Episode 2: KA Abbas & Raj Kapoor

Transcript

Host: Behind the iconic Hotel Uzbekistan in Tashkent stands the Le Grande Plaza Hotel, established in 1997 by an Indonesian businessman. As you pass through the revolving door and step into the lobby, a large mural of Nataraj, the Hindu god of dance, greets you on the left. But that isn’t the only Indian element in this hotel. On the first floor is a restaurant called Raaj Kapoor, named after Hindi cinema’s greatest showman. Inside, the walls are adorned with photos of the actor. Indian politicians like Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and film stars like Mithun Chakraborty have visited here. Their autographed hand sketched portraits form a growing gallery on another wall. A young waiter, Muxsinjon, eager to practise his English with friendly tourists, told our researcher on a recent visit that Uzbeks adore Hindi films. The lanky 20-something from Ferghana animatedly spoke of his love for Shahrukh Khan and the inspiring message of the star’s 2023 blockbuster Jawan.

Everywhere you go in Uzbekistan, people declare their love for Hindi cinema. In the ancient Silk Road town of Bukhara, street singers break into Hindi songs when he sees Indian tourists. Hindi movie hits blare out of taxi stereos; and in the bazaars shopkeepers selling mounds of apricots, prunes and candied nuts beckon Indian customers by humming popular Hindi tunes.  

<Havas Guruhi, an Uzbek band, playing ‘Bol Radha Bol’ in the background>

Uzbekistan’s love affair with Hindi films is neither new nor unique. These films have a substantial fan following in most countries of the former Soviet Union as well as in China, Turkey and across Asia and Africa. It all began back in the 1950s with Awara, starring Raj Kapoor, Prithviraj Kapoor and Nargis. The film was a roaring success in India and struck a chord with audiences across the world particularly in countries which were just emerging from colonial and feudal rule. Awara, a story about a young thief and his father, a judge, brought the daily grind and dilemmas of the working class and poor to the silver screen in a way that no one had done before. 

<Clip from a biographical documentary on Raj Kapoor, “Living Legend Raj Kapoor”>

Raj Kapoor: “The script came in exactly at that time when India was evolving a new social concept. An acceptance of millions of people, not just a handful of haves and rest of the have not on one side. And Awara came in with a very strong story and I would say a story that was very intense in its characters. It was romanticism, the kind you would probably read in fairy tales. The absolute hobo, the man with nothing. He dreamed of the woman of the palaces.”

Host: That was Raj Kapoor, the director and lead actor of Awara, describing its allure in a Films Division documentary years later. The film spoke to the heady optimism and aspirations of newly liberated peoples across the world in the mid-20th Century. Kapoor’s generation of filmmakers witnessed the fervour. Some had participated in India’s freedom movement. They had experienced both the jubilation of independence and the horror of Partition. Independence was a unique opportunity to script a new democratic chapter for every Indian – and these filmmakers understood that their medium could help entrench the ideas they cherished – of freedom, of equality, of communal harmony – in the minds of their viewers, and bring these values alive to them. 

We usually think of the Constituent Assembly, the press or political party conventions as the primary sites where debates about India’s future played out. But cinema theatres too emerged as an important venue for the ideals that came out of those debates. The filmmakers of the 1950s and 60s took inspiration from the new Indian nation and believed it could transform the lives of millions of poor Indians. We can see traces of this in films like Naya Daur and Mother India. Some, like Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin depicted the lives of the poor unflinchingly, and with great empathy.

Then there were the films made by Kapoor and his frequent collaborator, the writer Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. Their most popular works were Awara and Shree 420. These movies are remembered even by those who’ve never seen them for their songs [Play Pyar hua iqrar hua for flavour] and Kapoor’s Chaplinesque persona. But they derive their timeless quality from their subtle yet effective commentary on social and economic issues. Kapoor and Abbas had a knack for telling thoroughly entertaining stories while nudging audiences to think about the larger structural forces that shaped their lives. In this episode, we explore their work, partnership and what they hoped to achieve with their films and the part they played in the cultural history of the Constitution.  

This is Friend of the Court Season 3, a podcast series about the constitutional and legal history of India. I am your host Supriya Nair. 

<INTRO MUSIC>

Host: It is early 1931. The freedom movement is at its peak. The university town of Aligarh is buzzing with excitement. Jawaharlal Nehru will soon be passing through, on a train from Delhi to Allahabad. Four students at Aligarh Muslim University are desperate to meet him. But their hopes vanish on the morning of the visit as crowds throng the station. 

