From 'Sholay' to 'Sonchiriya': Bollywood's dacoit dramas through the years
It was in the mid-1970s that I heard the word ‘daakaat’ — Bangla for ‘dacoit’ — for the first time. It immediately got added to my then-limited vocabulary, during a visit to my grandparents, in Jabalpur.
Once we reached Jabalpur, I realised that my grandparents sounded pleased because an old buddy from their college days was in town.
After they met, much of their conversation hinged on Putlibai, who, I figured, was a long-dead bandit queen of a place called Chambal. My grandparents’ friend did most of the talking. Listening to him was like staring at the pages of a comic book — I could see a story unfold in front of my eyes.
The bespectacled, chain-smoking friend was the veteran journalist, Tarun Kumar Bhaduri — Jaya Bachchan’s father — who must be mentioned since he had authored Abhishapta Chambal (The Cursed Chambal), the much-translated Bangla classic on banditry, based on his interactions with, and understanding of, dacoits in the Chambal valley.
After meeting him that day, Pultibai appeared in all colour in my dreams for the next few days.
Twenty years later, I met Phoolan Devi, the more familiar bandit queen, in New Delhi.
I had gone to conduct a short interview with her for a weekly news-magazine after she had become a Samajwadi Party Member of Parliament from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh.
When I walked into her room, she was busy peeling off the skin of a mango with a knife that had a six-inch blade — at least.
Sitting on a chair a couple of feet away, I started asking questions. Her broad-chested, thick-moustached bodyguards — ex-bandits, I assumed — gave me an amused look. I was, I must confess, a little uneasy.
Her past life of a dacoit was unsuccessfully hidden behind her new identity of a politician, who spoke about the welfare of the downtrodden.
How did she become a bandit queen? What happened thereafter? These questions had been answered in the Shekhar Kapur film, Bandit Queen (1994) — which she had hated. Based on TV researcher and writer Mala Sen’s book, India’s Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi, Kapur's film was raw and disturbing.
An uneducated low-caste woman, who suffered at the hands of sexist upper-caste men, Devi had gone on to lead a gang of ferocious dacoits. Unwaveringly realistic in his treatment, the maker hadn’t shied away from showing Devi’s gang-rape, and brutal violence, including the Behmai massacre, both turning points in the narrative of her life.
The film ends with her surrender to the authorities in 1983.
Eventually released from prison in 1994, Devi's political career came to an untimely end with her murder in 2001. She was 37 years old.
If Seema Biswas was brilliant in the central role of Phoolan Devi, the immensely talented Irrfan Khan was even better as Paan Singh Tomar in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s engrossing eponymous film, Paan Singh Tomar (2012). Also a biographical drama, the film tells the real-life story of an army man, a phenomenal natural athlete who won the steeplechase event at the national level as many as seven times.
Tomar’s story takes a sudden turn after a dispute over a plot of land, and he eventually becomes a dreaded dacoit. The film is a tragedy, compassionately told, which reminds us of the power of fate as an agent of change in our lives.
What attracts filmmakers to the subject of bandits and banditry?
Someone like Kapur or Dhulia must have been convinced that Phoolan Devi’s story had to be shared with the masses. Creators of fictional dacoits, on the other hand, are attracted to the possibility of showing an indifferently dressed person with dishevelled hair, who carries a gun and has a bandolier strapped across his chest.
Telling a story with a dacoit at the centre, while incorporating themes of exploitation, brutality, revenge, even romance, has its own irresistible appeal. Shooting the film in dusty terrains is, of course, a cinematographer’s dream come true. Besides, many well-made dacoit dramas have worked at the box-office, which is encouraging.
An upcoming dacoit drama is Abhishek Chaubey’s Sonchiriya, due for release next month. Reportedly set in Chambal, the film’s aspiration for realism can be gauged from the news that actors in the ensemble cast were asked to speak in the local dialect on the sets even when they were not shooting.
The story is based in a town where gangs fight among themselves in a power struggle set in the 1970s. Featuring gifted actors like Manoj Bajpayee, Ashutosh Rana, Sushant Singh Rajput, Bhumi Pednekar and Ranvir Shorey, Sonchiriya might turn out to be another interesting film of the genre.
Yet another film on dacoits, set to release next year, is Karan Malhotra’s Shamshera, starring Sanjay Dutt, Ranbir Kapoor and Vaani Kapoor.
Talking about the film, Ranbir had reportedly said, “Shamshera is not a story of a ‘daaku’, but a film based in the 1800s. It is about a dacoit tribe who are fighting for their right and independence from the British. There was a great story of heroism — a story rooted in our country which actually happened back then.” In other words, viewers who love the genre will have another film to look forward to in 2020.
Makers can visualise a dacoit's character from diverse angles. The most relatable image of a dacoit is, however, of a brute who unleashes fear and terror.
