Indian cinema since independence has followed varied patterns of development since the post-independence fervor laden movies of the 50's and 60's rooted in an ethos that reflected the hopes and aspirations of a nation emerging as free from the perils of imperialism. Films brought to realization backed by people from the Progressive Writers Movement (a literary movement in pre-partitioned British India), as well as the Indian People's Theater Association (which aimed at cultural awakening in India in the backdrop of the Second World War, the Bengal Famine and the Quit India Movement) , and subsequently many of those directed by Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan, Guru Dutt and Raj Kapoor continued to dominate mainstream cinematic ideology either in the form of the Nehruvian ideal or nation-building centric themes for more than a decade in the 1960s. This was followed by the 1970's where as the euphoria of Nehruvian socialism died, it marked the beginning of an era of peasant uprising, social unrest and student activism. Disillusioned by the failure of the planned economic development programs which did not empower the working class nor rid them of the constraints imposed by a tradition bound society and economy, revolutionary ideals once again gained momentum, this time as a campaign to put an end to bureaucratic authoritarianism and 'class struggle'. At such a time when the stark reality of corruption had steeped into the Indian system, movies like Deewar (1975) , Zanjeer (1973) and Sholay (1975) upholding the victimized working class hero as the 'Angry Young Man' pitted against the establishment , alchemized mainly by the superstar Amitabh Bachchan in an almost one-man led industry trend that lasted into the 80's gained immense popular currency.
What seems to be lacking though, in the most part is the quality of historicity in most Hindi films, and providing a means to link the events of the past as they happened, to the present situations they have evolved into in the socio-cultural context. After the mid 80's most of the film industry seemed to have evenly forked into the revival of romance and into portraying the culture wars concerning marriage between the increasingly westernized youth and their traditional families, and although more recent movies like Company, Satya and others have stuck to the more distinct themes of modern gangster films portraying the decaying public sphere and the workings of the 'underworld' , others have shifted focus to being screened in international locations while retaining the song, dance and fight sequences in increasingly MTV lifestyle-type videos. To a large extent, the historical narrative leading up to and following the revolutionary events in agrarian uprisings and even the controversial Emergency rule period of 1975 is predominantly missing throughout. Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (A Thousand Desires such as these), released in 2005 and directed by Sudhir Mishra is a contemporary tribute to the historical-dramatic events of the era that have long been denied any space, reconstructed in their true spirit, and those indelible to a modern day understanding of Maoism as a significant force in the current political scenario.
The story revolves around three main protagonists as they graduate from a prestigious Delhi University college and get embroiled into the swirls of contradictions of their time, each thrown in different directions due to their chosen divergent paths, but getting drawn to each other time and again as the occasion spins. Siddharth (played by Kay Kay Menon) is the student activist who plunges whole-heartedly into the revolution to become a Naxalite. The son of a gentle and educated retired judge, born and raised in luxury and privilege, his background is representative of a liberal secular elitism , however he is plagued with the peculiar predicament of finding his idealism frustrated in the face of a ruling politics-laden Delhi, devoid of any real cause, and one which fails to make any true alliance with the working classes. He takes off for Bhojpur in Bihar determined to stir a revolution there, end caste-discrimination and join the toiling masses in their struggle. Before leaving, as he tells his father, he is 'sick of those who sit and pontificate about India, its problems, the oppressive social and political systems and do nothing about it'. Geeta (played by Chitrangada Singh) is the cultivated South Indian girl, symbolic of the high-achieving modern woman who sails fluently between the locales of her Telugu-speaking orthodox extended family to the swanky bunch at college, on to Oxford for higher studies and finally to a strife torn Bihar, where after a previously failed marriage she reunites with her longtime love Siddharth, and where she continues to serve, long after even he is gone. Vikram (played by Shiney Ahuja), son of an idealistic Gandhian politician, is drawn to Geeta all along, but is basically a middle class small town boy who is eager to climb the social ladder at any cost, and distance himself from his father's legacy for which he has nothing but irritation and contempt. A few years down the line he moves on to become a high-profile power-fixer in the corridors of the government and one who can get work done through all his political connections. In himself, he symbolizes the emergence of the artful power broker and smooth operator whose prominence in today's Indian scenario has almost acquired an aura of reputability, though at the root it remains emblematic of the corruption and fraud that is firmly and deeply endemic in the system.
The film, while not so much as an unconventional love triangle story as much a medium for the theater of class struggle, throws light on the working style and political tract of the armed guerrilla movement in the vast and volatile rural hinterland and its relationship with the Center in Delhi and the latter's evolving tactics especially during the Indian Emergency years. While the Indian countryside saw extensive guerrilla actions, Calcutta in West Bengal, became the center of Naxalite urban violence during the 1970s. The youth, mainly bright middle class students who inspired by the Naxalite ideology of agrarian revolution, went to the villages, lived and worked with the rural poor among whom they propagated the Naxalite ideology, fought shoulder to shoulder with them against the police, and laid down their lives. Charu Majumdar(who led the initial militant peasant uprising in Naxalbari) had an 'annihilation line' - a dictum that Naxalites should assassinate individual "class enemies" as a part of the insurrection, which was put into practice not only against landlords, but also against university teachers, police officers, politicians and others. Those remaining in Calcutta hoped to supplement the rural movement with violent urban actions that would distract and keep the para-military forces bogged down in Calcutta, and thus cripple their capacity to intervene in the rural areas. But they underestimated the military strength of the Indian state. The Indian government, instead of fully factoring in land reforms, chose the simplistic path of military suppression of peasant grievances and unleashed a reign of terror on the Naxalite bases and the villagers who supported them. Having been narrated from personal viewpoints of characters caught in a vortex of events and trying to come to grips with a life that moves at a faster pace than each can handle, the movie welds the personal and political in a fascinating journey which delves into the heart and soul of a nation suffering from a debilitating period of lawlessness and oppression. Indeed as Siddharth and his comrades realize the extent of the appalling poverty and misery in which peasantry is steeped, they are also overwhelmed by the complexity of the existing ground realities and the hold of the feudal ideology ingrained in the minds of the masses, even as the latter break their shackles and challenge their landlords hegemony on one hand, and at another, immediately rush to save his life when its in danger. A particular sequence in the movie depicting this demonstrated the discord between the revolutionaries understanding of their utopian zeal and the specifics needed to deal with the revolution for their solid bottom line.