Iffat Fatima: He says that he, you know, they wanted, was desperate to meet Nehru. And then they went to the Aligarh railway station, when it was so crowded, they could not reach him. So there was a mail coach, you know, so they got on to it or something and somehow managed to go with that train. And then at the next station, which was the Khurja station, they managed to get into that coach. And then there was this conversation. 

Host: This is Iffat Fatima.

Iffat Fatima: I’m a filmmaker and a researcher. 

Host: Here she is narrating the story of how those young students met Nehru. One of them was the 17 year old literature student Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, a die-hard fan of Nehru. He had been writing letters to the leader since he was 15 – sometimes even offering advice on diplomacy and politics. Now, finally, he was face to face with his intellectual hero. Fatima tells us what happened next: 

Iffat Fatima: You know, when he reaches that station he says “now at last, as he turned away from the window and asked us to sit down. I was face to face with my idol and my ideal, “the man I loved and that — at that moment the man I hated for travelling first class. Like one of those blood sucking bourgeois exploiters”. Looking at our black sherwanis with the university crest on the collar he said. “So you are from Aligarh. What are you doing in Khurja?” Ansar managed to say “Panditji we came to see you. 

Host: Abbas and his friends were brimming with ideas about freedom and revolution. But what Abbas said instead stunned everyone in the carriage. Fatima narrates:

Iffat Fatima: At last I blurted out the one question which had pushed out of my mind all other questions that I and my companions had rehearsed during the night. Nehruji, why are you travelling first class?

Host: An amused Nehru explained that the first class coach gave him privacy to discuss “many things” with his colleagues. Abbas, a budding Marxist, was not entirely convinced but chose not to retort. Nehru saw the boys off at the next station. 

Abbas admired Nehru for his egalitarian outlook and progressive views. These were qualities that Abbas himself valued at least in part thanks to his own upbringing. In 1914, he was born into an erudite Muslim family from Panipat and his ancestors had been renowned educationists and reformers. 

Syeda Hameed: The family traced its origins to Herat, where the ancestors came from. They were Sufis. And there’s a very important mausoleum in Herat, which is the mausoleum of his ancestor, Khwaja Abdullah (Pir-e-Herat). His family was, you know, religious but at the same time very liberal in interpreting Islam.

Host: This is Syeda Hameed, Abbas’ niece. A few years ago, Hameed and Fatima put together a volume of Abbas’ work in English called Bread, Beauty and Revolution.

Syeda Hameed: So I’m a writer and Abbas saab was my uncle, my father’s brother, and he was a very important influence in my life. And till the time he passed away, he was a very towering presence in my life.

Host: Hameed is the daughter of former education secretary and well-known social reformer Khwaja Ghulam Saiyidain. He and Abbas were cousins.  In his memoir, I am not an Island, Abbas writes about the profound influence Ghulam Saiyidain had on him. Abbas went to Aligarh in 1925 to live with Saiyidain and continue his studies. Abbas began his career as a writer while still in school. He had even published a small newspaper on his own for a little while.  

Syeda Hameed: He used to print his newspaper here and there. I don’t know where he found the money from. But that was distributed here and there. So that also he was, so he kept on his writing. 

Host: At first, the paper stuck to local issues. Then it turned openly political in 1928, during the protests against the Simon Commission, a task force sent to reform the Indian administration, but with no Indians on it. In his first year at college, Abbas was recruited as a local correspondent for the Hindustan Times and Bombay Chronicle. Though his passion lay in journalism and writing, his father insisted he studied law. In 1935, he finished his law degree and went to Bombay to pursue his calling. Abbas said he started out writing four articles for the Chronicle’s Sunday edition for 20 rupees a month, a measly pay even then. Abbas could have easily been better paid at other newspapers like the Times of India but the idealist in him stuck to the Chronicle which had gained a reputation for its fearless anti-colonial stance. 

Syeda Hameed: And they all laughed at how they starved all of them. But they were very enthusiastic, and they reported and they worked hard, and so on. And then he found his way into writing film reviews. 

