How cinema in 70 years of Independence....

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F reedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

Nothing, I mean nothing, honey if it isn't free...

Janis Joplin (Me and Bobby McGee)

In 1936, at the inaugural conference of the All India Progressive Writers Conference in Lucknow, Munshi Premchand, delivering the presidential address, made an appeal to produce literature that would champion social justice and be responsive to prevalent evils.

Premchand was speaking at a turbulent moment in history that saw the need for social realism in literature and art to free it from popular narrative forms like mythology and romance. .

Bombay was the new home of many Urdu writers, who had migrated to the city during the 30s and 40s from the towns of North India, writing for noted Urdu journals such as Mussavar and Karawan . The language of cinema was predominantly Urdu, and the world of publishing was closely linked to the film industry, leading to a rich exchange of ideas and themes. Eminent progressive writers like Saadat Hasan Manto, Krishan Chander, Ismat Chughtai and Shaheed Latif were also part of the film industry.

Freedom from injustice

At about this time, Manto had started writing screenplays as a scribe or munshiwith Imperial Film Company. One of his earliest was Keechar , rooted in socialist ideas, for Hindustan Movietone, filmed as Apni Nagariya (1940). Then there was Kisan Kanya (1937), the first colour film produced by Ardeshir Irani of Imperial Film Company. The films were about the long journey to real freedom from social injustice that India was going to encounter. Even as Manto's screenplays were social critiques, as a writer of short stories, he was breaking free of the formal boundaries of realism set by Progressive Writers Association, the only way for him to represent the violence of Partition.

The Film Enquiry Committee, set up in 1949, and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting saw cinema within the framework of nation-building and urged filmmakers to build myths of Indianness' through their narratives. The idea of the free nation was taking shape and its cinema, helmed by writers who tried to understand freedom from colonial, economic and caste oppressions, was also taking a different form. The films were not just narratives of the freedom movement, but also stories about a society yet to be freed of the shackles of exploitation and oppression.

Ushering in a new wave

Eminent director Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, who wrote Neecha Nagar (1946) and Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani (1946), was one of the filmmakers whose stories captured the real hurdles faced by the newly-free nation. In 1969, his film Saat Hindustanitold a different narrative of freedom the liberation of Goa from Portuguese rule in 1961.

Haqeeqat (1964), directed by Chetan Anand, also known for its popular patriotic song by Kaifi Azmi, Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyon', was set against the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and seen through a small platoon fighting in the difficult terrain of Ladakh. Territorial conquest was a threat, through the 60s, and the country was again fighting for freedom and the protection of its land. Haqeeqat portrayed the sacrifices that freedom from wars must entail.

Then came Mrinal Sen's award-wnning film, Bhuvan Shome (1969). The titular character is an honest civil servant working in the railways, and bound by his ethics even as everyone around him sees bribing as their right. On a sudden whim, Bhuvan (Utpal Dutt) decides to travel to Saurashtra for a bird-shooting expedition.

The journey changes him, as he traverses the arid landscape that symbolises an India outside his elite, English-speaking office and urban landscape. In the end, Bhuvan is set free from his rigid ways, just like the metaphor of bird shooting that runs alongside the narrative. Bhuvan Shome was an uneasy film in the way it chose to understand free India along with all its imperfections.

Made with state funding from the Film Finance Corporation (predecessor to the National Film Development Corporation of India), Bhuvan Shome ushered in a new wave in Indian cinema, with films that took on the conflict between freedom and independence in politically radical works. They scraped the surface reality to see the feudalism, corruption and class war gnawing at the core.

Breakaway cinema

These films were also a breakaway from mainstream cinema and its forms of production, in trying to create a parallel economy and audience. Shyam Benegal's films told of people fighting patriarchy and middle-class morality in Ankur (1974) and Nishant (1975), about the co-operative movement in Manthan(1976). Films by Govind Nihalani, Mani Kaul and Adoor Gopalakrishnan explored the many meanings of freedom.

Meanwhile, from the 80s on, cries of freedom resonated from various parts within the country. Azadi' was voiced in no uncertain terms for the first time in mainstream bilingual cinema, by the terrorist Liaqat (Pankaj Kapur) in Mani Ratnam's Roja. The nation was failing its citizens and an encounter between self-determination and patriotism unfolded in picturesque Srinagar between a Tamil software engineer and an educated, multilingual Kashmiri secessionist. Cinema would soon be filled with stories of people forgotten by the nation, seeking freedom from the authoritarian state.

Maachis (1996) by Gulzar was set around Operation Blue Star and the Khalistan movement, Mani Ratnam's Dil Se... (1998) around the insurgency in the Northeast. Both looked at the urgency of freedom for communities deeply affected by the inadequacies of the state and its violent control mechanisms. The stories carried the essential dilemma contained in history, when one man's freedom is another's tyranny.

The question of freedom of choice, identity or speech has been put to test often, in these 70 years of independence. Even as today the national anthem is used as a test of obedience, a recent rendition of the anthem in Rangoon (2017) reminds us that the verse itself celebrates the diversity that was meant to set us free.

The author teaches English literature at Delhi University. She also writes screenplays and obsesses about her cats.

Bhuvan Shome scraped the surface of reality to see the feudalism, corruption and class war gnawing at the core of society.