The past decade saw a significant shift in the national box office, with dubbed films and remakes featuring unknown South Indian actors achieving massive success, often overshadowing original Bollywood productions banking on its leading stars. This trend is among the crucial socio-cultural aspects analysed by film scholar M. K. Raghavendra in his book under review, entitled “The Subject of the Nation and His ‘Others’ in Hindi Cinema: Gender, Religious, Caste, and Ethnic Identity As Difference”. The author draws on literary critic Fredric Jameson’s famous assertion that all ‘Third-World’ literary narratives should be interpreted as national allegories, arguing that post-colonial narratives bear public connotations because private life is much less separate from public concerns. Raghavendra extends this premise in his book, noting that cinema has gained sway over literary narratives in articulating the nation’s story.
Also drawing on political scientist Benedict Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined communities’, Raghavendra looks at the ‘imagined nation’ in Hindi cinema and identifies the hero chosen to ‘embody’ it. The hero’s personal story thus mirrors the nation’s existence as an allegory. This national subject is characterized as an upper-caste, Hindu, predominantly male archetype, often ‘surname-less’and ‘region-less,’ thus functioning as an ahistorical representative. Women, the marginalized categories, and minorities are presented as ‘others’ with separate stories for the issues dealing with them—but distinct from that of the nation. While this cinematic blueprint is not entirely unexpected, the author traces its origins to the rise of 19th-century Indian nationalism, as reflected in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s “Anandamath” (1882) and, in the first chapter, finds its basis to be elitist at its core.
This chapter on ‘Film Form and Ideology’ defines popular Hindi cinema’s stable, non-mimetic form. It prioritizes the relay of a pre-existing message or truism rather than reproducing the ambiguity inherent in reality. The primary message relayed in Hindi films sounds like traditional wisdom that upholds a seemingly universal value independent of historical context, for instance, loyalty to the family and obedience to it (Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (1994)). Due to the focus on “universal truth”, character subjectivity is notably absent. The camera maintains an omniscient viewpoint, showing events as they transpired rather than through someone’s perception. The narrative unfolds as though a “first cause”—akin to karma, often a pivotal prehistory like the humiliation of the father in Deewar (1975), or a “seed” from Sanskrit drama—determines all subsequent actions. Romantic relationships do not progress through stages of interpersonal conflict (as in Hollywood) but are announced as “perfect” and “eternal”. Difficulties are caused by external agencies. The successful culmination of a romance (the transition from brahmacharya to grihastha or householder) is used primarily as a structural device to bring the film’s story to an end (closure), as “adulthood” is not an acknowledged stage of life in traditional Indian ashramas (life stages).
This entire form, stable since the silent era, is attributed to a hierarchical Brahminical tradition. The discussion calls it false consciousness and contrasts the form with Western mimesis, considering it as the normative standard. However, the possibility of a unique, coherent indigenous aesthetic—one that draws on the best of tradition—cannot be discounted, even if its expression lies outside the realm of popular cinema.
The author maps the male hero with distinct political eras: In the 1950s, stars like Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Dev Anand portrayed diverse characters reflecting Nehruvian modernity and egalitarianism in films like Awaara (1951), (Babul, 1950) and Kala Bazar (1960) respectively. The 1960s saw romantic heroes signal national disengagement, e.g., Shammi Kapoor in Kashmir Ki Kali (1964), followed by the Angry Young Man in the 1970s, e.g., Amitabh Bachchan in Deewar (1975), emerging from Mrs. Gandhi’s radical politics. Post-1991, market logic defined personal destinies resembling karmic law, and the state recedes (Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (1994)). It led to the New Millennium Anglophone/ Multiplex cinema which justified criminality for success (Guru (2007)).