Host: By 1937, Abbas had branched out into film journalism. Among other things, he wrote gossip under the nickname “Studio Spy” for the paper’s cheekily titled “The Fifth Column.” But it was his film reviews that sparked controversy. At the time, the Hindi film industry’s biggest blockbusters were  mythological films or romantic melodramas. These did not appeal to Abbas’ progressive and nationalist sentiments. His scathing reviews had film producers fuming. Some threatened to withdraw ads, others accused Abbas of simply being prejudiced against Indian films. At one point, Abbas’ future collaborator, the journalist and writer VP Sathe wrote an open letter against him. Decades later, the two discussed this episode in a three-hour long conversation recorded for All India Radio. 

<Interview of K. A. Abbas by V. P. Sathe for All India Radio>

VPS: “I think it was 1940, I wrote an open letter calling you a prejudiced critic. I wrote an open letter to you. I didn’t know you at all.” 

KAA: “Very long letter it was.”

VPS: “And you asked me to cut it short. You gave the same space to my letter as to your reply and both were published in Bombay Chronicle. At that time, at least the whole film industry was congratulating me. (laughs) Why were you prejudiced against certain producers?”

KAA: “That’s an old controversy between art, content and the form of art. I was fond of directors who were dealing with social problems realistically like Shantaram. And you were in favour of artists who were dealing with films as an art form.”

Host:  But Abbas was too good a resource for the paper to let go of. So in response to the producers’ complaints, his bosses took him off the film desk and gave him a new assignment: to make the Sunday paper more “youthful.” Abbas described his new assignment as getting “kicked upstairs” because handling the Sunday paper was actually a promotion. As his criticism indicates, Abbas was an ardent believer in the power of cinema to change the world. On one occasion he even set out to change the mind of a famous cinema skeptic – Mohandas Karamchand  Gandhi. 

Lawrence Liang: So in the 1930s, when the Indian Cinematograph Committee, the first major inquiry into the status of cinema in India took place. 

Host: This is Lawrence Liang. 

Lawrence Liang: I’m a professor of law at the School of Law, Governance and Citizenship at Ambedkar University Delhi.

Host: Yes, the very same Lawrence Liang who patiently helped us break down intricate points of jurisprudence in season 2. Turns out he’s also  a film scholar and cinephile.. 

Lawrence Liang: While my background is in law, my PhD was actually in film studies and my doctoral work was on the relationship between law and cinema in India. 

Host: He continues his story about the Indian Cinematograph Committee. 

Lawrence Liang: One of the people who they interviewed was Mahatma Gandhi. And they asked Gandhi what he thought of cinema. Gandhi gave a somewhat acerbic reply, saying that I haven’t been to the cinema. But even without going, I can tell you and it’s very clear that the evil that it is capable of is obvious to everyone. And if there is any good at all, it has to be seen. So Abbas writes a letter to Gandhi in 1938, which said, Dear Bapuji, you’re a great soul. And there is no place in your heart for any kind of malice, even towards a new toy. And this toy that our generation has inherited, the cinema is not as useless as you imagined it to be. Please give it a little time and give it a little patience. And you will see that this toy of ours is capable of doing immense amounts of good. 

<beat>

Host: In 1941, Abbas took a stab at writing a film script himself. Based on his experiences as a journalist,  he wrote the story for Naya Sansar. The film was about an idealistic young journalist and his editor navigating the rise of extremism in Indian society. Fatima tells us more:

Iffat Fatima: So many of the producers, I think, would challenge him, they would tell him, you know, you criticise films, but it is not all that easy to make films. So I think that is what, he took it up as a challenge. And he decided to enter into the world of filmmaking himself. 

Host: Through the forties Abbas continued to write for the movies, including Dr Kotnis ki Amar Kahani, Panna and Neecha Nagar, which won a prize at Cannes in 1946. That same year, Abbas turned director with Dharti ke Lal, a movie about the ordeals of a family during the Bengal Famine of 1943. 

Meanwhile, in 1943 he became one of the founding members of the Indian People’s Theatre Association alongside actors like Prithviraj Kapoor and Balraj Sahni, and started to write plays for the Bombay stage. The association was inspired by communist ideas and aimed to keep a revolutionary fervour alive. The group regularly staged Abbas’ plays to packed audiences. Fatima, who has read Abbas’ private papers closely explains why his stories were a hit: 

Iffat Fatima:  Because I was just reading this, there was an interview that he was having with Krishan Chander, who is a very well-known writer. So they’re having this conversation and he says that, I think he had written a story, he said, my first story was on a farmer. “Ababil” was the name of that story. And so Krishan Chander asked him, what experience did you have of farming? He said, none. And then he said that, but I’ve read about farmers, I have observed and I have heard conversations about them. So the thing is that he, and also then he would say that when you write or when you do any work, you don’t necessarily, it is filtered through your imagination and your imagination and what you seek, what your ideals are. So that’s what determines your art. So his writings and all were all sort of concerned. And I mean, he had a passion for social justice. I think all his work was ultimately geared towards the idea of  social justice. 

