets of local influence and has not often undertaken the task of addressing ‘national concerns’ like the Hindi film. This does not however mean that the regional film makes no acknowledgement of the concerns of the nation. An important regional film like Parasakhti treats the courtroom as a sacred site where truth must prevail, as do many Hindi films contemporary to it. There is a category in Indian cinema representing regional films remade in (or dubbed into) Hindi, and Azad belongs to this category. Meri Awaaz Suno (1981) is S.V. Rajendra Singh’s Hindi version of his Kannada Antha (1981) and spews the familiar venom upon the nexus between the machinery of the state and the underworld. Balu Mahendra’s Sadma (1983), a remake of his own Tamil hit Moondram Pirai (1982), is less obvious but it suggests that the police can constitute a threat to even those who are righteous. Still, the remade regional film that actually problematizes regional conflict is K. Balachander’s Ek Duuje Ke Liye (1981), a version of his own Telugu film Marocharithra (1978). Unlike the other ‘dubbed’ versions just mentioned, Balachander’s Hindi film proved to be a runaway hit and its examination is pertinent here. The film begins with the camera eye moving through a ruined mansion by the seaside as we hear two voices on the soundtrack, plainly belonging to two lovers —Vasu and Sapna whose names are carved together on the wall plaster and on the rocks outside. We understand the sequence to pertain to a memory and we gather that the lovers are no longer in the realm of the living. The story of Vasu and Sapna is then related in flashback and it commences with the description of two families in Goa. One of them is an orthodox south Indian Brahmin (p.220) while the other is non-vegetarian and north Indian and the two are hostile to each other. The film uses the Hindi/non-Hindi language divide to posit regional hostility and the same motif (as we shall see) also finds a place in a later film like Roja (1992). Vasu in Ek Duuje Ke Liye is from a Tamil family and he returns to Goa after a long absence. He understands no Hindi but falls in love with Sapna, the daughter of their north Indian neighbour, and his love is returned. The two families are in conflict because of their cultural differences but the two lovers Page 11 of 26

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The Furious 1980s continue their secret trysts until the families grudgingly concede that they may marry but also stipulate that their love must first be tested. Unfortunately, by the time the constancy of the love is affirmed Vasu has also incurred the wrath of a thug who believed that Vasu’s heart was given to his sister and he hires a gang of killers to liquidate him. Vasu is therefore attacked on the seashore in Goa and left gravely wounded. A shadowy villain is, meanwhile, stalking Sapna and she finds herself trapped in the ruined mansion shown to us in the first scene. Sapna jumps off a rickety balcony to save herself from dishonour but her pursuer follows her downstairs and rapes the broken and helpless girl. The gravely wounded Vasu and the abused Sapna then crawl to meet on a cliff overlooking the sea and, having decided that the world will not permit their love, take their own lives. What is interesting in Ek Duuje Ke Liye is specifically the extent to which the film goes to prevent Vasu (Kamal Haasan) and Sapna (Rati Agnihotri) from coming together. Their fates do not strictly follow from the cultural differences between their families, cited as the reason for their tragedy. We see the narrative deliberately arranging extraneous obstacles in their path and even an arbitrary rapist villain and this is apparently because the film lacks the conviction that the cultural gap separating the two is genuinely forbidding. If we must compare Ek Duuje Ke Liye with a similar film dealing with regional cultural divides from a much earlier period, Mohan Segal’s New Delhi (1956) perhaps fits our requirements. New Delhi is set in the early days of independent India and is about a romance between an upper-class Punjabi boy and a middle class Tamil girl. New Delhi was made in the early years of Independence and therefore portrays the national capital as a melting pot of cultures. It anticipates the cultural friction arising in the process of nation building and uses the methods of melodrama (p.221) to announce a fictional resolution. Yet the cultural gap portrayed in New Delhi is more tangible and real than it is in Ek Duuje Ke Liye. Balachander’s film is set in Goa; both Vasu’s and Sapna’s families are ‘outsiders’ to the state and their antipathy towards each other cannot use the justification available to the patriarch in New Delhi who apparently regards south Indians and Bengalis as ‘foreigners’ in the capital. Where New Delhi attempted to wish away real cultural divisions through melodramatic resolutions, we see Ek Duuje Ke Liye employ melodramatic devices to posit imaginary cultural gaps!

The Class Identity What has been said so far may give the reader the idea that the identity promoted in the 1980s was predominantly regional. The actual evidence of popular cinema suggests that the group identities invoked often pertain to subclasses and castes as well. A subaltern class that defines its interests narrowly according to local, caste, or religious boundaries can be, in a sense, described as ‘lumpenized’ and the growth of lumpenized classes is apparent in some films of the 1980s.

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The Furious 1980s Manmohan Desai’s Naseeb (1981) attempts to carry on from where Amar Akbar Anthony ended and has a plot that is even more complicated than the one in the earlier film. Naseeb is about four friends—a waiter, a band musician, a driver, and a photographer—who jointly win a lottery ticket. Two of them kill the third and implicate the fourth one falsely in the crime. With the proceeds of the ticket the two set up a criminal empire with a hotel as front. Johnny (Amitabh Bachchan), the son of the convicted man, becomes a waiter in the hotel and the daughter of the deceased (Hema Malini) becomes a famous singer. More important (from my viewpoint) is the motif of Johnny’s acquiring stature through fighting in the ring. If he is a ‘humble’ waiter by day, Johnny comes into his own at night as an amateur boxer16 and we see him striding into an enormous cage where he fights alien challengers while his local friends cheer him on hysterically. These fight sequences are dimly lit while the rest of the film is shot mainly in bright sunlight. The sequences do not play much of a part in furthering the narrative but they create a strangely frightening effect because of the group hysteria they draw upon, and we tend to see the hero as the violent representative (p.222) of a lumpen under-class or group with intense local loyalties. There is a suggestion that Johnny acquires stature only in the ring, when he is cheered on, because it is in the ring that he first impresses the heroine. Manmohan Desai’s next film Coolie (1983) is more explicit in its response to the emotional needs of a lumpenized class, a class that was evidently coming into its own at the time: As elections gained in importance, levels of democratic participation in both national and provincial politics climbed… So, too, did levels of violence, and the connection was not random. According to commonly available understandings of democracy, individuals rationally choose political parties as instruments to pursue their interests. But representative democracy—in India as elsewhere—does not operate through a simple instrumental relation between representative and represented. The relation between politicians and their supporters includes a larger cultural connection, a felt sense of identification and trust. Democratic politics seems to require that identities and perceptions of interest be stable; but political identities and interests do not have a prepolitical existence—they have to be created through politics.… And this process of identity creation is a dangerous business, more akin to conflict than competition. This was India’s situation from the 1980s, when the violence that began to seep into public life was expressive of conflicts related to the rising levels of democratic participation.17 Building upon group loyalties creates political identities and interests but these loyalties can be reliably acquired only through other inducements. The 1980s saw intense populist rhetoric and mass meetings being organized and presided over by Page 13 of 26

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The Furious 1980s political leaders where public money was ‘lent’.18 A point was often made that the claim of ‘the poor’ upon this public money was legitimate especially as the ‘rich’ had already misused their access to it. The central government, according to the rhetoric employed, was on the side of the poor against the rich and the public spectacle of bureaucrats with official salaries being humiliated in the mass meetings seemed to prove it. While the employed rhetoric did not identify target groups, the selection of beneficiaries depended largely upon group loyalties—since party cadres were actively involved in the process.

Coolie (1983) is given to the familiar populist rhetoric of the period. In the prologue the evil Zafar comes out of jail to claim Salma but she is already married to a good man who works on a dam site. The narrative of Coolie fits in with the pattern made familiar by Manmohan Desai— (p.223) in as much as it is difficult to relate. What is significant, however, is that the villains are engaged in running a ‘chit fund’ intended to dupe the poor under the pretext of providing them with housing. Iqbal, as the leader of the coolies, takes his followers on a jaunt to the residence of the owners of the chit fund and the band has fun destroying the property of the ‘dishonest rich’. The ingratiating attitude of the film towards the lumpen class is blatant and Iqbal is shown to represent the ‘will of the poor’. When Iqbal calls a hartal (strike) at the railway station to protest against the ‘arrogance of the rich’, the railway minister arrives for negotiations and is as courteous and sympathetic to the working class as politicians liked to portray themselves at the time. Iqbal also contests the election and his electoral battle against the villain is presented as a battle between the poor and the rich. As may also be anticipated, the ‘representative of the rich’ behaves treacherously. Iqbal is forced to withdraw from the electoral contest because his father’s life is threatened. With the exception of Ankush, none of the other films described in this chapter can be accused of directly meeting a political agenda although they respond to the changes wrought by politics upon the popular consciousness. Coolie is an apparent anomaly because it speaks the same language as populist polemics in the political arena. The Amitabh Bachchan of Coolie is not ‘angry’ but exhibits the swagger specific to a class or a group politically favoured and courted. The class is a ‘lumpen’ class because political issues pertinent to it apparently coincide with its own material interests. Manmohan Desai was one of the most important directors of the 1970s and he may have gradually come to regard himself as a kind of auteur who had perfected a secret and eternally valid recipe and both Naseeb and Coolie were hits. Amar Akbar Anthony can seem the perfect ‘formula’ film but, as already discussed, it addressed the times in a way that Coolie, in my view, does not. Coolie speaks a language too heavily reliant on the dominant political discourse of the times and much too overtly. While dealing with the earliest films after Independence, I remarked that the truths excavated from Indian popular cinema were more ‘secure’ because this cinema deals with historical/political experience Page 14 of 26

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The Furious 1980s covertly as allegory and metaphor.19 I now suggest that this statement is untrue of Coolie and Manmohan Desai’s film actually seems to be toeing an ‘official’ line.

(p.224) Caste Identity Caste identity is a defining factor in India and the cinema of the 1980s needs to be examined for its treatment of the notion. Raj Kapoor’s Prem Rog (1982) is an important film because it deals with caste divisions in a manner not seen in popular cinema of earlier periods and deals with the marriage of a Thakur widow to someone from another caste. Prem Rog is daring for allowing a widow to remarry but there are other precedents for it in popular film. In Phool aur Patthar (1966), for instance, the film concludes with the hero coming together with the widowed heroine but she continues to be dressed in white so that the prospective change in her status is not dealt with visually. Prem Rog copes with the change not only by explaining that Manorama’s (Padmini Kholapure) first marriage was not consummated but also by filming the final marriage ceremony from such a great distance that Manorama is not seen in the attire of a bride. Prem Rog’s most interesting aspect however is the manner in which it establishes the caste identity of the heroine’s family. In the first place, the obvious fact (by the canons of popular cinema) that the two are destined for each other is obscured by their caste backgrounds and Manorama does not even accord the status of an eligible male to Devdhar (Rishi Kapoor). This contrasts with earlier films about love between people of different castes (films like Chandidas, Achut Kanya, and Sujata) when only society prevents love from following its legitimate course. Second, Manorama has to undergo certain excruciating rituals after her widowhood, which reminds us of the manner in which Hindu orthodoxy is critiqued in regional art cinema.20 What is however unexpected is that Prem Rog is a mainstream film supporting no discourse against traditional ritual. The ostentatious lifestyles of the Thakurs is played up dramatically and, if the process through which Manorama is made cognizant of her widowhood is so painful, she is not presented as the pathetic object of persecution but merely as an individual experiencing the other side of caste privilege. There is an early sequence in the film in which the benevolent Raja Thakur comes out in support of the remarriage of another widow but he is still able to do little about the goings on in his own family—although he is its undisputed head. Prem Rog apparently belongs to times when even the privileged individual needs to embrace his or her caste identity so (p.225) completely that the inconveniences that go along with the identity cannot be eschewed or circumvented. Another film of the same period to use the motif of caste identity is Mansoor Khan’s Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), which is about the impossible love between two individuals belonging to the same caste. The caste it deals with is, Page 15 of 26

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The Furious 1980s as in Prem Rog, the Rajput (Kshatriya) caste. The film is about a feud between two Kshatriya clans and the doomed love between their children. Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak bears striking resemblance to Ek Duuje Ke Liye because both films are about impossible loves and both end tragically with the active involvement of professional killers. Interestingly, both of them include sequences close to the end when the protagonists are seen in a temple. In the context of what we observed elsewhere about the imaging of the deity in popular cinema, in EK Duuje Ke Liye Sapna prays in an actual temple. The figures of the deities are embedded in the rock-face; they are crudely painted and shown very briefly with none of the reassurance (to the spectator) that the lifelike statues in popular film temples usually provide. In Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak the lovers exchange garlands in a Shiva temple where the deity is not represented by a lifelike statue of the god but by the traditional lingam (stone phallus), which is only briefly glimpsed. This manner of dealing with the deity is unusual but it is consistent with films ending tragically—with the critical moment coming to pass and divinity not intervening in the destinies of the protagonists. The most pertinent aspect of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak to me however is the film’s effective use of the caste identity of the protagonists. This identity is emphasized time and again and declared even by the name of the college that the hero attends. Hindi popular cinema is not given to formally announcing the caste identity of the protagonists or their kin, although the names themselves sometimes give us fair indication. While all priests must inevitably be Brahmins, ‘Trivedi’ and ‘Sharma’ can also be taken to belong to the Brahmin caste. ‘Seth’ is usually the name attached to a merchant but ‘Gupta’ is also commonly from the Vaishya caste. Farmers are identified by their vocations—instead of by their castes—and the castes of lower strata are usually not specified. One caste identity openly declared, pertains however to the Kshatriya caste. The reasons are not entirely clear but, for one thing, the Indian epics, from which most stories draw, are about warriors and kings and (p.226) therefore deal with this caste. A large part of popular cinema also deals with feudal relationships and the caste identity of a Kshatriya (or a ‘Thakur’) sits well on a feudal landlord. In Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, even more than in Prem Rog, the caste identity of the Kshatriya is not directed outward—as conflict with other castes—but is selfdefining. Kshatriyas have their own attributes and their own code of conduct and the film examines the way in which the codes determine behaviour. To illustrate, the families in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak have taken up occupations outside their traditional areas but their capacity for sudden rage remains undiminished. The hero (Aamir Khan) is himself presented as unthinking and reckless in the film— although in a different way from his father—and this can also be associated with the caste trait. The fact that the ‘hero’ is not defined only in terms of his romantic appeal but also in terms of caste attributes implies a degree of complexity not usually seen in popular cinema. This caste factor makes the dangers faced by the lovers from their respective families so much more Page 16 of 26

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The Furious 1980s convincing than those faced by Vasu and Sapna in Ek Duuje Ke Liye and it also makes their love seem obsessive. Caste identity is normally used as methods of exclusion or as justification for banding together but on the evidence of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, it can apparently become as useful as the religious identity when it is self defining and causes one to look inward.21 Mansoor Khan’s film may have recognized this and uses the notion of caste identity creatively, but it is no coincidence that Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak appeared in the 1980s when the notion of an inclusive ‘national unity’ was eroded. My inquiry has been taken up with surface interpretations of popular cinema but I have hitherto not invoked any auteurs. The most widely acknowledged auteurs in popular cinema are Guru Dutt and Bimal Roy but I have consciously refrained from relying on the works regarded as central to their oeuvres. My approach is derived from my interest in how narrative patterns are transformed by historical developments and processes. The works of the auteur, being more preoccupied with personal expression, therefore serve my purpose less than the quotidian films that unashamedly attempt to woo the spectator. The two films about the Kshatriya caste that I have just examined are not ‘auteur’ films in as much as the filmmakers have never shown (p.227) themselves to be preoccupied with caste in their other films. A filmmaker who came into his own in the 1990s but who worked obsessively with the notion of caste identity in four films of the period is J.P. Dutta and the films bear examining here. It is also pertinent that after 1992 (when he made Kshatriya), Dutta abandoned the subject of the warrior-caste and commenced to make war films like Border (1998) that are also less interesting. Dutta’s films of the 1980s are nuanced by irony in a way that Hindi popular cinema has generally not shown itself to be. J.P. Dutta’s first feature to be completed and released was Ghulami (1985). In Ghulami as well as in his later film Batwara (1988) Dutta deals with caste conflict, and explicitly portrayed in the two films is the conflict between Thakurs and Jats, a farming community. Apart from delving at great length into caste identities, Ghulami is singular in the way in which it portrays the police. We saw that the cinema of the 1980s tended to portray the police as incompetent, corrupt, or weak, indirectly undermining the institutions of the state, and these portrayals were dictated by the attitudes of the times. Ghulami goes a step further by showing the police themselves as divided along caste lines and also by giving its principal policeman caste attributes. Dutta’s third film Batwara (1989) is a story of friendship between a Jat farmer named Sumer Singh (Dharmendra) and Thakur Vikram Singh (Vinod Khanna), an aristocrat. In Vikram Singh, J.P. Dutta creates one of his characteristic Thakurs, a man whose primary trait is his capacity for violence. The ‘daku’ film often shows a man who turns to violence when he is cruelly wronged (Ganga Jumna) Page 17 of 26

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The Furious 1980s but the man retains both his sense of justice and the capacity to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent. Vikram Singh is a loyal friend but he turns to violence on flimsy grounds and loses the capacity to make such moral distinctions. J.P. Dutta’s Thakur has a moral vocabulary in which gallantry and not fairness is the cardinal virtue and marking out Batwara from a host of comparable films is that it shows the two virtues coming into conflict. J.P. Dutta also makes it evident that Vikram Singh owes the ‘moral flaw’ in his character to tradition and to the ethical emphasis placed upon his caste. Also significant is the villain in the film, a lower-ranking policeman who considers himself a ‘Kshatriya first and a policeman only afterwards’.

(p.228) Conflicting Identities ‘Nationalism’ is a sentiment that surfaces frequently in popular cinema but the reasons for its expression are not uniform. The 1980s were apparently not conducive to its expression and it is interesting to see how a film appearing at around the close of the decade of violence is ‘nationalist’ in its address. Maniratnam’s Roja (1992) is a Tamil film22 about the kidnapping of a south Indian official named Rishi Kumar (Arvind Swamy) by Kashmiri militants. The film is ‘nationalist’ in its apparent address without laying the blame for the Kashmir problem at the doorstep of foreigners and mercenaries (as some later films do), although it also expands upon the notion of ‘misguided’ political action. If the film is sympathetic to the militants, it also tries hard not to be critical of the security forces, in effect only favouring a ‘return to peace’. Roja has been widely written about by left-wing film academics but they tend to see it only as a nationalist tract. The sequence in the film causing them the greatest unease is one in which the hero Rishi Kumar held hostage by Kashmiri separatists leaps upon an Indian tricolour set ablaze by them, writhes in pain, but valiantly attempts to contain the flames enveloping it. It has been argued23 that Roja celebrates the Indian middle class, ultimately represented as the embodiment of secular values. The Hindu middle-class lifestyle is emptied of its specifically religious content and used as a marker for a ‘national’ cultural identity. In the process, Islam becomes the sign of difference and a threat to secularism. Another viewpoint24 is that the greatest influence upon Manirathnam is advertising, which provides the director not only with his craft but also with his ideology.25 Roja has mostly received these two kinds of responses but more generous is Nicholas B. Dirks who also suggests the film must be read in the context of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination by Sri Lankan Tamil terrorists, and that it is more complex in its implications.26 My own reading, like Dirks takes the film’s Tamil viewpoint more seriously into account but it also relies on Roja being made at a time when regional antagonisms within India were stronger. The film makes its first shift from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu through the song (Chinna chinna aase…) sung by Roja (Madhu), the girl who is to be Rishi’s wife. The absence of an abrupt ‘cut’ makes the transition between the two spaces smooth and the ‘reality’ of the violence in (p.229) Kashmir is belied Page 18 of 26

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The Furious 1980s by the studied pleasantness of the Tamil landscape and the young girl’s ebullient song; it is as if the two spaces belong in different universes. The transition can therefore be said to work towards denying the existence of an immediate connection between Kashmir and Tamil Nadu. Second, Roja is adventurous when it reduces the parental presence to a mere vestige of its original function in popular cinema. In fact, none of the parental figures are shown to even register anxiety at Rishi’s kidnapping. What the film does, instead, is to have crowds of unnamed elderly Tamil women in many of the scenes. One such crowd meets Rishi when he comes to Roja’s village, and he carries an old woman to Roja’s house when he finds she cannot walk. Another such group sees Roja and Rishi off to the edge of the village. Roja’s letter to her sister providing details about Rishi’s kidnapping is also read out to a group of elderly Tamil women all of whom are emphatic in their concern. The women are not related to Roja and they do not belong to her class but they are still deeply empathetic. The only attribute that links them to her and Rishi is that they are, culturally, local. Since there is little in the film to suggest that the ‘local’ culture alluded to is not synonymous with ‘Tamil’, the women may be explained collectively as representing ‘Tamil motherhood’ in a way that a single woman might not have. The moral role of the mother in popular film narrative has been explained and these women perform the collective task of ‘mother surrogates’ displaying concern for the safety of a Tamil son at a critical moment. It is also significant that the women exhibit this concern just at the moment in the film when Roja is being angry at the military for not doing enough for her husband. The other feature of Roja that merits scrutiny is the eponymous heroine’s refusal to even attempt speaking Hindi in the film. There are sequences in which, rather than being hesitant about of her ignorance of Hindi, Roja screams at the officials in Tamil despite her being conscious that they do not speak it. Roja is apparently engaged in a moral assault and the single weapon in her possession is her ignorance of the national language. The film puts the onus of communicating with Roja entirely upon the officials or officers of whom she is making demands and this makes us believe that her aversion to speak any language but Tamil (and a few words of English) is morally appropriate. The perception is apparently that Rishi came to grief in Kashmir despite (p.230) Kashmir not being ‘his business’. The forces of officialdom are morally beholden to him and Roja’s disinclination to communicate with them on their terms is therefore justified. It should be remarked here that this interpretation pertains to the Tamil version of Roja because dubbing the entire conversation in Hindi evidently changes the import of these scenes. Nicholas Dirks asks an important question to which he himself has no satisfactory reply:27 why is Roja made the centrepiece of the film? The simple answer, he says, is that the film is the standard misogynist melodrama in which the woman is the perfect object of desire. But Dirks believes that Manirathnam’s Page 19 of 26

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The Furious 1980s cinematic ambitions are higher and that Roja becomes the site of allegorical desire: for a rural life and village self lost by the urban middle-class technocrat. The explanation is interesting but I cannot agree that the film opposes rural life to urban life. The city (as opposed to the village) is where impure Tamil thrives and the ‘rural/urban divide’ is used to rebuke the weakening of language nationalism in the city. But what the film nonetheless does emphatically, is to oppose the ‘interests of the nation’ and those of the injured, innocent, and incensed ‘Tamil bystander’. If the film is named after the heroine it is perhaps only because Roja is the moral centre of the film. Her hurt ‘bystander’s viewpoint’ is, for all practical purposes, the viewpoint privileged by Manirathnam’s film. Roja is virtually driven asunder by a strange kind of conflict. On the one hand is (through Rishi) its largely gestural invoking of ‘national’ interests; on the other is its insistence (through Roja) that Tamil interests are different, independent, and primary. Since Roja is the moral centre of the film and privileged by the film’s title, I propose that it is the latter aspect that is central to Roja.

Religious Identity Unlike caste identities that are much more local, religious identities are panIndian and this makes their representation more difficult. The ‘Hindu’ identity apparently means nothing in itself because it is extremely nebulous and it has therefore resisted definition—although things may now be changing. The identity of a minority religious community is perhaps more easily definable and ‘Muslim socials’ like Mere Mehboob have usually attempted to represent the life of (p.231) this community in popular cinema. I explained in the first chapter that character is defined in terms of type/archetype and that each character is defined through an essential trait. One difficulty with putting a Muslim casually in a story dominated by Hindu characters is in the Islamic identity of the character becoming redundant baggage interfering in the relaying of the message. Unlike caste names (like Pandey for Brahmin, Gupta for Vaishya, or Thakur for Kshatriya), which may or may not ‘inform’ the narrative, a Muslim name always has some intended significance within the story. One accepted way of dealing with an important Muslim character is, for instance, to treat him or her as a mediating outsider (when the religious identity actually becomes useful); this is the method chosen by Dhool Ka Phool. If Muslims are not easily accommodated in ‘Hindu’ stories, we see a similar phenomenon in the Muslim social, which cannot employ an important Hindu character without drawing special attention to his or her ‘Hinduness’. Films like H.S. Rawail’s Mere Mehboob choose not to find place for Hindus. The single Hindu character in Mere Mehboob is used to liaison between different Muslim social classes in the manner of a neutral outsider. But if these Muslim socials are essentially about the community, they are still not ‘Islamic’ in the sense that only the cultural practices of the Muslim community bear upon the story and not the religion itself. In Mere Mehboob, for instance, crucial to the story is the notion of Page 20 of 26

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The Furious 1980s two people being in love without the man seeing the woman’s face beneath her veil and the story can only be from a milieu defined by Muslim social practice. At the same time, the story is a traditional romance in every other sense and Islam is not strongly invoked to lend credence to the action. I now propose that B.R. Chopra’s Nikaah (1982) is a Muslim social that breaks the mould because of the way religious instruction is deliberately sought by the characters in the process of determining acceptable social practice. In this film, Niloufer (Salma Agha) marries her cousin Wasim (Deepak Parasher) whose business preoccupations prevent him from giving her enough of his time. When matters come to a head he divorces her abruptly by uttering the word ‘talaaq’ three times. Wasim regrets his act thereafter but Niloufer is now in love with a writer named Hyder (Raj Babbar) whom she has consented to marry. Wasim nonetheless seeks religious guidance and the priest (p.232) informs him that he cannot remarry his former wife unless she is first married to another man and is voluntarily divorced by him. Hyder discovers a letter written by Wasim and suspects that Niloufer considers him only an ‘interim’ husband and generously agrees to ‘set her free’ so she can remarry Wasim. The film ends with Niloufer and Hyder reconciled—after her passionate plea on behalf of slighted womanhood—and with Wasim understanding how he had erred towards his former wife. Divorce and remarriage do not figure in Hindi cinema but Nikaah employs the notions explicitly without the familiar sleights of hand. I suggest it is only the explicit invoking of Islamic tenets that renders this possible and Islam plays a more central role in the film than it does in Mere Mehboob or in Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah (1971). This implies that religious identity is more central to Nikaah than it is to Mere Mehboob and as primary as caste identity is to Prem Rog, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, or to J.P. Dutta’s three films.

Premonition of the Free Market In this chapter only the films of the 1980s are being examined and those of the subsequent decade will be considered only in the next chapter. Yet, if the mid-1990s (as shall be seen) represent the years when the liberalization of the economy transformed popular film narrative dramatically, a brief interlude during Rajiv Gandhi’s middle period may have provided a preview of what lay ahead. It may be recollected that the dominant discourse in the political arena of this period revolved around ‘taking the nation into the twenty-first century’ and something akin to a liberalization process was tentatively initiated in the late 1980s.28 Sooraj Barjatya’s Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), also a colossal success on its own, provides us with insights into how popular cinema dealt with the promise of the approaching millennium. Barjatya’s film begins in a rustic area where Karan works as a mechanic. Karan (Alok Nath) is a widower with a daughter named Page 21 of 26

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The Furious 1980s Suman (Bhagyashree) and, when the film begins, we see a friend named Rahimsab bringing him news of a job offer in Dubai. The conversation then reveals that Karan has a dost named Kishan from whom he was inseparable and whom he helped to educate although he remained unlettered himself. After (p. 233) Karan’s wife passed away, Kishan’s wife (Rima Lagoo) was a mother to Suman but Kishan is now a wealthy businessman living in the city. Karan proposes to leave Suman with his friend while he is out of the country. After Karan’s departure Suman finds Kishan’s wife Kaushalya welcoming and warm and his son Prem (Salman Khan), who has just returned from the United States, very unaffected and friendly. The film now introduces ‘American’ motifs scattered about Prem’s bedroom—boxing gloves and posters and Suman first sees Prem when he is urinating with the bathroom door left ajar. The menials in the household try to speak English as also does Prem’s childhood friend Manohar, one of the hangers-on in Kishan’s household. Kishan has a business associate named Ranjit who evidently sees his daughter Seema as a possible wife for Prem and Seema makes every attempt to ‘catch’ Prem—including demonstrating her amenability to ‘American’ ways by reclining coyly on his bed. But Suman and Prem are now deeply in love; the soundtrack repeats the music from the American film Love Story and also turns ethereal with a feminine voice crooning ‘I love you’ over and over again. Prem and Suman decide to marry and Kaushalya gives them her blessings after a charming bit of deception. This happy state of affairs is however interrupted abruptly when Ranjit convinces Kishan that Prem should marry Seema instead. When Prem’s attachment to Suman becomes known, Ranjit also puts the uncharitable thought into Kishan’s head that she was deliberately planted there by her father so that she could worm her way into Prem’s affections. This has the impressionable Kishan seething with anger and Suman is sent back to her father, who returns fortuitously from Dubai at that very moment. In the last part of the film Prem follows Suman to her father’s home, persisting in asking for her hand although Karan tries to drive him away. Prem undertakes to do manual work for a month to earn Rs 2000 (Kishan’s derisive estimate of Karan’s income) and also enlists as a truck driver. The scheming Seema’s true inclinations are unmasked when Prem ‘agrees’ to marry her provided she consents to accept him in his penniless state and she demurs. The narrative is resolved through a distracting fight sequence when the villains attempt to kill Prem. Prem’s father finally acknowledges the error of his ways, and his son marries Suman. (p.234) Hindi film romances are usually centred on the hero but there are occasional films in which the focal character is the heroine. The focal character can be identified with the individual about whose family past we are informed, or whose family actually features in the prologue or the flashback. By this definition, films like Mehbbob Khan’s Andaz, Shakti Samanta’s Aradhana, and Maine Pyar Kiya have their narratives constructed around the heroine. In Maine Page 22 of 26

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The Furious 1980s Pyar Kiya we hear the story of Karan and Kishen from Karan’s viewpoint and this makes Karan’s daughter Suman the focus. The identification of the woman as the focal character in Maine Pyar Kiya has been made because there is a similar film also from the 1980s—Rahul Rawail’s Betaab (1983)—which is constructed around the hero and a Westernized heroine. Betaab and Maine Pyar Kiya are similar but there are inherent differences between the Westernized protagonists of the two films. The Westernization of the heroine of Betaab is an aberration arising from the inducements of wealth, and Roma’s condition is corrected when she is forced to do manual work. In Maine Pyar Kiya the affluent and Westernized Prem does manual labour but he also does it out of choice and in order to win the heroine’s hand. Where the spoiled Roma has to be taught the value of tradition, Prem, despite his stint in America, is not removed from tradition although he needs to demonstrate that he knows its value. Prem may be Westernized but his presence is strangely reassuring and, since the narrative is centred on the heroine, we may conjecture that he is meant to reassure those in her position, to address those tied to tradition who may view Prem’s ilk with alarm. This discourse is furthered when the licentious behavior of ‘indigenously Westernized’ Indians is also rebuked. The presence of Manohar who speaks a comically halting English but remains Prem’s friend is perhaps also intended to show Prem’s affinity towards those who attempt to ‘progress’ without forgetting their origins and without going overboard like the indigenously Westernized Indians. The dominant discourse in Sooraj Barjatya’s film can be described as favouring ‘modernization’ with the additional reassurance that tradition will not be jettisoned in the process. This is apparently similar to what the ‘city’ films of the 1950s attempted but there is an essential difference between the two discourses. The films of the 1950s were addressing the issue of the nation and what modernization would do (p.235) to its space. Maine Pyar Kiya appeared when nationalist discourse was at its weakest since the 1960s and the film therefore bypasses the nation altogether. It uses images made popular by consumer advertising and therefore provides a résumé of the material inducements in the modernization process to the individual, addressing those not yet convinced of the benefits of twenty-first century consumerism. Maine Pyar Kiya was perhaps only a pointer to what lay ahead because Indian popular cinema received the full impetus of the liberalization process only after 1992. Notes:

(1.) The decade of violence is usually seen by Indian film critics to end in 1992. For instance, see Firoze Rangoonwala, ‘The Age of Violence’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 4–10 September 1993, p. 27–9. (2.) ‘Bharat’ is India’s Hindi name and ‘Bharati’ is a feminine derivative.

