Mehboob Khan’s Mother India is one of many works depicting India as “mother”, this
time through the medium of cinema. It was released in 1957, ten years after
India gained its independence from Great Britain and was partitioned into India
and Pakistan. Although the film is a remake of Khan’s Aurat, which was released before independence in 1940, Mother India is most appropriately read in
the time and context in which it was made. The fact that Khan chose to remake
it at this time, and that it achieved such immense critical and audience
acclaim in 1957, suggests that this moment of transition is relevant to the
meaning the film creates. The symbol of Bharat
Mata (Mother India) had been around before 1947, but the film came at a
time when the national identity of India was under construction. In light of
post-colonialism, Partition, and technological advancement, India needed to be
reimagined. Mother India paints a
clear portrait of what India should stand for—integrity, hard work,
perseverance, sacrifice, and strength in the face of victimhood.
This conception of Mother India lies in
stark contrast to the one critiqued in, “Maps and Mother Goddesses in Modern
India.” In the essay, Ramaswamy discusses visual representations of the
“motherland,” many of which place the image of Mother India, donning a sari,
directly on the map of India. The essay argues that this gendered depiction of
India caters to the male gaze, and associates womanhood with traits of the
land—something to be owned and protected. This association is in line with what
we observed in Earth, 1947. In the
film, women are kidnapped, raped, mutilated, and slaughtered in numbers. By
sullying the purity of these women, the perpetrators bring shame to the men of
enemy groups, who have failed to protect their women. However, in Mother India, Khan presents a vastly
different portrait of womanhood. In this story, the woman is protector and hero.
One scene in particular that stands out
is the musical number “Duniya Mein Hum Aaye Hain” (We Came to the World). The
scene shows Radha and her sons tilling the land for farming. It begins with a
close-up on Rahda’s face, with a large wooden tool resting heavily on her
shoulders. Her head tilts up and forward toward the sky as she sings. Her eyes
are closed and beads of sweat are strewn across her face and neck. Her toil and
suffering are clear, but she carries on. The scene alternates between these
close-ups—as well as medium close-ups of her sons—and wide shots of the field
of crops and soil. Her persistent struggle is also captured in the lyrics of
the song:
…If
one has come into this world, one must live. If life is like poison, one sometimes has to drink the
poison. In tough times you fall, but one must get up and keep going. Even
though one is burning, one must keep walking on the fire… In this world, a woman keeps her
integrity in adverse circumstances… If a person is hardworking, anything is
possible… As
one sows here, so one will reap.
Not only does this song serve as Khan’s conception
of the ideals that India should follow, it also associates these ideals with
the female. Throughout the scene, Radha wears a deep red outfit, the bottom of
which has a muddier color. While the bright white of her sons’ outfits stand
out from the soil, Radha’s outfit blends in. In this scene, the physical and
metaphoric converge. Literal mother interacts with symbolic motherland, and
does so with purpose and agency. Throughout the film, Khan treats Bharat Mata
as more than something to be owned and traded. This Mother India isn’t
something to be fought in the name of. She is what gives the people its
fighting spirit.
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