Host: Through IPTA, Abbas befriended other like-minded artists including his future collaborators the lyricist Shailendra, writers VP Sathe and Inder Raj.  They often met at the Marosa Cafe near Bombay’s Flora Fountain to discuss politics and films over tea  and chicken patties. Sometimes, a younger man, in his 20s, tagged along. He didn’t say much but listened. Abbas and his comrades knew him as the eldest son of the acting legend Prithviraj Kapoor who spent his days doing odd jobs at various production companies. His name was Ranbir Raj Kapoor. 

Nasreen Munni Kabir: First of all, you have to say Raj Kapoor comes from a lineage of very talented artists. His father was a famous theatre, director, producer, actor, he was a big, big, big star, he was one of the big stars of the 40s, Prithviraj. 

Host: This is Nasreen Munni Kabir, the film historian and author of books about Dilip Kumar, Waheeda Rehman and Javed Akhtar. She has also produced a book on Awara’s dialogues. We spoke to her at her flat in Bombay and she told us some stories about Kapoor’s early years in the industry:

Nasreen Munni Kabir: So he was already brought up with the idea of creativity and creation and performance. So it wasn’t a surprise that he would go into films. And if you start off as an assistant, it’s a much wiser thing to do, than assume you can direct films, you watch people, you see how things work. And that was the way to go.

Host: Raj Kapoor had grown up in Calcutta and Bombay. At the age of 17, he dropped out of school and started working as a junior assistant on movie sets. Here’s Kapoor himself, from that Films Division documentary we heard from earlier, reminiscing about his beginnings:

<Clip from a biographical documentary on Raj Kapoor, “Living Legend Raj Kapoor”>

Raj Kapoor: “Sweep the floors, pick up furniture from one place to another. Although I was the son of the most famous star of that time. Nevertheless, on the floors, on the stage, I was just considered to be a nobody. Just what you are.”

Host: He was cast in his first lead role by the director Kidar Sharma in the 1947 romantic drama Neel Kamal. But Kapoor dreamt of setting up his own production house and directing his own films. A year later, he succeeded in doing both with Aag. 

<Clip from the film Aag> 

“Main pehli baar duniya ko apni aankhon se dekhne aur apne dimaag se samajhne ki koshish ki hai. Main apni zindagi khud banana chahta hoon”

Host: It was about a young man who rebelled against his parents to pursue a life in theatre. Aag flopped at the box office but reviewers recognised it as fresh and progressive. The noted critic, Iqbal Masud, later recollected that watching Aag moved him as a young man. Masud saw it as a refreshing change from the middle class values that dictated other films of the time. 

<beat>

As Raj Kapoor was finding his footing in the industry, the world around him was being remade.

<The song “Door hato duniya waalon Hindustan hamara hai” plays>

Host:  India had gained independence in August 1947. There were spontaneous bursts of celebration across the county and many artists, including Abbas, were out on the streets celebrating. His niece, Syeda Hameed tells us more:

Sayeda Hameed: He danced on the streets of Chowpatty in Bombay, along with Zohra Sehgal. And they danced. He said, even I danced, though I had no clue and inkling of dancing, but they were all like in ultimate joy, when the dawn of freedom broke. 

Host: Abbas described this scene in his Bombay Chronicle column that week. It was titled “Letter to a Child Born on August 15.” He provided a short yet evocative history of our freedom struggle and reminded the new generation that ordinary Indians of all faiths, classes and castes had participated. This column ended with a call to action: that political freedom was only one step towards the emancipation of the masses; it was now time to work towards social justice and economic freedom for all Indians. 

Abbas also frequently called for a cultural renaissance. In 1949, he heard a story that would help him convey many of  his ideas through a film. It was about his distant uncle, a sessions court judge who believed that good values and character were inherited, not taught  – until the uncle’s own son was put on trial for theft. 

If this sounds to you like the story of Awara, you’ve hit the mark. 