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The Furious 1980s (3.) M. Rahman, ‘Women Strike Back’, India Today, 15 July 1988, pp. 80–2. (4.) Maithili Rao, ‘Victims in Vigilante Clothing’, Cinema in India, October– December 1988, pp. 24–26. (5.) Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen The Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 416, trace Insaaf Ka Tarazu to the growing feminist activism in the 1970s in India after the Mathura and Maya Tyagi rape cases. The hypothesis does not explain why the motif should appear so strongly even as late as 1992 but disappear thereafter. (6.) Lalitha Gopalan, ‘Avenging Women in Indian Cinema’, in Ravi Vasudevan (ed.), Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 218. (7.) Most of the Telugu films cited by Gopalan were made between 1991 and 1992 with the last apparently being Streetfighter (1994). We know that the genre ended in Hindi cinema around 1992–3 with HAHK (1994) representing the movement towards ‘clean entertainment’. (8.) Gopalan, ‘Avenging Women in Indian Cinema’, p. 221. I also admit that my own line of inquiry does not help in distinguishing between the discourses in Zakhmi Aurat and Pratighaat, where (as Gopalan points out) figures of Hindu Shakti goddesses are invoked in the killing of the rapist. (9.) Rape is not always the issue in the films. In Pratighaat, for instance, the assailants disrobe the heroine publicly. But the role of the law in the stories is always unvarying. (10.) According to Rajadhyaksha and Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, the film was the most sustained effort of the period to rehabilitate the politically discredited star, p. 454. (11.) For instance, see Dr Kishore Valicha, The Moving Image: A Study of Indian Cinema, Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1988, p. 107. Valicha has the following to say about Ardh Satya: ‘[Rama Shetty’s strangling by police officer Anant Velankar] seems to have a meaning that one fails to perceive. In the older kind of film, it might have meant the triumph of good over evil. But here we can see that it has no such message.’ (12.) Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, New Delhi: Penguin, 1997, pp. 51–2. (13.) Ibid., p. 50. (14.) Rajadhyaksha, Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, p. 435.

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The Furious 1980s (15.) Manirathnam’s Tamil film Nayakan (1987) set the trend as far as portrayals of south Indian gangsters in Bombay are concerned. If Ankush took the side of the locals in Bombay against the outsider, Nayakan, by celebrating the south Indian who chose to understand no Hindi even while being in predominantly Hindi territory, struck on behalf of the outsider in Bombay. (16.) According to Rajadhyaksha, Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, a Charles Bronson film The Streetfighter inspired this aspect of the film, p. 419. (17.) Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 49. (18.) The minister who acquired some renown/infamy for presiding over these gatherings was Minister of State for Finance, Janardhan Poojari. (19.) This becomes much more striking when we consider that, within two years of the disastrous war with China, popular cinema was dealing with the subject as comedy in Ramudu Bheemudu. (20.) The relevant films are largely from Kannada cinema, Girish Kasaravalli’s Ghattashraddha (1977), Prema Karanth’s Phaniyamma (1982). Both these films deal with the plight of widows in orthodox Hindu society. (21.) The religious identities of the authors (Catholic, Jewish) are often strongly invoked in certain kinds of literature and caste identities have occasionally taken the same position in Indian literature. Caste identity may be ubiquitous in India but, given the fact that caste is a ‘sensitive’ issue in post-Independence India, writers have generally not declared their own caste affiliations in their works. As examples of the writers who have, the novelist Raja Rao (The Serpent and the Rope) draws sustenance from his Brahmin identity and the celebrated novels of the Kannada man of letters K.V. Puttappa (Kanooru Subbamma Heggadithi) gain considerably because he looks critically at his caste identity as a Shudra. (22.) Roja was later dubbed into Hindi. I am concerned only with the Tamil version in this chapter. (23.) Tejaswini Niranjana, ‘Integrating Whose Nation? Tourists and Terrorists in Roja’, Economic and Political Weekly, 29 (3), 15 January 1994, pp. 79–82. (24.) Rustom Bharucha, ‘On the Border of Fascism: Manufacture of Consent in Roja’, Economic and Political Weekly, 4 June 1994. (25.) Ibid., p. 322. (26.) Nicholas B. Dirks, ‘The Home and the Nation: Consuming Culture and Politics in Roja’, in Rachel Dwyer, Christopher Pinney (eds), Pleasure and the Nation, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 161–85.

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The Furious 1980s (27.) Ibid., p. 175. (28.) See Khilnani, The Idea of India, p. 96. By 1985 a consensus had emerged within the government and outside that state control of the economy needed to be pruned. The profusion of controls had failed to create a productive public sector, had squeezed out private enterprise, and had given the state access to resources used not for welfare but as pools of patronage. The first effort at reducing controls was initiated by Rajiv Gandhi’s government in 1985 and this gave currency to the idea of economic reform.

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Towards the New Millennium

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

Towards the New Millennium The End of Conflict M.K. Raghavendra

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.003.0008

Abstract and Keywords This chapter discusses the popular films of the 1990s. The 1990s saw a change in the social issues at stake. Whereas the 1950s were concerned with national identity, the 1970s with populist radicalism, and the 1980s with weakened social systems, the 1990s witnessed an influential development in the economic history of India. Extensive economic reforms were introduced, deregulations were forwarded, and Nehruvian socialism was brought down. While the early 1990s continued with the trend that was dominant in the 1980s, the latter part of the decade saw the emergence of films that tackled issues of deregulation, privatization, and the withdrawal of the state from various spheres. The period also saw changes in the methods and strategies employed by Indian films, including the breakdown from narrativity, the introduction of simplicity, the abstraction of the nation as an ‘imagined community’, and the infiltration of Indian films within the Western market. Keywords:   1990s, economic reforms, deregulation, privatization, Western market

Breaking with the Past The thrust of this book has been towards discovering a relationship between historical developments in India—both before and after 1947—and narrative patterns and motifs dominating popular cinema in the respective periods. A pertinent question that is likely to engage the reader here is whether the influence is always in one direction only; that is, are social changes always followed by adaptations in cinematic narratives? Is cinema always a follower but Page 1 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium never a ‘leader’? Given the scope of this book, I have no means of actually ascertaining if a specific film had any social impact but I have demonstrated that cinema ‘responded’ to an event that was yet to be—Anmol Ghadi and the partition of India. True, the film did not prevent Partition but I did read it as a plea against the move. Since the ‘political discourse’ is so obliquely coded in Anmol Ghadi, it is difficult to argue that the film had a secret impact but its preceding the event should be reason enough for us to see it as a ‘leader’ rather than as a ‘follower’. The same argument can perhaps be restated to include films like Awaara, Andaz, and Deewar, which have critical discourses apparently directed against a social/political given. But the difficulty in apportioning the role of ‘leader’ (a director of opinion) to popular cinema is its persistent seeking out of immutable truths, its lack of faith in the immediate, as it were. Can popular cinema, which looks at the implications of history in terms that are ‘eternal’, influence history deliberately? Another difficulty is (p.237) perhaps its passive mode of narration, which, as explained, is implicit in the understanding that individuals are at the mercy of happenings and dispensations. If the important moments in Indian history have been identified on the basis of my reading of film narrative, the first one apparently corresponds to the Japanese conquest of Burma in 1942 and the commencement of the Quit India movement. The second is evidently 1947 and the third can be identified with the death of Vallabhbhai Patel in 1950, after which Nehru’s political ideas finally prevailed within the Congress. The next important moment is the Indo-Chinese War and I attempted to explain how India’s defeat in 1962 dramatically altered the shape of Indian cinema. If Indira Gandhi’s political ascent at the end of the 1960s signals the appearance of radical populism and ‘upward mobility’, the earliest acknowledgment of the ‘erosion of state authority’ emerges at the commencement of her second term in office, round about 1980 or perhaps a little earlier, at the conclusion of Janata Party rule. Significantly, events regarded as violently cataclysmic—Partition (1947) and numerous other riots such as the anti-Sikh violence following Mrs Gandhi’s death, the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi (1948), Indira Gandhi (1984), and her son Rajiv Gandhi (1991)—do not produce a discernible impact upon popular cinema. Since popular cinema responded more emotionally to the impending partition of India before 1947 than it did to the horror of Partition, I propose that it is an instrument of reassurance, not simply ‘representing’ history but attempting to provide recompense. As an instance, Mrs Gandhi’s death does not produce much of an effect upon popular cinema but Subhash Ghai’s Karma (1986), a film about prisoners enlisted to fight terrorists, introduces a gallant young Sikh who sacrifices his life for the nation at a critical moment. Such a representation was apparently necessitated by the alienation of the Sikh community after the anti-Sikh riots of November 1984.

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Towards the New Millennium A study of audience reactions to Hindi cinema testing several independent hypotheses on popular cinema’s social role concluded that it was largely an instrument of ‘cultural continuity’. Hindi films apparently stabilize the social system by representing new needs and mythologizing ‘tradition’.1 New needs are historically created and an ‘instrument of cultural continuity’ perhaps needs to bridge the gap (p.238) between the expectations created by traditional belief and the actual dispensations of history. What popular film narrative may be doing is to ‘problematize’ the experience of history in a language familiar to tradition and then provide acceptable fictional resolutions. This implies, as one might argue, that the expectations of the immediate present are the key to what is problematized. An influential development in Indian economic history was the extensive economic reforms proposed in June 1991 and February 1992 by the Narasimha Rao government. Previous governments (such as Rajiv Gandhi’s in the later part of the 1980s) had already made tentative moves towards deregulation but the initiatives of 1992 were dictated by wider international developments. The collapse of the Soviet Union and socialist economies had, apart from disrupting a convenient barter system for Indian goods, also removed the only alternative model to the capitalist market. There could no longer be significant opposition within India for a comprehensive loosening of state control over the economy, and business and industrial interests therefore found new political allies. Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh were not politicians with strong constituencies but their perceived ‘weakness’ actually worked in their favour.2 The killing of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 left politics a ‘level playing field’ in India. A vulnerable government with few economic options initiated the economic reforms of 1991–2 but the ‘inevitability’ of the reforms was widely accepted; the perception that the government was ‘helpless’ actually lent the reforms legitimacy. In effect, therefore, the reforms represented an official and decisive break with ‘Nehruvian socialism’. It is now widely believed that the economic reforms changed the face of Indian popular cinema but the changes brought about were not perceptible immediately. The films of the early 1990s continue the trends of the late 1980s and Kuku Kohli’s hit Phool Aur Kaante (1992), responsible for launching a new star in Ajay Devgan, fits in with the violent pattern of the 1980s. Rajkumar Santoshi’s Damini (1992) is a more powerful film than Phool aur Kaante and also makes a reference to the issue of rape that, as we saw, featured as a persistent motif in the 1980s. The eponymous heroine of the film (Meenakshi Seshadri) comes from a poor family but marries Shekar Gupta (Rishi Kapoor), scion of a rich business family. Her lower status in her husband’s household (p.239) sees her becoming friendly with the kitchen maid Urmi but an unexpected crisis occurs on a festive Holi day when Shekar’s younger brother Rakesh and his friends forcibly take Page 3 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium Urmi upstairs and rape her. Damini, who witnesses the outrage and summons her husband to help, is unable to prevent the act and her assailants dump the injured Urmi by the roadside. The police who come to investigate do not get help from the family and Damini is forced to participate in their deceit. The police initially show themselves to be pursuing the truth, but it soon comes out that they owe this conscientiousness to financial inducements from an industrialist named Bajaj—who once hoped that Shekar Gupta would marry his daughter. The heroine, of course, is not aware of the police’s true interest and finally cooperates with them. The result is that Urmi’s assailants are arrested but their victim continues to languish in an ill-equipped hospital. Damini is herself estranged from her in-laws, the Gupta family. The Bajaj and Gupta clans now conspire to have Damini locked up in a psychiatric hospital and get Shekar to marry Bajaj’s daughter. They also use violence but everything proves futile eventually and the truth comes out. In the final court scene, Shekar declares his love for his wife in the open court hall. Damini’s good advocate Govind (Sunny Deol) vanquishes his cunning adversary Chaddha (Amrish Puri) when Shekar admits in court that Urmi was raped and the affair covered up. Marital ties are reaffirmed but the film also treads on unexpected terrain when Damini’s in-laws (including Shekar’s father and mother) are given jail sentences for abetting in the crime, although Shekar is let free for assisting in bringing out the truth. Damini begins with a nightmarish prologue dealing with the heroine’s hallucinations in the insane asylum. The film has been analysed by Madhava Prasad3 and a more circuitous explanation offered for the role of the prologue and its placement at the beginning of the film. My own interpretation is that the change in Damini’s condition from wedded bliss to apparent paranoia will be too steep and drastic if the audience is not prepared for it. The ‘first cause’ in Damini involves the heroine’s truthfulness but, instead of seeing it as a moral quality, Prasad interprets it as a pathological condition and associates this with her hysteria.4 He cites a sequence in the marketplace when Damini exposes a merchant’s dishonesty. She is apparently ‘talking aloud to herself’ as Shekar follows (p.240) her. The film uses the sequence to set up her first meeting with Shekar when he abruptly decides to marry her. It is evident from a second viewing of the sequence that Damini is not ‘talking aloud to herself’ but actually addressing Shekar, who is still within earshot. She is unaware of Shekar’s admiration for her and the film is giving us an indication of her moral preoccupations and of her being unmindful of the effect she has upon the listener. The only issue concerning her now is the dishonesty of the merchant and it is this dishonesty she is vocal about. The film is also definite that Damini is not ‘hysterical’ by nature.5 Her in-laws have deliberately placed her in an institution so that her husband can remarry on the grounds of her insanity.

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Towards the New Millennium Prasad draws another conclusion from one of Gandhi’s epigraphs used in the film. The epigraph is innocuous enough and refers to the conscience as the moral authority that transcends all human laws. He seeks to find out who must listen to the truth for it ‘to have been told’. He infers that the state must be the recipient of the truth and deduces that Damini is upholding the state at the expense of feudal family authority, setting into motion the process of rehabilitating the nuclear couple.6 From these observations and a similar reading of Roja (also read as a rehabilitation of the nuclear couple), Prasad concludes that the ‘feudal family romance’ is under threat.7 He suggests that what we witness in Damini is an irreversible transformation of popular cinema’s basic attributes and the final exit of the feudal family romance. Damini appeared in 1992 but there are films beginning with Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (HAHK, 1994), where the ‘feudal family romance’ demonstrates that it is far from spent as mass entertainment. An explanation is required that accounts for both Damini’s endorsement of the ‘nuclear family’ and HAHK’s reversion to the older form of the romance. An explanation that does so will deviate somewhat from the one offered by Prasad and my own reading of both Damini’s ‘truthfulness’ and the final triumph of the ‘nuclear couple’ draws upon observations made in the previous chapter. Damini includes crucial court scenes but the important observation to be made about them is that ‘authority’ seems to have shifted from the presiding judge to the advocates because of the consistent upstaging of the former by the latter. The services of the lawyers are always available to those who are prepared to pay and the film seems to be partly echoing the familiar discourse about the erosion of state authority (p.241) from the 1980s. But this and the police’s ‘auctioning’ of justice to the highest bidder8 suggest that state authority has now also passed effectively into private control. Prasad concedes that Damini portrays the state as ‘rotten’9 but he neglects to explain the reason for such a portrayal in a film that, according to him, invokes the state as sole legitimate authority. My own inference seems more reasonable and, given the discourse about ‘private enterprise’ overriding the authority of the state, Gandhi’s epigraph about the conscience being the exemplary arbiter also emerges as a way of withdrawing the moral authority traditionally granted to its institutions and putting it deliberately into private hands. Coming now to the parental presence in the film, Damini’s father is shown to be an unprincipled idler and her mother as weak and ineffectual. In Shekar Gupta’s household, the mother is assertive while the father is mildly acquiescent in her schemes. Shekar’s parents are perfunctorily disposed of at the conclusion along with their kin but neither Damini nor Shekar regret it, and the customary change of heart does not happen. We have seen, in Raj Kapoor’s Bobby, the phenomenon of the parents surrendering their moral authority but a compensating parent surrogate is always provided and used as balance. The fact that the real parents in Bobby are able to change suggests that they have been Page 5 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium led astray from their innate nature. Damini does not provide a compensating parent-surrogate and the actual parents do not have a change of heart at the conclusion—because they are inherently deceitful. This implies that the moral qualities exhibited by Damini and Shekar are not part of their lineage. Shekar initially goes along with the deceit due to familial attachments but he realizes the errors of his ways and reveals his ‘true’ self in the courtroom. In the first chapter I suggested that the parental presence plays the role of a surrogate past in popular cinema and, to all appearances, this dramatic weakening of the parental presence in Damini, corresponds to a decisive break with the past. Significantly, two films that appeared shortly after Damini invoke similar ‘breaks with the past’ although in a different way and by invoking the nation’s history. Subhash Ghai’s Khalnayak (1993) and Mehul Kumar’s Krantiveer (1994) are films in which the male protagonist is born into a family of freedom fighters but declines to continue in their path. In Khalnayak, Bhallu’s grandfather is a freedom fighter and (p.242) a Gandhian while his father is an honest ‘government advocate’. But a criminal named Roshi Mahanta persuades Bhallu (Sunjay Dutt) to join him and his gang of terrorists and Bhallu has a hand in his own father’s death. The ‘first cause’ is presented in a flashback and we see Bhallu enamoured of the very man who insults his father by trying to bribe him. In Krantiveer, Pratap (Nana Patekar) runs away from his home and his mother. His father and his grandfather have been patriots but even as a boy, Pratap prefers to gamble on the streets and he finally joins a slumlord as an enforcer. The two films take different courses subsequently but implicated in the ‘first cause’ in each of them is the notion of a break in historical continuity—because the protagonist is made to deny his own connection with the nation’s past, without the connection being re-established subsequently. In the light of these factors—and since pictures of Nehru hang prominently in the homes abandoned by the protagonists—I propose that the past assiduously denied by the films is associated with Nehruvian politics. All three films—Damini, Krantiveer, and Khalnayak—are about breaks with the past and their appearance around 1992–3 is evidence that the motif corresponds to the historical break initiated by the Narasimha Rao government with the traditional policies of the Congress.

The Withdrawal of the State Before examining the typical films of the 1990s beginning with HAHK, a look should be taken at a more apparently anomalous film that attracted notice in the early 1990s. Baazigar appeared in 1993, introduced a new kind of anti-hero, and was believed to be heralding a new trend. Abbas-Mustan’s Baazigar is loosely based on Ira Levin’s novel A Kiss before Dying and its 1991 film version. Levin’s novel is a thriller about an unscrupulous young man who befriends a rich businessman’s elder daughter and murders her in cold blood. He then transfers his attentions to the younger daughter with the design of marrying her, usurping her father’s wealth, and ultimately, doing away with her as well. It must be

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Towards the New Millennium apparent to the reader that nothing seen so far suggests that the protagonist of Levin’s novel can be ‘Indianized’ profitably. But Baazigar still attempts a way out and begins with the childhood of the protagonist. Ajay’s mother is desperately ill and he must find a (p.243) doctor although he has no money to pay for the treatment. Ajay manages to save his mother but it soon becomes evident that she is mentally disturbed. Ajay works hard at his studies—even at menial jobs—and he grows into a capable lad looking for ‘success’, while his mother remains in the same inert state. When the film shifts to his adulthood, we see Ajay (Shah Rukh Khan) standing beside the highway and hitching a ride to Bombay. The next part of the story is about Madan Chopra, a very wealthy man with two daughters named Seema and Priya. Seema has a boyfriend who is kept secret even from her best friend Anjali, and this boyfriend is Ajay. Ajay is then allowed to carry on two concurrent romances, one with Seema and the other with Priya (Kajol), and the film arranges it so that neither girl comes to know of her sister’s relationship with the young man. The film achieves this not only through the traditional disruptions in the narrative caused by songs and dances but also through comic interludes involving the comedian Johnny Lever, which are not always relevant to the plot. The romance between Seema and Ajay is driven to a head when Madan Chopra decides to find a bridegroom for the girl and she is forced to appeal to Ajay to marry her. Instead of consenting, Ajay informs her of his indigence and requests her to marry the man chosen by her father. The girl is so desperate that she writes the suicide note demanded by Ajay but he turns the whole arrangement into a joke, cleverly retaining the note written by her. When the two meet at the registry office by prior arrangement, Ajay grabs hold of Seema’s legs and heaves her over the parapet and then mails the suicide letter to her father. After this horrific act, Ajay quickly assumes a new identity ‘Vicky’ and proceeds to court Madan Chopra’s other daughter Priya. When information is due to come to the Chopra family about the truth behind Seema’s death, ‘Vicky’ contrives to murder the informant and still remain above suspicion. Priya also has a policeman classmate named Karan who loves her secretly and whom she entrusts with the task of uncovering the truth about Seema, but ‘Vicky’ easily stays ahead of him. These are difficulties but the romance between ‘Vicky’ and Priya still proceeds smoothly and the two become engaged. Madan Chopra (Dalip Tahil) likes the lad and instals him in his business empire as Managing Director. This becomes the occasion for the film to give us a flashback relating to Ajay’s actual past. (p.244) Ajay’s father, it seems, was a successful industrialist named Sharma who forgave Madan Chopra, a dishonest employee, because of his own wife’s Page 7 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium generous request and also because Chopra swore loyalty on the head of his little daughter Seema. Trusting Madan Chopra more than was necessary, Sharma gave him a ‘power of attorney’ enabling him to act as he chose with the business and Chopra promptly appropriated the entire empire during Sharma’s absence. The ‘Sharma Group of Companies’ thus became the ‘Chopra Group’ and Ajay Sharma’s installation as Managing Director—with the appropriate power of attorney—once again sees it becoming the ‘Sharma Group’. The film ends with Madan Chopra and Ajay killing each other but Ajay is permitted a final reunion with his mother and Priya—with the policeman Karan watching from a short distance away. Before we examine other aspects of the film, it will be appropriate to look at the relayed meaning in Baazigar. This meaning owes little to Levin’s novel and is indigenous. The ‘first cause’ in the film is the appropriation of the ‘Sharma Group of Companies’ by the villain Madan Chopra, a ‘corporate takeover’ rendered in terms acceptable to popular film audiences. The self-effacing policeman who loves Priya from a distance is also an interesting device because he suggests the retreat of state authority from the scene of the action, as if to assert the state’s disinclination to intervene in a struggle between private business interests. When the ‘corporate battle’ reaches a point where Ajay and Madan Chopra kill each other, state authority still maintains its distance. Nowhere in the film is the law portrayed as ‘weak’ and it is simply as though state authority had redefined its role. If the films of the 1980s gave the institutions of the state a strong presence but portrayed them as ‘weak’, Baazigar finds the institutions of the state too inconsequential to assume a position of importance in the narrative. The explanation offered here is that while the 1980s represented a period in which the nation state was under attack by ‘divisive forces’, the state was actually withdrawing from the various spheres in the 1990s because of ‘deregulation’ and ‘privatization’.

Distractions Baazigar is unprecedented in popular cinema in as much as the film declines to scrutinize Ajay’s acts morally. The film takes an ‘amoral’ (p.245) standpoint with regard to Ajay but, paradoxically, refuses to drop its sententious tone otherwise. The only ‘moral’ justification for Seema’s murder is that her father vowed upon his daughter’s head to remain loyal to Ajay’s father but unconscionably broke the vow. Priya accepts her sister’s cold-blooded murder and the killing of the others without demur and the final frame of Baazigar virtually grants absolution to Ajay. This may have been accepted because the comic interludes and the songs are deliberately distracting, cutting up the narrative into unconnected bits. We respond to the romances, the ‘suspense’, and the melodrama autonomously and we neither wonder at the falsity of the film’s resolution nor ask if the narrative holds together. The emphasis here is not on the incredibility of the narrative but on its compositional unity. Improbable coincidences and accidents are legitimate within melodrama as long as the Page 8 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium questions raised are answered within the narrative. Baazigar refuses to answer several questions but arranges appropriate distractions to make us forget that the questions were in fact ever asked.10 The trick of distracting the spectator from the meaning of the action does not begin with Baazigar. We see an analogous happening as far back as 1939 in V. Shantaram’s Admi in which a ‘film shooting’ sequence distracts us from police constable Moti’s dilemma over whether he should marry the courtesan Kesar. Baazigar follows precedents in Indian popular cinema but it employs the distractions for different purposes. The distractions in Admi were arranged because the narrative was not equipped to show Moti gradually losing his hesitation with regard to marrying Kesar. The interlude took our minds away from Moti’s initial unwillingness to marry her and we accepted his subsequent acquiescence more readily. Where Admi resorted to the trick to get over a representational problem, Baazigar employs it to overcome the spectator’s adverse responses to its ethical contradictions. By deliberately not examining the moral implications of Ajay’s conduct, the film sells itself as a series of autonomous attractions in which the narrative itself is not paramount. Besides these aspects of Baazigar is the new place it accords to spectacle. We saw spectacle in the shape of tourist locales and lavish lifestyles gaining ground as an attraction in the aftermath of 1962, but in the 1970s, spectacle remained restricted to fight sequences and violence. It may be difficult to define the meaning of the term ‘spectacle’ (p.246) in the context of popular cinema—at least because of the spaces kept apart for ‘attractions’. It is, for instance, difficult to assert that songs and dances are ‘spectacle’ simply because they do not contribute significantly to the narrative. Still, we can identify devices that are ‘diversionary’ or ‘compensatory’ within the narrative segments and it is these that I have termed ‘spectacle’. While ‘diversionary’ violence distracts the spectator from plotting inadequacy, compensatory European sojourns may offer pleasures in lieu of the intricate plot. In the 1970s, spectacle is restricted largely to fight sequences and the same characteristic continues into the 1980s, when much of the action in a film like Agneepath (1990) is located in a slum. The observation made here is that the extravagance of films like Kashmir Ki Kali, Sangam, or Teesri Manzil does not find a place in the two decades after 1970. Baazigar is different in as much as it returns to the lushness of the 1960s. Many other films immediately after 1991 also include extended segments shot in Europe and/or celebrate ostentation in the manner of the 1960s. The earliest examples from the 1990s are films like Yash Chopra’s Lamhe (1991), Darr (1993), and J.P. Dutta’s Kshatriya (1992).11 Since the trend becomes much stronger after the economic reforms of 1991 and 1992, the question is whether a connection can be made between the growing importance of spectacle and the withdrawal of the state from its ‘Nehruvian’ policy of intervention. It becomes easier when we acknowledge that the impetus gained by spectacle in the 1960s Page 9 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium accompanied the retreat of the ‘nation’ from film narrative, following India’s defeat in 1962. Further, if the moral authority of the state weakened after 1962 because of a military defeat, we see a similar weakening in the 1990s because of (in Prasad’s words) ‘capital breaking out of the impasse of the ruling coalition’ and ‘emerging into complete dominance’, or the state conspicuously making way for free enterprise. Other factors such as non-resident culture/economic clout may be pointed out but the non-resident Indian also gained in influence after the economic measures of 1991–2. But much more than the 1960s (when films like Sangam still had strong narratives) the spectacles of the 1990s like Baazigar allow a perceptible breakdown of narrativity. One of the pleasures in narrative cinema is narrativity, described as the process by which the spectator constructs a coherent ‘story’ out of the visual and aural data provided to him or her. Narrativity is hardly the only pleasure offered by cinema (p.247) but it demands more active engagement than spectacle. It has been suggested12 that the proper way for narrative artists to provide experiences richer than submissive stupefaction is, rather than deny audiences the satisfaction of the story, to generate stories that require the most rigorous kinds of narrativity. Films like Baazigar and Lamhe are engaged in actually diverting the spectator away from narrativity towards more passive responses and this, in essence, leaves them poorer. I must admit to a prejudice here because it is spectacle that often makes cinema popular. But I cannot agree that popularity is the final criterion to determine ‘value’ and I tend to concur with the view that narrativity, being the more active pleasure, is also ‘superior’. The breakdown of narrativity also results in a new ‘simplicity’ and I will examine this a little later.

