Patricia Uberoi

(Reading No. A3)

Context
 Analysis of two popular commercial Hindi films :
a) Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge 1995 (Director : Aditya
Chopra)
b) Pardes 1997 (Director : Subhash Ghai)
Why films ?
 Films tap into, play on and ultimately resolve through
strategies the concerns of everyday life.
 Films as texts
 Films construct an ‘idealised moral universe’ reflective
of the values, beliefs and ideas that go into the making
of a nation
What is common in the films ?
 Love stories involving Indians settled abroad

 Concerned about the notion of ‘Indianness’- defined

through an exploration of family values, courtship and
marriage
What is common ?- II
The films reflect the dilemma of moral choice at two
levels :-

a) Conflict between individual desire and social

norms/expectations
b) Contradiction between transnational location and
retention of Indian identity
Contention-I
The modernisation of Indian society was expected to
undermine the traditional ‘rules’ of marriage (caste
endogamy) and lead to the development of an
individualistic ethos, but this has not happened to the
extent that it was expected.
Contention - II
What we witness today is the phenomena of the
‘internationalisation of the middle class’ and the
consequent problem of the cultural reproduction of
Indian identity in transnational locations.
Indianness : At home and abroad
 Indians traditionally have had a contradictory attitude
towards their own diaspora. Earlier regarded as ‘out of
sight-out of mind’…

 Now the Indians abroad, ‘a model minority’ in many

places, are expected to be ‘patriotic investors’ in their
country’s future!
Attitudes to the Diaspora-I
 NRI’s have not responded as expected, resented being
treated as ‘Kamdhenu’, do not seek Indian citizenship
any longer. In fact they shy away from investment
here-
 Bureaucratic obstacles
 Infrastructural snags
 Generalized mistrust
Attitudes to the Diaspora -II
 The foreign-returned Indian or the excessively
westernised Indian Vs the one who has stayed behind-
The latter more authentic than the former!
DDLJ(Story) 1995
Son of a successful, self made NRI businessman,
before joining his father in his family business goes on
a holiday in Europe, with his college friends... meets a
girl who has convinced her authoritarian father to
allow her to go on a similar trip to Europe with her
friends before she settles down in an ‘arranged
marriage’ with a boy from Punjab, who is her father’s
old friend. The two meet, fall in love, but do not elope,
they come together finally with the consent of parents.
DDLJ-I
 Primary aim of the director
‘to make an honest love story’, ‘a wholesome film’,
‘to show the international audience that India is not
only about snake charmers’
‘to show the world how we live, love, think and react
today’
to make a critique of the trend of love stories which
showed young boys and girls eloping in order to get
married.
DDLJ -II
 To make a comment on the position of girls in the
Indian household

The film made under the Yashraj banner, was a

launching pad for Aditya Chopra, son of Yash
Chopra, who devised the plot and scripted the
screenplay of the film. The film like HAHK was
regarded as a clean, non-violent family
entertainment.
DDLJ –III (Invocation to Indian
Identity ?)
 Reference to the self-identity constituted in relation
to the nation : ‘makke di roti sarson da saag’ (pg 174,
176)

 References to the ‘shy, modest behaviour of the

daughter’ as reflecting Indian culture (pg 175)

 References to shared Indian origins and expectations

arising from it (pg 175)
DDLJ and Indian Identity- IV
 Invocation of Indian identity especially with
reference to sexuality, ‘izzat’, marriage, gender related
behaviour (pg 175-176)

 References to a marriage solemnised with the consent

of parents Vs marriage by elopement (pg 176)

 The celebration of ‘Karva Chauth’ (pg 176, 177)

DDLJ and Indian Identity- V
 Attempting to win the affections of the elder ones,
seeking forgiveness for earlier transgressions – an
Indian trait ?