<The song ‘Awara Hoon’ plays>

Host: Inspired by this incident, Abbas and VP Sathe, who had by now become friends and collaborators, wrote the father-son story for the screen. They first approached the industry’s top producer, Mehboob Khan, with the script. Kabir explains what happened next:

Nasreen Munni Kabir: So they both went to Mehboob saab. And Mehboob saab said yes, great idea. I’ll do it but that casting has to be Prithviraj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar must play his son. And Abbas saab said, No, I want Raj Kapoor to play the son. So that it is the real life father and son and of course, they will be in the movie and Mehboob saab said no. So then he goes… Abbas saab went to Raj Kapoor. When he heard the story, Raj Kapoor apparently pulled out a one rupee note and said, this is our token. I want the script. However, you must be the one who goes and persuades my father, because my father is a leading man, big hero, is he going to be willing to play the father? So apparently, they went to see Prithviraj, and presented the story as if the hero of the film was Prithviraj. And obviously, he said yes. And then the whole thing happened. 

Host: Abbas completed the screenplay and dialogue of Awara in 20 days. Then, it was over to the incredibly ambitious Raj Kapoor who stepped in as the director.  Kapoor, looking to push the boundaries of filmmaking, spent several months roping in artists and technicians to work on his project. Some, like the production designer MR Achrekar were relatively new to filmmaking but Kapoor saw something fresh in their work. Then there was the dream cast: Raj Kapoor cast his co-star Nargis from their hit movie Barsaat and his father, Prithviraj, stepped in to play the hardened aristocratic patriarch. 

Their combined efforts dazzled audiences when Awara released in December 1951. It had a distinctive visual signature — everything from the dialogue to the sets, to the cinematography and the music made other films look simple and old-fashioned. The style enchanted audiences and so did the substance.  In its runtime of 3 hours and 13 minutes, Awara depicted unemployment, class division and inherited privilege in a way that profoundly moved viewers. All issues that would have been weighing on the minds of Indians as they went to cast their votes in the first general elections that were underway.

<Clip from Jawahar Lal Nehru’s broadcast to the nation ahead of India’s first general elections in 1951>

Host: At election rallies, Jawaharlal Nehru spoke of the promise of “Naya Hindustan.” A new India, with its shiny new Constitution, promised a decisive shift away from exploitation and prejudice. Awara, with its liberal dose of humour and peppy music, added to this optimism.

It would take hours to recap the intricate plot but here’s the crux:  Raj Kapoor plays a petty thief called Raj. His father Justice Raghunath is played by Prithviraj Kapoor, and Raj’s lawyer Rita is played by Nargis. In a flashback at the start of the movie, we learn that 24 years previously, Raghunath threw his pregnant wife out of his home as he suspected Raj had been fathered by a man who had once kidnapped her. So the Justice’s son grows up in the slums of Bombay and drops out of school. The father and son never met until their paths crossed decades later when Raj was a grown man indulging in petty crime and ended up in the dock for murder. Along the way, the film gives us a love story between Raj and the educated, forward-thinking Rita. It casts a close look at the circumstances that could lead an individual into crime.  

<Clip of dialogue from the film Awara>

“Sharifon ke aulaad sharif hote hain aur chor daaku ke aulaad hamesha chor  daaku hoti hai. Ab main dekhunga, vakil sahab ki aulaad kaisi hoti hai”

Host: Awara opens in a courtroom, a setting most Indians at the time associated with injustice. It was where the worst impulses of the colonial government were legitimised – whether it was denying fair trials to national heroes like Bhagat Singh or applying the law differentially to Indians and Europeans. In free India, the courtroom was also a symbol of colonial continuity, the British may have left but they still shaped our institutions and the people who ran them. Justice Raghunath was the embodiment of such continuity. Liang explains:

Lawrence Liang: Justice Raghunath is a representative of the judiciary. If you go by the logic of the film, right , he’s already a judge, before his son is born. And even if one were to take, let’s say the logic of 1951, that the film was released in as the year that the film is set in, then very clearly, he’s been a judge for like a good, you know, 15 to 20 years. And he continues to remain a judge.

This is actually a really fascinating question, because the question of colonial continuity is a very serious and difficult question to address. But let’s take just one kind of instance which is that if as a job you are in a way an emissary of the state, then what would it mean when there is a new state that has come into being? 