‘Ramrajya’ The film generally taken to represent the commencement of the new economic era in Indian popular cinema is Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (1994).13 Barjatya’s film is representative of a breed of films that took hold of the popular imagination in the 1990s, films with titles running into a full sentence, usually abridged in everyday parlance to acronyms (HAHK). The film was enormously successful and was marketed as ‘clean’ entertainment14 because it avoided violence and sex, sticking determinedly to romance. HAHK is a family drama that begins when a marriage proposal is brought for Kailash Nath’s elder nephew Rajesh. The girl proposed is Professor Chaudhuri’s elder daughter Pooja (Renuka Shahane). Kailash Nath (Alok Nath) is an industrialist and a bachelor who lives in a palatial house with his two nephews Rajesh and Prem. Professor Chaudhuri (Anupam Kher) lives with his wife and two daughters Pooja and Nisha (Madhuri Dixit). The instant the proposal is made, Kailash Nath recognizes an old college friend in Professor Chaudhuri and it takes only one meeting for the alliance to be considered eminently desirable

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Towards the New Millennium by all those concerned, and the agreement is duly celebrated with songs and festivities. HAHK moves from one celebration to another; the first one is followed by an official engagement ceremony and, a little later, by the actual wedding. Prem and Nisha also fall in love and intend to marry (p.248) but Pooja dies in a domestic accident and the lives of the families are disrupted. To ensure that Pooja’s baby is looked after, the elders propose that Nisha should marry Rajesh (Monish Behl). Nisha gives her consent due to a misunderstanding and both she and Prem realize that matters have gone too far for her to withdraw from her obligation. All is not lost however because the supplication of the loyal family servant to a deity is answered when the family dog is miraculously empowered with an understanding of the situation and Rajesh made aware of Nisha’s preferences. Nisha and Prem are finally married. Compared to many Hindi films of the 1970s and 1980s, HAHK is almost elemental in its simplicity and this is evident from any rendering of its narrative. The narrative seems linearly constructed because it does not span an enormous and uncertain period and the events in it perhaps take place over a period of about two years. Regardless of these features, the film must be regarded as episodic because the chronology of events is not dictated by the way in which they develop, but simply embedded in the rituals and ceremonies associated with marriage and conjugality. These rituals may follow a very strict order but that is not true of the events actually governing the narrative and determining its outcome. Thus, what happens in behavioural or social terms at each of the ceremonies is not different from what happens at the others. In fact, the only event that can be said to make a story out of the events is Pooja’s death, creating the single conflict needing resolution. It is also pertinent to note that this single ‘event’ driving the narrative is accidental and not the result of any conscious or deliberate act. We know that popular film narrative inevitably includes a ‘first cause’ dictating the course of the events but HAHK apparently rejects this structure. As indicated in the first chapter the narrative has a ‘first cause’ but the innovation of the film lies in its keeping this constituent sub-narrative completely off-screen. Professor Chaudhuri and Kailash Nath were friends and their friendship is merely renewed when the film begins. Kailash Nath stepped aside when the woman he loved married his friend but he has remained a bachelor because he cannot marry anyone else. By the conventions of dosti, the friendship between the two men is sacred and the proposed family ties are intended to strengthen the relationship. The relationship is strengthened but destiny intervenes through Pooja’s death and the ties are threatened. (p.249) It is for this reason that new family ties need to be forged and Nisha is merely the proposed instrument. As happens in a host of other films, the events representing the ‘first cause’ are crucial in

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Towards the New Millennium determining the course of the central narrative and the film therefore moves by this logic. Since the ‘first cause’ is also the bearer of the message to be relayed, the next question pertains to the nature of the message. In the film Kailash Nath represents industry and Professor Chaudhuri represents knowledge and the sacred alliance between the two families is apparently intended to bring the qualities ‘typified’ in the two men together.15 The film appeared in 1994 when it was expected that the transformation of the nation by a boom in the ‘knowledge industry’ was imminent. It is convenient to read the message of the film as pertaining to this expectation but we nonetheless need to be certain that the ‘nation’ is implicated in the narrative because none of the traditional signifiers (like the courtroom or the police) are in attendance to support an allegorical reading. Kailash Nath’s residence is an enormous space that is always filled with guests and visitors, most of whom are not introduced to us. The space usually includes one token Muslim couple (Dr and Mrs Khan), who are not asked to do anything more than represent their religion at family gatherings. When a doctor is needed for Pooja, it is another one who is called in and not Dr Khan. Why Kailash Nath’s family gatherings are so crowded with people can only be a matter for conjecture but it does seem to connect with another aspect of the film. HAHK has attracted attention for its repeated references to the Ramayana (Tulsidas’s version) and to Ram worship.16 One aspect of the Ramayana that has captured the popular psyche is the notion of ‘Ramrajya’ or the idea of benevolent rule under which everyone is happy.17 The Ramayana, as popularly understood, involves episodes in which the people of Ayodhya celebrate occurrences at the royal palace and the impression of the celebrations is that of vicarious participation by ‘the public’ in events constituting the private life of the royal family. The crowd assembled within the four walls of Kailash Nath’s residence is large enough for us to see aspects of ‘the public’ in their composition and the presence of the Muslim couple also makes it nominally secular.18 Whenever celebrations take place, this crowd also participates vicariously in the happiness of those actually involved, sometimes even (p.250) acting out their roles as family theatre. The space constituting Kailash Nath’s family bungalow therefore has all the makings of a Ramrajya and the happiness overflowing also makes it worthy of such a description. HAHK has been castigated for its vulgar celebration of wealth19 and consumption, and for the expulsion of the underprivileged from its domain, but a careful viewing of the film makes us wonder how the domain is defined. Apart from the ‘underprivileged’ not being represented, the film does not even contain street scenes; no element from the ‘real world’ is allowed admission and even the pilgrimages that the families undertake are to an apparently fictitious place called ‘Ramtekri’.20 This leaves us wondering if the film posits a world outside Page 12 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium the narrative. Instead, Kailash Nath’s family circle, and his coterie of friends and acquaintances, has the appearances of a microcosmic representation of the nation itself, the nation as it could be (as Ramrajya). Suraj Barjatya’s Ramrajya accords all its subjects their ‘rightful’ places. The underprivileged, equals of the rich in earlier cinema (for instance in the director’s own Maine Pyar Kiya) now find accommodation as servants.

New ‘Simplicity’ A feature of both Barjatya’s film and a vast majority of cinema from the 1990s needing comment is that the plot is often restricted to a bare outline whereas South Asian cinema is characteristically distinguished by a proliferation of subplots.21 While some have regarded this simplicity as an‘asset’22 the more thoughtful criticism is that it represents a ‘claustrophobic’ denial of narrative and dramatic possibilities’.23 This ‘simplicity’ also ties up with my earlier remarks (about narrativity) because of the offered compensation of lavish spectacle (ritual and ostentation in HAHK). I suggested a parallel between spectacle gaining ground in cinema after the Indo-Chinese War and the same happening after the economic deregulation in as much as both can be associated with the state’s departure from the space of film narrative. The nation may be implicated in the narrative of HAHK (as Kailash Nath’s family) but apparently not the state itself and if ‘conflict’ is absent from HAHK this is perhaps because the state is perceived not to intervene. If Baazigar stands at the moment when the state is ‘withdrawing’ from the space of the nation, HAHK comes after the (p.251) perceived withdrawal. In the Chapter 4, I explained that Mere Mehboob, in being entirely about ‘love’, was engaged only in ‘achieving closure’. This is equally true of HAHK but I now propose that Mere Mehboob is richer because the added element of class conflict is accommodated within its narrative and resolved. One need only imagine the lovers as belonging to the same aristocratic class to see the narrative diminishing in richness. HAHK comes after the perceived withdrawal of the state and social/political conflict is therefore a ‘variable’ removed from the space of film narrative,24 leaving the film much poorer in terms of narrative possibilities. The compensation offered by HAHK is the spectacle of opulence. The spectacle is not ‘diversionary’ (as the fight sequence was after 1962) because ‘diversions’ and ‘distractions’ betoken an effort to provide convenient resolutions to real social/political conflicts addressed by state intervention. To illustrate, the violence in Baazigar is still arranged to reconcile ‘corporate Darwinism’ with the interventionist role of the Nehruvian state. With the acknowledged end of state intervention, such handy reconciliations are not necessary and diversionary violence also departs from popular film narrative.25 A key hypothesis I have depended upon is that the nation figures prominently in Hindi cinema because it is the single subject that can be relied upon to ‘involve’ its diverse audiences. The contention here is that while the ‘nation’ may remain Page 13 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium implicated in HAHK, the withdrawal of the state leaves cinema poorer in terms of subject matter. Unlike in 1962, when the departure was because of the perceived ‘weakening’ of the nation by military defeat, the withdrawal of the state after 1992 is deliberate and more permanent. Moreover, the informing principle of Nehruvian socialism, while weaker after 1962, was still active. ‘State intervention’ apparently meant that the state was ‘maintaining’ the nation and all discourses pertaining to the nation therefore not only implicate the state but also allegorize social/political conflict—because resolving this conflict is the task of the state. The intimate relationship between the nation and the state meant state intervention in the public space and, given popular film convention, the resultant effects of the intervention were allegorized in familial relationships. To illustrate, the courting of the small bourgeoisie by Mrs Gandhi’s government (at the expense of monopoly capital) finds reflection in Bobby as the antagonism of a rich industrialist towards a small businessman over the (p.252) love between their children. With the state withdrawing from the space of the nation, there are apparently no conflicts for popular cinema to allegorize, and Suraj Barjatya’s two films provide evidence of the resultant effect—which is ‘Ramrajya’. The term ‘Ramrajya’ also suggests the nation as a simple metaphysical abstraction removed from the complex experience of being an Indian citizen.

‘Imagined Communities’ In examining the emblem of the family in HAHK Patricia Uberoi casually describes the family as an ‘imagined community’.26 While Uberoi admits she is stretching the meaning of Benedict Anderson’s concept, the HAHK family is perhaps an ‘imagined community’ in a somewhat different sense. Put very briefly, Anderson27 describes the nation as an ‘imagined community’ because the notion as experienced is associated with imagining and with creation. To elaborate, the possibility of the nation depends upon the development of the book, the novel, and the newspaper. It also presupposes a reading public capable of using them within a territory and able to imagine themselves as a single community.28 I have argued that the enlarged family in HAHK, because of the way it is constituted and because of the loyalty it commands, is emblematic of the nation. The state withdrawing from the space of the narrative necessitates such a depiction of the nation, which must nonetheless continue to be represented in order that a ‘national audience’ is addressed. If the nation is an ‘imagined community’, the ‘nation-as-family’ is doubly imagined and, with the withdrawal of the state, such ‘doubly imagined’ communities tend to proliferate in Indian popular cinema. The family is one way of allegorizing the nation-asimagined-community but other strategies are evidently also possible—and we need to find other instances of what they are. Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999) is shot in picturesque Rajasthan and is set chiefly in the household of a celebrated musician, who is referred to as Panditji. Panditji runs a joint family of which he is patriarch but in which several aunts also preside. In this film, as in HAHK, the family is Page 14 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium represented as the ideal community demanding fierce loyalty. In Aditya Chopra’s Mohabbatein (2000) the imagined community is a school run on traditional Indian lines.29 (p.253) HAHK arrived in a year of resounding box-office flops but became a phenomenal commercial success, comparable to blockbusters like Sholay. It appeared at a particularly anxious moment for the Indian film industry because of the entry of Hollywood (in dubbed Hindi versions) into the Indian entertainment market and the widespread success of Jurassic Park outside the metropolitan cities. About a year after HAHK came another colossal box-office phenomenon, Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayange (DDLJ), (1996) which apparently exceeded HAHK’s collections of over Rs 100 crores of rupees.30 In Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) Simran (Kajol) and Raj (Shah Rukh Khan) live in London and meet accidentally on a train when they both embark on European tours. They fall in love with each other but Simran’s conservative father, Baldev Singh (Amrish Puri), who runs a covenience store in London, has promised her hand to a friend’s son named Kuljeet in Punjab. DDLJ begins with Baldev Singh feeding pigeons at Trafalgar Square and a first-person voiceover tells us how much he longs to return to India. The rest of the first part of the film is then taken up with Baldev Singh’s plans to re-establish ties with his old friend in the home country. The proposed alliance between Simran and Kuljeet is intended to strengthen these ties. The ‘home’ cherished by Baldev Singh is not the actual Indian nation but an autonomous Punjabi community held together by affinities and separate codes, an ‘imagined community’ like those portrayed in the other films. The happy-go-lucky Raj has no particular yearning for ‘home’ but he chooses to respect ‘community codes’, intent upon getting paternal approval for his suit although Simran’s mother beseeches him to take the girl away. The difference between DDLJ and the other films is that the community is not presented as ‘sacred’ but, rather, as threatening and this discourse is assisted by Simran’s mother being in the position of a critical insider implicated in codes she is too weak to resist. Each of the four films (HAHK, DDLJ, Mohabbatein, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam) is about ‘romantic love’ facing obstacles within the imagined community but still triumphing. As indicated earlier, romantic love in popular cinema is a ‘constant’ that does not bear interpretation because it is simply the ingredient bringing the narrative to closure. Only when the ‘constant’ is associated with one or more ‘variables’ does the motif invite reading.31 Since ‘variables’ are absent in each of the four films, I propose that the only issue involving them is the (p.254) abstraction of the nation as an ‘imagined community’ lying outside the purview of the Indian state. The question to be asked is whether the replacement of the traditional signifiers uniformly by ‘romantic love’ does not imply that popular cinema is becoming less responsive to immediate social/political stimuli? If the

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Towards the New Millennium answer is in the affirmative, is it not likely that reading popular cinema as social/ political allegory will also be rendered increasingly difficult? I remarked earlier that DDLJ helps us gain insights into the significance of the ‘imagined communities’ and the characteristic that distinguishes the film is its taking the viewpoint of a ‘non-resident’. The argument offered here is that the view of the nation entirely as an ‘imagined community’ may fundamentally be that of the nonresident. The non-resident is removed from it politically, is less subject to its laws and he/she belongs to it only in an ‘imagined’ way. I also propose that a cinema seen to adopt such a viewpoint will also be less of a ‘local’ cinema.

Narration and Global Address The issue will be elaborated upon later but popular cinema, which traditionally depended on local audiences, also began to make inroads into Western markets in the 1990s. If the 1980s were the period in which Hollywood made the largest incursions into world markets,32 the mid-1990s were perhaps the first really successful years for Indian popular cinema globally. It may be significant that the Reaganite 1980s were also the period when ‘work of significance’ was seen to disappear from American cinema33 because we notice a similar happening in the Indian cinema of the 1990s. Both happenings apparently accompany commercial explosions at the global level although the scales are not comparable. While defining criteria for ‘work of significance’ is always problematic I propose that its disappearance in Indian popular cinema finds correspondence in the decline in narrative ‘prodigality’ briefly noticed in relation to HAHK. Comparisons of Hollywood’s kind of manufacture with that of Indian cinema suggest that while Hollywood has adopted the serialized or organic form, Indian cinema pitches for the assembly kind.34 It is suggested that with ‘PostFordism’35 the traditional assumptions are overturned and Hollywood actually moves away from its traditional (p.255) serialized manufacture towards the ‘assembly’ form employed by Indian cinema.36 This is sometimes held responsible for Hollywood increasingly ‘abandoning the art of narrative with today’s films being little more that a succession of undifferentiated sensations, lucky or unlucky accidents, that have little to do with whatever went before or is about to come next’.37 As with Indian popular cinema in the 1990s, the emphasis is apparently away from narrative and towards spectacle. While there is an indication that both American and Indian cinema are being drawn to spectacle at the expense of narrative, it is premature to imply that one cinema is actually moving towards the other. Indian popular cinema has made inroads into the American and British markets but this is apparently because of the non-resident Indian/South Asian community being drawn to Indian film entertainment. One tentative conclusion nevertheless suggesting itself is that Page 16 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium when a form of mass entertainment addresses a globally distributed audience, spectacle may gain ground at the expense of narrative, simply for wider reach. To explicate through an illustration, the kind of story told by a narrator addressing a huge audience assembled in an arena will differ from the kind meant only for a few intimate listeners. It is also likely that the latter kind of narrative will be richer and made so by what the narrator shares with the listeners.38 There could, consequently, be a depletion of the ‘local’ in ‘global cinema’ and it is suggested that the impoverishment of film narrative and the departure of social/political conflict from its space commencing with the mid-1990s onwards correspond to such depletion. Evidence has been provided that Indian popular cinema attempts to allegorize the happenings in the political space of the nation but a conspicuous decline in the tendency is noticeable from the mid-1990s onwards. The traditional signifiers (with the exception of the nation) leave the space of the narrative and they are replaced by ‘romantic love’, which is not readable as allegory because it merely satisfies the closure imperative. An association was initially made between this phenomenon and the economic deregulation measures of 1991–2 but the tendency has been strengthened in the 1990s not only by Indian cinema having to fight Hollywood on its home turf but also by its addressing ‘global’ audiences. While economic evidence of the latter development will be provided in the next chapter, there are signs in films like HAHK, DDLJ, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, and Mohabbatein (p.256) of the non-resident Indian community becoming a key constituent of the audience addressed by popular cinema and this is even stronger in a later film like Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (2006) in which the nonresident Indian community represents the imagined nation.

Bombay Religious conflict (usually Hindu–Muslim) within the nation figured in popular cinema immediately before 1947 when the place of the Muslim in the nation needed affirmation. We also find religious difference being invoked again in the Nehru era (and after) to affirm secularism but it is difficult to recall a film using the form of romance between people of different religions. Even in a film like Raj Kapoor’s Bobby, which is about the love between a Christian girl and a Hindu boy, the conflict is not religious but economic and the film makes this explicit. Inter-caste and interregional romances are permitted but Hindu–Muslim romances do not find favour. The first popular film to convincingly feature Hindu–Muslim romance is perhaps Manirathnam’s Bombay (1995) and I need to take the evidence of the film into account, especially because of my assertion that social conflict gradually departs from the space of film narrative after 1992. Bombay begins with Shekar (Arvind Swamy) returning home after having passed his exams, seeing Shailabano (Manisha Koirala) on the way and noticing her. Shekar belongs to an orthodox Brahmin family. He sees the girl again at a Muslim festival and pursues her, this time receiving a signal from her implying Page 17 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium reciprocation of some kind. The two soon arrange to meet and finally agree to marry and this is announced separately to both the fathers who, as may be anticipated, react violently. Shekar finds a job in Bombay and announces his intention of marrying and never returning to his father’s home or his village. We saw how popular cinema problematizes social conflict through melodramatic devices. Misunderstandings and coincidences are the staple methods employed to present the conflict to the spectator and the happy outcomes are also made to depend on the same fortuitous circumstances. There is disinclination in Bombay to depend on such melodramatic devices. One traditional way to tackle Shekar’s dilemma would be to posit a difference between the attitudes of the father and the mother (the course followed by DDLJ). In such a scenario the (p.257) father might represent social dictate and the mother, moral choice. Social conflict is represented in popular cinema not only as familial but also as emotional— between choice and dictate, between loyalties, between interests and genuine concerns. The tussle in Baazigar, for example, is for control of a business empire but it takes the shape of a conflict between love and a desire for vengeance. The first part of Bombay does not treat religious conflict in these terms because Shekar and Shailabano have not the slightest doubt in their minds that marrying is the only course open although this means breaking with their respective pasts. Further, neither Shekar nor Shailabano is attached to his/her family. If that makes the break uncomplicated, it is also in tune with other films of the 1990s (like Damini) that routinely propose such disruptions. The observation being made is that since no reconciliation is needed between the generation guided by religious prejudices and the generation not thus guided,39 religious conflict qualifies the milieu but does not inform the narrative (the plot). Conceiving of the second part of the film minus the issue of religious conflict is therefore not difficult. In fact, the involvement of Shekar and Shailabano in the Bombay riots is actually unexpected and does not follow from the ‘first cause’. How then does their relationship relate to the riots? The second part of Bombay commences with the Ram Janmabhoomi procession that frightens Shailabano. The political situation in the city deteriorates rapidly and the riots soon commence. Our interest in the narrative however correspondingly declines because nothing noteworthy happens to the protagonists except their children being lost in the mayhem but also discovered unharmed. The other event of importance is the unexpected reconciliation between the fathers when they arrive in Bombay, independently. They save each other’s lives but both of them are also eventually killed. Shekar is a newspaper reporter but what he sees or does as a reporter plays no part in the narrative. What Bombay does in the second part is, instead, to give us a graphic picture of riot violence, in effect placing its entire emphasis upon it as ‘spectacle’ but not implicating it in the narrative. Indian popular cinema has been seen to be disinclined to contend with political/social reality except through the elaborate Page 18 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium process of allegory. Bombay seems to incorporate ‘history’ into its narrative but its engagement is deceptive. History is not implicated and its actual effect (p. 258) upon the lives of the protagonists is nominal.40 Further, if the two are abruptly deposited in the middle of violent history, they are apparently only in the position of onlookers. Spectacle takes several shapes in the 1990s with foreign locales and affluent lifestyles being the favoured kind. Bombay’s exhibition of bloodshed may be less enticing than the European sojourns of many other films but if ‘real’ violence in cinema sometimes figures as voyeuristic spectacle, Bombay is perhaps an illustration. Unlike critics primarily interested in the film’s representation of the two religious communities,41 my own interest is in Bombay’s mode of narration. Its explicit invoking of the aftermath of a critical moment in recent history—the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya by the Hindu right wing in December 1992—apparently makes Bombay an exception in popular cinema. But I have tried to show that its engagement with history is deceptive. It will therefore examine it, as I have done other films, and ascertain if there are other meanings that emerge. The ‘first cause’ in Bombay is Shekar’s return from Bombay and there is evidently some mistrust between him and his father. His father harbours suspicions about Shekar’s activities in the city while Shekar seems to regard the village with indifference. Shekar also behaves unusually when he sees Shailabano—in as much as, instead of being tentative, he pursues her relentlessly as though his success were assured. He takes her acquiescence for granted although she is Muslim and he, a Hindu. Ravi Vasudevan has some useful observations to make about their relationship, which is entirely guided by Shekar.42 Shekar apparently also regards himself as tied to a ‘greater loyalty’ than the one defined by religion and he draws strength from his faith that Shailabano believes likewise. The fact that Shailabano unhesitatingly follows him (as though acknowledging a ‘truth’) implies that the film has the same discourse to offer about ‘greater loyalties’— and there is convincing evidence to suggest that the object of this greater loyalty is the nation. Shekar’s invitation to the mob to immolate him is a direct throwback to Rishi Kumar’s throwing himself on the burning Indian flag in Roja although there is no explicit reference to the Indian nation in Bombay. Another factor to be contended with is the aspect of Shekar being a journalist. While discussing Kala Pani in Chapter 4, I cited Madhava Prasad’s observation that the emblem (p.259) of the newspaper is used in the film as a means of mobilizing the nation against the villain43 and Shekar’s vocation perhaps plays a similar role in Bombay. The difference is that while the newspaper assists state authority in Kala Pani, the state itself is largely absent in Bombay. Policemen are reluctant to respond to Shekar’s questions and everything points to the state having departed from the narrative. In fact, the Page 19 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium riot violence ceases only when Shekar makes his gesture to the mob. The implications are that this gesture summoning the nation still touches an answering emotional chord but that the state has no share in this object of emotion. My second observation is that from the very commencement of the film, Shekar’s identity is closely associated with the city of Bombay. Since Shekar’s larger loyalty is to the ‘nation’, an association is apparently being made between the city and the nation. If the village and the patriarchal family represent entrenched tradition in Bombay, the nuclear family and the city represent ‘modernity’ and Ravi Vasudevan sees a conflict between tradition and modernity in the film.44 However considering that Shekar has already thrown in his lot with the city at Bombay’s commencement, it is as though the abandonment of tradition were the primary postulate of the narrative. When tradition and the patriarchal family re-enter the space of the narrative, it is in Bombay and on terms acceptable to Shekar. Both parents are also killed and even forgotten in the relief of Shekar and Shailabano recovering their children. The break with the past in Krantiveer and Damini thus develops into a break with entrenched tradition in Bombay. It is also significant that Shekar’s association is specifically with Bombay (and not any city) and it may be noted that Bombay became the emblem of economically resurgent India after the deregulation measures of 1991–2.45 The title of the film is therefore usefully read as a metonym for the economically resurgent nation. Superficially, HAHK and Bombay stand at opposite ends although both are products of the deregulation measures of 1991–2, the acknowledged conclusion of Nehruvian socialism within the space of the nation. HAHK upholds tradition and the patriarchal family while Bombay announces an interruption to tradition and apparently endorses the nuclear family. The two films have affinities nonetheless and the first of these is romantic love becoming paramount in the narrative. (p.260) Bombay proposes that loyalty to the nation overrides every other loyalty and this is also HAHK’s discourse—if it is acknowledged that the ‘imagined community’ of the family actually allegorizes the nation. I would like to argue that the apparent differences between the two films arise, not out of any ideological disagreement but entirely because of the way the two imagine the nation. HAHK portrays the nation in terms of the happy traditional family existing in a condition of blissful togetherness, from which departures can only be detrimental. Preserving the initial condition becomes paramount and this accounts for the film’s ‘conservatism’. Bombay, on the other hand, tries to contend with the nation in its new, economically resurgent avatar—as symbolized by the actual city of Bombay. But both HAHK and Bombay concur that the entity to which they must pay obeisance is the nation and the nation is a space from which the institutions of the state have formally withdrawn.

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Towards the New Millennium Breakdown of the Grand Narrative In examining the films of the early 1990s—chiefly Damini, Khalnayak, and Krantiveer—I remarked that the films seemed to be breaking with the nation’s Nehruvian past, but the break also has other repercussions. I have hitherto refrained from drawing too many parallels between cultural developments in India and those in advanced industrial societies but a pertinent development from our standpoint is the advent of postmodernism. Postmodernism has been widely written about as a phenomenon but a brief account of its implications is necessary for us to understand another aspect of the films of the 1990s. The ways that modern societies create categories labelled as ‘order’ or ‘disorder’ can be associated with their effort to attain stability. Stability and order, it is argued, are maintained in modern societies through the means of ‘grand narratives’ or ‘master narratives,’ which are stories through which a culture explains its practices and beliefs to itself. Every belief system or ideology has its grand narratives. For Marxism (as an instance) the ‘grand narrative’ is the idea that capitalism will collapse because of its contradictions and a utopian socialist order will evolve. Postmodernism rejects grand narratives and favours stories that explain small practices, local events, rather than large-scale universal or global concepts. Postmodern ‘mini-narratives’ are always (p.261) situational and contingent, making no claim to universality or truth. It has been postulated that postmodernism originated in the breakdown of the grand narratives. Lyotard46 ascribes the end of modernism and its replacement by postmodernism to the breakdown of the grand narratives of nineteenth-century science, reason, and progress—but other factors, such as the events that shaped modern history, may have contributed as well. Whatever the origins of postmodernism, its tendency is to move away from belief that developments are shaped by an overall design, in effect away from ‘teleology’. Coming to the local space defined by the Indian nation, we detect a ‘grand narrative’ in Nehruvian socialism that may have broken down in 1992 with the retreat of the state from its policy of intervention. Hindi cinema showed itself to be responsive to the idea of the socialist nation and the breakdown of this grand narrative may have engendered, in Indian cinema, a phenomenon akin to postmodernism in the global arena. Marxist critics of postmodernism have lamented that the subversive or oppositional role of modernism in society was abandoned by postmodernism.47 Indian popular cinema has perhaps not played a discernible oppositional role in society and its purpose has been, largely, to provide social reassurance. Even the portrayals in the 1980s of the institutions of the state as weak and corrupt eventually provide resolutions by which faith in the given order is affirmed. These factors may not betoken an ‘oppositional’ role for Indian popular cinema. Yet they are tantamount to an admission that the state needs to be justified to the public and this can be regarded as

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Towards the New Millennium an‘interrogation’. With the withdrawal of the state from the public space, it is not in need of such justification and we see the ‘interrogation’ concluding. Postmodernism has other characteristics also exhibited by Indian popular cinema and one of these is the ethic of conspicuous consumption replacing the ethic of production.48 It is, perhaps, easier to locate the ‘ethic of production’ in the conventions of Hollywood than in Indian popular cinema49 but Indian films of the 1990s dwell excessively on consumption-based lifestyles. Another, perhaps more prominent, characteristic of postmodernism is the disappearance of a sense of history and the way in which the ‘contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present’.50 Indian popular cinema has not (p.262) displayed a ‘sense of history’ but it attempts to provide a ‘compensating past’ through parentage. We saw both the parental presence and the ethical dimension brought by it into narrative diminishing considerably after 1992. Postmodernism is regarded as originating in multinational and consumer capitalism (with the emphasis placed on marketing, selling, and consuming commodities, not on producing them).51 But only a ‘local’ happening engendered its equivalent in popular cinema: the deregulation measures initiated in 1991–2 and by the official break with Nehruvian socialism. ‘Postmodernism’ in Indian cinema should be viewed in this restricted sense and not, strictly, as a continuation of the phenomenon at the global level, although the influence of the latter cannot be entirely neglected.

Parody and Pastiche One of the characteristics of postmodernity has been the eclipsing of parody by pastiche. Parody capitalizes on the uniqueness of the original and produces an imitation that mocks or casts ridicule upon it. Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of something unique but it is ‘a neutral practice of such mimicry, without parody’s ulterior motive, without the satirical impulse, without laughter, without that still latent feeling that there exists something normal compared to which what is being imitated is rather comic. Pastiche is blank parody, parody that has lost its sense of humor.’52 A phenomenon of the 1990s needing some comment is the success of the male star Govinda and one of his key films is David Dhawan’s Hero No.1 (1997). The story of the film begins in the household of Seth Dinanath when the harassed servant or cook who attends to the inordinate needs of the members of the family finally resigns. Seth Dinanath (Paresh Rawal) is an irritable miser with a fortune locked up in a chest, which he worships every morning. His sons and their families all live with him, as does his orphaned granddaughter Meena (Karishma Kapoor). With the disappearance of the servant Meena takes on the responsibility gamely until a substitute can be found.

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Towards the New Millennium In another household, also phenomenally rich, Rajesh Malhotra (Govinda) lives with his father, the head of the Malhotra Group of Companies. Rajesh’s father wants him to marry but Rajesh insists that (p.263) the wedding cannot be ‘arranged’ and that he will marry following the dictates of his heart. As destiny will have it, Rajesh meets Meena on a European holiday and wins her heart. Rajesh expects their matrimonial plans to meet with some paternal resistance but, in Bombay, Rajesh finds his father insisting that Meena become his bahu (daughter-inlaw) and undertaking a journey to meet Seth Dinanath. On the way to the Seth’s residence, however, his car accidentally splashes an old man walking along the road with rainwater and this causes a severe altercation. The old man is Seth Dinanath who returns home muttering curses. When Malhotra arrives for talks, the old man is driven into a wild rage and calls for a gun; all Malhotra’s apologies are futile. Malhotra retreats but, as a gesture of precaution, her grandfather also prohibits Meena from attending college. There is some familiar quality about Seth Dinanath’s home and we understand the reason as soon as one of the Seth’s grandchildren announces the arrival of a new servant. The whole family is in excitement and the members wait at the door to receive him. We find the servant is dressed in white and wearing a white ‘Gandhi’ cap and when he turns his radiant countenance to us we not only identify Rajesh Malhotra in the servant but also a travesty of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Bawarchi. Where the cook in the earlier film claimed to have worked with respected statesmen, Raju professes to have been employed by film stars and threatens to take up an offer from the actress ‘Madhuri Dixit’ if Seth Dinanath does not employ him. As may be expected, Raju becomes indispensable to the family within a short while and the fortunes of its members also improve. Rajesh’s father also comes occasionally, disguised and pretending to be Raju’s chowkidaar (watchman) uncle. When one of Seth Dinanath’s disobedient daughters arrives home late Raju admonishes her gently only to be snubbed, but a short while later, some disreputable men kidnap the girl. Raju now intervenes, quoting the Bible, Shakespeare, and the nationalist leader Subhash Chandra Bose before soundly thrashing them. One night, however, Raju’s ‘chowkidaar uncle’ comes to visit, stays overnight and the next morning, Seth Dinanath’s locked chest is found broken open and its contents stolen. Raju and the chowkidaar are immediately suspected and the police are summoned. It is now time for the suspects to reveal their true identities and the police look appropriately respectful and retreat from the story. The fact that a (p.264) ‘crorepati’ (multimillionaire) and his son impersonated menials only to establish family ties with him is put before Seth Dinanath, who is duly impressed. But the reconciliation is complete only when he splashes Mr Malhotra with his car just as Mr Malhotra had once splashed him.

