Patriotism being redefined in Hindi films: waving flags and laying down lives not enough

I s patriotism in Hindi films dead? Manoj Kumar came to be associated with patriotism and patriotic films like Shaheed and Upkar. Today after a long period of hibernation in his mid-eighties he is all set toreturn to filmmaking with a film on genealogy.

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehradirected one of the last ‘patriotic’ films Rang De Basanti in recent times. “There were 4-5 Bhagat Singh films that didn’t connect with the audience. Then there was Ketan Mehta’s Mangal Pandey. That too failed. And my film cast Aamir Khan as Mangal Pandey. We never thought about whether it would work or not. It’s so much more fun to raise the bar,” he recalls.

“In school I wanted to join the Air Force. It didn’t work out for me. In college in Delhi, I was predominantly a sportsman. It didn’t work out because I was from a lower middle-class family. And the first priority was to bring money back into the family…as we grew up in Delhi, on August 15 we would fly kites, we could hear India Gandhi speak…while patriotic songs blared on the loudspeaker…‘Ae mere watan ke logon’, ‘Mere desh ki dharti’…we were looking at the idea of India in the soaring kites…films like Mother India, Do Bigha Zameen, Naya Daur which came on TV, would touch us all,” Mehra adds.

Mehra wanted to make a film on the life of the revolutionaries. He held focus group discussions in Delhi and Mumbai, when he took a new story idea to youngsters between 17 and 23.

He says while for his generation a relationship meant, ‘Let’s get married and make babies together,’ surveys showed this was not so for the younger generation. The youngsters they spoke to were driven by ambition. The survey also quizzed the youth about the country and the tri-colour. It revealed that the borders of patriotism had blurred. Pagdi sambhal jatta was no more relevant. Not too many kids knew who Chandrashekhar Azad was.

“I told my writer Kamlesh Pandey there was no point in making a film about freedom fighters. He insisted, reminded me of the passion that Manoj Kumar’s films used to incite. But that was a different era. I sadly abandoned the original idea and hit on another idea of a British documentary filmmaker coming to India to make a film on the Indian armed revolution. She finds kids who are more western than her. Two lines… the past and present run together. They intersect. Finally, my heroes took up arms. At the end my heroes realise how futile it was to kill the minister,” he reminisces.

The audience love heroes and don’t want them to die. What I was trying to say in the film is, we got independence from the gorasbut we got enslaved by our own. Now we’re killing each other.

Bedabrata Pain is the director of one of the few patriotic films in more recent years. His Chittagong is a take on the Chittagong uprising against the British Raj in 1930.

Pain also feels patriotic films have run out of steam.“I think one of the problems with our patriotic films is that it focuses more on sacrifice and hero worship and less on the victory. I think today’s India wants to hear stories of winning;they also feel that a patriotic film will not be very exciting.”

Take a film like Braveheart.I think we have not been able to create such a big canvas. I don’t believe people have become apathetic to nationalism.I think the challenge for filmmakers is to keep it exciting.

“Patriotic cinema of Manoj Kumar type does not evoke the same sentiments today.That was the era of optimism, of hope, of vision, anticipation of something big that was going to happen, for which people were willing to lay down their lives. But that story of hope and vision has now been replaced by cynicism.

“Very few films dare to talk about creating a new society. The pervasive theme is of cynicism. I think we live in an age where we don’t see solutions,where we don’t see inspiration. If we compare M.S. Sathyu’s Garam Hawa with Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaron Khwahishey -- both beautiful films -- I loved both of them. But Sathyu made me smile through my tears,whereas Sudhir made me sad even as I was overwhelmed with the beauty of the film,” says Pain.

The Indian youth are today averse to history, feels Pain. “Look at how many films were made on WWII or even the Irish uprisings. But ours can be counted on our fingertips. At the same time, it’s not that the genre doesn’t work. Ashutosh Gowarikar had given us a hit movie with Jodha Akbar. Despite my misgivings about the film, it worked.”

The new economic policy in 1992 severed the last connection with the past, he says. It’s almost as if a new Discovery of India had to be written. “Our present generation is a product, for good or for worse (mostly worse I feel), of globalisation. Their head is stuck in the glitter of international wealth and the American way of life than rooted in India. Most of the middle-class urban youth today have no concept of slums and those who are in the lower rungs (or say in smaller towns) don’t want to change their situation, they want to escape from it. We don’t want to create a new India. We want to escape it. And that’s what has caused our young generation to be disconnected from the present and the history of India.”

Filmmaker Sanjay Chauhan, who directed Lahore, a film on IndoPak amity, says “While it is believed that one-dimensional, flag-waving films with themes of sacrificing one’s life for the beloved nation,like Anil Sharma’s Gadar have lost their audience, I beg to differ.”

Rang De Basanti with its candlelight protestsand even Lahore which many thought was anti-climactic because it showed Pakistan’s victory on a sports platform, is a quintessential example of new-wave patriotic cinema, he says. Preachy patriotism is out, he concedes.

Filmmaker Ananth Mahadevan feels the concept of patriotism has undergone a sea change in cinema. “Shaheed, Kranti, Khelenge Hum Jee Jaan Se and Chittagong, a film about characters fighting for their country in pre-Independence India, defined patriotism in the current context,” he feels.

Audiences don’t want empty slogans, false pride and bogus dreams, says Subhash Ghai. “Today cinema is addressing itself to real India. You may see some reflection of that reality in my film Kanchi,” he adds.

“It’s still about love and loyalty for the country. Earlier perhaps it was more tangible in terms of an external enemy and striving to get freedom for your country. Then it was about building your country, the Naya Daur and Upkar genre of patriotic cinema. But today’s patriotic cinema is about changing our country, purging it of the corruption and other ills that have set in.The enemy is within. Today Gandhian ideals are again finding a resonance in our cinema, e.g Raj Kumar Hirani’s Munnabhai. Be the change you want.”

Dr Chandraprakash Diwedi who crafted the film Pinjar on the theme of patriotism adds, “Yes, there has been a decline in films depicting the past. A patriotic film needn’t be historical in content. Any film that strengthens and integrates society, cultivates peace and harmony is patriotic. For me Salim Ahamed’s Malayalam film Adminte Makan Abu, Gautam Ghose’s Bengali film Moner Manush and Amit Rai’s Road to Sangam are also patriotic films.”