Defining a New Nation in the 1950s: India and the West
Reading
- Jacob Levich, “Freedom Songs: Rediscovering Bollywood's Golden Age,” Film Comment 38, no. 3 (2002): 48-51. (online)
- The first paragraph of Parama Roy, "Figuring Mother India," in Indian Traffic: Identities in Question in Colonial and Postcolonial India (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998). (online)
- Kenneth X. Robbins, "Jewish Women Were Indian Cinema's First Actresses," (Bangalore: The News Minute, 2016). (online)
Viewing
Watch the song sequence "Pyar Hua Iqrar Hua" starring Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Raj Kapoor's Shree 420 (1955).Watch the song sequence "Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh" starring Nadira and Raj Kapoor in Raj Kapoor's Shree 420 (1955). You may follow along with the lyrics and their translation here.
Jacob Levich notes how the Hindi film industry during the 1950s served to promote progressive ideas about India's identity as a newly independent nation as actors, directors, lyricists, singers, poets, writers, and dancers flocked to Bombay from different parts of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to work together in the film industry. In the song sequence "Pyar Hua Iqrar Hua," we witness the stirrings of love between the protagonist Raj, a poor migrant to Bombay, and the heroine Vidya, a simple schoolteacher, after they share a cup of tea in the rain. In the song sequence "Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh," we witness how the hapless rural migrant Raj has been persuaded to disguise himself as a prince at a fancy party, and how the glamorous temptress Maya seduces him away from Vidya, whom he actually loves.
In this film, the temptress Maya is played by the Baghdadi Jewish actress Nadira, and the simple schoolteacher Vidya by the Muslim actress Nargis, herself a daughter of a courtesan. The fact that both of their characters' names are associated with Sanskrit and Hindu philosophy suggests their identities as Hindus in the film, which in many ways conveys how films work to bring together people from diverse communities into the Indian nation—because as Hindus, their Indianness would never be questioned.
Throughout the film, we see a clear distinction between good and bad that corresponds to the distinction between India and the West. The film envisions an Indian modernity and future that respects the poor and isn't prey to the evils of Western capitalism. The two very different genres of music you hear in the clip also correspond to this dichotomy. In the second song, we hear everything from ballroom waltzes to jazz, Spanish guitar, and Latin-influenced dance rhythms—all signs of the decadent West.