Nobody has portrayed such a character more excitingly than Amjad Khan — Gabbar Singh, the stylised, iconic bandit in Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay.
Gabbar Singh, as we see in the film, is a fictional character written by screenwriters Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. His creation was inspired by the real-life dacoit, Gabbar Singh, alias Gabra, a Gujjar from Bhind district. A savage dacoit who chopped off the noses of his victims and kidnapped and looted at will since the mid-1950s, Gabra was killed in an encounter with the police in 1959.
Sholay’s famous ensemble cast, studded with names like Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra, is well-known. But the character that captured the nation’s imagination was Gabbar — slimy, ruthless, exploitative, revengeful, Gabbar speaks in a mix of Khariboli and Hindi. His dialogues became immensely popular — so did his body language and mannerisms. An embodiment of pure evil had never been so appealing before.
Truth be told, nobody has been able to match Khan’s once-in-a-lifetime performance since.
Thespian Dilip Kumar, however, played possibly the best author-backed character of a good-hearted human being who ends up a dacoit in Nitin Bose’s Ganga Jumna (1961). In a feudal set-up, a widow struggling to raise her sons, Ganga (Kumar) and Jumna, is accused of theft. The shock kills her, and the elder son, Ganga, takes the responsibility of educating his brother. Circumstances force him to become a dacoit. The biggest irony unfolds in the heartbreaking climax where he has to take on his brother, who has become a policeman.
A master of acting, Kumar portrayed his character’s transition, from an easygoing person to a dacoit, with exemplary brilliance. The film, which features an outlaw who makes us feel for his plight, left indelible memories in viewers’ minds.
Mehboob Khan’s epic Mother India (1957) was not a dacoit story. Driven by Nargis’s extraordinary performance in the central role, those who saw the film at the time of its release still cannot stop referring to Birju (Sunil Dutt), Radha’s (Nargis) wayward son who despises the oppressive ways of the village moneylender. He becomes a dacoit — and is eventually killed by his mother, who protects the honour of a woman he has kidnapped. One of the most poignant moments in the classic, Birju’s death will remain etched in the filmgoer’s mind forever.
The inimitable Pran came up with one of the best performances of his career in Radhu Karmakar’s Raj Kapoor-Padmini starrer Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai (JDMGBH) (1960). The film is a story of a simpleton, Raju, (Kapoor), who helps an injured man. This man turns out to be the ‘sardar’ of dacoits, who believe Raju is an undercover cop and abducts him. His life undergoes a change, and the sardar’s (Padmini) daughter falls in love with him soon. Pran plays Raaka, a wily and suspicious dacoit who kills the sardar and takes over the gang. The gang commit atrocities at a wedding, and Raju’s decision to go to the police has its consequences.
JDMGBH is a mishmash of subplots — some rather unconvincing. But it is difficult to forget Pran, who appeared to have dug into the role with relish.
Moni Bhattacharjee’s Mujhe Jeene Do (1963), starring Sunil Dutt as a dacoit, Thakur Jarnail Singh, and Waheeda Rehman as courtesan Chameli Jaan, is an instance of cinematic realism at its best. The tall and well-built Dutt, a favourite of his times for dacoit dramas, looked cut out for the role, which won him praise and accolades. The film is about Singh’s transformation from being a ruthless dacoit who kills a husband in front of the man’s young wife, into a kind-hearted man.
He seeks redemption — but does he find it?
The film answers this question, while the viewer marvels at Dutt and Rehman’s performances.
Often spoken of as an inspiration for Sholay, Raj Khosla’s Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971) had Vinod Khanna as the baddie, Jabbar Singh. Khanna’s is a shorter role compared to that of the film’s leading man, Dharmendra — but he was the one who walked away with the honours.
Sultan Ahmed’s Ganga Ki Saugandh (1978) was among the lesser successes of Amitabh Bachchan during his days at the peak. Still, Bachchan fans remember his character, Jeeva, a simple village dweller who becomes a dacoit to take revenge against the tyrannical zamindar, Thakur Jaswant Singh (Amjad Khan).
Feudal exploitation is the dominant theme in Ganga Ki Saugandh. The same was the case with JP Dutta’s Ghulami (1985), a well-made film in which the protagonists led by Dharmendra — branded as outlaws by the establishment — rebel against the landlord.
In 1989, Dutta visited similar thematic territory in Batwara, whose story originates from the imposition of the law that prescribes a ceiling for ownership of land. Brought up in different backgrounds, an upper-caste man (Vinod Khanna) and his lower-caste counterpart (Dharmendra), who have been forced to become bandits, look beyond their differences to try and subjugate the wrongdoers.
Hindi cinema has shown dacoits who are born evil. Others have been depicted as an exploitative system’s luckless victims, who have risen in rebellion and decided to live by the gun. The character of a dacoit has the sort of charm that can be compared to that of a cowboy from spaghetti westerns. One can watch this time and again if the film has a good story to share.