Abstract
Andaz (1949) was the top grossing Hindi film ever at the time of its release. Mr. and Mrs. 55 (1955) was a very successful romantic comedy by the tragic-romantic auteur Guru Dutt. Raj Kapoor’s Shri 420 (1955) is an iconic Hindi film. The chapter argues that all three films are concerned with the ‘New Woman’ of newly decolonised India and draws upon the debates around the contemporary contentious Hindu Code Bill that sought to organise, restructure and reform Hindu personal law predicated on a radical positioning of women as autonomous, modern individuals. The chapter demonstrates how these popular films participate in the anxious discourse of the New Woman and comprise attempts to ‘normalise’ her. And yet the complex negotiations of modernity and patriarchy in the young nation may be recuperated from these films despite their melodramatic formulations and patriarchal romance.
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Notes
- 1.
Hereafter referred to as ‘the Bill’.
- 2.
In the speech that he delivered while introducing the ‘Hindu Code Bill’ in the Constituent Assembly in 1947, Dr B.R. Ambedkar defined civil and sacramental unions.
- 3.
There is a contemporary debate on the ‘radical’ nature of the Hindu Code Bill; the extent to which it represented the heterogeneous practices held under the rubric ‘Hindu’ and also the extent to which it was an advance for women’s rights. See Agnes (2011).
- 4.
In the Indian context, the ‘New Woman’ is a term used to describe women, particularly those from urbanised, elite families, whose lifestyles changed as a result of social reforms and of the promotion of female education in the nineteenth century.
- 5.
All translations of the dialogues, which were originally in Hindi, are mine. English words in the original dialogues are marked with an asterisk ∗.
- 6.
Sinha (2012: 157).
- 7.
Rajadhyaksha and Willemen (1998: 175).
- 8.
In the 1940s, for instance, Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti (MARS) vigorously campaigned against rising food prices and promoted self-defence training among women. Their gatherings were attended by hundreds of women. The upper-middle class, educated Godavari Parulekar, worked extensively to emancipate Warli women in Maharashtra who were systemically oppressed along class, caste and gender lines. Forbes (2008: 210–211, 216).
- 9.
See, for instance, Gairola (2014: 99–100).
- 10.
Sinha (2012: 59).
- 11.
‘About Us’ http://www.freepressjournal.in/about-us
- 12.
Chatterjee (1990: 233–253, 238).
- 13.
Sarkar (2000: 601–622, 601).
- 14.
Forbes (2008: 59).
- 15.
Ibid (2008): 90.
- 16.
This song sung by Maya, who was later joined by Raj, went on to become an iconic hit. Music: Shankar-Jaikishan. Lyrics: Shailendra.
Works Cited
Films
Andaz. Directed by Mehboob Khan. Produced by Mehboob Khan. India: Mehboob Productions, 1949. DVD.
Mr. and Mrs. 55. Directed by Mehboob Khan. Produced by Mehboob Khan. India: Ultra Distributors Ltd, 1955. DVD.
Shri 420. Directed by Raj Kapoor. Produced by Raj Kapoor. India: R.K. Studios, 1955. DVD.
Books
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——— 1990. “The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question”. Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid ed. Recasting Women: Essay in Colonial History (Rutgers University Press New Jersey), 233–253.
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———. “Fire and Rain, The Tramp and The Trickster: Romance and the Family in the Early Films of Raj Kapoor”, The South Asianist, Vol. 2, No. 3 (2013), 9–32.
Freedman, Estelle B. “The New Woman: Changing Views of Women in the 1920s”. The Journal of American History. Vol. 61, No.2 (1974), 372–393.
Gehlawat, Ajay. “Introduction: Reframing Bollywood” and “Chapter 1: Bollywood and its Implied Viewers”. Ajay Gehlawat ed. Reframing Bollywood: theories of popular Hindi Cinema (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2010), xi–xxiv; 1–29.
MacPike, Loralee. “The New Woman, Childbearing, and the Reconstruction of Gender, 1880–1900”. NWSA Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1989), 368–397.
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Sarkar, Tanika. “A Pre-history of Rights: The Age of Consent Debate in Colonial Bengal”, Feminist Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2000), 601–622.
Thomas, Rosie. “Sanctity and Scandal: The Mythologization of Mother India”. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, No. 11, No. 3 (1989), 11–30.
Virdi, Jyotika. “Mr. and Mrs. 55: Comedy of Gender, Law, and Nation”. Jump Cut 43 (2000), 75–85.
Webpages
Free Press Journal. “About Us”. freepressjournal. in http://www.freepressjournal.in/about-us (accessed May 15, 2017).
Krishnan, Shekhar. “Shri 420: Nationalist Discourse & Film Narrative”. Shekhar Krishnan@bombayologist http://shekhar.cc/1998/12/11/shri-420/ (accessed May 19, 2016).
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Mittal, N. (2019). Of Pallus and Pants: Fabricating the New Woman of the New Nation in Andaz (1949), Mr. and Mrs. 55 (1955), Shri 420 (1955). In: Sengupta, S., Roy, S., Purkayastha, S. (eds) 'Bad' Women of Bombay Films. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26788-9_16
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