The book’s perceptive analysis of Bollywood’s decline, set against new nationalist demands for patriotic cinema post-2014, is one of its important sections. As the author points out, this has led to a depletion of narrative possibilities, reducing them to the singularity of nationalism. Older patriotic films, like Manoj Kumar’s Upkar (1967), included multiple narrative threads, such as family life and agrarian relationships, alongside war. Unlike them, modern war films like The Ghazi Attack (2017) and Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019) have weakened or eliminated these other threads, suggesting an increasingly propagandistic role for cinema. The book discusses the pan-Indian success of dubbed South Indian blockbusters such as Pushpa (2021) and KGF 2 (2022), connoting “resistance to central authority,” and wonders whether this spells trouble for the inclusively imagined nation. While these films fill the void left by Bollywood’s patriotic fatigue, it is worth asking whether their defiant regional undertones would have come through in north India in the same way. In Hindi-dubbed versions, the regional versus national distinction is likely to be blurred, and their defiance may appear simply as local grit. Their anti-establishment or anti-authoritarian themes run counter to Bollywood’s nationalist preoccupations, complicating its national narrative—though ascribing “resistance to central authority” even in their pan-Indian avatar perhaps stretches the interpretation.
Film aesthetes might find it odd to view cinema through such a socio-political lens. They may echo the scepticism of Vladimir Nabokov, who famously questioned the value of fiction as a reliable source of information: ‘Can we expect to glean information about places and times from a novel?’ Extending this critique to cinema, one might wonder whether films can truly offer insight into a nation. However, the methodological approach of the book under review is grounded precisely in Fredric Jameson’s assertion that all ‘Third-World’ texts should be read as national allegory.
The book asserts that the portrayal of women remains fundamentally male-centric, evolving from strong pre-independence figures to victims of social pressures or state weakness, often needing male intervention for justice. Even modern, woman-centric films like The Lunchbox (2013) and Pink (2016) end up relying on and giving dominance to the male narrative voice. As for Muslims, historically positioned as ‘others,’ early film genres (like Historicals or Courtesan films) focused on upper-class life and forbidden love, reflecting social hierarchy. Post-Partition, the author argues that secularism became a form of minority protectionism, making these film narratives archaic by insulating them from internal issues like class conflict (Pakeezah (1971) and Nikaah (1982)). During the radical period of Mrs. Indira Gandhi in the 1970s, art cinema (supported by state intervention) provided different portrayals (Garam Hawa (1973) and Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro (1989)). The period following economic liberalization in 1991 initially saw Muslim identity become less significant in Hindi cinema (Rang De Basanti (2005)). After 2014, however, Muslim representation became distinctly politicized in films, with The Kashmir Files (2022) being a clear example.
The author analyses narrative patterns of films featuring Dalit heroes such as Masaan (2015) and Sairat (2016). They depict caste as mere irrational prejudice by using upper-caste actors, thereby denying the reality of the immense social gulfs and power imbalances inherent in its structural reality. The ‘social other’ evolves from the criminalized lower classes to politicians. It’s a sharp observation that Hindi film criminals are often portrayed as inherently criminal even before committing any illegal act. As for ethnicities in Hindi cinema, Kashmir is a law-and-order issue; South Indians gain economic respect, while North-easterners are overlooked. Finally, Pakistan is depicted as a morally inferior ‘brother led astray,’ questioning its democratic viability as in Veer-Zaara (2004).
This is the nineteenth book published by the prolific M. K. Raghavendra. It offers an insightful look at how India is imagined in Hindi cinema. The prose demands patience due to its scholarly depth, but the careful effort is richly rewarded by the author’s acute observations. Some interpretations may appear forced, suggesting an over-reliance on the national allegory framework. Nevertheless, while it is not aimed at film aesthetes, it demonstrates how film narratives reveal and perpetuate asymmetries of exclusion of ‘others’. Ultimately, the book not only analyses the recent success of South Indian blockbusters vis-à-vis Bollywood’s struggles but also provokes crucial questions about the future trajectory of Hindi cinema.
“The Subject of the Nation and His ‘Others’ in Hindi Cinema”, Routledge, 224 pages, Kindle edition ₹3,145.80, Hardcover ₹13,340
The title of the film is ironic as it refers to not just a family but the closely-knit community in the small village which follows religious rituals. In the early part of the film the entire village has turned up to attend a wedding. A barber addresses the gathering there, requesting permission from the ‘family’ for beautifying the groom! The shaving in public is followed by a dance performance by teenage girls. Some of the lines of the song for which they dance are about protecting children: “On your children who roam – Protect them keenly – With your showers of mercy, St. Thomas”. Later it’ll be known why it’s relevant to Family.