Host: In a way, Awara was asking if the transfer of power changed the relationship between ordinary Indians and the state. Raj Kapoor’s character represented the everyday Indian, pushed to the margins at a young age and in particularly unlucky circumstances, taking to crime to make ends meet. Later in the film, Raj is tried for the murder of his mother’s kidnapper and attempting to murder Raghunath. But the trial was about much more than that. It was a commentary on the clinical nature of the law and its wilful blindness to the social circumstances that could drive one to a life of crime. To add to this, the delicious twist that Justice Raghunath is his father raises an important question about privilege. Kabir explains: 

Nasreen Munni Kabir: In Awara it comes across as this whole question of whether it is nature or nurture. And the very fact that you question, is it your environment? Or is it your birth that determines character? that in a way is a modern idea, and it’s a socialist idea, and it wasn’t actually examined in that way in cinema before, I feel is the first kind of film that did that. 

Host: India’s new Constitution laid out a vision of equality and justice for all Indians. Awara is  Abbas’ view of the challenges that it would take to achieve that vision. Like his fellow communists, Abbas was skeptical that political freedom would guarantee the transformation of the social conditions of all Indians, especially the poorest.  After all, Indian society still placed a premium on the social status one was born into. This in turn determined everything – the school you attended, your occupation and whom you married. Inherited privilege could also miraculously put a positive spin on the corruption of the elites. Kabir explains how this idea was portrayed in Awara:

Nasreen Munni Kabir:  And there is one bit of dialogue which I would like to read to you. I  think I’ll read it to you in the translation so it will cover more people, but it’s a scene between Nargis and Raj Kapoor. And he basically says, she asked him, Rita, “What do you do for work?” And he says, “I steal.” And he says, “I steal. I pick pockets, locks and walk off with purses belonging to ladies like you. That’s what I do.” That’s how they meet because he pretends to return the purse to her. And she says, “You’re joking again.” He said, “Don’t I look like a thief?” “No, you look thoroughly respectable to me.” And the next bit is absolutely the gem. He says it’s the miracle of modern society. Thieves, pickpockets, and crooks wear smart suits like me, and you take us for decent folk, hardworking people who make an honest and honest living but wear shabby clothes are taken for thieves and arrested. Capitalists, black marketeers, profiteers and moneylenders – who are they? All thieves like me.” Now, if that isn’t a big statement, what is?

Host: As the 1950s unfolded, Abbas grew disenchanted with his childhood hero, Nehru. It began with Nehru’s acceptance of Partition and intensified as Nehru took a moderate, relatively less socialist stance on economic development. Liang tells us more:

Lawrence Liang: By the 1950s, he was also writing these op-eds for Blitz and other places where he would constantly talk about the failure of the socialist promise. So I think his disenchantment was really in the way that the Nehruvian promise was very closely linked for Abbas with the socialist promise. And so I think so when I say that he was a disenchanted lover. It was really by way of someone who you adore. When you venerate and then you’ll see that they’re also they also have feet of clay. And then you start actually becoming a little more critical. And the form that his criticism in a way, took the sharpest form was actually the cinematic. So his films in a way are, I would say, the expressions of his disenchantment and his disappointment.

Host: Abbas’ disappointment became apparent in his next collaboration with Kapoor, 1955’s Shree 420. The film derived its title from Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalised cheating and dishonesty. 

<The song ‘Dil ka Haal Sune Dil wala’ plays>

Host: Once again, Raj Kapoor directed the film and played the leading role, “Raj”, a naive graduate from Allahabad who migrated to Bombay in search of work. It followed his journey into the city and how it changed him – specifically how the city forced him to compromise his values. Shree 420 was more cynical than Awara, as this conversation in the film between Raj and a beggar showed:

<Clip from the film Shree 420 plays>

Raj: “Nahi koi kaam batao mujhe.”

Beggar: “Sochna padega. Padha likha hai?”

Raj: “BA pass hoon. Sach kehta hoon. Yeh dekho, meri degree. Saath saath liye phirta hoon.” 

Beggar: “Imandar ho?”

Raj: “Sachai aur imandari ka sabse pehla inaam mujhe mila hai. Sone ke medal, ye dekho.” 

Beggar: “Mehnat kar sakte ho?”

Raj: “24 ghante kar sakta hoon. Koi karake toh dikhaye.” 

Beggar: “Toh tumhara kuch nahi ho sakta.” 

Raj: “Kaam nahi mil sakta hai? Padhe likhe, mehnati jawaan ko nahi mil sakta?”

Beggar: “Is liye ki ye Bambai hai mere bhai, Bambai. Bada sheher. Yahan sach bolkar pet bharne ka raasta dhundhne par nahi milega. Aur jhooth bolke paise kamaane ke raaste hain 420.”

