The Legacy of Manoj Kumar

Decades before nationalism became the dominant cultural and political forces of Indian society, Manoj Kumar, who passed away on April 4 at 87, tapped into the phenomenon to churn out blockbuster after blockbuster.  In the movies he made patriotism was the spine running through the trademark elements of Bollywood—melodrama, memorable music and dialogues that stuck and travelled, romance and social messaging. Even the name he took in his movies, Bharat, was tailored for effect. He knew exactly how to weave love for country into entertainment.  

It began in the mid-1960s, just as he was finding a footing as a successful hero in Hindi movies when Shaheed, based on the life of the martyr Bhagat Singh, became a success. Kumar was just 27 then. Two years later when Upkar, a story about nation building that wove the soldier and the farmer together, became a blockbuster, he was not just the main actor but also the director. He had found his metier. From then on, at periodic intervals, his movies, each of them taking some strand of national pride, kept the ticket counters busy. There was Purab Aur Paschim, about Indian cultural values triumphing over those of the west; Roti Kapda Aur Makaan, a missive on anti-corruption and integrity. In 1981, you had Kranti, a throwback to a revolt against the British, which became the biggest grosser of the year. He was the centrepiece of his movies but also got an eclectic ensemble, from Amitabh Bachchan to Dilip Kumar, to share the screen with him. 

As painful as the raging success of the 1970s was the decline in the 1980s. By the end of the decade, the movies were all flopping. It was not just that he had lost the pulse of the audience but what was being churned out was like a caricature of what he had made before. Clips of movies like Clerk are now famous on Youtube for their absurdity. He tried to launch his son with a patriotic movie but that didn’t work either. A detour into politics was stillborn. Eventually, he more or less disappeared from the public mind but not the movies he made in his prime. That legacy can be seen today in how lucrative and popular patriotic movies continue to remain, a genre that had him as its progenitor in the industry.  

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