The scene in which Sony tutors a young girl in her house is shot creatively. Normally such a scene will show Sony and the girl in the foreground with an insignificant and unobtrusive background so that we can understand the foreground action clearly. This scene makes an entirely opposite approach. After showing the girl in a medium shot in her room, there is a cut to the living room. In the foreground we can see the girl’s father sitting in a cane chair and watching TV oblivious to what is happening in the room nearby. In the background the audience can see Sony sitting at a desk through the entrance of the room but the girl can’t be seen. At some point Sony gets up and goes to the other side of the desk so the audience can’t even see what’s going on. The significant action by Sony in the background is left to our imagination. It’s all the more disturbing as Sony takes advantage of the trusting father of the girl in the foreground. The gravity of the scene is deeper by withholding the main part of background action.
Family opens with the conversation on the leopard between Sony riding a bike and Subin sitting behind him, announcing the recurrent leopard theme. A leopard from the adjoining forest is on the prowl. There are evidences of its presence as it preys on a calf and a chicken. But the film doesn’t show the leopard until the penultimate scene. Traps have been dug up to catch the predator but it’s a cow which gets caught in the trap and rescued. At some point we realize the connection between the leopard and the protagonist Sony. Unlike the animal which the villagers try to catch by setting up traps, Sony is “cured” and even rewarded. Finally, when we see the leopard in full view, we realize the enormity of the danger caused by the animal as well as the human beast.
The parallel with the leopard structures Family, conveying the predatory nature of the film’s protagonist. Just as we only see the signs of the leopard’s preying, Sony’s sinister actions aren’t shown but their effects on his victims can be seen. The effort made to catch the animal contrasts with the virtual license given to Sony in the end.
Although the film has an understated satirical tone, it is largely in the nature of presenting a phenomenon and letting any conclusion emerge out of it rather than spell it out. It’s significant that the protagonist Sony is not portrayed as a villain although his good deeds come under scrutiny. He has to be a helpful person so that he can control people to his advantage. In a well-conceived scene, Sony removes his shirt and lies down next to Subin in the bed. He admonishes Subin for his misbehaviour in the school. This scene shows how Sony has an exterior persona of somebody who is concerned about Subin’s welfare but in fact he exploits Subin’s weakness for approval in order to get physically close to him. The sensitive Subin feels bad for displeasing Sony and runs away from home for a while. In yet another notable scene, Sony goes by his father’s words and conveys to Neethu that he’s putting an end to their relationship. Sony is shown as a master manipulator who is able to derive sympathy from Neethu. She even tells him that she feels sorry for him! One person Sony can’t control is Subin’s elder brother Noby who has perhaps seen through him.
In one of the best scenes in the film, Sony’s aunt, who is a nun, silences Rani, yet another aunt of Sony, who had reason to suspect Sony of committing a grave act. In an earlier scene Rani shares her suspicion about Sony with Subin’s mother Jaya. Determined to whitewash Sony’s acts, the nun admonishes Rani, the lone sane voice. The nun has come with an alliance for him as well as a job as requested by Sony’s father in the early part of the film. In yet another remarkable scene, she advises Sony in the car to put an end to his “silliness” and takes the approach of “reforming” him by sending him to a retreat which, she claims, can cure even the incurable ones. She assures him that if he sincerely repents and prays, the lord will forgive him.
In the school assembly, Sony is introduced as a new teacher. The students are asked to applaud and welcome him. Halfway through the singing of the prayer song it starts raining so the students run towards the school building. The piety of the welcome for the teacher is subverted. It’s shocking that the predator is offered his prey on a platter. We realize that this is in fact a horror story. In the following scene the leopard which has only been talked about is shown in full view. It is a couple of children who happen to witness the leopard. Likewise, it’s the children who’ll come to know the leopard in Sony. He has an entire school at his disposal. The last freeze frame shows Sony with school children around, sending chills up our spines.