Host: In the film, Raj went from the slums of Bombay to a palatial mansion and a luxurious lifestyle – all earned on the back of a career in gambling. Shree 420 shares many of its concerns with Awara.But at the heart of the story is homelessness, a raging crisis in urban India during the 1950s. Liang tells us more:

Lawrence Liang: In many of the cities in India of that period, you were already dealing with disenchantment of a large number of people, urban poverty, unemployment, all of these were serious questions. And for those who were dispossessed and living in you know, the cities in terms of the slums etc. What is that one dream that you have? It’s roti kapda, aur makaan. So, this last aspect, the makan or a dwelling or a home is so crucial in the cultural imagination of India. It serves as one of the markers of how poverty has been constantly depicted in Indian cinema, homelessness.

Host: Shree 420 shows how urban elites preyed on the poor in the absence of state welfare. The main villain, the rapacious Seth Sonachand Dharamchand, promised to build new housing for pavement dwellers if they invested in his company. Later, Raj found out that the company was bogus and Seth was planning to re-invest the money elsewhere. Liang interprets this plot as commentary on the failure of the constitutional promise of economic justice. 

Lawrence Liang: Shri 420 begins with a migrant coming into Bombay and it’s about his struggles of finding a home and then he gets embroiled within this scam which is basically about something called the Janata Housing Project. The promise of providing affordable housing to the poor and the large number of migrants who had come into the city. So you can see that at the heart and at the core of Shri 420 is really the question of homelessness and the struggle to find a place. And it’s an allegory for what the promised citizenship in the new nation could be. For a large number of people who did not have any privilege by way of, you know, caste, class, gender, etc. Here was a constitution promising them that they would be equal citizens not merely politically but also in terms of socioeconomic standards. 

Host: Shree 420 was the most successful Indian film of 1955, but Abbas and Kapoor’s partnership entered a lull after Shree 420. At first glance, they made for unlikely collaborators. Abbas did not come across as particularly religious while Kapoor was a traditionalist who began every production with a pooja. Abbas was openly Marxist and Kapoor was reserved about his political views. Most considered Kapoor to be apolitical but Kabir says his decision to work with Abbas revealed which way his outlook swung:

Nasreen Munni Kabir: For a director to choose a screenplay writer who, like Abbas, who has a particular point of view, is your answer. He could have gone for somebody else who would have just given romantic dialogue. But he goes for a man who has a social bearing. 

So you have to look at what’s happening around him, he may not be able to articulate them, but the choice… why go for dialogue, like I’ve just read to you. It’s because he believes it is true.

Host: For his part, Abbas trusted Kapoor to effectively translate his vision to the screen and was convinced that in Kapoor’s hands, his stories would travel far and wide. But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Kapoor had a habit of bringing his own flourishes to Abbas’s stories. This sometimes ended up changing scripts in ways that made Abbas uncomfortable. They were careful not to let these differences escalate but after Shree 420, it was perhaps easy for each to go his own way for a while. Kabir tells us more:

Nasreen Munni Kabir: When people work together, they never liked each other for long. Think of the Beatles. How long did that last? People’s egos are amazing. They grow faster than plants. I tell you, you can’t work with people very long. And if you’re both creative, one is going to feel the we don’t need the other one. And this goes on forever. 

Host: The end of their collaboration was far from the end of their careers. Both continued to make progressive films and reunited in 1970 to make Mera Naam Joker, Kapoor’s passion project about a clown, reflecting on his life, loves and losses. The legacy of Abbas and Kapoor’s partnership stands mainly due to Awara and Shree 420, which continue to captivate audiences all over the world. They were far from the only Indians making films about the distress of working people/the proletariat. In India itself, their contemporaries like Bimal Roy, Balraj Sahni and Guru Dutt made socially conscious films acutely sensitive to the struggles of working class protagonists. But what set Abbas and Kapoor’s films apart was their treatment. Their films were always packaged with a touch of levity – embodied in the protagonist’s cheerful countenance. The hero confronts every adversity with a smile, even if it is an ironic one. That’s what endeared him to audiences. 