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Towards the New Millennium We find in Hero No.1 many of the characteristics of the other films of the 1990s: the inevitable European sojourn and the banishment of social conflict from the realm of the narrative. It is pertinent that where the protagonist of Bawarchi worked with ‘great’ people from whom he acquired his moral qualities, Raju claims only to have been employed by film stars. Also important is the fact that the conflict between Malhotra and Dinanath does not arise out of social differences but because of a trivial incident. The police are also duly apologetic at having suspected the rich of misdemeanour, and their modest withdrawal from the narrative is also in tune with the times. Another aspect of Hero No.1 however needs comment at this point and that aspect is its ‘parody’. At first glance, Hero No.1 has humour and apparently remains ‘parody’ but its effect is still different. When we saw Amar Akbar Anthony using some of Deewar’s motifs, I implied that its effect was parodic and the reader may wonder where Hero No.1 differs. Both the films invoke their respective originals and, if Amar Akbar Anthony recalls Yaadon Ki Baraat and Deewar, Hero No. 1 invokes Bawarchi more explicitly—as a later David Dhawan film Jodi No. 1 (2001) does Sholay by naming its two conmen protagonists Jai and Veeru. The originals invoked are solemn efforts in as much as they take their own messages very seriously but the later films apparently produce different results. The chief difference between the two may rest in Amar Akbar Anthony achieving its ends by taking sententiousness to a new high and producing the effect of parody. Hero No. 1 on the other hand, does not replicate the ethical concerns of Bawarchi and avoids mocking the latter’s high seriousness. It takes only the bare narrative framework from Bawarchi without attending to the moral purpose it served and this leaves its parody ‘blank’.53 The explicit invocation of ‘Bollywood’ by these later films is a characteristic that contributes to their ‘blankness’. Govinda as an idol has a comic appeal quite different from others like Shammi Kapoor, who also did comic turns in lead roles. While these other characters corresponded to social types/archetypes, I suggest that the heroes played (p.265) by Govinda do not embody types/ archetypes drawn from social experience as much as the archetypal film hero, the ‘Bollywood hero’ as pastiche, and his films benefit by references to heroes from popular cinema. Govinda’s films nevertheless retain their comic appeal and a more unequivocal parody without humour is Ramgopal Verma’s Rangeela (1996). We saw Hero No.1 invoking film stars where the film it ‘pastiched’ cited respected statesmen and the ploy is apparently to deny the moral purpose of the original. Locating the narrative in the world of cinema is perhaps also a reliable way of avoiding ‘moral engagement’— unlike most popular films. Rangeela is another film set in the tinsel ambience of the Bombay film world and also singularly ‘blank’ in its moral discourse.

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Towards the New Millennium Rangeela tells the story of a girl from a middle class family who rises to stardom. The love interest in the film comes from Munna, a vagabond who makes his living by selling movie tickets in the blackmarket. Munna (Aamir Khan) is pugnacious but lovable and adores the heroine although she does not come to know of it till very late. Pooja (Urmila Matondkar) is obsessed with the film world and takes dancing lessons to be fit for stardom. One day when dancing alone close to the sea, a leading film star named Kamal sees her and offers her a role in his next film. Pooja is ecstatic and accepts the offer. The shooting commences and, with Pooja’s success, Munna begins to feel alienated from her. Kamal himself falls in love with Pooja and gives her expensive gifts that Munna cannot match. The film starring Pooja (also entitled Rangeela) is a huge success but Munna leaves the city because he imagines that she loves Kamal (Jackie Shroff). He sends her a letter making this clear; she reads it at the moment of her greatest triumph and discovers her love for him. Kamal sees that Pooja and Munna love each other and generously escorts her to his rival. At the conclusion Kamal convinces Munna that the relationship between himself and Pooja is only professional and that it is Munna whom she loves. Pooja and Munna are finally united. Unlike many other films of the 1990s, the narrative of Rangeela does not ignore the possibility of delineating social conflict because Munna, Pooja, and Kamal apparently belong to different classes. Still, Rangeela does not problematize the conflict and a smooth affirmation of love over all other things is consistently striven for. Pooja lives with (p.266) her middle class parents but, as in the films discussed earlier, the parents do not contribute significantly to the plot. They also encourage Munna although he is a vagabond and a petty criminal and their reassuring presence helps to downplay the inherent conflict in the relationship. There are also echoes of eroticism in the dances that Pooja performs alone that are not ‘contextualized’ in her sexuality. Romance and eroticism both need a history of emotions pertaining to a partner but Pooja performs with a ‘mask’ that is turned on or off at will, and her gestures are therefore drained of sexual significance. The argument here is not that the heroine is made the object of the ‘male gaze’ but, rather, that her gestures mimic feminine sexuality (as portrayed in cinema) in the manner of pastiche, because ‘pastiche’ is also defined as the wearing of a ‘stylistic mask’. We earlier saw that the narratives of the 1950s often invoked the film world and the hero of Kala Bazaar is a black marketeer of movie tickets like Munna. But the film of the 1950s was critical of ‘Bollywood’ as a dream factory as Rangeela is not. Rangeela is an unusual film because parts of it are very realistic in terms of detail. Pooja’s middle class milieu is recognizable and even Munna is a more credible representative of his class than Kala Bazaar’s protagonist is. Rangeela also includes a film-land party that satirizes Bollywood effectively. Yet, when the narrative comes actually to Pooja’s success as an actress and her relationship Page 25 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium with Kamal, it throws its ‘realism’ to the winds and the film itself dons a ‘stylistic mask’. The entire section of Rangeela dealing with Pooja’s success, with Kamal’s feelings for her, and with the making of the film ‘Rangeela’ within the film has the appearance of a daydream or a fantasy. Since the rest of the film is credible at the level of social detail, we wonder if Pooja is dreaming all of it and the fact that it is ‘real’ is disconcerting. Perhaps this part of the film can be said to have the same relationship with Bollywood-style fantasy that the blank parody has with the original. It may also be remarked that the ‘realism’ of Rangeela and its ‘fantastic’ component are stylistically different from each other and combine in the film as pastiche. This, it must be added, is very different from the ‘aggregation’, which is more common and where stylistically incompatible segments become ‘attractions’ within the film—because they do not contribute to the narrative.

(p.267) Resurgent Nationalism We have seen ‘social conflict’ being eased out of popular film narrative in the 1990s and replaced exclusively by the ‘nation’ as the state commenced its retreat from the public space. Many of the films achieve this by dealing exclusively with the wealthy and not contending with other classes except as servants. There are, however, other ruses by which social conflict within the nation can be disclaimed and one of these is to push discord to its borders, in effect to revert to patriotism. If conflict is pushed back to the ‘border’ in historical time, the natural adversaries are the British and if it is pushed to the border in space, the adversary readily becomes Pakistan. The post-liberalization period is a period in which Indian popular cinema became abruptly patriotic although the political conditions needed to support the sentiment did not exist until the end of the decade, when the Kargil episode excited the nation. Hindu chauvinism had, of course, begun much earlier and the Babri Masjid was desecrated in 1992, but the patriotic Indian films from the 1990s evidently draw sustenance from elsewhere because they are nominally secular. The first of the new patriotic films dealt with the freedom struggle and used a British general as the hate object. Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 1942: A Love Story (1995) is different from an earlier ‘anti-British’ film like Mard (1984) by Manmohan Desai54 because it takes its own patriotic rhetoric more seriously. Chopra’s film also attempts something novel in Indian cinema, which is to use ‘nostalgia’ as a selling device and much of 1942: A Love Story is therefore shot in the customary soft focus of the nostalgia film. Frederic Jameson identifies the ‘nostalgia film’ as one kind of pastiche and places it in opposition to the historical film.55 A more successful patriotic film, J.P. Dutta’s Border (1998), was perhaps the first in the 1990s to use India’s long conflict with Pakistan for its context. Dutta’s earlier films were grounded in the caste tussles of the 1980s but Border comes after the exiling of conflict from within the space of the nation. The only earlier war film as emphatic in its patriotic sentiments as Border was perhaps Haqeeqat, but Chetan Anand’s film responded immediately to a disastrous Page 26 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium military engagement and this is justification not available to Border. Manoj Kumar’s Upkaar (1969) is not less patriotic than Border but it still contends with social conflict—the economic one between the farming (p.268) community and the trader. In Border, every other conflict except the one with Pakistan has been willed away. The ‘first cause’ in Border is the casual meeting between an airforce officer (Jackie Shroff) and a major in the infantry (Sunny Deol) just when the 1971 war seems imminent. Each of the two officers is confident of the superiority of his wing of the armed forces, but they part on amicable terms after ribbing each other. War finally breaks out and, as luck will have it, the major and his men are required to defend a border post for the duration of a night against Pakistani armour. The squadron under the command of the airforce officer will relieve them next morning by attacking the enemy. Both officers conduct themselves creditably and the message relayed by the narrative is that both wings of the armed forces are equally important to the nation. Border is much more aggressive in its tone than Haqeeqat and is even belligerent in its patriotism. To cite a less obvious symptom of the new hostility, while most of the soldiers in Haqeeqat are cleanshaven, those in Border usually sport moustaches or beards. The actors playing some of the major roles (like Sunil Shetty and Akshaye Khanna) actually wear false moustaches. The moustache is a traditional symbol of ‘masculinity’ in India and I interpret this aspect of Border as deliberate and intended to convey the new aggression in Indian patriotism—while Haqeeqat was about a nation defending itself. Border casts a large number of well-known stars but none of them (even Puneet Issar, a screen villain) is allowed to play the Pakistanis, who are always represented by unknown actors. The logic is apparently that it would be unbecoming for an Indian actor to play a Pakistani, even if he is otherwise accustomed to playing villains.56 Border is filmed on location and some of the action sequences compare quite favourably with Hollywood war films but there are striking differences as well. There is, for instance, no sign of any ‘strategy’ or planning complementing the action. Although the film includes sequences where the passive narrative mode is apparently abandoned—the killing of unarmed ‘spies’ by the major—the absence of individual sequences involving ‘strategic planning’ (at any level) shows that ‘intentional action’ is still a stranger to popular cinema, even when the discourse is transparently belligerent. John Mathew Mathen’s Sarfarosh (1999) is another patriotic film although it reflects the new tentativeness in the nation’s approach to Pakistan after the nuclear blasts. Sarfarosh is a more sane film than (p.269) Border and takes a long, hard look at the country’s tainted ethos. Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Mission Kashmir (2000) is another film with a narrative implicating religious conflict. Like Sarfarosh, the film treats religious conflict as ‘irrational’ and not founded in

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Towards the New Millennium conflicting interests because all Indians are essentially ‘for the nation’. This, it must be added, is very different from what I observed about Roja. Unlike most of the films examined in this book, those examined in this section have narratives located at historical moments. Still, they cannot be called ‘historical’ in any sense because they rely on ‘first causes’ located in the family and ‘history’ is not implicated in the narrative except to justify the expressed sentiments. As an instance, Border might have been set in any armed conflict involving India and Pakistan and the specific circumstances of 1971 are not invoked. The films are more accurately describable as ‘patriotic cinema’, only carrying forward the notion of the ‘imagined community’ from films like HAHK, DDLJ, Mohabbatein, and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. The films are, in effect, patriotic simply because the economic deregulation measures of 1991–2 apparently left Indian popular film narrative with only one surviving traditional subject—the nation.

Social Darwinism and the Institutions of the State I began this study of popular film narrative with some remarks about its tendencies. These included its episodic character, its indifference to absolute/ historical time, its passivity, the omniscience of the camera eye, the flatness of the composition and the defining of narrative space in terms of its qualities. While these characteristics continue in the 1990s, there is new emphasis on ‘realism’ in films like Border and Bombay with the incorporation of the ‘real’ as spectacle and the images also losing their flatness. But these ventures into ‘realism’ otherwise follow the conventions of popular cinema and, as an instance, Border is shot on location and includes action sequences reminiscent of the Hollywood war film but still defines space in the traditional Indian way—in terms of its qualities. Narrative space in Border is therefore demarcated into two separate regions, the ‘battlefield’ and ‘home’, rather than being unified and continuous as in classical cinema. To strengthen my argument, maps are conspicuous by their absence in (p.270) Border, although they are indispensable to the war film as the genre is usually understood. I provided evidence of the impoverishment of narrative in popular cinema with the departure of the traditional signifiers from its space. This is as true of Bombay as it is of HAHK although the former attends to the milieu while HAHK eliminates it altogether. There is another kind of cinema appearing in the 1990s that is almost visceral in its treatment of the urban milieu but uses narratives that do not apparently implicate the nation. Ramgopal Verma’s Satya (1999) best represents the kind of film I have in mind. These films (Mahesh Manjrekar’s Vaastav [2000], is another example) are in Hindi but the main characters do not speak the ‘national’ Hindi. As in Agneepath, they largely converse in a local variant of the national language. It is also significant that the policemen usually speak the ‘national’ Hindi.

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Towards the New Millennium Satya is a gangster film that departs considerably from other films like Yash Chopra’s Deewar, J.P. Dutta’s Hathyar (1989), or Manirathnam’s Nayakan (1987) because of its abandoning many of popular cinema’s conventions. Satya came at a time when American films (in dubbed versions) were seen to be making inroads into Indian popular cinema’s traditional markets and the visceral style of Satya was seen as pointing to the aesthetic preferences of tomorrow’s audiences. The film was a huge success in urban areas and also acclaimed critically for its grisly realism. Satya begins when its eponymous hero comes to Bombay and finds employment as a waiter in a sleazy nightspot and acquires status as a gangster because of his tenacity. Satya is an impressive film because it makes striking use of urban locales and is grisly in its realism. The chief virtue of the film is in the way it mixes the ordinariness of everyday existence with moments of graphic violence. People are shot dead in the film just as they are guffawing at a smutty joke, and the family lives of killers and gangsters are shown to be as mundane as anyone else’s. Satya is one of the more important attempts at film naturalism to come out of Indian popular cinema and is a significant achievement. It has apparently few qualities in common with those traditionally exhibited by Indian popular cinema and an understanding of where it departs is therefore necessary. First, Satya is a loner without any dealings attaching him to a family or even to a past. His friendship with Bhiku Mhatre (Manoj Bajpai) does not extend back into a distant (p.271) past (corresponding to the traditional dosti) but is made in the course of the narrative. Vidya’s (Urmila Mataondkar) parents play only a vestigial part of the role that is traditionally played by their counterparts in popular cinema and they contribute nothing to the film’s moral discourse. The love between Satya and Vidya is not allowed to become triumphant and transcendent (as happens in Bombay). Vidya does not seem to possess strong moral qualities because she abandons Satya largely because of a policeman’s allegations. The portrayal of police activity apparently refers back to the 1980s but the difference is that its unlawful methods leave the law actually much stronger. Where Satya’s narrative conforms to the Indian model is in its disinclination to attach itself to history. The American gangster film deals with individuals not given to moral qualms and a clearly defined perspective is therefore necessary to direct its moral discourse. Ethics is itself inextricably tied up to social or historical questions and the question that the Hollywood gangster film asks often concerns the spoiling of the ‘American dream’.57 Despite its overwhelming physicality, I propose that the world of Satya is not today’s world because it is systematically ‘de-politicized’. As an instance, the film makes no mention of the communalization of the city dwelt upon by Bombay. It is difficult to see its politicians like the villain Bhau as representing any political category (especially the right-wing Shiv Sena) and their politics Page 29 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium itself appears ‘de-politicized’. Satya’s greatest strength lies in its vivid portrayal of the Bombay underworld and this eventually leads us to moral questions. We are aware of the moral conflicts characterizing Deewar, which is also a gangster film. An examination of Satya fails to reveal anything corresponding to ‘moral conflict’ although the film is nominally a melodrama. Satya is forced into violence and crime but never is he shown to regret what happens to him. His relationship with Vidya does not make him yearn more acutely for peace and the two sides of his character are left unresolved. There is, for instance, an episode in which a rival is being tortured and killed by the gang in a ground floor apartment. But when Satya sees Vidya outside on the pavement buying vegetables, he makes a casual exit from the apartment to resume his romance, as if to demonstrate that his two sides are unconnected. Satya is the eponymous hero of the film and this should mean that his life is instructive in some way, or that he is different from the others. (p.272) That Satya is no different from his adversaries—or friends—means that any of them could have been the hero of the film with the same justification. We have seen spectacle undermining narrative in many films of the 1990s and, although Satya depends on spectacle, it also goes a step further. The camera in the film chooses the hero arbitrarily but once he is chosen, he becomes the instrument through which the spectator vicariously experiences omnipotence. As evidence, the camera virtually gloats when Satya intimidates his enemies or disposes of them. These aspects of Satya are disconcerting for a Hindi film but being critical of them is inadequate. One still needs, to inquire into the film’s meaning in the context of the 1990s. While examining Bombay, I suggested that the city was infused with new significance by the economic deregulation measures of 1991–2 and Satya carries the significance further.58 Bombay and Satya are both ‘love stories’ but ‘love’ becomes a moral quality in Bombay because Shekar and Shailabano are brought together by a shared loyalty to the nation. I propose there is no such ‘transcendental’ object of loyalty in Satya because even the nation is kept out of the narrative. There is a sequence in which Satya and Vidya watch the film Border but I do not believe this is adequate ground for the nation to be seen as ‘figuring’. If one wondered why Satya is unable to reveal the truth about himself to Vidya the answer is that there is no moral entity to which he can appeal, and which might vindicate him. A change of heart usually happens in a popular film with the discovery of a profound object of loyalty and the nation is the only entity in the 1990s that corresponds to such an object. In the absence of ‘the nation’ the protagonist of Satya is unable to find such an object and a change of heart on his part is therefore impossible. This also means he cannot appeal to Vidya for forgiveness because there can be no basis for such forgiveness. Satya is a melodrama because it suggests a morally polarized universe but it is unable

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Towards the New Millennium to provide a credible moral framework because of the absence of every traditional signifier—including the nation. As I have remarked time and again, the authority of the state is represented most often in Indian popular cinema through the police and the portrayal of law enforcement provides clues about how the state is regarded. A perceptible development was seen in these portrayals—from the ‘innocence’ of the 1950s when the police and the judiciary are moral entities to the 1980s, when the erosion of state (p.273) authority by ‘divisive forces’ saw the police represented as weak and ineffectual. We see the tendency of the police to withdraw from the narrative in the 1990s and this is apparently in line with the state’s own initiatives in the public space. Satya departs from even this model because the police in the film are not only powerful but also made to behave like private agencies. If the police triumph in the end in Satya it is because they are stronger and not because they are ‘right’. They do not occupy a position of privilege within the narrative and this logic is echoed in Satya’s casual suggestion that the Police Commissioner should be killed like any underworld rival. Individual policemen (like the gangsters) are given distinct personalities and do not conform to type, but there is not enough conflict between them for the presence of the police not to be understood as hitherto. It is perhaps its inclination to deal with individuals rather than types that nonetheless places Satya more in the realm of ‘middle cinema’ than in the mainstream. Another related film providing insights into the attitudes of the 1990s is E. Nivas’s Shool (2000), also co-scripted by Ramgopal Verma. This film is about politics in the state of Bihar and about an upright police official called Samer (Manoj Bajpai) whose efforts in a town named Motihari are subverted actively by a local politician named Bachchu Yadav (Sayaji Shinde). The film concludes which the protagonist going to the state assembly when in session, evading the guards, striding up to Bachchu Yadav, and holding him down with a pistol to his head. After apologizing to everyone for the extreme step he is taking, he pulls the trigger and kills Bachchu Yadav. He then puts his gun down and salutes the nation (‘Jai Hind’) while the onlookers stand up in respect. Shool cannot also but be compared to Govind Nihalani’s Ardh Satya (1983), made in the 1980s and fitting into the familiar pattern of its times. Ardh Satya dealt with an extra-legal power—a gangster named Rama Shetty whom the protagonist killed at the conclusion of the film. Anant Velankar in Ardh Satya is asked to seek the help of the gangster to extricate him from his troubles and it is only when Rama Shetty brazenly humiliates him that he shoots him dead. Although Ardh Satya is set in Bombay, it does not specify the space of the location as deliberately as Shool does. The space in Ardh Satya is ‘India’ but this is not true of the space in Shool.

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Towards the New Millennium (p.274) In contrast, Shool makes a clear distinction between the national space and the space represented by ‘Bihar’. The same demarcation is made within the police force itself because, as he lies on the park bench, Samar recalls the pride associated with being a police officer, which is eroded only in the present assignment. Samar’s ‘Jai Hind’ touches an emotional chord in the Bihar assembly although he has just murdered one of its members and we presume that the gesture recalls a forgotten code. The sight of a police officer invoking the nation and being ‘patriotic’ is a strange sight in popular cinema because its conventions once supposed that a police officer was not a mere employee of the state but its embodment within the narrative. As we saw elsewhere, the weakness of the protagonist in Ardh Satya is also symptomatic of the actual weakness of the state. In Satya we encounter the phenomenon of policemen having surrendered the moral authority once vested in them by popular cinema, behaving as employees of a private agency and being treated as such. If we see evidence of the state withdrawing from the public space in earlier films of the 1990s, what we notice in Satya and Shool means that the state is perceived to be withdrawing from its own institutions as well. It is perhaps for this reason that Samar must invoke the moral authority no longer vested in his person but only in the abstraction of the ‘nation’. Shool also draws upon the current mythology connected with the state of Bihar. The following is a passage taken from a review of a book about the state: Ask someone in India to render the country’s history as a fairy tale, and you need not be surprised if he/she names the domains of monsters and ogres in the narrative ‘Bihar’. Such is the image of ruin and decay that this populous state has acquired, and not wholly without justification. The state’s oft-recorded evils—caste conflicts, massacres, poverty, electoral violence and corruption—can be seen in any other part of India, but in popular perception these are seen to have reached unacceptable levels in Bihar, invoking all that cynical minds can think of to make the place a redemptionless black hole of perdition in India’s heart.59 What is pertinent here is that Bihar is perceived to represent a ‘black hole of perdition’ or, putting it less metaphorically, a separate space demarcated within the nation that is chronically unresponsive to its laws. My own understanding is that Bihar in Shool becomes understandable if interpreted as an allegorical space. The fact that the protagonist does not seek a transfer out of Motihari (as he might have) implies that (p. 275) its space represents a condition from which there can be no physical escape. If such an interpretation is allowed, the protagonist belongs to a generic category from an earlier era whose behaviour, as ‘moral agent of the state’, is rendered anachronistic in the 1990s.

The Withdrawal of the Parent We have so far seen the effects, upon Indian popular film narrative, of the new direction taken by state economic policy in the early 1990s and the effects have been numerous. The history of Indian popular cinema is, as we have seen, Page 32 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium replete with instances where the dilemmas and questions facing the nation are consciously or unconsciously allegorized in familial terms. In the 1980s, for instance, the erosion of state authority was often represented as the incapacity of the law to protect feminine honour. A question engaging the public after 1992 may pertain to its own future after the state has withdrawn from the public space. If we were to allegorize the question in familial terms, we might wonder about the child’s position after the abrupt withdrawal of a parent. Significantly, there are three prominent films made in the 1990s that pose this riddle although the asking is done differently in each film. Karan Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) is an unusual love story in which the hero (Shah Rukh Khan) loses his first wife (Rani Mukherjee) in childbirth and his child later searches out a new wife for him. We see in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, the phenomenon of the mother ‘withdrawing’ from the narrative leaving her child to the final care of a surrogate mother. The child is, of course, already in the care of her father and her grandmother but the emphasis is upon the child’s need for a mother. Another interesting film of the category is Mahesh Manjrekar’s Astitva (1999). The film is a family drama and tells the story of Srikanth, his wife Aditi (Tabu), and son Aniketh. Srikanth is a successful businessman in Pune, and his old friend Ravi Bapat arrives from Goa to visit him. Aniketh is engaged to Revathi and the wedding is shortly due to take place. Ravi is married to Meghna who was a divorcee and Ravi has also become father to her two children. During the day, Aditi receives a registered letter informing her that her former music teacher Malhar Kamat has just expired in Hubli and left her a sizeable fortune. (p.276) Srikanth has been maintaining a private journal and something about this event disturbs him. He therefore spends the next day in his office going through the journal and the realization gradually dawns upon him that Aniketh was conceived in a period when he was never with Aditi and that the boy is therefore not his son at all. Everything also points to Malhar Kamat being the boy’s natural father. Srikanth returns home earlier than usual and confronts his wife with the knowledge. Aditi is dumbstruck but, after Ravi and Meghna are recalled from Goa to participate in the proceedings, she admits the truth in front of Srikanth, Aniketh, and the Bapats. Her remonstrations that she only loved Srikanth and that she stopped seeing Malhar Kamat does not reassure the family. Aniketh is also upset and openly insults his mother although Srikanth has just disclaimed his relationship with the boy. The truth about Aniketh’s illegitimacy accidentally gets out, Revathi breaks off her engagement with him, and the boy naturally blames his mother. The film ends with Aditi leaving the household with Revathi—it turns out that the girl broke off her engagement to Aniketh because she recognized his heartlessness and not because she disapproved of Aditi’s infidelity.

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Towards the New Millennium The film leaves Aditi well provided for so that uncomfortable economic questions do not engage the spectator and this is in tune with times when wealth is a necessary ingredient in a happy ending. Despite this factor, Astitva is not as pleasantly reassuring as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and the presence of the child is not made the obvious issue. Malhar Kamat does not withdraw from the narrative to leave a single mother struggling and he merely represents an aberrant interlude in Aditi’s otherwise stable existence; it is therefore the discovery of Aditi’s adultery that becomes the issue in the film. Especially pertinent to us is perhaps Astitva’s introduction of Ravi Bapat and Meghna as the ideal couple with adult responses to issues. Being Srikanth’s childhood friend, Ravi also becomes the ideal vehicle for a moral viewpoint to be brought into the narrative. Although Ravi and Meghna take Aditi’s side over her adultery, their story tells us that the film’s concerns pertain to assumed parenthood. It is perhaps for this reason that rather than Srikanth, it is the selfish Aniketh who is made the villain of the film. Aniketh is triply a ‘bastard’—because he is illegitimate, because Srikanth disavows his paternity, and because Aniketh thoughtlessly rejects the one person who continues to care for him, his mother. (p.277) Although Aditi is compensated when she gains a daughter, Aniketh is suitably punished when he loses his father, his mother, and Revathi. Aniketh’s position is like the child Anjali’s in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Where the girl wins a mother in Karan Johar’s film, Aniketh loses his mother due to his selfishness and lack of understanding. Both films nonetheless affirm the same need for the parent. The third film, Kundan Shah’s Kya Kehna (2000), is more explicit in the same concerns and deals with a girl who courageously decides to have her illegitimate child although its natural father declines responsibility for it. Priya (Preity Zinta) comes from a happy family and she is lively, vivacious, and bold. She comes into contact with a young playboy named Rahul (Saif Ali Khan) and falls in love although her brother warns her against him. Rahul belongs to a richer family and refuses to marry her when she becomes pregnant although he admits that the child is his. He first offers to marry her subject to an immediate divorce and subsequently also agrees to pay for an abortion, but Priya decides to have the baby. She goes ahead although her affair has become a scandal in her college and the other students stage a fictional enactment of it in her presence, a play in which the unwed mother also commits suicide. Priya goes ahead bravely though the whole town (pushed by Rahul’s mother) is against her having the baby. She gives birth to the baby and Rahul decides he wants to marry Priya after all. Priya however does not marry him but decides upon her old admirer Ajay, who is only too glad to be father to her child. Kya Kehna is a remarkably bold film by the conventions of Indian popular cinema but there are worrying aspects to it that need examination. Before going into them however, the issue of illegitimate motherhood as portrayed in Kya Kehna and Astitva needs to be compared with the portrayals of the late 1960s and early 1970s (Aradhana, Andaz, and Daag). In the earlier films the woman is Page 34 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium represented as being in a state of ‘innocence’ that makes way for experience with the birth of the child, and the child is actually emblematic of experience. The absence of the swollen belly in the films ensures that the condition of pregnancy is not ‘problematized’ and this tends to confirm that the child is a mere symbol. Priya in Kya Kehna remains in the same condition before and after her dalliance with Rahul and she does not move from ‘innocence’ to ‘experience’. She is also shown to have a distended abdomen and this makes the unborn child a much more ‘real’ concern. (p.278) In Astitva, Aditi is respectably married when she has the child by her lover and her essential condition does not alter after Aniketh’s birth. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is not about illegitimacy at all but about the child needing a mother. The questions posed by the three films are apparently different from those asked by Aradhana, Daag, and Andaz and they all problematize the position of the child. Does not the child need a parent and who will take up the responsibility of the parent?

