A film called DEEWAR

 

 

Thanks to lockdown following the corona scare and owing to the mercy of YouTube, I had an opportunity to watch the Amitabh Batchan starer “Deewar” after a gap of nearly 30-35 years.  YouTube is a handy tool to watch and savoir old and pristine memories.  The first time I watched the film was in the early 80s when I was too young with the additional handicap of inadequate grasp of Hindi, my home state of Tamil Nadu being pathologically antagonistic to the national language. 

 

My memories of the movie lasted primarily because of Amitabh Batchan (AB), who even in that impressionable age cast a majestic spell.  Granting that my grasp of sociology over the years is inadequate, the film continues to appeal to me as perhaps the first film to depict and expose the tensions and misgivings prevailing in the Hindu-Muslim relationship, through the character of Vijay (AB).

 

The surviving members of the family of Vijay, his brother Ravi (played by Shashi Kapoor and their mother fall into hard times owing to the trickery played by the industrial tycoon in whose industry their father was an employees union leader.  The father’s submission to the demands of the tycoon was being misconstrued as an act of treachery of the cause of workers and the family leaves the town to live in the city (where else Bombay, of course) because of the antagonistic attitude of the fellow workers.

 

More than the character of AB in the film, the depiction of Hindu & Muslim relationship scores over.  The film significantly diverges from the usual depiction of this relationship in other films.  Specifically, Vijay starts as  a  (Hindu) god repellent boy, though the character was not developed to the extent of an atheist.  He refuses to enter the temple when his mother takes him along with his brother.  Ravi (who joins the police and, therefore, a good guy) goes in whereas Vijay (a coolie in a go down  and possibly prone to become a bad guy). 

 

Vijay, who remains a god repelled coolie till the end of the film, first comes into contact with a Muslim inside the go down.  The muslim chacha notices the copper label (numbered 786) pinned on the shirt of Vijay and explains the holiness of the number attached to Islam by saying its significance is similar to the insignia “Om” to the Hindus. The old man advises Vijay to keep the number plate safe.  The copper plate did protect him from near death encounters on a couple of occasions. Thus, the two features which take him closer to Islam are his near atheistic to the Hindu god and his juxtaposition with working class Muslims.  His death occurs of a gunshot sustained at the hands of Police, when he fails to retrieve the copper plate after an encounter.

 

We have seen Hindu and Muslim characters in Hindi films played by brothers or dual roles played by the same hero or in close proximate and cordial relationship in a community setting.   Deewar is perhaps is the first film which seeks to draw the two communities in such close proximate relationship in the character of a hero. The other distinguishing understated portrait in the film is that a repulsive attitude towards Hindu god / temple is supposed to bring a Hindu closer to the Muslim.

The loss of the protective copper plate bearing the number 786 signals the collapse of the noble person and death at the hands of the foe (police).  The extremities attached to the insignia and their meanings are of great significance in the present circumstance but were not drawn on earlier occasions.

 

Be that as it may, the end draws a more significant encounter.  Vijay, after sustaining gun shot at the hand of the police, enters the precinct of the temple and launches into rhetoric of trials and tribulations of life which had let him down repeatedly and dies.  This signifies his home coming.  What does the loss of a life saving copper plate and his home coming imply?  The unpalatable and irredeemable conclusion which is sought to be driven home is that the embrace and inclusion into the Hindu fold is possible and desirable only when the polluting encounter with Islam is broken and delegitimized.