Manoj ‘Bharat’ Kumar sang so Sunny Deol could yell—journey of Bollywood patriotism

This isn’t an obituary of Manoj Kumar. It's about the influence he had in defining patriotism for two generations of Indians across our most perilous decade, say from 1962 until the run-up to the Emergency.

Illustration by Manali Ghosh | ThePrint

One approach to understanding how Indian nationalism or patriotism has evolved over the past six decades is by looking at how cinema, and especially Bollywood has defined it in different eras.

The passing away of “Bharat” Manoj Kumar (born Harikrishna Giri Goswami, 24 July, 1937) at 87 gives us that moment to reflect. He, more than any other actor, defined patriotism, nationalism, good citizenship, lawful living and a virtuous lifestyle. Playing diverse characters under his chosen name, Bharat, he portrayed the perfect Indian. That was three decades before Kamal Haasan, playing a similar character, Hindustani in 1996, gave us a more contemporary portrayal of the same ideal Indian, one who’d even stick a scimitar, or more like a harakiri sword, into the belly of his own ‘anti-national’ son.

This isn’t an obituary of Manoj Kumar. It is about the influence he had in defining patriotism for two generations of Indians across our most perilous decade, say from 1962 (the war with China) until the run-up to the Emergency.

He did so by playing diverse, all-sacrificing, heroic and, ultimately, victorious characters as Bharat: an ordinary soldier (and a Haryana farmer’s son) in Upkar, 1967, a betrayed freedom fighter’s brilliant son in Purab Aur Paschim, 1969, and an unemployed engineer in Roti Kapada Aur Makaan (RKM), 1974. Each of these reflected the theme of the fast-changing India from the early Indira era until the Emergency broke this momentum and brought the angry young man in its wake. That mantle, as we know, was picked up by Amitabh Bachchan.

Manoj Kumar played Bhagat Singh in the 1965 film Shaheed. It was a hit and brought him enormous notice. The story goes that Manoj Kumar met Lal Bahadur Shastri (then PM), who had just seen Shaheed. ‘Why don’t you make a film on the theme of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan,’ Shastri asked. The result, in double-quick time, was Upkar in 1967, shot in the villages of outer western Delhi and Haryana. Bharat was a humble farmer (kisan) who fights in the 1965 war as an ordinary soldier (jawan). You will find posters of this Bharat in dhoti-kurta, carrying a plough, as well as in the Army uniform with a rifle, war paint and blood.

Songs that became hits across generations are too many to list. We need to think of just one: mere desh ki dharti sona ugle, ugle heere moti (the land of my country disgorges gold, diamonds, pearls… all the treasures of the world). How enduring are these lines from Gulshan Bawra? Delhi High Court judge Prathiba Singh used these in her bail order for JNU activist Kanhaiya Kumar. Of course, in the movie, the song rises to its crescendo with the cry of jai jawan, jai kisan. Shastri would’ve smiled from heavens.

He took the Bharat franchise to a very different plot with Purab Aur Paschim (East and West) in 1969. That film, in today’s times, when Bharat is preferred to India, would be tax-exempt, and have the prime minister, his entire cabinet, almost all chief ministers, even the Sarsanghchalak watching. Unlike Upkar, this was built around cultural nationalism. A betrayed (and assassinated) freedom fighter’s son reaches London and the family friend’s daughter he’s being set up with (Saira Banu) is so ‘awfully’ westernised that she smokes, drinks alcohol, wears a blonde wig, has never been to India and neither she, her father nor hippie brother even care.

The NRIs of that generation had only scorn for India and Bharat got down to fixing it. This included singing at a bar ‘zero jo diya mere Bharat ne… (when Bharat gifted zero to the world)’ after somebody taunts him by saying what’s India’s contribution to the world. It’s because India gave the world zero and decimal that it learnt to count, India measured the distance between Earth and the Moon. Ultimately he also ‘straightens’ Saira Banu in a way that, today, will be frightfully misogynistic. He humiliates and harasses her until she becomes a Bharatiya naari.

The film held its own against two super hits announcing the rise of a megastar for generations: Rajesh Khanna. Purab Aur Paschim held its own between those two. And while it ridiculed the NRIs, it ran in London for 50 uninterrupted weeks, a record equalled more than a quarter century later, by Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994).

From the militarised high of the post-1965 years, India’s concerns had now evolved into issues of survival, joblessness, hunger, bribery and corruption. A new Bharat was therefore born in Roti Kapada Aur Makan. It’s about a qualified engineer too straight to find and hold a job, making a modest living singing for Akashvani (Main na bhoolunga…) with his girlfriend Zeenat Aman, who dumps him for her boss Shashi Kapoor.

But Bharat fights the good fight, wins, and shows us all (especially my generation in its teens), the way. In between, for Shor (noise), he prefers Shankar to Bharat, the theme is again a victimised but brave poor Indian, a labour strike and the good fight against the rich. His musing is still hummed: ek pyar ka naghma hai.

These were dark, depressing years for India in many ways. Indira Gandhi’s socialism on steroids combined with the post-1973 oil shock to kill jobs, drove us to humiliating ration shops, and pushed the inflation rate to nearly 30 percent. Unemployment was the abiding theme of the times and while Gulzar had spotted it earlier with his Mere Apne, Manoj Kumar was quick to latch on. The metaphor, RKM, was not Indian, however. It was most likely invented, and definitely used most often by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, among the biggest Pakistani feudals, now repackaging himself as more socialist than Indira Gandhi.

The Emergency broke Manoj Kumar’s momentum but the socio-political conditions his Bharat had battled fuelled the rise of the angry young man, and the Bachchan phenomenon was born with Zanjeer, Deewar, Muqaddar ka Sikandar, Kaalia, Coolie. By mid-80s, as India took another optimistic turn with Rajiv Gandhi’s youthful ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’ nationalism, Bollywood’s patriotism of the eighties came through what was then called parallel cinema, fighting casteism, patriarchy and other injustices. Think Aakrosh, Mirch Masala, Ardh Satya, Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai.

Hard nationalism returned through Tamil cinema, with Roja (1992), the fictionalised story of an Indian Oil senior executive K. Doraiswamy kidnapped by Kashmiri terrorists. The much younger filmi character played by Arvind Swamy became a national name (the film was dubbed in Hindi and was a mega hit in both). Roja lifted two restraints. First, the Muslim no longer had to be the good guy, sacrificing his life for the hero, his best friend. He was now the terrorist. The new nationalism was war on Pakistan. I watched Roja first in Tamil in a cheering Madras cinema hall with Vaasanthi, the editor of our (India Today) Tamil edition, and told her that Tollywood had just launched a huge new national trend. Roja showed that anger with Pakistan was no longer a Northern phenomenon.

That theme endured through the following decades and prospers even now. Check out the latest Sky Force, a Bollywood-ised account of a 1965 IAF fighter pilot’s inadequately celebrated heroism. In between, however, we had the Sunny Deol era when the terrorist usually woke to the call of azaan from a nearby mosque, and the bad guys—almost always Muslims—haven’t had a respite since. Kargil war sparked its own genre of ridiculous, infantile war films topped by that pre-election Uri, The Surgical Strike. Of course, the biggest trigger of all was Sunny Deol’s Border, 1997.

What will Manoj Kumar’s Bharat do today? In Upkar, he also spoke about the evils of war. Now, he will have to win it, and pour scorn on the dead enemy. Because the enemy is an idiot, a fool and this Bharat has risen. It’s Viksit after all.