The Audience I noted earlier that Kya Kehna has worrying aspects and this has little to do with its professed concerns, although it is related to the way in which its story is told. One of the most striking features of the film is the apparent absence of the ‘intimate’ in it. Several crucial sequences in the narrative are played out in the ‘public domain’ when there are bystanders or onlookers who are witness to the happenings in the narrative. The first of these events happens in school when Priya publicly slaps and exposes the vice-principal in a school day function for attempting to molest the girl students. This is used to demonstrate Priya’s impetuosity and her boldness, and sets the terms for the rest of the narrative. The next sequence is in college when Priya’s brother Vicky beats up Rahul for making eyes at his sister while the whole college watches. The third event is set in Vicky’s engagement party when Priya becomes unconscious and this becomes the public occasion when her pregnancy is diagnosed. Priya’s pregnancy therefore comes to the knowledge of the other students and pictures of the girl with her inflated abdomen are drawn on the college blackboards. The film is also set in a small hill town and Rahul’s mother makes a speech in the local town hall opposing Priya’s decision to have her child. Priya is initially cast out of the house for bringing dishonour to the family but the reconciliation is soon effected and the sequence ends with a song by the entire family on a street with hundreds of spectators watching the proceedings avidly. The turning point in the narrative significantly occurs when the fictionalized version of Priya’s story is staged in the college and the pregnant girl in the play is made to commit suicide. Everyone including Priya applauds the production but Priya makes use of the occasion to climb upon the stage and make a public speech explaining that she (p.279) has committed no ‘paap’ (sin), that she had only loved, and she then proceeds to elaborate upon motherhood. This act fetches her a standing ovation and Rahul leads the way. From this point onwards Rahul demonstrates his inclination to marry Priya—especially as she is more Page 35 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium admired. Priya’s achievement is to have evidently ‘upstaged’ not only Rahul but everyone else in the college as well and, to her former lover, this evidently makes her a worthier object to attain. This ‘publicness’ has a converse side and we see this at Vicky’s wedding when the scandal makes certain that there are no guests and the wedding becomes a ‘private’ affair. Kya Kehna has a narrative that deals with private problems and personal dilemmas but it takes the unprecedented step of situating itself in the public domain. We saw something like this in HAHK because this film assembles crowds who are privy to the affairs of the family. The difference is that the crowds in this film are not composed of disinterested onlookers and there is some justification in guests attending celebrations at the residence of their hosts. In Kya Kehna, we see the public at large being privy to Priya’s life because much of it happens in the public space. Kundan Shah’s film does this deliberately and there is evidently some attraction in its chosen approach. In the American film To Die For (1995) by Gus Van Sant, the protagonist, who has ardent media aspirations, declares innocently that useful action would be worthless without an audience and uses this personal philosophy to justify her anxiety to be on television. Van Sant’s film is deliberately ironic but it sheds light on one of the major attractions of contemporary times and that is the turning of oneself into an object for public gaze. We are conscious of the vicarious pleasure in participating in the life of a celebrity but there is, conversely, equal gratification in becoming the object of public vicariousness and this is apparently the pleasure that Kya Kehna harnesses. There are later films from Hollywood where the star terminates the business of representing someone else on the screen and turns the force of his/her celebrity persona upon the spectator. While this act sometimes leads to a temporary breakdown of narrativity60 in the films, such a breakdown does not occur in Kya Kehna because Priya is the ‘star’ and not the actress who plays her (Preity Zinta). Priya’s ‘stardom’ is part of the film’s fiction and is even implicated in the ‘first cause’ (when she publicly upbraids the vice-principal). Her stardom is also allowed to (p.280) spill over to include her middle-class family, shown to gain prestige because Rahul’s wealthy father comes to its doorstep to ask for Priya’s hand for his son. What are the implications of all this? A clue can perhaps be found in the play performed within the film by Priya’s collegemates where the pregnant girl finally kills herself. It is perhaps significant that an actor playing a police inspector delivers the moral contained in the play. Priya stands up and applauds the play but takes the opportunity to explain her position to the ‘public’. Priya is apparently in the position of the truth-telling heroine of Damini with the difference that it is not Priya’s ‘conscience’ that is the arbiter but the ‘public’. But the ‘public’ itself is not shown to possess intrinsic moral qualities because it is fickle and turned by the slightest persuasion. It can be argued that the film is proposing that, where state Page 36 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium authority was once moral arbiter, there are no such arbiters today and that the presence of the ‘audience’ determines the merit of the act. This is startling because it is part of the film’s trasmitted message and the ‘transmitted messages’ of popular cinema were, not so long ago, overridingly ‘pre-capitalist’. Capitalism and the free market officially entered India only in 1991–2 but the inroads made into popular cinema’s outlook, in less than a decade, were immense. In conclusion, it would be pertinent to make a few remarks about the leading male star of the post-liberalization era. I have already tried to explain Govinda’s appeal but still need to say a few words about (the early) Shah Rukh Khan— since he has been the most successful of the new stars. Shah Rukh Khan’s first major role was the one he played in Baazigar and my own reading of Baazigar’s ‘anti-hero’ is that he represented the alarming possibility of erosion in moral values brought about by the demise of Nehruvian interventionism. To recall, in Baazigar it is because the state hesitates to intervene in the struggle between the Sharmas and the Chopras that the protagonist acts as he does. The only other male protagonist to invite comparison with Baazigar’s antihero is the one played by Dev Anand in Jaal (1952). Both anti-heroes, significantly, invite our censure because of the way they treat defenceless and trusting women (Can there be anything more dastardly?). Since I interpreted the protagonist’s amorality in Jaal as engendered by the absence of the ‘moral state’, the conduct of Baazigar’s protagonist too can be attributed to a similar dearth. I suggest that there was genuine alarm felt in the early 1990s at the possibility of damage to the nation’s (p.281) moral fabric by the new economic policies of the P.V. Narasimha Rao government and that the films of the 1990s—like Satya—will bear out the contention that the alarm was not entirely misplaced. Returning to the meaning of Shah Rukh Khan, the star’s most important film after Baazigar was DDLJ. The protagonist in this film seems initially to be too facetious to be anything but amoral but we are reassured that he is deeply mindful of tradition —especially because of the way in which he wins the heroine. Shah Rukh Khan’s post-Baazigar persona perhaps draws upon the moment when the political ethic propounded by Nehruvian socialism had just vacated the national space and heroes needed to draw directly from tradition to remain moral beings. Notes:

(1.) Beatrix Pfleiderer, ‘An Empirical Study of Urban and Semi-Urban Audience Reactions to Hindi Films’, in Beatrix Pfleiderer and Lothar Lutze (eds), The Hindi Film: Agent and Re-agent of Cultural Change, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985, p. 89. (2.) Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, Delhi: Penguin, 1997, p. 95.

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Towards the New Millennium (3.) M. Madhava Prasad, ‘Signs of Ideological Re-form in Two Recent Films: Towards Real Subsumption?’ in Ravi S. Vasudevan (ed.), Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 145–68. (4.) Ibid., p. 154. (5.) It will also be difficult to recall the ‘hysterical’ heroine as an identifiable type from Hindi cinema. Hysteria is, at most, a temporary condition induced by tragic circumstances. (6.) Prasad, ‘Signs of Ideological Re-form in Two Recent Films’, p. 157. (7.) ‘In the moment of arrival of real subsumption (that we are living through), capital is breaking out of the impasse of the ruling coalition, emerging into complete dominance. It is no longer necessary to artificially prolong the life of ‘tradition’, that alleged entity which was modernity’s own invention, its preferred rendering of the adversary’s profile. The ideology of formal subsumption, which insisted on the difference between the modern and the traditional, and the need to protect that difference, resulted in the protection given to the feudal family romance as the appropriate form of entertainment for the masses. This difference and the apparatuses that are meant to preserve it are no longer sustainable.’ Ibid., pp. 165–6. (8.) When the police arrive making inquiries about Urmi’s rape they seem to be more tenacious than they last were in the earlier films of the 1980s. Also, when Shekar beats up the inspector for being too dogged, the spectator is clearly on the police’s side. It is only later that it emerges that the police are inquiring into the rape not in the interests of justice but because they have taken money from Bajaj to discredit the Gupta family. (9.) Prasad remarks (p. 157) that the films of the 1970s show time and again that the state is rotten but fails to cite any films. My own inquiry reveals that eroded state authority is a characteristic of the 1980s and not of the 1970s. Prasad, ‘Signs of Ideological Re-form in Two Recent Films’. (10.) A comparison of Baazigar with Gurudutt’s Jaal shows us how convincing the anti-hero of the earlier film was—entirely because of the filmmaker’s steadfastness to the rules intrinsic to melodrama. (11.) Kshastriya continues with the motif of caste violence seen in Dutta’s films of the 1980s but it also includes an incongruous extended segment in which the protagonists all study in Britain, this becoming an occasion for the film to embark upon an exploration of tourist locales. (12.) Robert Scholes, ‘Narration and Narrativity in Film’, in Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen (eds), Film Theory and Criticism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 390–405. Page 38 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium (13.) For instance, see Rustom Bharucha, ‘Utopia in Bollywood’, Economic and Political Weekly, 30 (15), 15 April 1995, pp. 801–4. (14.) For instance, Nikhat Kazmi, ‘The Lure of the Low Brow’, Times of India, Delhi, 2 April 1995. (15.) HAHK is a remake of Nadiya Ke Paar (1982) a rustic melodrama also produced by Tarachand Barjatya. In the earlier film, the two ‘in-laws’ are a farmer and a doctor practising traditional medicine and the action is located in two adjacent villages connected by a river. (16.) For instance, see Meenakshi Mukherjee, ‘The HAHK Phenomenon: Appeal of Permanence and Stability’, Times of India, 27 May 1995. (17.) Vijay Mishra, Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, London: Routledge, 2002, points out instances in Indian history when actual kings recast their own reigns symbolically as Ramrajya, the golden age of Ayodhya itself, a mortal king becoming a divine king, pp. 206–8. (18.) Mishra, ibid., suggests that the political inclusion of Muslims within Hindu India is part of the agenda of the right-wing BJP because ‘A Hindu is he who… inherits the blood of the great race whose first and discernible source could be traced from the Himalayan attitudes of the Vedic Sapthahindus,’ p. 212. But also seen in a dance is an unknown Sikh gentleman. One of the characters also dresses up as a Christian bride in another scene. (19.) See Rustom Bharucha, ‘Utopia in Bollywood: Hum Aapke Hain Koun….!’, Economic and Political Weekly, 15 April 1995, pp. 801–4. As the writer points out the film is a virtual parade of fetishized middle class status symbols—in homes, cars, children’s toys, clothes, confectionery, and even pet dogs. Also see Patricia Uberoi, ‘Imaging the Family: An Ethnography of Viewing Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!’, in Rachel Dwyer, Christopher Pinney (eds), Pleasure and the Nation: The History, Politics and Consumption of Public Culture in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 334. (20.) Mishra, Bollywood Cinema, p. 206, suggests that the Ramtekri of HAHK is an actual place. This is hardly supported by its visual evocation in the film. (21.) L. Jayamanne, ‘Sri Lankan Family Melodrama: A Cinema of Primitive Attractions’, Screen, 33(2), 1992, pp. 145–53. (22.) Interview with Madhuri Dixit (the actress who plays Nisha in HAHK) in Filmfare, no. 4, 1985. Cited by Uberoi, ‘Imaging the Family’, p. 313. (23.) Bharucha, ‘Utopia in Bollywood’, p. 801.

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Towards the New Millennium (24.) According to Jayamanne, ‘Sri Lankan Family Melodrama’, p. 150, the traditional dichotomies in South Asian melodrama are rural: urban, poor: rich, East: West, and good: bad. In Indian cinema the first three are always associated with overt social/political discourses of some sort. For instance, the rural/urban divide came to fore in the 1950s when the responses to Nehruvian modernity needed to be represented. HAHK acknowledges only one dichotomy and this is represented by the simple polarities of good and bad. (25.) Violence ceasing to be an essential ingredient of all popular cinema does not mean that it leaves cinema altogether, apparently only leaving the romance. The significant fact is that the ‘diversionary’ fight sequence is hardly in evidence after HAHK. (26.) Uberoi, ‘Imaging the Family’, p. 312. (27.) Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1983, p. 14. (28.) Mike Featherstone, ‘Localism, Globalism, Cultural Identity’, in Rob Wilson, Wimal Dissanayake (eds), Global Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary, Durham: Duke University Press, 1996, pp. 53–4. (29.) The school is called ‘gurukul’ after the traditional system of education in India. Perversely, however, the entire film is shot in the south of England in the vicinity of Bath. The film also bears some resemblance to Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society (1989). (30.) Uberoi, ‘Imaging the Family’, p. 341. (31.) As illustrations, capitalist’s son and small businessman’s daughter (Bobby), princess and commoner (Dharam Veer), heirs of rival business families (Baazigar), rich man’s son and orphan girl (Dhool Ka Phool), daughter of military man and magistrate (Sangam). (32.) For a useful account see Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America, New York: Vintage Books, 1994, pp. 340–2. As evidence of Hollywood’s success, in 1968 European films had a 68 per cent share in the European market while American films has only 35 per cent. In 1994, the share of the American film industry in Europe went up to 80 per cent with a 20 per cent share for European cinema. Data from Antonio-Pedro Vasconcelos (Chair), Report by the Think Tank (On the Audiovisual Industry in Europe), Brussels: Commission of the European Union, 1994. (33.) See Andrew Britton, ‘Blissing Out: The Politics of Reaganite Entertainment’, Movie, 31/32, Winter 1986, p. 2.

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Towards the New Millennium (34.) See M. Madhava Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 35–50. (35.) Post-Fordism is the movement away from a largely undifferentiated mass market served by a limited array of standardized, mass-produced commodities to a more heterogeneous range of specific markets to which specialized products can profitably be sold. (36.) See Jessica Hines, ‘A Discussion of Film Production in Bombay and Spectatorship in the South-Asian Diaspora’, unpublished dissertation in Cinema and Television Studies, London: BFI, October 1998, pp. 10–15. (37.) Ibid., p. 12, Hines cites critic Richard Schickel to substantiate her description of the transformation of film narrative in Hollywood. (38.) A.K. Ramanujan, in a study of Kannada folklore, observes that when a grandmother’s tale travels from the domestic to the public space (the village), it actually gains in terms of detail and complexity. Places are cited where they aren’t in the grandmother’s rendering and the telling is also embellished through the expertise of the professional. This may appear to contradict my hypothesis but I propose that ‘global to local’ is not simply a continuation of the ‘home to community’ expansion. Storytelling within the household assumes a personal relationship between the storyteller and the listener, which is not true of a professional performance. Significantly, when Ramanujan describes the ‘domestication’ of classical myth when it becomes ‘local’ folklore, he detects a transformation that can even be termed enrichment because it is substantially humanized. This observation may therefore actually support my hypothesis. See A.K. Ramanujan, ‘Two Realms of Kannada Folklore’, in Stuart Blackburn and A.K. Ramanujan (eds), Another Harmony: New Essays on the Folklore of India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 41–75. (39.) See Ravi Vasudevan, ‘Bombay and its Public, in Dwyer, Pinney (eds), Pleasure and the Nation, p. 187. As Vasudevan observes, the families are dismembered generationally and it is each generation that retains its integrity. (40.) To make a comparison, the fortunes of the Muslim family are intimately affected by Partition in M.S. Sathyu’s Garam Hawa and it is as though the family is actually broken up by history. (41.) The most perceptive essay from this viewpoint is perhaps Vasudevan, ‘Bombay and its Public’, pp. 186–211. (42.) Ibid., p. 205. (43.) Ideology of the Hindi Film, p. 69. (44.) Vasudevan, ‘Bombay and its Public’ p. 188. Page 41 of 43

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Towards the New Millennium (45.) Within Bombay, the stock exchange building is perhaps where the soul of the newly resurgent India is located. It is no coincidence that the Bombay blasts of 1993 targeted this building, as if to undermine the nation’s optimism; the restoration of the building in record time was also widely heralded as a national triumph. (46.) See J.F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. (Originally published in French in 1979.) (47.) Frederic Jameson, ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, in E. Ann Kaplan (ed.), Postmodernism and Its Discontents, London: Verso, 1989, p. 29. (48.) See Mike Featherstone, Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990. (49.) Francois Truffaut once remarked that a great strength of American cinema was its showing how working people’s jobs are done. (See James Monaco, American Film Now: The People, the Power, the Money, the Movies, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 73). This may correspond to an emphasis on the ‘ethic of production’. Films like Jaws and The French Connection draw upon this strength but we find later films tending to celebrate consumption-based lifestyles in a more conspicuous manner and this corresponds to an emphasis on the ‘ethic of consumption’. (50.) Jameson, ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, p. 28 (51.) See Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism; or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1991. (52.) Jameson, ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, p. 16. (53.) Pastiche is also the combining together in one work of disparate styles and, in this sense, Hero No. 1 is apparently not ‘pastiche’. (54.) Mard is perhaps the most bizarrely frenetic nationalist film ever made in India. It is set in Desai’s own version of British India and the hero (Amitabh Bachchan) is a cart driver with the word ‘mard’ (Man) inscribed on his chest. The villains are assorted Englishmen named Simon, Dyer, Curzon (historical names used with no attention to history whatsoever), and a treacherous AngloIndian named Mayor Harry, whose daughter loves the hero. Part of the action takes place in a club pool, which has sign outside saying ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’. (55.) Jameson, ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, pp. 18–20.

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Towards the New Millennium (56.) Indian villains have played national enemies in earlier cinema. In S.S. Vasan’s Shatranj (1969), a film about an Indian Scarlet Pimpernel in China, screen villain Madan Puri plays a Chinese general. (57.) The first words uttered in Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) are, for instance, ‘I believe in America.’ (58.) Satya is only one film from the category. Mahesh Manjrekar’s Vaastav (2000) is another melodrama with virtually the same discourse about ‘social Darwinism’ in the Bombay underworld. (59.) K. Venkataramanan, Review of Bihar is in the Eye of the Beholder by Vijay Nambisan, Indian Review of Books, Chennai, 15 February–16 March 2001, pp. 5– 6. (60.) I suggest that the celebrated restaurant sequence in When Harry Met Sally (1989) in which Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm in full view of the other clients corresponds to such a moment.

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A Conclusion

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

A Conclusion M.K. Raghavendra

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.003.0009

Abstract and Keywords This chapter discusses the changing audience profile of Indian popular cinema. Whereas the earnings of Bollywood films in the international market were not substantial, this began to change and according to the last estimate, Indian films were earning overseas as much as they were from the domestic market—an indication that the reach of Indian cinema was gradually becoming global. Apart from discussing the gradually changing market of Bollywood films, this chapter also tackles the divergences of the film Titanic with the social constructs of Indian society and the prevailing themes of Indian films. The conclusion provides an analysis of Lagaan, the first Oscar-nominated Indian film. The latter part of the chapter delves into the contrasting issues of nationalism and globalism of Indian cinema, particularly the threats posed by globalization to the Indian film industry. Keywords:   changing audience profile, Bollywood film, international market, Titanic, Lagaan, nationalism, globalization

Changing Spectator Profiles I began my study of Indian popular cinema as a local phenomenon intended to serve a local purpose within India. This approach was considered justified because, even as late as 1990, a relatively small proportion of the total receipts came from overseas exhibition. A study conducted in 19911 declared that although India was the largest film-producing country in the world, its earnings from foreign markets were not substantial and the proportionate share had actually been higher in the 1970s. This position however began to change and, according to the last estimate, Indian cinema’s earnings from overseas Page 1 of 17

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A Conclusion exhibition are nearly as much as they are from the domestic market. This is partly facilitated by overseas spectators paying substantially more for the price of a single ticket.2 The result of the increase in overseas revenues meant that Indian popular cinema had to gradually go global although this did not mean that it would address the same spectators as Hollywood. The overseas spectator profile has also been transformed as the table on p. 283 providing regionwise data indicates. The data pertaining to 2001 does not take re-exporting into account but it still suggests that the overseas spectator, an inhabitant of the ‘Third World’ in 1988, was in 2001 a non-resident Indian or South Asian. A report also confirms that non-resident Indians are playing a big part in the viability of any film today.3 This is perhaps only a probability, but one expects that non-resident perceptions of the national space will be suffused with nostalgia, perhaps even sentimentalizing it instead of responding sharply to local issues. (p.283)

Region/country

% share in 1988*

Region/Country

% share in 2001**

Gulf

35.16

USA

30

USSR

14.17

UK

25

South East Asia

23.40

Dubai

10

Sri Lanka

3.79

Mauritius

10

Morocco

2.93

Others

25

UK/Ireland

3.30

Mauritius

2.35

Others

14.90

(*) Notes: John A. Lent, The Asian Film Industry, London: Christopher Helm, 1990 (courtesy NFDC). (**) Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Indian Entertainment Industry: Envisioning for Tomorrow, March 2001, prepared by Arthur Anderson.

Misreading Titanic In the last chapter we detected a breakdown in narrativity in popular cinema as the attraction of spectacle began to gain ground. Cinema does not produce simple spectacle but spectacle in the form of narrative. Contrary to the earlier view (Kracauer’s) that held the richness of the image to be responsible for its effects exceeding conscious intention and registering the social unconscious, it Page 2 of 17

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A Conclusion is now argued (by Jameson) that the visual needs to be buttressed through its incorporation into the narrative.4 Mere glossiness actually counts against cinema because the visual itself does not produce meaning. Indian popular cinema is beginning to actually ‘mean’ less as it becomes less local but this is a characteristic often also exhibited by Hollywood blockbusters of the 1990s. To summarize what was said in the last chapter, it may be said that the breakdown in narrativity has an apparent correspondence with the depletion of the ‘local’ in both Hollywood and Indian popular cinema. Ironically, it is the breakdown in narrativity that could make Indian popular cinema vulnerable in its own market because it is the approach to narrative that distinguishes ‘Bollywood’ from Hollywood. By all accounts, Hollywood’s greatest commercial success in India has been James Cameron’s Titanic, which was released in the country in 1998 and I propose that its success (p.284) owed much to a misreading actually made possible by its emphasis on spectacle. Patricia Uberoi notes that there is one way of deciding whether a movie has caught the public imagination in India: a catch phrase from the film will be inscribed on the back of a three-wheeler autorickshaw.5 Sometimes a picture representing the film is also painted behind on the vehicle’s canvas top and Titanic’s achievement in India was that the image of the sinking ship or the one of Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio on the ship’s prow often adorned three-wheelers. The exact reasons for Titanic’s success are not easy to determine but they could hardly have rested in its spectacle alone. There have been other expensive, action-filled, spectacularly mounted films from Hollywood that nonetheless fared poorly in recent years. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), Spielberg’s The Lost World (2000), Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot (2000), Wolfgang Petersen’s The Perfect Storm (2000), and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings (2002) are obvious examples—and the attraction of Titanic to Indian audiences lies elsewhere. Strangely enough, an examination of Cameron’s film shows us how close it may seem to an Indian audience to their own kind of cinema and that helps provide an explanation for Titanic’s success. The following is an attempt to read Titanic like an Indian film. Titanic begins with a salvage crew searching the wreck for a safe deposit box that is expected to contain a fabulous jewel—a diamond named ‘The Heart of the Ocean’ belonging to one of the passengers, which was presumably lost with the sinking of the liner. The safe is found and its contents are examined but the diamond itself is missing. This news reaches a television channel and the picture is telecast, duly attracting the attention of an old woman named Rose, who claims that she was on the ill-fated ship and is the actual woman in the picture. Rose is flown post haste to the site of the wreck and, as may be expected, the sight of the picture puts her into a reverie, and the film sets off upon an extended flashback. It has been noticed that flashbacks are relatively rare in the

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A Conclusion classical Hollywood film because these intrusions tend to ‘slow the dramatic progression’.6 The flashback in Titanic is as extended as it is in the Indian popular film and can be compared with the one seen in Mehboob Khan’s Mother India, where too an old woman recollects her past. As in Mother India, ‘memory’ only provides the excuse for the flashback because the film makes us privy to events that the character herself could not have (p.285) witnessed. The flashbacks are similar but an important distinction between the two films can be made and this is that a different actress plays the older Rose—to provide for the changes that have taken place in her condition. In Mother India, the actress who plays the older Radha also plays the younger one as if to suggest that, in essence, the woman has remained unaltered. Rose herself has lived a full life after losing Jack Dawson and the film makes it evident that she has been able to overcome the impact of the tragedy upon her life. Her brief love affair no longer takes an emotional toll (after 84 long years) although she is able to recall it vividly and warmly. Titanic may be conceived differently but its vision of love still allows an ‘Indian’ reading. Jack Dawson gazes dumbstruck at Rose the very first time he sees her and this soon develops into an enduring love. The love between the two is not allowed to develop, perhaps because the duration of the narrative is too short, and Jack puts Rose through no emotional hurt as their love blossoms. The fact that Jack has saved her life virtually guarantees that she can feel only love for him and this is an assurance that the Indian popular film also extends. Jack Dawson’s death is comfortingly arranged and tends to reassure the spectator in some way. His extraction of a final promise from Rose that she will live long and bear children is even more consoling. Rose has just had a sexual relationship with Jack, she gives her name as ‘Rose Dawson’ to her rescuers, and there is nothing apart from her surname (Calvert) to suggest the presence of an actual husband. This makes it possible for Indian audiences to read the story of the film as they might a traditional Indian romance like Shakti Samanta’s Aradhana— where the woman survives her lover and remains eternally faithful to his memory while she brings up his children and his grandchildren—as if implying that love is, in essence, eternal. Titanic has other motifs that have equivalents in Indian cinema and these need elaboration. While Rose’s own mother is too negatively portrayed to resemble a mother in Indian cinema, the film provides the more amiable Molly Brown who helps Jack and who can, with some effort, be identified with the surrogate mother. Rose and Jack share a passion for art—Jack draws wonderfully and Rose recognizes it—and this makes their love special considering that the other ‘high society’ people on board the liner are philistines. In Indian popular cinema men and women are not usually brought together by common (p.286) intellectual pursuits although (as instances) the heroine in Yash Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhie Page 4 of 17

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A Conclusion (1976) or Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa (1957) falls in love with a young man after reading his poetry. As we have also seen, the story of love blossoming between people unequally placed in society is a common one in Indian popular cinema although few instances where a man other than the hero has first claim upon the heroine can actually be recalled. Titanic also contrasts the spontaneity of the ‘simple folk’ with the prim behaviour of the privileged and the wealthy in a manner recalling Raj Kapoor’s Bobby. The theme of Titanic determines that the narrative should have a short and a very definite duration and this is contrary to our experience of Indian popular cinema. This restriction upon the duration as well as the certainty of the outcome makes the usual demands upon character and plot ‘development’ difficult to fulfil and the narrative responds to this. Rose and Jack need to reach a level of intimacy that might normally have taken much longer and the film cannot show this as being gradually attained. The high point of the relationship between Jack and Rose is evidently reached when he sketches her naked or, more accurately, wearing only the piece of jewellery hanging from her neck, and this happens within a few hours of their first meeting. The method chosen to represent the increased intimacy is significant. An examination of the film reveals that the first flashback has been broken off immediately before the episode showing the drawing of the picture. The older Rose is seen accidentally looking at the remains of a fireplace on the wreck and this sets off a fresh reverie that includes her sketching by Jack, this developing to the point where the two actually have sex. The film is obviously using the device of a fresh reverie because it cannot show the relationship logically developing to this point —given the restrictions placed upon duration—and it therefore treats the growing intimacy between Rose and Jack episodically. The appearances of Spicer Lovejoy (who spies upon Rose for her fiancé Caledon Hockley) wherever he is least expected are also abruptly fortuitous. They serve to keep Hockley constantly informed of Rose’s doings and he is therefore omniscient like Indian popular film villains. Jack’s framing and temporary imprisonment in the hold happen when the ship is already sinking and this is an interruption in the drama because of our awareness that it does not alter the destiny of the character. The placing of the event tallies with similar ‘setbacks’ (p.287) to the protagonists in Indian films when the outcome of the narrative is never in doubt. An important factor that links Titanic’s methods to those of Indian popular cinema is our knowledge of the outcome very early in the film— the ocean liner cannot, after all, remain afloat. To the spectator who knows nothing of the Titanic’s place in maritime history—and there will be many in an Indian audience who answer to the description— the diagrammatic representation of the ship’s sinking by the iceberg seen at the film’s beginning is helpful. The narrative of the film then seems like a series of expectations progressively Page 5 of 17

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A Conclusion fulfilled. The film also does not end in the present with the elderly Rose returning home from the wreck but in an imagined moment on board the ship when Jack and Rose embrace and kiss, to be warmly applauded by the passengers looking on. While this is apparently a ruse to ensure that the identities of the stars submerge the individualities of the characters they are playing, the placing of the sequence also helps it resemble the closing strategy adopted by an Indian film like Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. The comparable closing sequence in the Indian film is, however, not intended as a concession to star appeal but as an indication that the ideal love experienced by the protagonists will endure forever. Titanic is apparently made according to the rules governing film construction in Hollywood but it also has peculiarities that answer to Indian requirements. These can be separately ascribed to its duration being too short to allow for narrative development and to the predetermined outcome of the tale. But these peculiarities also mean that the film allows itself to be ‘misread’ by Indian audiences7 and its resounding success in the subcontinent is perhaps attributable to this factor. It is difficult to see Hollywood consciously modifying its narrative strategies to make films acceptable to the Indian palate and Titanic strangely suiting it is evidently accidental. What is pertinent, however, is that the success of the film gives evidence of Indian audiences being comfortable with the notion of a strictly defined duration. While Titanic is more episodic than most American films, it is still tightly made by ‘Bollywood’ standards and this points to the Indian spectator moving towards accepting ‘global norms’ in narrative construction although there are still restrictions on the kinds of narratives that will be accepted. (p.288) Whatever the nature of its construction, Titanic could not have had the same appeal for Indian audiences if it had been actually richer in the ‘local’. Aspects such as the film’s inattention to characterization derive from its neglect of its narrative obligations but this ‘blankness’ also allows wide-spectrum Indian audiences to respond to Titanic as they would to Indian popular cinema even if this is due to a ‘misreading’. The narrative of Titanic may make it inherently more open to ‘Indian responses’ than Lord of the Rings or Gladiator but the depletion of the ‘local’ also assists it considerably in this end. Interestingly, within two or three years of Titanic, Indian popular cinema produced a blockbuster with some international appeal. The film Lagaan also won an Oscar nomination (for best foreign film), signalling that Indian popular cinema may have found a way to become globally acceptable—within the mainstream in the West and not only to non-resident Indians—although subsequent films have tended to belie such expectations.