Jaleel Badusha’s camera follows a rigorous scheme of static shots with long takes which has paid off. The high angle shots in a number of scenes help in depicting the vulnerability of the characters. There is an unusual composition in which a young boy is seen sleeping in a sofa in the foreground while a mass is being performed in the background. Such a scene will usually focus only on the mass which will appear to be too carefully composed. In real life, if a child is sleepy, it’ll be put to sleep and the rest of the group will continue with its activity. This is the way it’s done in this scene in Family which makes it contrapuntal. On the other hand, the house prayer scene is carefully composed but, even in this scene, Sony is looking at the camera. Perhaps the fourth wall is broken to sensitize the audience to the presence of the wolf among the sheep which offsets the piety. The confession scene is somewhat like how employees in a company state something innocuous when they are asked to come up with their weaknesses as part of self-assessment.
Just as Sita in the epic had to undergo hardships by having to go to forest, in the film also Sita has to go through adversities. The dream sequences in the early part of the film portend Sita losing Vishwam. He climbs down the rocks towards the sea as she keeps gesturing to him to come back. In another dream sequence Vishwam lies down keeping his head on the railway track with the approaching train’s sound on the soundtrack. She runs upto him and forces him to get up. In yet another sequence she chases him in the woods and loses him. It has memorable tracking shots of her running in the forest looking out for him. Sita being renounced by Rama in the last part of the epic (Uttarakandam) has its echo in Sita losing Vishwam in the end.
Vishwam happens to see briefly a leftist party meeting in which the speaker talks about how the working class is misled by various parties. He adds that all of them obstruct the struggle of workers and their liberation. Much later in Swayamvaram after losing his job, there is a scene which shows a political march in protest against retrenching workers. Vishwam quietly watches it passing by. It seems the film was not given an award at the Moscow International Film Festival in which it was nominated. Adoor has said that the jury was surprised that Vishwam didn’t join the march of the workers which costed the film an award. Vishwam himself has been retrenched from his job. Yet he doesn’t join the march. Adoor has said that the reason is “he doesn’t see himself as part of this. This has to be understood because the other thing is simplistic that he also joins it. That’s the kind of films we used to send to Moscow.” [1] Vishwam doesn’t belong to the working class. Hence it wouldn’t have been appropriate to show him in the stock manner which would satisfy the expectation of the audience and an agenda driven jury. This is an important aspect of Swayamvaram which makes it stand apart.
In the end when Vishwam passes away, Vishwam’s colleague suggests that she can live with his family. Janaki tells Sita to return to her parents. Sita rejects both the options. Once again, she makes her own choice. Her condition can be looked at in terms of the parallel of her situation with Sita in “Ramayana” who was renounced by Rama in Uttarakandam. In the last scene there are the sounds of thunder and pouring rain as Sita feeds her child. Water leaking from the roof falls down over the picture of swayamvaram on the wall which is lit up by the lightning. The last shot is ambiguous as it shows Sita having an eye on the closed door, concerned about safety. While she is willing to face the world on her own, the future is uncertain.
Such an approach will lead to yet another interpretation: Unravelling the mystery of one’s psyche and searching for one’s identity may lead to one’s self-destruction. In this view, Ajayan’s search for identity starts right from when we see him crying as a child for mother’s milk. Questions on who are his mother and father haunt him. True to the meaning of his name Ajayan (the invincible one), his performance is extraordinary in studies, sports etc. but he excels in everything perhaps to make up for his lack of identity. The film makes an acute observation that super competence may end up as a failure. Yearning for a caring woman, Ajayan develops a liking for an elder girl Lata which is thwarted by a couple of senior boys. He gets attracted to his foster brother Balu’s sensuous wife Suma which ruins his studies. Curiously, the meaning of Suma’s full name, Sumangali, is “a married woman whose husband is alive”. He confesses his feeling of guilt for his forbidden feelings for Suma which apparently leads to his suicide. The second version is clearly in a different voice, making us recognize that there are in fact multiple voices in one person which may come into conflict. Perhaps the voice in the first version overstated his ability as the voice in the second one doesn’t portray him as gifted. “Ajayan” turns out to be an ironical name. The two versions view the servants differently. The three caring servants in the first are made to look iconic like the male counterparts of the three witches in Macbeth, inflicting pain on him perhaps because they know that he is the foster son of their employer. Later Ajayan comes to know that his foster father whom he has been calling as “uncle” and the yogini could be his real parents. He must have been very much disappointed that he was denied his identity. While the love for Suma is forbidden, the love for Nalini cannot be materialized. When he goes to meet her in her house, she is called Malini which is the name of a yakshi (seductive spirit). His identity as a lover is in question. Ajayan doesn’t find the world knowable. In the end he says that there are some more things that he hasn’t told us and some he has forgotten, hinting that there could be more versions. But he is nowhere near fathoming his psyche. The ending is unresolved. Ajayan’s problem is that he is very sensitive and he is aware of the futility of his search which torments him and leads him to his self-destruction.
