Bollywood has always reflected the times. When our Indian films started talking, almost all the films that were made had their source in the freedom struggle or drew inspiration from our religious texts and history books.
Films like Sampurna Ramayana, Mahasati Anasuya, Ram Rajya, Krishnaleela and the like were devotional ones, which along with the lives of actual saints like Narsinh Bhagat, Bhakt Kabir, Meera, etc, were made mandatorily. But others, sourcing from the history of India, like Jhansi ki Rani, captured people’s imagination too.
In the late thirties and forties, films were mostly based on the freedom struggle. They reflected the reality of the times and whetted the appetite of the youth to join the freedom struggle, which they did in the absence of job opportunities. India, during those times, was in its infancy as far as business opportunities were concerned. The focus was to heave the British out of the country and the youth came united for this. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learnt today from the films of those times. When a direction is offered to the youth of a country, they grab it and goes for it full steam.
Today, in the absence of a focus, the world has become a fertile ground for terrorism. And the cinema trade made patriotic films like Roja, Mission Kashmir etc to deal with terrorism. Both pre-partition, post-partition and during the struggle against the British Raj, Indian films abound in patriotism.
Films like Kismet and others from New Theatres had the same root. All of these did tremendous business. Even films that were not overtly patriotic had the background of the freedom struggle, because that was the reality in India then and it never failed to evoke a response from the audiences.
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