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A Conclusion Lagaan An examination of Indian popular films of the 1990s has already shown how the economic liberalization measures of 1992 drove social conflict out of Indian popular cinema. As noted earlier, there are similarities between the post-1961 and the post-1992 scenarios and one of them is that both the defeat in the IndoChinese War and the perceived withdrawal of the state from the public space— with deregulation— led to spectacle receiving an impetus in popular cinema. Foreign locations become abruptly visible in both periods and this is singular considering that the attractions of Switzerland or Holland are hardly apparent in the films of the intervening period. There is, however, also a major difference between the films of the two periods and this lies in nationalism having gone out of vogue after 1961 (until one more war restored the nation’s pride) but actually becoming dominant, as never before, after 1992. One of the first Indian popular films to achieve the distinction of conforming to ‘global standards’ in film entertainment while addressing domestic needs is apparently Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan (2001). Lagaan is, commercially, one of the most astute of Indian films and its examination is necessary if we must understand the commercial options confronting Indian commercial cinema. (p.289) The opening of Lagaan does not resemble any opening from popular cinema that we recall and it may take its cue from Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977). We see a map of colonial India and a voice over (Amitabh Bachchan in both films) announces the year as 1893 and the location of the action as Champaner, a fictional region in central India. The land has been ravaged by drought for several years but the English are still ruthlessly collecting taxes. After the time and place of the action are established the film goes on to introduce its protagonists. Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) is an impetuous young villager and Gauri (Gracie Singh) is his sweetheart. Champaner is ruled by a nominal maharaja named Raja Puran Singh (Kulbhushan Kharabanda) but the British are in control of the province. An army garrison is stationed in Champaner and the officer in charge is Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne) who is in India with his younger sister Elizabeth. The story of Lagaan is very simple: Bhuvan offends Captain Russell because he mocks the game being played by British soldiers and the game happens to be cricket. Captain Russell is infuriated and makes a deliberately provocative offer that if the Indians are able to beat his team at the game within three months, the double taxation now in force will be waived for three whole years, but that if they fail the tax will be tripled. The Indian team wins with Elizabeth’s help. Lagaan is more than three hours long but its structuring shows none of Indian popular cinema’s traditional looseness because the script is deliberately taut and the duration of three months is established at its very commencement. Until the moment of the cricket match, Lagaan’s structure follows the rules of classical narrative. As an illustration of the care with which causes are left dangling to Page 7 of 17

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A Conclusion keep the causal chain intact, the turncoat Lakkha notices Elizabeth’s journey to the village on his way to visit Captain Russell. This keeps us wondering about the outcome of his visit until Elizabeth’s angry brother accosts her later with the fact of her journey. The film even goes so far as to situate itself ‘historically’ and posits an actual ‘historical’ past (albeit a spurious one) instead of its familiar surrogate—family history. The recruitment of the team is done in the familiar way (the example here is Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai) and each recruit’s qualities are separately elaborated upon. These characteristics are contrary to what we have seen in Indian cinema but they do not mean that popular film conventions are (p.290) deliberately ignored. The actual playing of the cricket match takes up more than a fourth of the film and this is where the familiar Indian motifs first appear, although quite differently from the traditional melodrama. We have already noticed that Indian film melodramas are full of accidents and acts of fate, replete with unlikely tragedies and improbable coincidences through which dilemmas and predicaments are fortuitously overcome. Lagaan avoids these traditional devices but hits upon the ingenious method of making the ‘workings of destiny’ still occur—although entirely on the playing field. The fortuitous events are not evenly distributed but are more heavily loaded in favour of the Indian side. An important British batsman is bowled off a ‘no ball’ but this is not crucial to the match. Many of the white team’s successes come from tricks or because of Indian naiveté. The most crucial Indian successes are however due to unforeseen acts of fate that increase dramatically as the match progresses. The film arranges interludes of rest and reflection between playing sessions and the last of these is spent in prayer—with Bhuvan’s mother leading the singing. Although the idols to which prayer is offered are not lifelike but crudely ethnic, the prayer sequence is shot and edited to assure us of divine intervention and it is only after this reassurance that the match goes into the last day. The most important acts of providence are therefore reserved for the last day of play. One Indian player is caught off a no-ball and, on the very last ball, Captain Russell catches Bhuvan’s skier but steps over the boundary and the Indian team wins with a wicket to spare. The last ball is also preceded by images pertaining to Bhuvan’s memories of his mother invoking his father and bidding him follow in his spirited footsteps. This fleeting flashback may be identified as a puny remnant of the much longer prologue seen in films like Deewar and Agneepath, the consequences of which also drive the hero into action. The mother in Lagaan also plays only a vestige of the role that she once did in popular film narrative but she contributes to the Indian victory through her devotion. The astuteness of Lagaan evidently lies in its ability to allow the Western spectator to see the construction of the film as ‘classical’ even while allowing Indian audiences to respond to traditional motifs as they have done hitherto. We remarked earlier about abrupt intervention by the divine being facilitated in Page 8 of 17

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A Conclusion Indian popular cinema only by its non-causal narrative structuring. Lagaan drops its ‘classical style’ immediately (p.291) after the prayer sequence; the game is episodically constructed and this also makes room for intervention by the divine. When we are so drawn to celebrating Lagaan’s successes we fail to notice that, in terms of hermeneutic possibilities, its narrative is poorer that of many other films of the 1990s. Making the entire fortune of the protagonists revolve around a game of cricket may be an ingeniously uncomplicated device but this simplicity is also depletion. Indian popular cinema has traditionally paid scant attention to motivation and psychology and Lagaan actually seems richer in this respect because its characters are at least visually differentiated.8 Indian cinema has, however, always compensated for the inadequacy in characterization through its complex and contorted narratives. It is these contortions that have also allowed interpretation of key texts as social allegories but Lagaan denies this pleasure. The resolutions in Damini or Sangam were intensely melodramatic but examining the films demonstrated that their resolutions could be interpreted allegorically. This evidently cannot be done with the cricket match in Lagaan. If the game in Lagaan is dramatic, it is still a very cautious kind of drama. The game may also be identified with ‘spectacle’ because it brings no nuances into the narrative and we respond to it as we would to an actual sporting event. If we find the ‘miracles’ on the playing field employed too often and too routinely, we also remain unconvinced that a catch outside the boundary or a wicket off a ‘no ball’ means much as ‘allegory’. Lagaan endears itself to audiences but even a perfunctory examination reveals local elements in it to be vastly depleted. Films often employ the disguise of ethnicity to compensate for the depletion of what is truly local and Lagaan partly follows the trend. This depletion in Lagaan may be seen as a retrograde step for Indian film narrative but the same characteristic could, admittedly, also help make the film globally successful. Lagaan was one of the most expensive of Indian films. This suggests another link with the methods considered reliable in global entertainment because media critics have remarked that the ‘blockbuster strategy’ adopted by Hollywood—heavy investment in a few films instead of smaller investments in a larger number is a fairly safe one.9

Globalism and Nationalism For several years into the new millennium it appeared as though the strident nationalism of the Hindi film was there to stay. Indian (p.292) popular cinema may have found an allegorical way to address public concerns in the space of the nation but, until well into the 1990s, it did not profess to be an explicitly nationalist cinema. The nationalist side of Indian cinema, for reasons already elaborated upon, received an impetus with the economic liberalization measures instituted by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government in 1992 and Lagaan apparently continued the discourse initiated by earlier films. Nationalist cinema began— merely as a way of denying social conflict within the space of the nation—when Page 9 of 17

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A Conclusion there were no strong nationalist sentiments apparent. But the phase continued unabated for much too long to enable Lagaan’s ‘nationalism’ to be interpreted as I have interpreted the discourses in the films of the mid-1990s. Nationalism may seem an unlikely product of globalization but the phenomenon follows logically from the clash of cultures inherent in the process: The result of the increasing intensity of contact and communication between the nation-states and other agencies is to produce a clashing of cultures, which can lead to heightened attempts to draw boundaries between the self and the others. From this perspective… the changes taking place as a result of the current phase of intensified globalization can be understood as reactions which seek to discover particularity, localism and difference.10 It may be surmised that the nations that are cultural ‘receivers’ (like the countries of the ‘Third World’) are more likely to see themselves as under threat. They will therefore be quicker in articulating difference and in drawing boundaries between themselves and the others. Nationalism is itself essentially an enunciation of difference and can be read as a kind of ‘localism’. Evidence of the growing role of nonresident Indians in the success of Indian popular films was seen earlier. It may also be surmised, generally, that non-resident perceptions of the national space could be suffused with nostalgia, perhaps even sentimentalizing it instead of recognizing it as an actuality driven by local issues. The characteristics observed about much of Indian popular cinema today seem to make it strangely suitable for consumption by nonresident Indians. If non-resident audiences are indifferent to the depletion of the local element, if they are not only inclined to favour nationalist discourses but also possess the financial wherewithal to influence the success of a film, they could effectively provide Skinnerian reinforcement to Indian popular cinema in its nationalism.

(p.293) Still, this hypothesis does not explain why a more stridently nationalist film than Lagaan—Anil Sharma’s Gadar (2001)—should have been a much bigger success inside India especially in the smaller towns. Also, the nationalist (especially anti-Pakistani) phase has subsided considerably since 2001 and the blockbuster Fanaa (2006) even invents a Kashmiri terrorist group so equally hostile to both India and Pakistan that it targets Delhi and Karachi concurrently. Nationalism may have compensated for the depletion of the local but that does not apparently mean that it will only go from strength to strength. The nationalism in Indian cinema in the early years of the millennium may have been, instead, an expression of alarm at the strides taken by globalization. The eulogy of the nation in this period may be comparable to the privileging of tradition in the 1950s when the social fabric was threatened by Nehruvian modernity, the alarm subsiding as the fear of the modern subsided. It would also be natural for the alarm at globalization to be greater in the smaller cities and that explains the success of Gadar in Jaipur and Lucknow rather than among non-resident Indians. Still, while nationalist rhetoric in the Hindi film has subsided, it is hardly extinct and may acquire a form not interpretable as an Page 10 of 17

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A Conclusion expression of alarm at globalization. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti (2006), in fact, implicitly asserts that globalization and nationalism are not incompatible. The British, in Indian patriotic cinema, have come a long way even since Lagaan and the favoured portrayal is to have a well-meaning representative (as also in Mangal Pandey, 2005) endorsing the nationalists as he performs his duty as servant of the Raj. In Rang De Basanti the British play two different roles through the (British) female protagonist Sue and her grandfather, a jailer in British India. Implicated in colonialism and its excesses but unwillingly, the grandfather is still the objective participant who records ‘the truth’ and whose account therefore justifies the veneration heaped upon the Indian nation. British officers did maintain journals but the grandfather’s account is uncharacteristically ecstatic in its endorsement of the Indian cause and therefore serves patriotism rather than history.11 The British have often been represented in mainstream Indian cinema, although never with such approval. If Sue’s grandfather was still a colonialist, Sue herself bears no relationship to the race of colonizers. She is from the global West, and she becomes an agent of Indian (p.294) nationalism when she induces the apathetic male protagonists into a radically nationalist endeavour.

The Threat of Globalization The threat of globalization manifested itself in different ways in the Hindi cinema of the new millennium and this is often strikingly similar to the way the fear of the modern revealed itself in the 1950s. Hindi noir thrillers like Amit Saxena’s Jism (2002), Vikram Bhatt’s Jurm (2005), and Mohit Suri’s Zeher (2005) about adultery and murder are instances. The ‘global’ in new Hindi cinema is more akin to the ‘modern’ of the 1950s than to the ‘Western’ of the intervening period because it combines a hint of glamour with alarm. Like the ‘modern’ it is an attractive but also uncertain quantity that might influence Indians harmfully —which is perhaps the message of the Hindi noir heroine. Many of the films of the 1940s and 1950s are also nominally structured as thrillers. More importantly, they introduce the unexpected into their narratives in ways involving character ambiguity. In Guru Dutt’s Baazi, for instance, the unexpected is introduced through the heroine’s respectable father secretly being an urban gangster and the owner of a nightclub, an emblem of bad modernity in the 1950s. The agency responsible for the darker side of his dual nature is therefore ‘modernity’. Mehboob Khan’s Andaz is not a thriller but we saw the heroine’s free manner in Andaz making the male protagonist believe she loves him. My argument is that the heroine’s conduct is ambiguous and the agency blamed for this ambiguity is ‘modernity’. It is because Neeta is brought up as a ‘modern’ woman that Dilip misreads her behaviour and tragedy results. In the noir thrillers of the new millennium, the behavioural vocabulary of the

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A Conclusion ambiguous adulterous/murderous woman is acquired in a global milieu, a space emptied of the Indian nation and the signifiers associated with it. The same association between adultery and globalization is made by Karan Johar’s Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (KANK, 2006) but instead of adultery and murder, the film deals with adultery as love and this is an indication of how much more acceptable globalization has become to the Hindi film spectator. This is not to say that the adulterers are not punished because the man’s mother stays behind with his ex-wife and son, the man is physically handicapped, the adulterous woman is (p.295) infertile, the two lovers are ‘exiled’ from New York to Toronto with nothing except each other—an anomaly when one must be rich to be in a story. Still, the inflicted punishment is made to seem moderate. Another threat of globalization is the possibility of India’s scientific capital being stolen by the West and India’s first ‘SF’ film Rakesh Roshan’s Koi Mil Gaya (2003) allegorizes this. The film is an amalgam of numerous Hollywood films— mainly Spielberg’s ET but with touches of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spiderman, The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), and Charly (1968). In this film an Indian scientist makes contact with extraterrestrial beings but is scoffed at by scientists from the West. After his death, his mentally deficient son (Hrithik Roshan) accidentally makes contact once again and a creature— stranded briefly on Earth—restores his faculties to him. He helps it to depart, but only after overcoming an unholy alliance of Indian policemen and white scientists. To follow my earlier arguments, the film is easily read as allegorizing the surrender of India’s ‘scientific capital’ to the West by the Indian state. More interesting than this discourse in Koi Mil Gaya is however the insightful use the film makes of digital technology. Instead of employing it to embellish the ‘sci-fi’ bits, it throws it away on minor effects—like the protagonist making impossible dance moves. There is even a parallel between the miracles worked by the extraterrestrial (named Jadu) and the ‘magic’ worked by digital technology upon the narrative. In contrast to the openmouthed ‘look at what technology can do’ of films like Lord of the Rings, it responds with the more matter-of-fact and democratic ‘anyone can do’.

Coping with the Global When the alarm at the possible effects of globalization diminishes, Hindi cinema engages with the issues of coping with it and using it to advantage. A motif that proliferates in new Hindi cinema is the motif of the honest law-breaker, attracted to crime by the thieving around him. Three films that fit the description are Shaad Ali’s Bunty Aur Babli (2005), Sanjay Gadhvi’s Dhoom 2 (2006), and Manirathnam’s Guru (2007). I tried to show how the character of the petty criminal enlisted by the state was employed in films like Zanjeer and Sholay to redefine legality and admit the marginalized. The three contemporary films have perhaps the same discourse to offer, though in another context. (p.296) In fact,

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A Conclusion Guru, which is reportedly based on the life of industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani, has the protagonist declaring that laws made in a day can be changed as quickly. Bunty Aur Babli is a caper film about a young couple on a cheating spree in small-town North India. The ‘first cause’ in the film is Bunty (Abhishek Bachchan) dreaming of success in the claustrophobic smalltown environment but duped by a finance company operative. The two protagonists are arrested but the police officer (in plainclothes) releases them when assured of their penitence. The closing of the film makes a veiled suggestion that the two are enlisted by the same policeman so that their talents can be used globally. Dhoom 2 appears different because the protagonist is an international thief to begin with. The opening segment in the film shows the hero stealing what are apparently the British crown jewels. According to popular belief in India the British crown jewels are actually Indian property stolen by the former colonizers. The film capitalizes on the notion and the opening sequence includes the implicits first cause— the global milieu in which thieving is the practice. In this film as in Bunty Aur Babli, the plainclothes policeman generously gifts the hero and his female accomplice their freedom. In Guru, the young protagonist dreams about leaving his town and goes to Turkey, where he gets the better of a pavement gambler. In India he is drawn into conflict with unscrupulous people more powerful than he but becomes a successful businessman/industrialist largely through illegitimate means. After being investigated and let off lightly, he vows to create the largest business enterprise in the world. My interpretation of the claustrophobic semi-urban milieu in Bunty Aur Babli and Guru depends on the fact of the protagonist(s) breaking out of it being carried to its logical limit, that is his/their reach becoming global. The nation, the films suggest, may be less constricting than the small town but global success must eventually be sought. The thieving in Dhoom 2 and Bunty Aur Babli has the approval of the liberal state (the plainclothes policeman) and the relayed message pertains to the circumstances under which thieving becomes praiseworthy—in global enterprise. Legality needs redefining when the Indian state is no longer guardian of the law and thieves are therefore ‘admitted’. All three films are about the advantages in enterprise becoming global. If one were to draw a conclusion from the success of the films— (p.297) Dhoom 2 and Bunty Aur Babli were phenomenally successful even in the smaller cities12—one might even say that Hindi film spectators were willing to be persuaded about globalization, about its somewhat lax ethics and the associated advantages.

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A Conclusion Who Imagines the Global Nation? If nationalism and globalization are not incompatible, an important question is whether the nation will need to be represented in Hindi popular cinema at all. As we have seen, the ‘community’ has been a way of allegorizing the nation since it is often given the nation’s attributes. In Mother India, the community is the village and in HAHK, Kailash Nath’s family gathering allegorizes it. In Border the community is the military while in Lagaan, it is the cricket team. The community as the nation in microcosm means that the significant conflict in the narrative is arranged within and not caused by agencies external to it. The character(s) at the moral centre of the narrative as well as those creating discord are therefore part of the community in each film. KANK is an interesting case here because it is entirely about nonresidents with no Indian connection. KANK is not the first to do this but the Indian nation is more elusive in the film—in as much as it contains few references to it. In Sanjay Gupta’s Kaante (2002), which adapts freely from The Usual Suspects and Reservoir Dogs, the bank robbers demonstrate the superiority of things Indian by beating the American police. In Nikhil Advani’s Kal Ho Na Ho (2003), the clash is between the Indian protagonists and their Chinese neighbours with whose eatery theirs is in competition. In Kal Ho Na Ho, scoring over the Chinese is presented as a patriotic duty for non-resident Indians. In comparison with these films, narrative space in KANK appears deliberately emptied of the nation, the protagonists seeming global citizens rather than migrants in America. By all evidence the Indian nation is absent in KANK, but it can be argued that the protagonists and other Hindi speakers in New York are a community bound by tradition. The absence of signifiers indicating the American state of which Indian Americans are subjects and/or alternate communities (of Americans or other ethnic groups) suggests that the community in KANK is adapted to represent the Indian nation and not simply migrants. Despite appearances, this community has its (p.298) own strict moral codes (enforced by tradition). If Sam (Amitabh Bachchan) is a philanderer, for instance, his women are from outside the community. It is this moral code that the adulterers transgress and for which they are punished. If HAHK represented the nation as a community from which the underprivileged had been kept out (except as servants), KANK may be the first film to represent the nation as a community from which Indians themselves have been excluded. What this extreme strategy will mean to Indian popular cinema is difficult to estimate but KANK appears one more step in the movement towards ‘narrative simplicity’. The only interpretable signifiers in the film are associated with defining the nation-as-community—and its codes—and the film is hermeneutically impoverished; ‘love’ is the single motif in it. We have already seen that love is only a closure strategy. It does not constitute thematic content in popular cinema and KANK does not prove otherwise despite the unconventionality of adulterous love as a theme. KANK gets all its effects Page 14 of 17

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A Conclusion through the progress of love and, in this respect, invites comparison with Mere Mehboob. Mere Mehboob, because of its melodramatic contortions, promoted a rigorous kind of narrativity but this is not true of KANK. H.S. Rawail’s film devoted itself so intricately to an impossible love that we detected an absence in it and heard a silence, and the subject of the silence was the defeated nation. The narrative in KANK has none of the other film’s melodrama and love happens easily—despite it being adulterous. KANK is less melodramatic than Mere Mehboob but, after seeing the two films together, we understand that the melodrama of the latter film is a virtue because it is melodrama that produces meaning. In the context of Indian popular cinema, I propose that the less the melodrama in a film, the fewer the signifiers and, therefore, the less that the film actually means. The blockbusters of the new millennium are lavish in terms of spectacle but poor in terms of signifiers, which is why they mean less than the films of the 1990s like Damini and Baazigar. In commercial terms, Indian popular cinema thrives in the world today and describing it as being under an acute commercial threat from without is not accurate. Indian film exports nearly doubled in the year 2000–1 compared to the previous year13 and this means that, in terms of actual growth rates, they have done extremely well indeed. But a few years ago an international film journal asked an important question.14 The Indian film industry may be producing more features (p.299) annually (roughly 800) than any other in the world, out of which around 30 per cent are Hindi, but Bollywood has only a few titles per year that could actually be classified as hits. Only a dozen or so films ever seem to make a significant cultural impact. Where are the other films that no one hears about? The missing titles, it turned out, were low-budget exploitation films, ‘B’ and ‘C’ movies that were never designed to compete with the newest blockbuster. Cranked out in a week or two for about Rs 10–20 lakhs apiece, these productions are created primarily for exhibition in the country’s ‘B and C centers’—small towns and villages likely to be served largely by travelling exhibitors. These films may be ‘exploitation films’ but that may not mean that they are devoid of interpretable content. Many of the ‘thematic concerns’ of new Hindi cinema from the mainstream cannot evidently be of interest to Indians outside the big cities. The question that needs to be asked today is whether the mainstream Hindi film continues to remain ‘all-India’ in its address. No study has been undertaken hitherto but these ‘exploitation’ films may be producing a different kind of local meaning not intended for those in the metropolitan cities. Popular Hindi cinema may, unknown to the film researcher, actually be in separate components with different kinds of address.

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A Conclusion The example of KANK makes one ask if the commercial appeal of the mainstream Hindi blockbuster is a guarantee of its democratic reach. Could not mainstream Hindi popular cinema have become, increasingly, the exclusive territory of a privileged urban audience? Since popular cinema facilitates the creation and the maintenance of the imagined nation, this leads us to the important question of whether the different kinds of popular cinema (including regional films) outside the mainstream Hindi blockbuster perceive the nation in the same way, whether they might not be creating and maintaining a different imagined nation not accessible to the privileged urban classes. Notes:

(1.) M.A. Oomen, K.V. Joseph, Economics of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press and IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., 1991. The study cites the United Nations Trade Statistics Yearbook 1984, vol. 4, p. 225. (2.) Ibid., the study cites UNESCO Yearbook 1985, according to which total boxoffice receipts in India were $257.4 million (in 1981) although the average annual film attendance per person was 6.8. In contrast, the total box-office receipts in the United States were $3766 million (in 1983), although the annual attendance per person was only 4.7. Also see www.filmcollection2006.com. According to information available on this site, the average price of a movie ticket in India in 2005 was $0.20 as against $6.41 in the US. (3.) Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Indian Entertainment Industry: Envisioning for Tomorrow, prepared by Arthur Andersen, March 2001. (4.) The earlier position was held by Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological Study of the German Film, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947, p. 7. The later argument is advanced by Frederic Jameson, The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992, p. 67. (5.) Patricia Uberoi, ‘Imaging the Family: An Ethnography of Viewing Hum Aapke Hain Koun… !’, in Rachel Dwyer, Christopher Pinney (eds), Pleasure and the Nation: The History, Politics and Consumption of Public Culture in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 309. (6.) David Bordwell, ‘The Classical Hollywood Style’, in David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson (eds), The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988, pp. 42–3. (7.) The term ‘misreading’ is evidently an overstatement because there are large areas of overlap between Hollywood and ‘Bollywood’ in their modes of narration

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A Conclusion —and in their generation of meaning. I have however deliberately concentrated on their dissimilarities in the course of this inquiry. (8.) There is perhaps no general image that corresponds to the term ‘cricketer’ because cricketers are stars in India and are therefore individuated. (9.) Colin Hoskins, Stuart Macfayden, Adam Finn, Global Television and Film: An Introduction to the Economics of the Business, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, have the following to add: ‘Although Hollywood blockbusters may appear on the surface to represent big gambles, they really reflect financial conservatism—the pressure to combine financially proven components to enhance the chances of producing a movie with wide appeal for large audiences,’ p. 54. (10.) Mike Featherstone, ‘Localism, Globalism, Cultural Identity’, in Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake (eds), Global Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996, p. 60. (11.) Contrary to the grandfather’s journal, such ‘objective’ accounts, under the guise of reflecting upon personal experiences, actually furthered the colonial discourse. See Ranajit Guha, ‘The Prose of Counter-Insurgency’, in Ranajit Guha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (eds), Selected Subaltern Studies, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 45–86. (12.) See www.boxofficeindia.com. (13.) Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Indian Entertainment Industry. (14.) Travis Crawford, ‘B for Bollywood’, Film Comment, May–June 2002.

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Bibliography

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

(p.333) Bibliography Bibliography references: Agrawala, P.K., Aesthetic Principles of Indian Art: Their Primary Quest and Formation, Varanasi: Prithivi Prakashan, 1980. Althusser, Louis, Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays, trans., Ben Brewster, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971. Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1983. Armes, Roy, Third World Film Making and the West, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Barnouw, Erik and S. Krishnaswamy, Indian Film, New Jersey: Replica Books, 2000. Barthes, Roland, Image Music Text, trans., Stephen Heath, London: Fontana, 1977. ———. ‘Myth Today’, in Mythologies by Roland Barthes, London: Paladin, 1973. Beeman, William O., ‘The Use of Music in Popular Films––East and West’, India International Centre Quarterly, Special Issue, 8(1), March 1980. Berger, John, Art and Revolution: Ernst Neizvestny and the Role of the Artist in the USSR, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. ———. Ways of Seeing, London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 1972.

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Bibliography Berkson, Carmel, The Life of Form in Indian Sculpture, Delhi: Abhiman Publications, 2000. Bharucha, Rustom, ‘On the Border of Fascism: Manufacture of Consent in Roja’, Economic and Political Weekly, 30(23), 4 June 1994. ———. ‘Utopia in Bollywood: Hum Aapke Hain Koun … !’, Economic and Political Weekly, 30(15), 15 April 1995. Binford, Mira Reym, ‘The Two Cinemas of India’, in Film and Politics in the Third World, edited by John D.H. Downing, New York: Praeger, 1987. Bordwell, David, Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Bordwell, David, Narration in the Fiction Film, London: Methuen, 1985. ———. Planet Hongkong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. (p.334) ———. ‘The Classical Hollywood Style’, in The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, edited by David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. ———. ‘Contemporary Film Studies and the Vicissitudes of Grand Theory’, in Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, edited by David Bordwell and Noël Carroll, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Bordwell, David and Noël Carroll (eds), Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Braudy, Leo, The World in a Frame: What We See in Films, New York: Doubleday, 1976. Britton, Andrew, ‘Blissing Out: The Politics of Reaganite Entertainment’, Movie, 31/32, Winter 1986. Brooks, Peter, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess, New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Byrski, M.C., ‘Bombay Philum––The Kaliyugi Avatara of Sanskrit Drama’, Pushpanjali, 4, November 1980. ———. ‘Sanskrit Drama as an Aggregate of Model Situations’, in Sanskrit Drama in Performance, edited by Rachel M. Van Baumer and James R. Brandon, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993.

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Bibliography Carey, James W., Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society, Winchester, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989. Carroll, Noël, ‘Prospects for Film Theory: A Personal Assessment’, in PostTheory: Reconstructing Film Studies, edited by David Bordwell and Noël Carroll, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Chakravarty, Sumita S., National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998. Chatterjee, Gayatri, Awaara, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1992. ———. Mother India, New Delhi: Penguin India, 2002. Chaudhuri, Nirad C., Hinduism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Chopra, Anupama, Sholay: The Making of a Classic, New Delhi: Penguin India, 2001. Crawford, Travis, ‘B for Bollywood’, Film Comment, May–June 2002. Das, Durga, India: From Curzon to Nehru and After, New Delhi: Rupa and Company, 1973. Das, Veena, ‘The Mythological Film and its Framework of Meaning: An Analysis of Jai Santoshi Maa’, from India International Centre Quarterly, Special Issue, 8(1), March 1980. Das Gupta, Chidananda, The Painted Face, New Delhi: Roli Books, 1992. ———. ‘Form and Content’, in Frames of Mind: Reflections on Indian Cinema, edited by Aruna Vasudev, New Delhi: Indian Council for Cultural Relations, 1998. Dasgupta, S.N., Fundamentals of Indian Art, New Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1954. Derrida, Jacques, Of Grammatology, trans., Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. (p.335) Desai, Meghnad, ‘India: Contradictions of Slow Capitalist Development’, in Explosion in a Subcontinent, edited by from Robin Blackburn, London: Penguin Books, 1975. Deutsch, Eliot, ‘Reflections on Some Aspects of the Theory of Rasa’, in Sanskrit Drama in Performance, edited by Rachel M. Van Baumer and James R. Brandon, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993.

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Bibliography Dirks, Nicholas B., ‘The Home and the Nation: Consuming Culture and Politics in Roja’, in Pleasure and the Nation: The History, Politics and Consumption of Public Culture in India, edited by Rachel Dwyer and Christopher Pinney, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001. Dissanayake, Wimal and Malti Sahai, ‘Sholay and the Discourse of Evil’, in Sholay: A Cultural Reading, edited by Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1992. Dwyer, Rachel, All You Want is Money, All You Need is Love, London: Cassel, 2000. ———. ‘Shooting Stars: The Indian Film Magazine, Stardust’, in Pleasure and the Nation: The History, Politics and Consumption of Public Culture in India, edited by Rachel Dwyer and Christopher Pinney, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001. Dwyer, Rachel and Divia Patel, Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001. Eagleton, Terry, Literary Theory: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. ———. The Illusions of Postmodernism, London: Blackwell Publishers, 1996. Featherstone, Mike, ‘Localism, Globalism, Cultural Identity’, in Global Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary, edited by Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake, Durham: Duke University Press, 1996. ———. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, Newbury Park, California: Sage, 1990. Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Indian Entertainment Industry: Envisioning for Tomorrow, Report by Arthur Andersen, March 2001. Fehrenbach, Heide, Cinema in Democratizing Germany, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Gandhi, Shanta, ‘A Sanskrit Play in Performance’, in Sanskrit Drama in Performance, edited by Rachel M. Van Baumer and James R. Brandon, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993. Gargi, Balwant, Folk Theatre of India, Calcutta: Rupa and Company, 1991. Gerould, Daniel, ‘Russian Formalist Theories of Melodrama’, Journal of American Culture, No. 1, 1978. Gerow, Edwin, Indian Poetics, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1977. Page 4 of 11

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Bibliography Ghosh, Sanjukta Tultul, Celluloid Nationalism: Cultural Politics in Popular Indian Cinema, Unpublished Dissertation, Ohio State University, 1992. Gokulsing, K. Moti and Wimal Dissanayake, Indian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change, Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books, 1998. (p.336) Gopalan, Lalitha, Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema, London: British Film Institute, 2002. ———. ‘Avenging Women in Indian Cinema’, in Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, edited by Ravi Vasudevan, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, translated and edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971. Gupta, D.C., Indian Government and Politics, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1979. Hansen, Cathryn, Grounds for Play: The Nautanki Theatre of North India, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1993. Heath, Stephen, ‘Contexts’, Edinburgh Magazine, 2, 1977. Heider, Karl G., Indonesian Cinema: National Culture on the Screen, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991. Hines, Jessica, A Discussion of Film Production in Bombay and Spectatorship in the South-Asian Diaspora, Unpublished Dissertation in Cinema and Television Studies, British Film Institute, 1998. Hood, John W., The Essential Mystery: Major Filmmakers of Indian Art Cinema, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2000. Hoskins, Colin, Stuart Macfayden, and Adam Finn, Global Television and Film: An Introduction to the Economics of the Business, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Jameson, Frederic, ‘World Literature in the Age of Multi-national Capitalism’, The Current in Criticism, edited by from C. Kolb and V. Lokke, West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1987. ———. ‘Class and Allegory in Contemporary Mass Culture: Dog Day Afternoon as a Political Film’, in Movies and Methods, Part 2, edited by Bill Nichols, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. ———. ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, in Postmodernism and Its Discontents, edited by E. Ann Kaplan, London: Verso, 1988. Page 5 of 11

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Bibliography ———. Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991. ———. The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. Jayamanne, L., ‘Sri Lankan Family Melodrama: A Cinema of Primitive Attractions’, Screen, 33(2), 1992. Kabir, Nasreen Munni, Talking Films: Conversations on Hindi Cinema with Javed Akhtar, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999. Kakar, Sudhir, Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality, New Delhi: Penguin, 1989. ———. ‘The Ties that Bind: Family Relationships in the Mythology of Hindi Cinema’, India International Centre Quarterly, Special Issue, 8(1), March 1980. (p.337) Kapur, Anuradha, ‘The Representation of Gods and Heroes: Parsi Mythological Drama of the Early Twentieth Century’, Journal of Arts and Ideas, 23/24, 1993. Kapur, Geeta, ‘Mythic Material in Indian Cinema’, Journal of Arts and Ideas, Nos 14–15, 1987. Kaviraj, Sudipta, ‘Indira Gandhi and Indian Politics’, Economic and Political Weekly, 21(38/39), 20–7 September 1986. Kazmi, Fareed, The Politics of India’s Conventional Cinema: Imaging a Universe and Subverting a Multiverse, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999. Kazmi, Nikhat, ‘The Lure of the Low Brow’, Times of India, Delhi, 2 April 1995. Kracauer, Siegfried, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological Study of the German Film, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947. Khilnani, Sunil, The Idea of India, New Delhi: Penguin, 1997. Landa, Ishay, ‘Slaves of the Ring: Tolkien’s Political Unconscious’, Historical Materialism, 10(4), December 2002. Lent, John A., The Asian Film Industry, London: Christopher Helm, 1990. Livingston, Paisley, ‘Characterization and Fictional Truth’, in Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, edited by David Bordwell and Noël Carroll, Madison, Wisonsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Lutgendorf, Philip, ‘A “Made for Satisfaction Goddess”: Jai Santoshi Maa Revisited, Part 2’, Manushi, No. 131, 2002. Page 6 of 11