This is an unusual love story in which we feel sympathetic to Bimala who is unfortunate. By the time she sees through Sandip and truly loves Nikhil, he kisses her and leaves on horseback to quell the riot. There is a shot of raging fire at a distance seen from the balcony of his palace and the camera zooms in. The next morning from the same balcony the camera shows the headmaster and others coming slowly in a procession towards the palace to beating of drums and mournful music. They are followed by a palanquin and Nikhil’s horse without a rider. This is a departure from the novel which is open ended. The doctor in the novel can’t say yet on Nikhil’s condition. The wound in the head is a serious one. In the film he is dead. While it makes the film dramatic and gives a circular structure, Tagore’s open ending left some hope however faint it was. The camera moves to the left to show the grief stricken Bimala standing against the wall and moves towards her for a bigger close-up. There is a dissolve which shows her without the bindi in her forehead. In yet another dissolve it shows her in white saree worn by widows. Then the camera tracks back a little showing her in a medium shot.
Ironically, Nikhil’s extreme idealism leads to pushing Bimala in Sandip’s embrace. Andrew Robinson has written that “the Tagores went in for such a behaviour, according to Ray” citing an actual example in which Tagore’s eldest brother Satyendranath Tagore pushed his friend to sit on his wife’s bed under a mosquito net and left them to get acquainted [6]. A more common sensical man in Nikhil’s place would have kept Bimala away from a philanderer like Sandip. Nikhil’s idealism also makes him politically naive. Somebody who understands the politics wouldn’t have let Sandip stay in his house, arouse the Swadeshis against the poor traders, use Nikhil’s manager to get Mirjan’s boat sunk and cause a riot in his estate. Nikhil’s heroic rising to the occasion to quell the riot only results in riding to his death. However, as Roger Ebert has written, Nikhil’s detachment is a fascination in the movie. It elevates the film to a visionary level. Victor Banerjee excels in the role of Nikhil with his superlative performance. It’ll go down as one of the all-time great performances in Indian cinema.
Yet another criticism on the film was the casting of Bimala. Perhaps people wanted to see yet another beautiful and talented actor like Madhabi Mukherjee to play the role. But in Tagore’s novel, Sandip talks about Bimala in his story in the following way: “Her tall, slim figure these boors would call “lanky”. Her complexion is dark, but it is the lustrous darkness of a sword-blade, keen and scintillating” [1]. Madhabi Mukherjee didn’t fit the description of Bimala in the novel. It would have been very difficult to find an actor who could perform well as well as meet with Tagore’s description. Perhaps Ray might have still cast a great actor like her but she was older for this part in the early 80s. Swatilekha Chatterjee (Sengupta) didn’t fit the description either. It seems she was “a stage actress he [Satyajit Ray] saw in 1981, had both personality, command of Bengali, and ‘the intellect to understand what she was doing’” [6]. Swatilekha Chatterjee (Sengupta) has the maximum screen time in the film among the three main actors. It’s one of the most difficult female roles in Indian cinema which she enacted admirably for a newcomer. To quote Pauline Kael, “Bimala is girlish and coquettish in the early scenes in the women’s quarters, and part of the fascination of the movie is that Swatilekha Chatterjee grows with her role, and becomes more absorbing the longer you see her. She is not a mere ingénue; she’s a full-bodied, rounded beauty, and her Bimala has an earthy, sensual presence” [3]. Unlike in ‘Charulata’ in which the protagonist’s blossoming of a writer alone is hurried though with a montage, ‘Ghare Baire’ brings out Bimala’s character development in all its detail.