Purportedly, the police committed several civil and human rights violations on the Naxalites, including detention without counsel, torture,and staged shootouts. The Emergency declaration by Indira Gandhi bestowed sweeping powers to police in the country to destroy gang and syndicate structure. One of the most controversial periods in post-independence India's history, where civil liberties were curtailed and state owned censorship on publications of news prevailed, it also was a period where innocent people were detained wantonly and without any charge or notification of families and abuse and tortures were carried out by the state of political prisoners and leaders of dissent were choked out of any avenue of expression. The infamous family planning initiative including forced vasectomy of thousands of men are among the well known criticisms of the Emergency era. The movie captures the sickening exposition of the sometimes vacuous connivance employed by both junior and senior government employees for their own self-preservation, to which each of our protagonists falls victim to one by one either directly or in an attempt to save one another, in the brouhaha of terror and confusion. It invokes lament for a lost generation fallen through the cracks in its human failings, and the earlier optimism and fervor is replaced in the end by despondency and defeatism, and sympathy for the doomed souls who either tried to make a difference or got caught in the crossfire of accidents. Unlike a movie like Slumdog millionaire which despite its many guttural trysts, was ultimately upbeat and zestful and became an instant box-office hit, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi(also in mostly spoken English), in its true political consciousnesses is followed by romantic disillusionment and suggestive pathos. Having had an extremely poor run at the theaters, despite its commercially viable potential it continues to run today only as art house cinema.
After the lifting of the Emergency followed by the 1977 elections, a period not illustrated in the movie, the Naxalites were released from the jails and once again gained resurgence in a course of events leading to their present day situation. Although still committed to eliminating the feudal order at grassroot levels in India, several factions parted ways on grounds of strategy, and have often fought amongst themselves, meanwhile emerging as one of the main challenges to the Indian state and internal security. They have also expanded their areas of operation from their older pockets in West Bengal, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh to new guerrilla zones in other Left-wing extremism-hit states like Orissa, Madhya Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand,Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra and continue to operate extensively out of traditional forest resources and inaccessible village areas. It should be pointed out however that despite their survival for almost four decades, the Naxalites do not yet control any large area comparable to the `liberated zone' that the Chinese Communists could establish in Yan'an during the 1930's and 40's, or following the shift in balance of forces more recently - the sizable tract that the Maoists occupy in neighboring Nepal today. Frustration over their shortcomings have both crippled and distorted the character of the Naxalite movement and led to a diversion of their energies towards defensive actions to preserve their influence and offensive assaults degenerating into terrorist acts instead of any real social and agrarian reform essential for the emancipation of the masses. Indeed, contrary to today's all-pervasive and popular notion of the Maoists as rebels associated with a terrorist movement, the movie in fact humanizes the movement and brutalizes the State in an attempt to explore its original intent and the root socio-political causes leading to its birth. The revolutionary protagonists are suave, urbane, sophisticated and educated, whereas the representatives of the State - the Bhojpuri policemen and nefarious politicians, are in wretched and loathsome cameo roles true to their raw depiction.
Even though the official rhetoric about land reforms lists it as a priority area in the governments agenda, for the most part pro-poor agrarian reforms were initially tardily executed in most states and seem to have by and large slowed down by the early 80's, as has the concern over land reforms over the years either unconsciously faded from the public mind or deliberately been glossed over. More to the point, today the land reforms legislation of the earlier years are considered as statutory constraints either for the flow of agribusiness investment to the rural areas or for acquiring agricultural, homestead and forestland for a variety of non agricultural purposes such as housing or infrastructure building. Allegedly, in today’s scenario, official land reform measures have come to mean diluting old land reforms legislation further to facilitate acquisition of land inhabited or cultivated by sharecroppers, tenants and owner peasants. Numerous studies have indicated that inequalities have increased, rather than decreased and the number of landless labor has gone up whereas the top ten percent of the landed elite monopolizes more land now than in the 1950's. Here is where Maoist insistence on armed resistance to counter the violence of any oppressors has appealed to a large section of the oppressed and impoverished population. Hence, though the government's diagnosis of the agrarian problems faced by the rural poor initially appears to be almost similar to that made by the Maoists, today the two are locked in a violent conflict across large tracts of south central and east India.
Among other films that sought to capture the radical consciousness of the 70's and 80's were some of Vijay Tendulakar's scripts written for Shyam Benegal - Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and for Govind Nilahani - Aakrosh (1980), Aardha Satya (1982) as well as films like Garam Hawa (M.S Sathyu) and Bhavni Bhavai (Ketan Mehta) which captured the events and folk tales of the early days but were produced and released more recently. In Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Sudhir Mishra had found French co-producers for the realization of his venture, as is perceptible in the editing and technical cinematography. Shubha Mudgal's excellent rendition of the songs inspired by Ghalib's soulful poetry beckons us to enter an impassioned world of dreams and yearnings that invoke a nostalgia for the past even if we never experienced it and is filled with a longing for the future, moving forward for whatsoever it may hold in its wake.