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Bibliography Lutze, Lothar, ‘From Bharata to Bombay: Change and Continuity in Hindi Film Aesthetics’, in The Hindi Film: Agent and Reagent of Cultural Change, edited by Beatrix Pfleiderer and Lothar Lutze, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985. Lutze, Lothar, ‘Interview with Raj Khosla’, in The Hindi Film: Agent and Reagent of Cultural Change, edited by Beatrix Pfleiderer and Lothar Lutze, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985. Lyman, Stanford M., ‘The Road to Anhedonia: Patterns of Emotional Conflict in American Films, 1930–1988’, Social Perspectives on Emotion: A Research Annual, Vol. I, 1992, series editors, David D. Franks and Viktor Gelas, Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press Inc. Lyotard, J.F., The Postmodern Condition, translated by Geoff Berrington and Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. MacCabe, Colin (ed.), High Theory/Low Culture: Analysing Popular Television and Film, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986. Macdonell, Arthur A., A History of Sanskrit Literature, Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1958. Majumdar, Neepa, ‘The Embodied Voice: Song Sequences and Stardom in Popular Hindi Cinema’, in Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music, edited by Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight, Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2001. Majumdar, R.C., H.C. Raychaudhuri, and Kalikinkar Datta, An Advanced History of India, New Delhi: Macmillan India Limited, 1983. Mishra, Vijay, Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, London: Routledge, 2002. (p.338) ———. ‘Towards a Theoretical Critique of Bombay Cinema’, Screen, 26(3–4) 1985. Monaco, James, American Film Now: The People, the Power, the Money, the Movies, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Mukherjee, Meenakshi, ‘The HAHK Phenomenon: Appeal of Permanence and Stability’, Times of India, 27 May 1995. ———. Realism and Reality: The Novel and Society in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985. Mulvey, Laura, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen, 16(3), 1975. Also anthologized in

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Bibliography Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen (eds), Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Nandy, Ashis, ‘An Intelligent Critic’s Guide to Indian Cinema’, Deep Focus, I(I), December 1987. ———. ‘The Popular Hindi Film: Ideology and First Principles’, from India International Centre Quarterly, Special Issue, 8(1), March 1980. ———. The Savage Freud, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. ———. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983. ———. At the Edge of Psychology, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980. ———. (ed.), The Secret Politics of Our Desires, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998. Niranjana, Tejaswini, ‘Integrating whose Nation? Tourists and Terrorists in “Roja”’, Economic and Political Weekly, 24(3), 15 January 1994. Oomen, M.A. and K.V. Joseph, Economics of Indian Cinema, C-DIT Series, New Delhi: Oxford University Press and IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., 1991. Pal, Niranjan, ‘Psychology versus Action in Scenario Writing’, Filmland, 16–5, 1931; included in Indian Cinema: Contemporary Perceptions from the Thirties, edited by Samik Bandopadhyay, Jamshedpur, Celluloid Chapter, 1993. Pandey, Gyanendra, ‘In Defence of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today’, Economic and Political Weekly, 26(11–12), 1991. Pinney, Christopher, Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Pfleiderer, Beatrix, ‘An Emprical Study of Urban and Semi-Urban Audience Reaction to Hindi Films’, in The Hindi Film: Agent and Reagent of Cultural Change, edited by Beatrix Pfleiderer and Lothar Lutze, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985. Prasad, M. Madhava, Ideology of the Hindi Film, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999. ———. ‘Signs of Ideological Re-form in Two Recent Films: Towards Real Subsumption?’, in Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, edited by Ravi S. Vasudevan, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Page 8 of 11

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Bibliography Pandian, M.S.S., ‘Parasakthi: Life and Times of a DMK Film’, in Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, edited by Ravi S. Vasudevan, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. (p.339) Pritchett, F.W., ‘Qissa and Mass Printing’, in Marvelous Encounters: Folk Romance in Urdu and Hindi, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985. Radway, Janice, Reading the Romance, London: Verso, 1987. Raghavendra, M.K., ‘Generic Elements and the Conglomerate Narrative’, Deep Focus, IV(2), 1992. ———. ‘Time and the Popular Film’, Deep Focus, IV(1), 1992. Rajadhyaksha, Ashish, ‘Viewership and Democracy in the Cinema’, in Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, edited by Ravi S. Vasudevan, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. ———. ‘The Phalke Era: Conflict of Traditional Form and Modern Technology’, Journal of Arts and Ideas, Nos 14–15, 1987. ———. ‘India’s Silent Cinema: A “Viewers View”’, Light of Asia––Indian Silent Cinema 1912–1934, edited by Suresh Chabria, Pune: National Film Archives of India, 1994. Rajadhyaksha, Ashish, and Paul Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. Ramanujan, A.K., ‘Two Realms of Kannada Folklore’, in Another Harmony: New Essays on the Folklore of India, edited by Stuart Blackburn and A.K. Ramanujan, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986. Rahman, M., ‘Women Strike Back’, India Today, 15 July 1988. Ranade, Ashok, ‘The Extraordinary Importance of the Indian Film Song’, Cinema Vision India, I(4), October 1980. Rangoonwala, Firoze, Life and Work: Bimal Roy, A Critical Study, Private Publication. ———. ‘The Age of Violence’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 4–10 September 1993. Rao, Maithili, ‘Victims in Vigilante Clothing’, Cinema in India, October– December 1988.

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Bibliography Roudinesco, Elisabeth, Jacques Lacan & Co: A History of Psychoanalysis in France, 1925–85, trans., Jeffrey Mehlman, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Rowland, Benjamin, The Art and Architecture of India, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967. Roy, R.M. (ed.), Film Seminar Report, New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1956. Saari, Anil, ‘Concepts of Aesthetics and Anti-Aesthetics’, in The Hindi Film: Agent and Reagent of Cultural Change, edited by Beatrix Pfleiderer and Lothar Lutze, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1985. Sastry, K.A. Nilakanta and G. Srinivasachari, Advanced History of India, Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1973. Schatz, Thomas, Hollywood Genres, New York: Random House, 1981. ———. ‘Film Genre and the Genre Film’, in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readngs, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Scholes, Robert, ‘Narration and Narrativity in Film’, in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, edited by Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, New York, Oxford University Press, 1985. (p.340) ———. Semiotics and Interpretation, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. Shadi, Ali Abu, ‘Genres in Egyptian Cinema’, Screens of Life: Critical Film Writing from the Arab World, edited by Alia Arasoughly, Quebec: World Heritage Press, 1996. Shekar, Indu, Sanskrit Drama, Its Origin and Decline, Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1977. Sklar, Robert, Movie-made America, New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Spear, Percival, A History of India, Vol. II. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970. Sutton, Martin, ‘Patterns of Meaning in the Musical’, in Genre: The Musical, A Reader, edited by Rick Altman, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, in association with British Film Institute, 1981. Thomas, Rosie, ‘Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity’, Screen, 26(3–4), 1985.

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Bibliography ———. ‘Sanctity and Scandal: The Mythologization of Mother India’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, II(3), 1989. Thompson, Kristin, ‘The Formulation of the Classical Style’, in The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, edited by David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. ———. ‘From Primitive to Classical’, in The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, edited by David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. Thoraval, Yves, The Cinemas of India, Chennai: Macmillan India Limited, 2001. Uberoi, Patricia, ‘Imagining the Family: An Ethnography of Viewing’, in Pleasure and the Nation, edited by Rachel Dwyer and Christopher Pinney, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2001. Valicha, Kishore, The Moving Image: A Study of Indian Cinema, Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1998. Vasudevan, Ravi S., ‘An Imperfect Public: Cinema and Citizenship in the “Third World”’, Sarai Reader, 1, February 2001. ———. ‘Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities’, in Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, edited by Ravi S. Vasudevan, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2000. ———. ‘Bombay and its Public’, in Pleasure and the Nation, edited by Rachel Dwyer and Christopher Pinney, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2001. Venkataramanan, K., ‘Review of Bihar is in the Eye of the Beholder by Vijay Nambisan’, Indian Review of Books, 15 February 2001–16 March 2001. Virdi, Jyotika, The Cinematic Imagination, Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003. Wells, Henry W., The Classical Drama of India, Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1963.

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Film Index

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

(p.341) Film Index Aag (1948) 102 Aah (1953) 145–6 Aan (1952) 105, 126–7, 198 Aandhi (1975) 174 Aar Paar (1954) 128, 133, 134, 138 Abhimaan (1973) 186, 187 The Absent-Minded Professor [USA] (1961) 295 Achhut Kanya (1936) 86, 224 Admi (1939) 87, 88–9, 100, 245 Agneepath (1990) 55, 191, 192, 207, 213, 215, 218–19, 246, 270, 290 Alam Ara (1931) 81 Amanush (1974) 187 Amar (1954) 130–1 Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) 199, 203–6, 221, 223, 264 Amritmanthan (1934) 81 An Evening in Paris (1967) 169 Anand (1970) 185, 186, 187 Anarkali (1953) 129, 130, 146 Andaz (1949) 12, 19, 28, 29–37, 42, 43, 46–8, 54, 56, 61, 76, 84, 107, 108, 115–17, 124, 149, 151, 157, 165, 234, 36, 294, 302n Andaz (1971) 174, 176, 236, 277, 278 Ankush (1985) 182, 207, 209, 211, 217–18, 223 Anmol Ghadi (1946) 97–9, 100, 102, 103, 121, 155, 156, 236 Anokhi Ada (1948) 105, 110–11, 124 Antha [Kannada] (1981) 219 Anupama (1966) 160, 184 Aradhana (1969) 151, 174–7, 181, 188, 234, 277, 278, 285 Ardh Satya (1983) 215, 273, 274 Arjun (1985) 208, 218 Astitva (1999) 275, 276 Aurat (1940) 34, 87–8, 96, 97, 139–42 Page 1 of 7

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Film Index see also Mother India Awaara (1951) 12, 84, 95, 96, 103, 105, 117–24, 135, 141, 142, 155, 178, 236, 316n Azad (1940) 89 Azad (1955) 132, 146, 219 Baazi (1951) 65, 66, 123–5, 128, 133, 137, 146, 150, 154, 199, 294 Baazigar (1993) 23, 242–5, 247, 251, 257, 280–1 Babul (1950) 104–6, 108, 116, 128 Baiju Bawra (1952) 55, 125–7 Bandini (1963) 154, 155, 187 Barsaat (1949) 105, 112–14, 147 Batwara (1988) 227 Bawarchi (1972) 185–6, 263–4 Bawre Nain (1950) 104, 117, 122, 128 Becket [UK] (1964) 322n (p.342) Betaab (1983) 234 Bhakta Prahalad (1926) 70, 71 Bhuvan Shome (1969) 184 Black Market 134 Bobby (1973) 177–8, 199–200, 256, 286 Bombay (1995) 256–60, 269, 270 Border (1998) 159, 227, 267–9, 272 Bunti Aur Babli (2005) 296–7 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [USA] (1969) 37 Chandidas (1932) 86, 224 Charly [USA] (1968) 295 Chhotisi Baat (1976) 186 Chirag Kahan Roshni Kahan (1959) 151, 152 CID (1956) 129, 134–6, 154, 199 Cleopatra [Egypt] (1943) 40 Close Encounters of the Third Kind [USA] 295 Coolie (1983) 222–3 Daaera (1953) 146 Daag (1973) 174, 176, 177, 188, 277, 278 Damini (1992) 19, 209, 238–42, 257, 259, 260, 291 Darr (1993) 246 Dastaan (1950) 109, 117 Deedar (1951) 107, 108 Deewar (1975) 57, 60, 180, 190–3, 195–6, 201–2, 208, 211–13, 264, 270, 271, 290 Devdas (1935) 87–90, 96, 104 Devdas (1951) 32 Dharam Veer (1977) 60, 180 Dharmatma (1935) 91 Dharti Ke Lal (1946) 92, 100, 101, 117, 121, 136, 199 Dharti Mata (1938) 86 Dhhol Ka Phool (1959) 49, 129, 146, 148–51, 174–6, 179, 231 Dhoom 2 (2006) 296 Dhoop Chhaon (1935) 82 Diamond Queen (1940) 91 Dil Chahta Hai (2001) 60 Page 2 of 7

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Film Index Dil Ek Mandir (1963) 49, 151, 152 Diler Jigar (1931) 76, 80, 91, 92, 198 Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayange (1996) 253–5, 281, 287 Dirty Harry [USA] 191 Do Bigha Zamin (1953) 39, 101, 134, 199 Do Raaste (1969) 170 Double Indemnity [USA] (1944) 136 Duniya Na Mane (1937) 86, 89, 104, 122 Durga (1939) 89, 90 East of Eden [USA] (1955) 195 Ek Duuje Ke Liye (1982) 207, 210, 219–21, 225 Erin Brockovich [USA] (2000) 54 ET [USA] 295 Fanaa (2006) 293 Footpath (1953) 130, 134 For a Few Dollars More [Italy] 196 Gadar (2001) 293 Ganga Jumna (1961) 105, 144–5, 154, 192, 199, 227 and Mother India 145 Garam Hawa (1973) 330n General Line, The [USSR] 30 Ghattashraddha [Kannada] (1977) 326 Ghayal (1990) 210, 218 Ghulami (1985) 227 Ghulami Nu Patan (1931) 76, 80, 198 Gladiator [USA] (2000) 284 Godfather II, The [USA] 55 Guide (1965) 147, 154, 155, 165–9 (p.343) Gumraah (1963) 150 Guru (2007) 295, 296 Haqeequat (1964) 158–9, 267 Hathyar (1989) 270 Hero No. 1 (1997) 262–5 House Number 44 134 Howrah Bridge (1958) 134, 135 Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (1994) 19, 30, 57, 61–3, 67, 150, 207, 240, 247–53, 255, 259, 260, 270, 297–8 Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999) 252, 253, 255 Humayun (1945) 96–7, 198 Hunterwali (1935) 91 Hurricane Hansa (1937) 91 Ikiru [Japan] (1952) 185 The Indian Tomb [Germany] (1921) 76 Insaaf Ka Tarazu (1994) 19, 207, 208, 210 Jaal (1952) 131–2, 138, 179 Jagte Raho (1956) 315n Jai Santoshi Maa (1975) 197–8 Jailor (1958) 147 Jamaibabu [Bengali] (1931) 75 Page 3 of 7

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Film Index Jewel Thief (1967) 169 Jhoola (1941) 89, 90, 104 Jism (2002) 294 Jodi No. 1 (2001) 264 Jogan (1950) 107 Jungle Princess (1936) 92 Junglee (1961) 147, 153 Jurassic Park [USA] (1993) 40, 253, 311n Jurm (2005) 294 Kaante (2002) 39, 60, 297 Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (2006) 256, 294, 297–9 Kabhi Kabhie (1976) 286 Kal Ho Na Ho (2003) 297 Kala Bazaar (1960) 129, 136, 266 Kala Pani (1958) 136–8, 199, 258–9 Kaliya Mardan (1919) 70, 79 Kangan (1939) 76, 79 Karma (1986) 237 Karz (1980) 211 Kashmir Ki Kali (1963) 153, 155–7, 199, 246 Khalnayak (1993) 241–2, 260 Kismat (1943) 49, 97 A Kiss before Dying [USA] (1991) 242 Koi Mil Gaya (2003) 41, 295 Kramer vs Kramer [USA] (1979) 36 Krantiveer (1994) 241, 242, 259, 260 Kshatriya (1992) 227, 246 Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) 275–8 Kya Kehna (2000) 278–9 Lagaan (2001) 40, 288–91, 297 Lamhe (1991) 246, 247 Lanka Dahan (1917) 70 Love in Tokyo (1966) 169 Life of Christ, The [USA] (1910) 70 Lord of the Rings [USA] (2002) 284, 295 The Lost World [USA] (2000) 284 Love Story [USA] (1970) 233 M [Germany] (1931) 317n Mahal (1949) 109, 110, 128, 147 Mahatma Vidur (1943) 314n Maine Pyar Kiya (1989) 45, 232–5 Malaikallan [Tamil] (1954) 132 Mangal Pande (2005) 293 Mard (1984) 267, 330n Marocharithra [Telugu] 219 Mary Poppins [UK] 186 Mazdoor (1934) 86 Mere Apne (1971) 186, 187, 217 Mere Mehboob (1963) 99, 146, 156–7, 230, 231, 232, 251, 298 Page 4 of 7

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Film Index Meri Awaaz Suno (1981) 219 (p.344) Miss Frontier Mail (1937) 91 Mission Kashmir (2000) 269 Mohabbatein (2000) 252, 253, 255 Moondram Pirari [Tamil] (1982) 219 Mother India (1957) 34, 87, 97, 136, 139–43, 145, 151, 155, 169, 172, 192, 199, 284–5 Mughal-e-Azam (1960) 80, 129, 130, 146 Munimji (1955) 138 Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) 179, 180, 191, 192, 194 Muraliwala (1927) 79 Namak Haraam (1973) 187, 322–3n Naseeb (1981) 221, 223 Naya Daur (1957) 105, 134, 148, 162 Nayakan [Tamil] (1987) 270 Neecha Nagar (1946) 92 Nenjil Ore Alayam [Tamil] 151 New Delhi (1956) 134, 146, 220–1 Nikaah (1982) 231, 232 1942: A Love Story (1994) 267 Norma Rae [USA] (1979) 54 Ordinary People [USA] (1980) 36 Padosi (1941) 92 Pakeezah (1971) 232 Parasakthi [Tamil] (1952) 57, 120–1 Passport (1961) 134 Pather Panchali [Bengali] (1955) 24, 318n Patriot, The [USA] (2000) 39, 284 Paying Guest (1957) 134, 136, 138 Perfect Storm, The [USA] (2000) 284 Phaniyamma [Kannada] (1982) 326n Phir Subah Hogi (1958) 130 Phool Aur Kaante (1992) 238 Phool Aur Patthar (1966) 94, 224 Pithache Panje (1914) 70 Pitru Prem (1929) 75, 80 Prapancha Pash (1929) 76, 77, 80, 198 Pratibha (1937) 79 Pratighaat (1987) 207, 209, 215 Prem Rog (1982) 210, 224, 226, 232 Prem Sanyas (1925) 76–8, 80 President (1937) 86 Psycho [USA] (1960) 318n Pukar (1931) 126 Purana Mandir (1984) 60 Pyasa (1957) 286 Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) 207, 225, 232 Railway Platform (1995) 134 Raja Harishchandra (1913) 25, 70, 74 Rajnigandha (1975) 186, 187 Page 5 of 7

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Film Index Ram Aur Shyam (1967) 160 Ram Lakhan (1989) 215 Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1984) 9 Ramrajya (1943) 314n Ramudu Bheemudu [Telugu] (1964) 159–60 Rang De Basanti (2000) 293 Rangeela (1996) 265–6 Reservoir Dogs [USA] (1992) 60, 297 Roja (1992) 19, 21, 23, 220, 228–30, 258 Saaransh (1984) 215 Sadma (1983) 219 Safar (1970) 320n Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (1962) 109 Saladin [Egypt] (1941) 40 Samaj Ki Bhool (1934) 86 Sangam (1964) 19, 21, 49, 62, 150, 160–5, 169, 246, 291 Sant Dnyaneshwar (1940) 91 Sant Eknath (1926) 70 Sant Tukaram (1936) 74, 87, 88, 91 Sara Akash (1969) 184 Sarfarosh (1999) 268, 269 (p.345) Satya (1999) 270–4 Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978) 64 Savitri (1937) 76 Seeta Aur Geeta (1972) 160 The Seven Samurai [Japan] (1954) 289 Shaan (1980) 211 Shahenshah (1988) 215 Shahjehan (1946) 96 Shakti (1982) 191, 211–13 Shakuntala (1943) 92, 313n Shatranj (1969) 331n Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977) 289 Sheesh Mahal (1950) 104, 109, 122, 128 Shejari/Padosi (1941) Sherni (1989) 209 Shiraz (1928) 76, 77, 80, 198 Sholay (1975) 49, 60, 65, 181, 193, 196–7, 200, 207 Shool (2000) 273–4 Shri 420 (1955) 134, 146 Sikandar (1941) 81, 91 Spider-Man [USA] (2002) 42–4, 54 Spider-Man 3 [USA] (2007) 36 Sri Krishna Janma (1917) 70, 74 Star Wars [USA] (1977) 32 Street Singer (1938) 316n Sujata (1959) 224 Tansen (1943) 96 Taqdeer (1943) 93, 94, 97, 120, 199 Page 6 of 7

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Film Index Taxi Driver (1954) 134, 136, 137, 150, 199 Teesri Kasam (1966) 168, 184 Teesri Manzil (1966) 169, 246 Ten Commandments, The [USA] 64 Tezaab (1988) 207, 210, 214, 215 Thelma and Louise [USA] (1991) 168 Titanic [USA] (1997) 283–8 To Die For [USA] (1995) 279 Trishul (1978) 180, 191, 194, 201–2, 205, 208, 211 Upkaar (1967) 53, 168, 169–72, 199, 267 The Usual Suspects [USA] (1995) 60, 297 Vaastav (2000) 270, 331n Waqt (1965) 157, 189, 199, 200 When Harry Met Sally [USA] (1989) 331n The Wild Bunch [USA] (1969) 196 Woh Kaun Thi (1964) 153, 157 Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973) 180, 189, 192, 199, 200, 205, 213, 264, 323n Zakmi Aurat (1988) 19, 209, 210 Zanjeer (1973) 181, 182, 189–91, 193 Zeher (2005) 294

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General Index

Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema M.K. Raghavendra

Print publication date: 2008 Print ISBN-13: 9780195696547 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195696547.001.0001

(p.346) General Index Abbas, K.A. 92, 100, 117, 121 Abbas-Mastaan 242 academic critics and practitioners, gap between 17 Acharya, N.R. 89, 90 action sequences, in melodramas 45 ‘active voice’, in Hollywood films 46 Adib, Prem 119 Adultery, depictions of 150 in Astitva 276 and globalization 294 Advani, Nikhil 297 Agarwal Film Company, Pune 76, 198 films 80–1 aggregation 59–60, 69, 266 Agnihotri, Rati 220 agrarian conflict/oppression 139–45 rebellion against 142 agrarian policy 171 Ajit 200, 214 Akbar, Mughal Emperor 40, 97, 125, 130, 146 Akhtar, Javed 190, 194, 196, 211, 212 allegory, use of 35–6, 106, 138, 189, 210, 223, 257, 260, 274, 306n purpose 55 reading 157 representation of time, history, and 33–6 allegorization, of social history 50 Althusser, Louis 6, 7, 8 Alvi, Abrar 109 Ambedkar, B.R. 103 American cinema 181, 255, 270 Page 1 of 25

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General Index gangster films in 271 narrative codes of 28 in the primitive period 70 see also Hollywood American markets, for Indian cinema 255 American Revolution 39 American film noir 135 generic elements of 65 Amman, Zeenat 208 ‘amoral’ standpoint, in Baazigar 244–5 Amrohi, Kamal 109, 146, 232 Anand, Chetan 92, 136, 158, 267 Anand, Dev 90, 123, 124, 131, 136, 137, 138, 150, 151, 166, 168, 169, 280 Anand, M.S. 55 Anand, Mukul 207, 213 Anand, Vijay 147, 154, 165 Anderson, Benedict 252 Andhra Pradesh, politics of 3 (p.347) ‘angry young man’ 22, 181, 192, 193 anti-hero films 242, 280, 327n Anwar, Batalvi 99 appointment, device of 31 see also device of deadline Apte, Hari Narayan 84 archetypes 75, 164, 185, 264–5, 322n, 323n art/‘parallel’ cinema 3, 24 and popular cinema 24 Asif, K. 80 autonomous attractions, in film 245 ‘auteur’ films 226 auteurism 5 authoritarian father, in Indian films 93–6 ‘axis of action’ 28 ‘B’ category Hindi cinema 26 Babbar, Raj 208, 231 Babri Masjid, demolition of 258 Bachchan, Amitabh 90, 181, 185, 186, 190, 192, 193, 203, 205, 212, 213, 221, 223, 288, 298, 314n Bajpai, Manoj 270, 273 Balachander, K. 219 Bali, Geeta 131, 137 Banu, Naseem 110 Barjatya, Suraj 30, 45, 232, 234, 247, 250 Barnouw, Erik 11 Barthes, Roland 30, 31, 39, 47, 58, 59 Barua, P.C. 87, 88, 90, 147 Behl, Monish 248 Berger, John 175 ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’, notions of 175 Bhaduri, Jaya 186 Bhagyashree 232 Page 2 of 25

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General Index Bhansali, Sanjay Leela 252 Bhat, Harilal M. 75 Bhatt, Mahesh 215 Bhatt, Vijay 55, 125, 314n Bhatt, Vikram 294 Bhattacharya, Basu 168, 184, 185 Bhave, Acharya Vinoba 145 Bhoodan movement of 143, 145 Bhonsle, Asha 54 Bihar, politics in, film on 273–4 Bindranwale, Jarnail Singh 216 ‘blind lover’, as ingredient of popular cinema 165 blockbusters 298 strategy of 291 Bombay, as centre of Indian films 83, 185 cinema from 13, 256–60 as emblem/soul of economically resurgent India 259–60, 330n Bordwell, David 14, 31 Bose, Nitin 82, 144 bourgeois theatre, realism of 72 ‘bourgeoisie’, ascendancy of small 177–9 Brahmin caste names, use of 225 ‘break with the past’, in Damini 241 Brecht, Bertolt 35 Bresson, Robert 41 British colonizers 216, 293, 296 legal system, legacy of 120 market, for Indian films 255 representations of, in Indian cinema 293 brutality, in cinema 207 see also, violence Buddha, story of life of 76, 77 see also, The Indian Tomb (1921) ‘bullet theory’ of communication 50 bureaucracy, conduct of, in Indian films 107, 222 ‘cabret’ dance, in cinema 137, 169 Calcutta, locales in 75 Calcutta Film Society 2, 3 camera eye, omniscience of 52, 135 Cameron, James 283 capitalism 260, 280 Capra, Frank 136 (p.348) caricatured optimism in 1970s cinema 203–6 Carroll, Noël 15 caste, discrimination in films 86 ethical emphasis on 227 identity 217, 224–7, 326n violence 208 causal linking 64 relationship 27 Page 3 of 25

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General Index causality/causation 42, 48, 80 and time 47 causes and effects, chain of, 56 in Andaz 59 ceremonies, depiction of, in films 248 Chakraborty, Mithun 219 Chakravarti, Pramod 169 Chakravarty, Sumita 11, 23, 108, 101, 147, 166 Chandra, N. 207, 209, 214, 217, 219 Chandramohan 82, 96 character, definition of 231 subjectivity, notion of 32–3, 136, 291, 318n types 53 chastity, of women in Hindi cinema 141 Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra 84, 85, 184, 185 Chatterjee, Basu 186, 187 Chatterjee Spivak, Gayatri 120, 140 Chatterjee, Sarat Chandra 84, 88 chiaroscuro effects 124 lighting 135, 136 see also American film noir childhood friendship, in Hindi cinema 62 Chitnis, Leela 89 Chopra, Aditya 252, 253, 287 Chopra, B.R. 148, 207 Chopra, Prem 170, 200, 202 Chopra, Vidhu Vinod 267, 269 Chopra, Yash 129, 157, 174, 189, 190, 191, 194, 231, 246, 270, 286 cinema, before 1947 69–101 ‘good’, development of 3 and social history 26 city, attractiveness of 134 intrusion of, in post-independence films 132–8 migration to 134 and its moral ambivalence 136 see also ‘urban’/‘modern’ space civilian leadership, and the military 164–5 Civil Disobedience Movement 111 class, conflict 104–5, 108, 251 identity 221–3 segregation, in films 189 ‘warring’, in cinema 108–10 ‘lumpen’ 222, 223 marginalized 189, 193 ‘ruling’ 131, 194 distance from their subjects 127 in India, depiction of 110–12 ‘Westernized’, characteristics of 115, 234 classical cinema 269 Lagaan as 289, 290 Page 4 of 25

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General Index psychological causation in 59 classical music 125 in Baiju Bawra 126 classical off-screen space 28 ‘clean’ entertainment 247 ‘closed’ film, concept of 38 ‘closure’, achievement of, in popular cinema 108, 215 heterosexual love and 38 as objective in the 1960s 156–8 in Sangam 162–3 the wedding and the 157 club dance/dancer, in Hindi cinema 136, 137, 150 cognitivism 5 see also psychoanalysis (p.349) colonialism/colonial period 2, 85 end of 92 fight against 8 colour, employment of, in cinema 136 in Mother India 169 comic interludes 44, 205, 243, 245 Communist party of India (CPI) 193 communist movement, in India 92, 100, 158 and peasants 143 Congress Party 93, 110, 129, 143, 173, 180, 188, 190, 194, 216 conflict with the Muslim League 95 policies of 193 conspiracy, absence of, in Indian thrillers 65 Constitution of India, The 183 ‘consumer co-author’ 1, 2 see also audience Coppola, (Francis Ford) 55 Corbusier, Le 145 Cornwallis, Lord 39 courtroom scenes, interpretation of 117, 120, 123, 129, 154, 155, 208, 210, 240 climax in 132 as sacred site 219 creator co-author (filmmaker) 1 cricket, as theme in Lagaan 289, 291 crime scenes, in Hindi cinema 144 see also evil criminal(s), in films 182, 208 behaviour of hero 214 professional, and the law 122–4 Cripps, Stafford 93 cross-cutting, to denote simultaneous action 31–2 culture(al), continuity, instrument of 237 friction 220 industry, democratic control within 8 practices of the Muslim community 231 studies 12, 14 Page 5 of 25

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General Index in the West 7 culturalism 7, 14 ‘cyncism’, in Indian cinema 203 dacoits, in Indian cinema 197 dam construction, and modernity in films 145, 318n Damle 74, 87, 313n see also Fathehlal dance scenes, in popular Hindi cinema 60, 137, 140, 153 darshan, in Hindu worship 63 Das, Kalipada 75 Das, Veena 62, 198 Das Gupta, Chidananda 2, 3, 9, 10, 13, 49, 64 on Phalke 71 Dayanand Saraswati, Swami 85 deadline, device of 31 see also device of appointment Dean, James 195 debacle, military, against the Chinese 152, 154, 156 and the defeated nation 158–60 ‘deconstruction’, of texts 7 ‘deep reading’, of films 13, 19 deity, imaging the, in popular cinema 225 Denzongpa, Danny 213 Deol, Sunny 239, 268 Depictions in films of advocates 103, 240 of doctors 29, 146, 154 of gangs 213 of judges 103, 109, 117–19, 120, 121, 122, 129, 149, 163, 181, 183 of smugglers 193–4 see also portrayal of police (p.350) Derrida, Jacques 7 Desai, Manmohan 180, 221, 222, 223, 267, 324n Desai, Morarji 324n desire, and love in films 150 destiny, malevolent 201 devdasi cult, the 167 devotion 63–4, 167, 290 devotional film songs 25–6 dharma, role of 61 Dharmendra 158, 208, 227 Dhawan, David 262 Dirks, Nicholas 228, 230 dishonoured woman, motif of 210 Disney, Walt 186 Dissanayke, Wimal 11 ‘diversionary violence’, as spectacle 201, 246, 251 divine intervention in cinema 64 Dixit, Madhuri 67, 214, 247 domestic melodrama 60 domination, control structures of 7 dosti (male friendship) 61, 62, 248, 311n Page 6 of 25

