Mother India (1957)
Plot
The film begins with construction completion of a water canal to the village, set in the present. Radha (Nargis), as the 'mother' of the village, is asked to open the canal and remembers back to her past when she was newly married. The wedding between Radha and Shamu (Raaj Kumar) was paid for by Radha's mother-in-law who raised a loan from the moneylender, Sukhilala. This event starts the spiral of poverty and hardship which Radha endures. The conditions of the loan are disputed, but the village elders decide in favour of the moneylender, after which Shamu and Radha are forced to pay three quarters of their crop as interest on the loan of 500 rupees. Whilst trying to bring more of their land into use to alleviate their poverty, Shamu's arms are crushed by a boulder. He is ashamed of his helplessness and is humiliated by others in the village; deciding that he is no use to his family, he leaves and does not return. Soon after, Radha's mother-in-law dies. Radha continues to work in the fields with her two sons and gives birth again. Sukhilala offers to help alleviate her poverty in return for Radha marrying him, but she refuses to "sell herself". A storm sweeps through the village, destroys the harvest, and kills Radha's youngest child. Though at first the villagers begin to migrate, they decide to stay and rebuild on the urging of Radha. The film then skips forward several years to when Radha's two surviving children, Birju (Dutt) and Ramu (Rajendra Kumar), are young men. Birju, embittered by the exactions of Sukhilala since he was a child, takes out his frustrations by pestering the village girls, especially Sukhilala's daughter. Ramu, by contrast, has a calmer temper and is married soon after. Though he becomes a father, his wife is soon absorbed into the cycle of poverty in the family. Birju's anger finally becomes dangerous and, after being provoked, attacks Sukhilala and his daughter, lashing out at his family. He is chased out of the village and becomes a bandit. On the day of the wedding of Sukhilala's daughter, Birju returns to take his revenge. He kills Sukhilala and takes his daughter. Radha, who had promised that Birju would not do harm, shoots Birju, who dies in her arms. The film ends in the present day with her opening of the canal and reddish water flowing into the fields.
Cast
* Nargis as Radha
* Sunil Dutt as Birju
* Rajendra Kumar as Ramu
* Raaj Kumar as Shamu (Radha's Husband)
* Kanhaiyalal as Sukhilala
* Jilloo Maa
* Kumkum as Champa
* Sheela Naik as Kamla
* Mukri as Shambu
* Azra as Chandra
* Master Sajid Khan as a young Birju
* Master Surendra as a young Ramu
Script
The title of the film is taken from American author Katherine Mayo's 1927 polemical book Mother India, in which she attacked Indian society, religion and culture. The book created a sensation on three continents. Written against the demands for self-rule and Indian independence, Mayo pointed to the treatment of India's women, the untouchables, the animals, the dirt, and the character of its nationalistic politicians. Mayo singled out the "rampant" and fatally weakening sexuality of its males to be at the core of all problems, leading to masturbation, rape, homosexuality, prostitution, venereal diseases, and, most importantly, too early sexual intercourse and premature maternity. Mayo created an outrage across India, and her book was burned along with an effigy of its author. It was criticised by Mahatma Gandhi as a "report of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon". The book prompted over fifty angry books and pamphlets to be published in response to Mother India to highlight Mayo's errors and false perception of Indian society which had become one of the most powerful influences on the American people's view of India in history. Khan had the idea for the film and the title as early as 1952; in October that year, he approached the import authorities on a matter related to producing the film. In 1955, the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting learned of the title of the forthcoming film and demanded that director Mehboob Khan send them the script for review, suspicious that the film was based on the book and a possible threat to national interest. The film team dispatched the script along with a two-page letter on 17 September 1955 saying: "There has been considerable confusion and misunderstanding in regard to our film producing Mother India and Mayo's book. Not only are the two incompatible but totally different and indeed opposite. We have intentionally called our film Mother India, as a challenge to this book, in an attempt to evict from the minds of the people the scurrilous work that is Miss Mayo's book." The script was thus intentionally written in a way which promoted the empowerment of women in Indian society, the power to resist the sexual advances of men, and the maintenance of a sense of moral dignity and purpose as individuals, contrary to what Mayo had claimed in her book. Khan drew upon inspiration from another American author, Pearl S. Buck and her books The Good Earth (1931) and The Mother (1934), which were made into feature films by Sidney Franklin in 1937 and 1940 respectively. Khan originally drew upon these influences in making the 1940 film Aurat, the original version of Mother India, although an unrelated Indian film had been directed under the name of Mother India in 1938. Khan worked diligently on the script and was aided with the dialogue by Wajahat Mirza and S. Ali Raza. Some of the stylistic elements to the 1957 film show similarities with the 1926 Vsevolod Pudovkin Soviet silent movie Mother (based on a novel by Maxim Gorky) and Our Daily Bread (1934), directed by King Vidor. In turn, the film would provide an inspiration for many later films, including Yash Chopra's Deewar, a breakthrough film for Amitabh Bachchan and would later be remade by the Telugu film industry as Bangaru Talli (1971) and in Tamil as Punniya Boomi (1978).
Filming
Several of the internal scenes for the film were shot at Mehboob Studios in Bandra, Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1956, although Mehboob Khan and cinematographer Faredoon A. Irani attempted to shoot as often as possible on location to try to make the film as realistic as possible, with a touch of splendour. Other scenes were shot in various cities in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh. Mehboob insisted that the film be shot in 35mm by cinematographer Irani. Contemporary cinematographer Anil Mehta has noted the mastery of Irani's cinematic techniques in shooting the film, including his "intricate tracks and pans, the detailed mise en scène patterns Irani conceived, even for brief shots – in the studios as well as on location". The film took about three years to make from early organisation, planning, and scripting to filming completion. In a November 1956 interview, after production for the film had wound down, Nargis described the film shoot and character portrayal as the most demanding of her career.During filming, an accident occurred during the fire scene when the fire grew out of control and trapped Nargis. She was saved by co-star Sunil Dutt who quickly grabbed a blanket, plunged inside, and rescued her. Nargis fell in love with Dutt, who plays her son in the film, and they were married within a year. Playback singer Lata Mangeshkar reportedly donated her earnings of over one hundred rupees from the film to charitable causes she was involved with at the time, and on 5 October 1957 the production team, Indra Films, donated 300 rupees to a religious person in Delhi. The production team had planned the film release for Indian Independence Day on 15 August, but the film was released over two months later.