 Confrontation between the heroine’s father and the

protagonist, where the daughter is symbolically
entrusted back into her father’s care- assertion of love
as well as the willingness to renounce it for the sake of
honour of parental authority…echoes quintessentially
‘Indian’ sentiments.
DDLJ and Indian Identity - V
 Multiple references to honour and how it is challenged
 - challenge to patriarchal authority
 -challenge to the sacred duty of the Hindu father to
‘gift’ his daughter
 - challenge to the principle of ‘alliance’ whereby
marriage is constructed as a union of two families
 -challenge to the notion of the ‘purity’ of the daughter
Construction of ‘true Indianness’-I
 Upholding one’s commitment to the Indian ‘culture’
of kinship (winning over the heroine not by
displacing the father, but by being Indian himself)

 Tribute to paternal authority is rationalised as

gratitude.. (gratitude to parents should take
precedence over individual self gratification,
respectfulness to the point of self denial, even
identification with patriarchal authority…crucial for
construction of Indianness).
Construction of true Indianness-II
 Principle of ‘affinity as value’ upheld by the active
participation of parents

 Assumption of continued chastity of the woman- tied

to her ‘honour’ … this is preserved by male self control
that is valorised

 A comment on the status of women : lack of choice

/agency or exercise of free will due to the tyranny of
tradition(pg 181, 182)
Pardes –I
 NRI here positioned as the hero- an increasing
social trend

 Reflects emergence of a transnational elite class as the

reference for the upwardly mobile Indian middle class
in a liberalised economy.

 Just like DDLJ, Pardes too situated its story in a

foreign locale : Indianness constituted in the course of
a confrontation of Eastern and Western values .
Pardes -II
 East versus West invoked through contrasts of
characters and the values that they embody

 Attempts to forge marriage alliance between NRI boy

and Indian girl (to reform all that is bad about the
West, to stem the tide of Americanisation in the family

 References to the security of the mother’s lap when the

the motherland (India) is invoked :
Pardes-- III
 Two moments of crisis in the film :

Encounter between Rajiv (the bad NRI) and Ganga

(the innocent Indian) over the issue of sex before
marriage

Fight between Rajiv (the bad NRI) and Arjun (the

good Indian)--- the latter saves the heroine from the
clutches of the former, and also exercises self restraint
even when he has the opportunity.
Pardes - IV
 The ‘true Indian’ (Arjun or Shahrukh Khan), though
his future lies in America, remains emotionally and
morally an Indian and he upholds Indian tradition in
many ways.

 An attempt to preserve the Indian family values

among the diasporic Indians is an unsustainable
ambition. Depletion and alienation are bound to
follow with dislocation.
Commonalities
 Commonalities both at the overt as well as at the
substantive levels
 - Use of foreign locales
 - Shared focus of the NRI nostalgia for India
 - Return to India for denouement
 - Emphasis on family values as the core of Indianness
 - The attempt to discipline the younger generation by
marriage with Indian partners
Commonalities - II
 The preoccupation with feminine virtues especially
one of chastity
 The role of women characters in critiquing patriarchal
authority
 Reconciliation of parental authority and individual
desire achieved through the young couple’s
demonstration of adherence to norms
 Demonstration of self restraint – sexualisation of love
relationship before sacramental consecration and an
act of self denial though women criticise it
Commonalities - III
 Shared Ideology of Kinship is emphasised in 3 ways :

 A) Idealisation and naturalisation of the institution of

the patrilineal joint family
 B) The family considered as a patriarchal institution
 C) Marriage as interfamily alliance rather than
arrangement between a young couple in love
The problematics of a transnational
identity
 The two films are at variance over the question as to
whether the Indian identity can survive de-
territorialisation
 DDLJ proposes that family values are portable assets,
have to be periodically replenished
 Pardes - more ambiguous, suggests
Westernisation/Americanisation can at best be
delayed
 Over all a conservative agenda for the Indian family is
portrayed
Problematics - II
 These films are an important site for contestation of
popular culture- of how the middle class diaspora are
coming to terms with the national identity

 This is significant as for a substantial section,

especially the young, the West is a desired destination

 The young do not need to choose between ‘arranged’

and ‘love’ marriage, between tradition and modernity,
when one can enjoy the social and material benefits of
an ‘arranged love marriage’.
Problematics- III
This conservative construction of family values also
mirrors the middle class anxiety of reconciling our
cultural identity in a modern, globalised world.

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