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General Index code of, in Sangam 161–2 Dostoyevsky 130 DMK films 132 DMK Party, political propaganda by 132 duration, of action in classical cinema 31, 32 Dutt, Guru 65, 123, 124, 131, 133, 135, 136, 226, 286, 294 Dutt, Sanjay 242 Dutt, Sunil 139 Dutt, Utpal 300n Dutta, J.P. 159, 227, 232, 246, 267, 270, 306n Dwyer, Rachel 37, 50 economic deregulation/liberalization 255, 292 economic era, new 247 economic imperialism, fight against 8 Egyptian cinema, genre of war films 40 Egyptian cinema 159 Eisenstein, Sergei 30, 305n Emergency, internal, of 1975 193, 195, 197, 215 Emmerich, Roland 39 empirical studies 10 ‘empiricism’ 15 entrenched power, representatives of 6 epics, plays borrowed from 10 episodic structure of films 44, 47, 59, 60, 69, 307n eroticism, in Rangeela 266 ‘escapism’, of Indian popular cinema 52, 53 ‘essentialist’ standpoint, of popular cinema 21, 53 ethnic identity, assimilation of 113–14 ethnic minorities, in the nation 146 in Barsaat and Junglee 147, 179 European locales, use of 246, 253, 258, 264 evil, construction of, in Kismat 93–5 notion of 65 in Hinduism 64 villain as practitioner of 200, 202, 203 ‘exploitation films’ 299 ‘expressionist’ cinema 136 extra-legal authority 213–17, 273 ‘fabula’ (story), to imaginary construct 59 Faerie Queene, The 39 family, and the idea of the modern, in Andaz 35 motif of 36 relationships 251 representation of 36–9, 63 values 7, 36 (p.351) farmers/farming community, conflict between, in films 227 Page 7 of 25

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General Index middle, strength of 171 Faryal 137 Fathehlal 74, 87, 313n see also Damle father, in Awaara 118 female vigilante 91 feminine desire 150, 151 feminine sexuality, in Rangeela 266 feminism, cosmic principle in Hinduism and 86 see also women feminist film theory 11 feminization, of mass culture 58 feudal family, authority 240 orthodoxy 152 power 145 family romance 154, 310n fight sequence 155, 198, 201, 221, 233, 246 filial relationships, significance of 61, 62, 144, 186 film(s), critics 1, 12, 101 criticism, in India and the West 5 industry in India 1, 13, 192, 298 period of crisis in 184 music/song 4, 19, 125 studies, development of 5 text, construction of 13 Film Finance Corporation (FFC) policy 184, 185 film noir 124, 135 film theory 6, 15 culturalism 6 subject-position 6 filmmakers, after 1947 104–5 see also creator co-author ‘first cause’ 44, 48, 163, 182, 192, 205, 242, 249, 296, 308n message in the 61 strategy of 80, 81 flashbacks, in cinema 33, 234, 286, 290, 305n Frankfurt School, influence on film theory 7 fraternal relationships in cinema 144 free market, premonition of in the 1980s 232–5 French Revolution 57 Freud, Sigmund 6 psychoanalytical approach of 5 psychosexual development, stages of 6 see also cognitivism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis frontal, mode of address, of popular cinema 27, 51, 70, 71 in Phalke’s films 71 in Parsi theatre 72 in Ravi Varma’s paintings 73 format/style 51, 52, 79, 80, 81 see also Parsi theatre Page 8 of 25

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General Index ‘frontality’, movement towards 72 realism, and early mythological 71–5 Gandhi, Feroz 177 Gandhi, Indira 171, 177, 179, 180, 188, 190, 202, 203, 206, 208, 215, 216, 237, 240, 241, 251 arrival of, as Prime Minister 172 defeat in election 194 ‘garibi hatao’ slogan of 190 and imposition of Emergency 193 judgement on 183 and judiciary 182–3 policies of 189 radical initiatives of 184 as Shakti 198 Gandhi, M.K. 91, 93, 103, 111, 139, 141, 203, 205 Gandhian ‘pacifism’ 171 Gandhi, Rajiv 177, 232, 238, 326n assassination of 228 (p.352) gang(s), identities 217–18 rivalries 208 gangster(s) films 270, 271 -protagonist 213 urban of 1980s 213, 215 genre films 38–9, 209 generic elements, in narratives 59 geneology, role of 61 Ghai, Subash 211, 237, 241 global, audience 255 coping with 295–7 ‘global entertainment’, Indian popular cinema as 1 globalism, and nationalism 291–4 globalization 22 threat of 294–5 Goa, locales of films in 219 Goan Catholic community 179 Goel, Devendra 151 Gokulsing, K. Moti 11 Gopalan, Lalitha 11, 19, 209, 210, 325n Gorbachev era 22 Govinda 262, 264–5 Gowariker, Ashutosh 288 Grasmsci, Antonio 7, 8 Greek drama 55 green revolution, the 179 Gulzar 24, 184, 185, 186, 217 Gupta, Sanjay 60, 297 Haasan, Kamal 220 hate object, as narrative device 201 annihilation of 46 Page 9 of 25

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General Index Heimatfilme, in post-War Germany 40, 320n Helen 136, 137 ‘henchmen’, in popular cinema 65 heroine, ‘hysterical’ 327n meaning of Hindi noir 294 truth-telling 280 Westernized 234 Hindi, accented 219 ‘national’ 270 -non-Hindi divide 220 noir heroine 294 Hindi cinema, as ‘Indian cinema’ 24–7 of 1950s and 60s 128–72 of 1970s 172–206 of 1980s 207–35 Hindu aesthetics, and codes of popular cinema to 10 Hindu identity 230 Hindu joint family, in popular cinema 36 sociology of 62 Hindu middle class, lifestyle of 228 Hindu–Muslim amity 97 romances 256 wedlock between 146 ‘Hindustan’, as future nation 97 notion of 130 history/historical, anchoring of narratives 34 content, action within 34 continuity, break with 242 development in India 236 films 38–9, 80–1, 130, 275 incorporation of, in the narrative 257 markers 32 romances 198 Hitchcock, Alfred 33, 318n Hollywood cinema 17–18, 24, 253, 254, 261, 279, 282, 283, 287, 309n classical 27, 28 defining totality of space in 29 divine intervention in 64 domestic melodrama in 57 genre films 14, 39 influence of 138 melodrama in 41 musicals 83, 316n neo-Aristotelian principles of classical 17 representation of space in 28 (p.353) stereotypes in 54 Page 10 of 25

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General Index war films 269 housewife/mother, stereotype of, in films 54 Hublikar, Shanta 89 Hussain, M.F. 198 Hussain, Nasir 180, 189 Huston, John 136 Hyderabad, as location for cinema 138 land gift under Bhoodan movement in 143 Nizam’s state of 138 iconic images, of gods and heroes 72 idealized portraiture, of pre-Mughal and Mughal period 75 identities, conflicting 228–30 ideological state apparatus, as control structure 7 illegitimate children in films 276–7 imagined communities 252–4 Independence, first years of 102–27 independent nation, India as 11 subject of 125–7 India, and China war 22, 152, 158–61, 164, 237, 250, 288 natural beauty of, showcasing of 166 and Pakistan 95, 293 Indian Americans, as subject of films 297 Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association (IPTA) 100, 136 Indonesian cinema 40 intercaste romances 256 Internal Emergency see Emergency interpretation, to understand films 17 ‘deep’ 5, 17, 20 ‘surface’ 5, 17 ‘top-down’ 21 interpretative communities, emergence of 8, 11–12 feminist 11 Irani, Ardheshir 81 Jackson, Peter 284 Jehangir, Emperor 40, 126 Jameson, Fredric 267, 305n and interpretation 188 Janata Party 216, 237 Japanese conquest, of Burma 92, 237 jargon, of academia, use of 9, 19 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali 95 Johar, Karan 275, 277, 294 journalist/newspaper reporter, hero as, in Bombay 257–8 judiciary 272 and corruption 208 use of in Indian films 94, 120, 182, 215 Kajol 243, 253 Kakar, Sudhir 4, 9, 10, 300n Page 11 of 25

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General Index Kalidasa 313n Kannada folklore 329n Kapadia, Dimple 177 Kapoor, Anil 214 Kapoor, Karishma 262 Kapoor, Prithviraj 117 Kapoor, Raj 9, 94, 103, 105, 112, 130, 135, 145–6, 149, 160–1, 169, 177, 199, 224, 256, 286 Kapoor, Rishi 177, 205, 224, 238 Kapoor, Shammi 153, 264 Kapoor, Shashi 191 Kapur, Anuradha 48, 71, 72 Kapur, Geeta 71, 74 Kardar, A.R. 109 Kargil episode, the 267 Kartik, Kalpana 123 Kashmir, accession to India 114, 147 location of cinema in 153 problem 228–30 (p.354) Kashmiri terrorists, in Fanaa 293 Kazan, Elia 195 Kerala, land reforms in 143 Khan, Aamir 226, 265, 289 Khan, Amjad 196 Khan, Mansoor 225 Khan, Mehboob 28, 30, 34, 87, 93, 96, 97, 105, 110, 126, 130, 139, 149, 198, 234, 284, 294 Khan, Nasir 144 Khan, Saif Ali 277 Khan, Salim 190, 194, 211, 212, 233 Khan, Shah Rukh 243, 253, 275, 281 khandan (clan), honour of 66 Khanna, Akshaye 268 Khanna, Padma 137 Khanna, Rajesh 170, 174–6, 185, 303n Khanna, Vinod 205, 227 Kharbanda, Kulbhushan 289 Kher, Anupam 214, 247 Khilnani, Sunil 177 Kholapure, Padmini 208, 224 Khosla, Raj 129, 137, 153, 170 Kohli, Kuku 238 Koirala, Manisha 256 Kompeni genre (Indonesian) 40 Krishna, depiction of 79 and Draupadi in Ravi Verma’s paintings 73 and milkmaids theme in tamasha 25 Page 12 of 25

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General Index as the subject in Hindi films 70, 74, 85 worship of 64 Kshatriya caste 225–7 Kumar, Ashok 89, 90, 96, 109 Kumar, Dilip 90, 116, 126, 130, 132, 144, 150, 151, 211 rise of, as an actor 105–7 Kumar, Manoj 53, 170, 267 Kumar, Mehul 241 Kumar, Rajendra 139, 150–2, 156, 160, 175, 176 Kumaramangalam, Mohan 193 Kurosawa, Akira 185, 289 Lacan, Jacques 5, 6 Lacanian psychoanalysis 11, 20 ‘lady avenger’ films 209 see also female vigilante Lagoo, Rima 233 Lang, Fritz 317n land, association with, in films 142 personifying 155 reforms 129, 143 unequal distribution of 142–3 law, as culpable 211 enforcement 212, 272 process, disenchantment with 214 professional criminal and the, in cinema 122–4 lawlessness, in Indian cities, as depicted in cinema 213 lawyer, depiction in cinema 118, 163, 194, 240 legality, redefining 181–3 Lever, Johnny 243 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 5 Levin, Ira 242 liberalization 235 post-liberalization 267 lifestyle, consumption-based 261 ‘local’, meaning, depletion of in the 1990s and after 282, 283, 288, 292, 293 ‘lost-and-found’ films 199 ‘love’, between different castes 224 demarcation of, in Indian cinema 107 ‘triumph’ of 108 Lucas, George 32 Lyotard, J.F. 261 Maa Santoshi 197–8 see also Jai Maa Santoshi Madhu 228 (p.355) Madhubala 109, 130, 137 Mahabharata 13, 40, 311n, 312n Mahendra, Balu 219 Majumdar, Neepa 54, 82 male achievement, emblem of 180 Page 13 of 25

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General Index Malini, Hema 221 Mangeshkar, Lata 54 manifest content, in popular cinema 63, 152 Maniratnam 228, 230, 256, 325n Manjrekar, Mahesh 270, 275 mansion, emblem of, in cinema after 1947 109 Marathi mythological films, decline of 84 Marathi theatre 74 marginalization of the working class 190–3 market, the 239 triumph of 22 marriage, in popular cinema 37, 157 Marxism 260 Marxist critics, on postmodernism 261 ‘masculinity’, crisis of in Indian cinema 87–93, 95, 140 symbol of 268 see also John Berger Masud, Iqbal 4 Mathen, John Mathew 268 Matondkar, Urmila 265, 271 May, Joe 76 ‘meaning’, transmission/relay of 52, 81 Mehra, Prakash 181, 194 Mehra, Rakeysh Omprakash 293 Melies, Georges 70 melodrama 56–9, 100, 102, 104, 220, 245, 256, 290, 298, 310n, 328n in Hollywood cinema 41 motifs of 119 resolution 155 melodramatic speech 58 Menon, Krishna 164 ‘message’ bearer 68, 97, 98 Metz, Christian 6, 59 middle cinema 183–7, 215, 273 middle class, and rise of art/parallel cinema 3 military, debacle of 1962 169 as subject in films 160–5 millennium, towards a new 236–81 blockbusters in 298 Mishra, Vijay 61 mobility, upward 203 Modak, Shahu 89 modernity, in cinema 33, 129, 293, 320n arrival of 124–5 ‘encounter with’ 138 good as opposed to bad 124, 146, 153–4 modernization 115, 234–5 Modi, Sohrab 81, 104, 109, 126, 147 moral authority of the institutions of the state 129–32 Page 14 of 25

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General Index moral discourse, and family 61 moral instruction in popular cinema 61–3 moral vocabulary, and lineage 118 mother, the domain of, in Hindi cinema 119, 275 eulogizing 191 sacrificing 121 surrogate 229 unwed 174 weak 241 motherhood 208, 277 Motilal 94 Mughal emperors, as subject of films 40 Mukherjee, Gyan 93 Mukherjee, Hrishikesh 24, 160, 184, 185, 186, 262, 275 Mukherjee, Indrani 158 Mukherjee, Subhod 147 Mukhtar, Sheikh 60 (p.356) Mulvey, Laura 11, 302n music, film 303n coming of, in Indian films 81–4 Muslim League 99 ascendancy of 95 Muslim(s), characters in films 146 place of, in the nation 256 wedlock between Hindus and 146 ‘Muslim socials’, genre of 230–1 ‘myth’, closure of, in a genre film 38 mythological films 78, 79, 92, 197–8, 312n, 313n, 314n decline of 84 frontality, realism and early 71–5 Nadia, ‘Fearless’ 91, 92 Nadira 126 Naidu, S.M. Sreeramulu 132 Nandy, Ashis 4, 10, 47, 85, 91, 141, 142, 184 Narayan, Jaiprakash 324n Narayan, R.K. 166 Nargis 106, 107, 112, 116, 117, 139, 149, 151, 318n narrative(s)/narration, in films 5, 16–20, 176, 246–7, 250 abandoning the art of 255 attractions in 60 breakdown of 260–2, 283 chronology of 32 complex and contorted 291 disruption in 243 and global address 254–6 prodigality 254 logic 27, 59 Page 15 of 25

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General Index point-of-view 32, 33 space 269 narrativity 258 Nath, Alok 232 nation 155, 269, 273, 275, 320n allegorizing 131, 192 -building, after independence 103, 152, 220 and national unity 145–8 as community 143, 298 defense of 161 definition of 11, 26 discourse on 251 emerging 101 eulogy of 293 idea of, in Indian cinema 100 as imagined community 252 independent, India as 102 infant, and immature state 115–17 issues of 234–5 in popular cinema 267 realism and emerging, in 1940s 100–1 resurgent 267–9 as space 132, 274 and state 168, 251–2 undermining the 207 youthful 117 national, allegory 114 audience 252 ‘cinema’, notion of 11, 184 identity, and national ‘mainstream’ 112–15 mainstream 146, 153 reconciliation 186, 188–90 unity 129 and nation building 145–8, 165 nationhood, experience of 108 nationalization of private banks 178, 183, 321n nationalism 201, 228 and globalism 291–4 in Upkar 170, 171 natural selection, of patterns and motifs in cinema 2 Natyashastra 52, 53, 61 nautanki 25, 169 Nehru, Jawaharlal 103, 112, 117, 129, 133, 140, 216 on development 104 (p.357) foreign policy of 168 and India-China war 164 on Kashmir 171 mixed economy of 190 Page 16 of 25

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General Index and modernity 33, 293 and new technology 140 policies of 246 politics of 242 and socialism 238, 251, 259, 261, 262, 281 and Vallabhbhai Patel 115 Western orientation of 110 Nehru era, advent of modernity during 125 agrarian issues during 142 ethnicity during 147 interventionist role of state during 251 Nehru, Motilal 111 neo-Aristotelian principles, of classical Hollywood cinema 17 night scenes, in cities in films 105 Nihalani, Govind 215, 273 Nimmi 112, 126 1947, hope kindled by, in cinema 22 narratives of 40 Nivas, E. 273 noir cinema 135 non-resident Indians, as key audience of Indian cinemas 246, 254–6, 282 and success of Indian cinema 292, 293 Nurjehan 98 ‘oedipal’ conflicts, in films 103, 117–22, 142, 192 in Awaara 119 ‘oedipal drama’ 142 oedipal mother, emergence of, after 1947 22 omniscient camera-eye 51–5, 58 ‘open’ films, notion of 38 open theatres, ‘frontality’ of 72 Ophuls, Max 305n opportunity, emblem of 181, 208 optimistic nationalism, in films of 1950s and 1960s 129 retreat from, in the 1960s 152–6 Osten, Franz 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 89, 90, 92, 198 overseas spectators 282 Painter, Baburao 79 Pakistan, India and 47, 51, 268–9 Muslim League’s rule after 1947 95 Pal, Niranjan 76, 77, 78 Palekar, Amol 187 parallel cinema, rise of 3 Parashar, Deepak 231 parents/parentage, ethical thrust of, in popular cinema 118 as message bearers 96–100 and moral values in the narratives 133 Page 17 of 25

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General Index role of 37, 62 surrogate 39, 241 withdrawal of 275–8 parody, and pastiche 262–6 Parsi theatre 48, 51, 71 in the early 20th century 72 see also proscenium theatre Partition 127, 236, 237 see also Anmol Ghadi passive voices, employment of 45–6 pastiche, parody and 262–6 Patel, Sardar Vallabhbhai 103, 104, 105, 129, 190, 237 and Nehru 115 Patekar, Nana 218 Patil, Smita 212 patriarch(al) family 75, 259 discourse 8 patriotic films 165, 267, 269, 293 patriotic rhetoric 267 Peckinapah, Sam 196 (p.358) Perjuangan genre (Indonesian) 40 Phalke, D.G. 64, 70–1, 73, 74, 79, 133 ‘frontality’ of cinemas of 75 see also frontality photography 30, 74, 305n pioneers, of Indian cinema 69–71 plausibility, narrative 201 playback singers/singing 54 ‘point-of-view’ narration 52, 159 police, portrayal of, in films 94, 103, 120, 123, 129, 130, 132, 144, 154, 181, 191, 197, 212, 213, 214, 244, 272–4, 280, 296, 324n, 327n and caste 227 and corruption 208, 215 and hero 215 imposters 211 political, function, of cinema 13 identities 222 space, of nation 255 ‘politically correct’ reading, in films 20 politics, in India 193, 215–16, 222 crisis in 188–9 radicalizing of 182–3 Poojari, Janardhan 325n poor, and rich, antagonism between 131 popular cinema 1 critical approaches to 9–13 perceived decline in the standard of 3 position of 2 and traditional Sanskrit drama 10 popular culture, responses to 4–9 Page 18 of 25

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General Index critical approaches to 4 post-Fordism 254, 329n postmodernism, in films 7, 260–1 Pran 178 Prasad, M. Madhava 11, 19, 23, 48, 49, 58, 66, 101, 138, 150, 151, 152, 154, 162, 164, 165, 169, 181, 186, 188, 239, 240, 241, 258, 323n ‘pregnant’ movement, meaning of 30, 31, 47, 73, 305n, 307n Premchand, Munshi 84 Premnath 112, 126, 178 ‘progressive’ orientation of films of the 1950s 161 Progressive Writer’s Association 100 prologue 211, 234, 290 property order, structural reform of 171 ‘proscenium style’, of filmmaking 78 proscenium theatre 71–2, 308n see also Parsi theatre psychoanalysis, and theorizing 4, 5 psychoanalytical, approach to popular cinema 4 interpretation 9, 27, 38 psychological causation, in classical cinema 41–2, 59 see also classical cinema psychological complexity, of hero, in Abhimaan 186 public domain, narrative action in 274, 278–9 Puranas 197, 312n Puri, Amrish 239, 253 Puri, Om 215 ‘purity’, female 141 Puttappa, K.V. 326n Quit India Movement 93, 237 Raaj Kumar 139 radical populism, of the 1960s 237 see also Indira Gandhi Rai, Himanshu 76, 78 railway journey, as signifier of national unity 147 see also national unity Raimi, Sam 42 Rajadhyaksha, Ashish 12, 71, 73, 74 (p.359) Rakhee 211 Ralhan, O.P. 94 Ram Janmabhoomi procession, in Bombay 257 Ramakrishna (Parmahamsa) 86 Ramani, Sheila 137 Ramanujan, A.K. 304n, 329n Ramayana 13, 40, 49, 119, 249, 312n ‘Ramrajya’, emblem of 247–50, 250, 252 see also Hum Aapke Hain Koun…!, Sooraj Barjatya Ramsay brothers 60 Ranade, Ashok 82 Rao, Narasimha 238, 242, 281 economic liberalization under 292 Rao, N.T. Rama 159 Rao, Raja 326n Page 19 of 25

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General Index rape, and ‘feminine dishonour’ 208 vengence of raped woman, in Insaaf Ka Tarazu 208 victim of 209 see also motif of ‘dishonoured woman’, woman rasas, of Sanskrit poetics 10 Rawail, Rahul 156, 207, 218, 231, 234, 298 Rawal, Paresh 262 Ray, A.N. 183 Ray, Satyajit 2, 24, 184, 288, 318n Reaganite 1980s, impact on cinema 254 realism 3, 56, 100, 266, 269 emphasis on, in Hollywood films 41 valorizing of, by critics 27, 46 realist discourse 79 rebel, figure of 144 romantic of 145 ‘reception studies’ 8 reconciliation, cinema of 186, 187, 189, 190, 205 Redford, Robert 36 reform movement, in India 84, 238 ‘reformist’ films 89, 92, 104 in the early thirties 3 on social issues 86–7 reformist realism 92, 100 reformist socials 84–7 regional films 26, 83 distinct characteristics of 24 regional identities 217–21 Rehman 199 Rehman, Waheeda 166 reincarnation, Indian belief in 109–10 relay of meaning, in Indian cinema 48, 52, 56 religion/religious, beliefs 146 conflict 256, 257 differences, in Bobby 178–9 identity 230–2 Rembrandt, Van Rijn 30 repressive state apparatus, as control structure 7 responsibility, notion of 187 ritual participation and communication 50–1, 248 ‘road movie’ 168, 321n romance 39, 107, 164, 192, 234, 240, 243, 266 and dosti 162 forbidden 151 influence of, in Indian popular cinema 37–8 and love 253, 255, 259 Romeo and Juliet 57 Roshan, Rakesh 295 Roy, Bimal 32, 39, 90, 147, 154, 184, 226 Roy, Nirupa 191, 203, 204 Page 20 of 25

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General Index Roy, Raja Rammohun 84, 85, 86 advocacy of advaita (monism) 85 rural landlords, in Congress 143 Russian formalists 58 sacred, traditionally, depiction of 74, 79 Sadhana 156 Saigal, K.L. 82, 90, 316n (p.360) Saigal, Ramesh 130 Sahni, Balraj 158, 170 Salim, Prince, films on 130 Samanta, Shakti 135, 153, 169, 174, 187, 234, 285 Sankara, monism of 85 Sanskrit drama/plays 10, 48, 53, 55, 57, 61 Sanskrit theatre 52 Sanskrit poetics, rasas of 10 Santoshi, Raj Kumar 208, 218, 238 Sarhadi, Zia 130 sati 198 opposition to 85 Saxena, Amit 294 Scott, Ridley 284 secularism 129, 179, 228, 256 science fiction 40 ‘second chance’, notion of 152 Segal, Mohan 146, 220 sequence, framing in Mother India 34 Sen, Mrinal 184 Seshadri, Meenakshi 238 sexism, in films 150 and violence 207 sexual identities, in colonial culture 91 sexuality, and political dominance in colonial India 91 Shah, A.M. 62 Shah Jahan 40 Shah, Kundan 277, 279 Shahane, Renuka 247 Shahani, Kumar 304n Shakti, depiction in films 141, 198 Shantaram, V. 81, 86, 87, 88, 92, 100, 184, 245, 313n shared culture, of Indian popular cinema 50 Sharma, Anil 293 Sharma, Kidar 104 Sharma, Vijay 197 Shastri, Lal Bahadur 170, 173, 179 Shetty, Sunil 268 Shinde, Sayaji 273 Shiv Sena 271 representation in films 218 Shroff, Jackie 265, 268 Page 21 of 25

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General Index shot/reverse shot editing 28 simplicity, in films of the 1990s 248, 250–2 Singh, Gracie 289 Singh, K.N. 118, 123, 131 Singh, S.V. Rajendra 219 singing stars, and playback singing 54, 82 Singer, Bryan 60 Singh, Dara 60 Singh, K.N. 213 Sinha, Mala 150 Sinha, Vidya 187 Sippy, Ramesh 196, 207, 211 social, function of cinema 13 history, of India 19, 21, 22, 23 identities, of characters 125 reformers in India 85 social conflict 122, 201, 256, 257, 288, 292 being eased out of popular film narratives 265, 267, song(s) 54, 60, 303 absence of, in ‘primitive’ cinema 69 -and-dance films 83–4 importance of 12 see also film music sound, coming of 81–4, 136 South Asian cinema 250 South Indian mythological films 84 Soviet iconography 140 Soviet Union, collapse of 22, 238 space 75, 81 and action 133 classical off-screen 30 continuous, absence of, in Andaz 32 defining narrative 30, 81 quality of in popular cinema 29–30 representation of 27, 28–31 (p.361) ‘spectacle’ 199, 245, 246, 247, 250, 255, 258, 291 and the nation 169–71 spectator, of films 13, 56, 303n speech, employment of, in early films 81–2 Spielberg, Steven 284, 295 Sridhar 151 Star Dust, magazine 50 state authority, in cinema 145, 181, 182, 211–13, 218 invocation of, in films 125 moral authority and 94, 129–32 and nation 251–2 and patronage 126 ‘withdrawal’ of 242–4, 250 ‘stereotypes’ 53, 54 Page 22 of 25

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General Index ‘story’, aspects of 16 crucial to Indian mainstream cinema 12 and individual 18, 49 structural Marxism 7 structuralism, approach to high culture and popular culture 4, 6 influence on film studies 5 sub-plots, in films 59, 203 subjecthood, the experience of, in film narratives 125 Sultana, Munawar 106 Sunny, S.U. 104, 106 Supreme Court 183 Surendra 98 Suri, Mohit 294 ‘surrogate past’, denoting of 37 suspense/surprise 55–7 creation of 58 sutradhara, correspondence with the omniscient camera eye 52 see also omniscience of camera eye Swamy, Arvind 228, 256 symptomatic readings 13 syuzhet (plot) 58 ‘tableaux’ 31, 33, 47, 59, 76, 81 arrangement 52–3 Roland Barthes on 30 Tagore, Rabindranath 84 Tagore, Sharmila 151, 153, 174 Tahil, Dalip 243 ‘talaaq’/divorce, in Nikaah 231 tamasha performance 25 Tamil cinema 132 Tamil Nadu, demographic politics of 3 ‘Tamil motherhood’ 229 Tansen 125, 126 Tarantino, Quentin 60 technicolour, use in cinema 140 see also employment of colour ‘theatricality’, in early Indian cinema 51 theory 13–14 application to Indian cinema 15–16 and interpretation 15 thief, the hero as, and the discourse on ‘evil’ 93–4 motif of 193 Third World cinema 40, 282 Thomas, Rosie 143 Thoraval, Yves 11 thriller films 294 titillation, in cinema 3 titles, chosen 49 Page 23 of 25

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General Index missing 299 in English 77, 144 time, representation of 27, 31–3 universal 32, 34, 35 tourist/wanderer, the motif of 165–9 ‘traditionalists’, methods of 2–3, 17 tragic end, in Hindi cinema 225 traits, identifying, of Indian popular cinema 27 ‘type’, character 107 story and 49 Uberoi, Patricia 19, 62, 63, 67, 68, 252, 284 (p.362) ‘unity of action’, Aristotelian concept of 47 Upanishads, authority of 85 upper castes, entrenchment of 122 upward mobility 179–81 ‘urban’/‘modern’ space 270 power of, over ethnic 113 urban gangster/criminal 199, 200 Vaishya caste 225 Valmiki, in Ramayana 49 Van Sant, Gus 279 Vasudevan, Ravi 12, 19, 30, 32, 33, 65, 105, 115, 119, 121, 124, 258, 259, 302n, 316n Verma, Raja Ravi, paintings of 71, 72–3, 74, 133 Verma, Ramgopal 265, 270, 273 vidhushaka, role of 10 Vidyasagar, Ishwarchandra 85, 86 vigilante 132, 181–2, 215, 218 justice, in Hindi cinema 132, 209 see also female vigilante villages, Indian 139 villains, portrayal of 64–6, 122, 132, 134, 155, 189, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 205, 220, 259, 276 as hate figure 45 as ‘class enemy’ 199 in army uniform, in Sholay 196–7 Vivekananda, Swami 85, 86 violence, in cinema 3, 238 in films of the 1980s 207 in society 207–8, 222 use as diversionary spectacle 156 see also brutality Volonté, Gian Maria 196 Vyjantimala 144, 150, 160 Wadia, Homi 91 Walpole, Horace 109 war, films 158 West/Western, conventions of 39 influence 75–80 market, for Indian cinema 254 stage melodramas 58 texts, Hindi cinema plagiarizing from 13 Page 24 of 25

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General Index widowed heroines 224 Wilder, Billy 136 World War, Second 92–3 women, active role of in the 1950s 149 chastity of 141 ‘dishonoured’ 208–11 lonely and insecure 188 modern 148–52 movement 8 oppressed 174 ‘romance’ 37 social role of 86 strong, and weak men 90 transition condition of 176 typified by class 106 working 187 see also female vigilante ‘youth’ films 207 zamindar, economic role of 144–5 hated figure of, in Hindi cinema 199 Zinta, Preity 277, 279

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