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The films made Abbas, Nargis and Kapoor international celebrities in China, the Soviet Union, many countries in Africa and the Middle East. In Tehran, Raj Kapoor was mobbed by fans at a screening of Shree 420 and had to be escorted out in a police van. Here’s what Abbas told VP Sathe in their conversation for AIR about why the films resonated with Soviet audiences:

<Interview of K. A. Abbas by V. P. Sathe for All India Radio>

Abbas: “The people were friendly, especially towards Indians. Because this was the post-Stalin era. Stalin had died and this was a process of de-Stalinisation… it was much less stringent. And Indian pictures came at a psychological moment because the people were fed up with boy loves tractor and girl loves tractor kind of stories. The only stories Mr Stalin approved were these “boy loves tractor and girl loves tractor and they are having a race to produce more grain or more wheat or more rice and thereby they fall in love”. So people were tired of these dry as dust stories kind of cinema and they were looking for something better. Suddenly came these Indian pictures which were full of songs and dances and comedy and at the same time they were progressive pictures, not reactionary pictures. So they matched the mood of the people at that time.”  

Host: Prime Minister Nehru masterfully used the popularity of film stars for diplomacy. Nargis, Abbas, Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and many others were fixtures on diplomatic missions, especially to the USSR. Nehru understood the role films play in creating a new national imagination. The filmmakers, in turn, were committed to Nehru’s idea of India, even when they disagreed with the Prime Minister or his government. They saw their films as a contribution to nation-building. Liang tells us more:

Lawrence Liang: So you have Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar, and in various ways all of them could be characterised as being Nehru’s heroes. 

And in the case of Raj Kapoor, if you look at his films, it becomes abundantly clear that there was an investment in the idea of the nation. He amongst others saw film as being a project to nation-building. So there’s an interview that he gives, which is in the Films Division documentary on Raj Kapoor, where he says, you know, it was a time of immense optimism. And Panditji had asked all of us to serve the nation in whatever way we could. And as a filmmaker, I asked myself, What is it that I could do? 

Host: Abbas and Kapoor began work on Awara when the Constituent Assembly was busy cementing equality, dignity and justice as the founding ideals of the new Indian nation. It took the assembly nearly three years to arrive at this constitutional formulation. They understood that cinema was a tool to help communicate abstract ideals to the masses outside the Assembly, and even relied on the Films Division, the government’s in-house production unit, to do some of the heavy lifting. But those films, with their prosaic narration and didactic tone, lacked mass appeal. Liang says this is where popular cinema helped. 

Lawrence Liang: So when you take for example, a film like Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin, it’s really a film about migration. It’s about the urban working poor, right? Someone who moves from the village comes into the city becomes a rickshaw puller. Now, these are the same kinds of questions that Article 14, Article 21, or, you know, the provision on the abolition of bonded labour, etc. All of these are the concerns of the Constitution. But they are articulated in the film through the depiction of ordinary lives. 

Host: Even our Constitution makers knew that the founding document alone wasn’t enough to transform India into a true democracy. In his final speech to the Constituent Assembly, BR Ambedkar said that political democracy was a “top dressing on Indian soil” which was “essentially undemocratic.” Meaning, a top-down approach to democracy would not truly liberate Indians from oppression. Filmmakers like Abbas and Kapoor used their immensely influential platforms to make audiences think and to spread what is essentially a Constitutional guarantee — the right to criticize without fear, and the right to call power structures to account. They informed audiences that constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity and freedom formed the basis of their new identities as citizens of independent India. Their films spoke for and about the oppressed. They signalled to the less privileged that their stories and struggles mattered, no matter what the odds. 

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We’ll end with a few lines from one of Awara’s closing scenes:

<Clip from the film Awara>

Raj: “Aap jo chahein wo saza de sakte hain. Magar kya aap samajhte hain ki mujhe faansi dene se ye paap, krodh hinsa aur apraadh ka zeher jo aapke duniya mein faila hua hai ye door ho jayega? Main aapko apni jeevan katha nahi sunaana chahta magar itna zaroor kehna chahta hoon ki apraadh ke keede mujhe khoon mein apne maa-baap se nahi mile the. Uss gande gutter se mile the jo hamare gandi chawl ke paas se behta hai. Wo gutter aaj bhi wahan beh raha hai aur apraadh ke keede ab abhi usme pal rahe hain. Aur senkdon, hazaaro gareeb bache jo uss chawl ke aas paas mein rehte hain rozana in keedon ke shikaar ho rahe hain. Meri fikr na kijiye.. Inn bachon ki fikr kijiye, apne bachon ki fikr kijiye. Aisa na ho ki ek din aap, aur aap, aur aap, aur aap ka bacha meri tarah iss katehre mein baar baar kahe ki meri ragon mein sharif baap ka khoon hai.”