Politics in Middle Stream Hindi Film of 1970s: ‘Mere Apne’ (1971) & ‘Namak Haram’(1973)

Abstract

One of the broad sectors of the middle stream Hindi film is committed to the construction of an exclusive space of class identity. It is characterized with the political pressures of the moment. Two significant representative films of this type are Gulzar's ‘Mere Apne’ (1971) and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's ‘Namak Haram’ (1973) which take up the question of national and class reconciliation in a period of political crisis of the nation in the decade of 1970s. ‘Mere Apne’ is Gulzar's sensitive film on the youth of the 1970s. It stresses on the confrontations between college groups and the involvement of the youth in active local politics. With ‘Mere Apne’ Gulzar touches a very relevant and still existing problem of the society where a section of unemployed youth is used and exploited a lot during the general elections. The poor and the young find themselves helpless in a world in which parents and college principals do not understand their idealism or the frustrations of the unemployed. These narratives thus propose an apolitical resolution of political conflicts as the middle class's contribution to national cohesion. They assert the role of the middle class as a depoliticizing influence that absorbs and neutralizes class conflict.