Netaji as seen on celluloid

It is rather disconcerting that there are no films on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in updated VCD and DVD formats in music shops, shopping malls and even in film libraries, archives and OTT platforms. For a nation that proclaims Netaji as a national hero, this is sad. This seems to be the plausible reason why filmmaker Shyam Benegal decided to call his film on the great national leader The Forgotten Hero (2005.) This writer could find hardly ten notable films on Netaji while researching this paper but only one is available with Internet suppliers of DVDs of old films.

The first film made on Netaji, Pehla Admi, was made in 1950 and although directed by Bimal Roy, it used little footage on Netaji and instead dwelt on peripheral issues. A big fire in FTII, Pune destroyed all the cans of Pehla Aadmi. So, there is no way anyone can see it in the DVD versions either. There is no information about the film even on the Net.

Samadhi (1950), directed by Ramesh Saigal, was the biggest box office success of that year. The story is based on a true incident at INA. Netaji’s public lecture persuading the young to fight against colonialism is said to have inspired the director. It became a hit probably because it was clearly a commercial film and used Netaji as an also-ran.

Hemen Gupta, who made two good films on the freedom struggle 42 and Bhuli Nai in Bengali, made his last film Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in 1966. Himself being in the INA, it was a feeling of nostalgia that motivated him to make the film. His most famous film was Anandmath.

The War of the Springing Tiger (1984) is a documentary produced by Granada television that focuses on why the Prisoners of War chose to join the INA during World War II. It also explores the role of the INA in the Burma and Imphal

A scene from the 1999 film ‘The Forgotten Army’ directed by Kabir Khan

campaign and in the independence movement. The documentary took contributions from Lakshmi and Prem Saigal. It looks closely at the 40,000 men who deserted the Indian Army to fight alongside the Japanese against the British during World War II for an independent India. They were led by Subhas Chandra Bose who rejected Gandhi’s non-violence campaign.

The Forgotten Army (1999), directed by Kabir Khan and produced by Akhil Bakshi, retraces the historic march by going back to the place with veterans of the INA, Col Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and Capt Sehgal to visit the old battlefields and search out their old comrades in Burma. The film has poignant scenes like Col Dhillon bowing before the cave which gave shelter to the soldiers at Mt. Popa as the British bombarded the area. The film ends at the Red Fort where the three INA stalwarts, Col Shahnawaz Khan, Col Prem Kumar Sehgal and Col. Dhillon were tried for waging a war against the British kingdom.

Shobhayatra (2004) is about people from different walks of life who dress up as freedom fighters for a procession to celebrate 50 years of Independence, organised by a gangster with political ambitions. Though the people wear masks and use history to hide their complexities, their real personalities show up in every instance. The film shows the past set in contemporary times. The characters play-acting Mahatma Gandhi (Prithivi Sankhala), Subhash Chandra Bose (Vineet Kumar), Jawaharlal Nehru (Denzil Smith), Rani Laxmibai (Divya Dutta) Lokmanya Tilak (Kishor Kadam) and Babu Genu come together for the procession and wait in a warehouse for their cue. The characters slip in and out of the historical figures they are supposed to play, drawing a parallel of their real self and the personalities they portray.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose – The Forgotten Hero (2005) is an understatement that lingers starkly loud. It stands apart for its simplicity and eye for detail and proximity with historical facts. It is a decent attempt at depicting a forgotten phase in Indian history without an iota of controversy amidst the mist of Quit India and Gandhi, a phase no less substantial. Sachin Khedekar impresses with his natural acting and sans rhetoric.

Srijit Mukherjee’s Gumnaami (1919) resurrects the mystery behind Netaji’s death in the plane crash on 18 August 1945 and focuses on whether he died at all or returned to Lucknow as Gumnaami Baba, a sadhu who bore a striking resemblance to Netaji. Neither in reality, or in the film, does Gumnaami Baba ever even raise any hint that he is Netaji returned as Gumnaami Baba. Yet, a group is out to prove that this Baba is really Netaji and that he did not die in the plane crash. The locus of the entire film is on the Mukherjee Commission Hearings. An investigative journalist, Chandrachur Dhar (Anirban Bhattacharya), comes up with a third theory supported by his group, Mission Netaji. How he tries to convince the law and the land of his findings is what the film tries to show. The best part of the film is the way it explores the journey of the investigative journalist Chandrachur Dhar (an amalgamation of two names – Anuj Dhar and Chandrachur Ghosh – the two journalists who actually brought across their theory on Gumnaami Baba in their book India’s Biggest Cover Up (2012).

Invisibility may be voluntary or coerced by history and politics. In case of Netaji, it is not voluntary because Netaji has done too much to will away his contribution in any way. His untimely and sudden disappearance did not permit him the space to make himself invisible. But this very disappearance could have made it politically convenient to ‘forget’ him and erase him from visible space that cinema offers. Is this ‘invisibility’ a political strategy of erasure of the great figure of India’s national struggle for freedom? Or is it because of the selective amnesia Indians suffer from when it comes to a study of history and historical figures through the audiovisual medium of cinema and television?