GARAM HAVA (1974). Director: MS Sathyu. Duration: 146 mins. Language: Hindustani
By Zeeshan Husain
Garam Hava (1974) is one of those rare films that achieved the status of a classic very soon after its release. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration. It gained international recognition at the Cannes Film Festival. Its director, MS Sathyu, holds a place among other progressive filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen and Muzaffar Ali. This film established Sathyu in the world of Parallel Cinema of the 1970s and 80s. The protagonist Salim Mirza, played by Balraj Sahni, is now etched permanently in the history of art films. It has a galaxy of brilliant minds behind it— story by Ismat Chughtai, screenplay by Shama Zaidi and dialogue by Kaifi Azmi. Garam Hava is one of the earliest films that depicted the partition of India in a deeply sensitive and realistic way. The film has been restored and re-released in 2014, making it an important reference for coming generations.
Garam Hava (scorching winds) is a story of the struggle faced by a Muslim family based in Agra due to the Partition of India. The year is 1947-48 and the film starts by showing Gandhi’s popularity among the masses as a leader of the Independence movement and his assassination. The protagonist Salim Mirza (Balraj Sahni) is a pious man and admires MK Gandhi as the father of the nation. He staunchly believes that “Gandhi ji ke shahaadat ke baad koi khoon kharaba nahi hoga” (“After Gandhi ji’s martyrdom, there will be no bloodshed”). One senses that MS Sathyu shows the history of north India through the biography of a family. Here each shot is diligently planned to show the food, dress, dialect, rituals, fear and aspiration of a Muslim family based in United Provinces.
Salim Mirza, the protagonist, shares a haveli with his elder brother Halim Mirza and their mother (Badar Begum). Both brothers live with their wives and children. We see their relatives gradually flee to Pakistan. There is a large-scale fear that once the British leave India, the Congress party will reduce Muslims to a vulnerable minority. This fear has been well documented by professional historians. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s presidential address in Ramgarh in 1940 is a good reference point here.
The protagonist Salim Mirza is deeply religious and fully secular; he trusts God for everything and his Hindu friends in his day-to-day transactions. He is attached to his home. He owns a shoe manufacturing factory and is helped by his elder son Baqar Mirza. Despite their best efforts, their business faces new challenges every day. They face discrimination in almost every aspect of life from getting loans from banks to finding customers, from participating in trade unions to retaining clients. Perhaps it is partition of hearts. Yet he is determined to stay in India.
The newly independent India is quite different; something never felt before. There is an air of discomfort in the Hindu-Muslim relationship. Friends are just no longer friends; they are now ‘Hindu’ friends. The ever-increasing socioeconomic hardships compel Salim Mirza’s elder son, Baqar, to leave India as well. Salim Mirza is now left with his daughter Amina (Gita Siddharth) and younger son Sikander (Farooq Shaikh). Amina misses her elder brother whenever she lays out the tablecloth (dastarkhwan). One day an angry mob burns down the shoe factory. Now, Salim Mirza stitches shoes alongside his workers, a clear marker of sharp economic decline.
Salim Mirza is very reluctant to leave his home and homeland. His deteriorating economic status causes tension with his wife, Jamila (Shaukat Azmi). She is concerned about their daughter’s marriage and son’s employment. Most of the potential grooms have left for Pakistan and the job market is unwilling to take any Muslim youth. In one interview, Sikandar was openly told, “You are wasting your time in this country. ‘Aap Pakistan kyu nahi chale jaate? (Why don’t you go to Pakistan?)”. When Jamila asks Sikandar to join his elder brother in Pakistan, he refuses. Sikandar, like his father Salim, loves his homeland. There was an atmosphere of hate all over Agra and this, slowly, affected the family. “The scorching winds of communalism blow through Agra, threatening to scorch every green and growing life.” At one point, a tongawala (horse-drawn carriage driver) is shown taunting Salim Mirza to either pay extra money or leave for Pakistan.
One day Salim Mirza’s elderly mother passes away after months of longing for the haveli where she had lived for decades. She was loved by one and all. However, it is the suicide of his daughter that breaks Salim Mirza. The final blow comes when one day, he realises that his colleagues and friends avoid him, suspecting him of ties to Pakistan. It is at this moment that Salim Mirza loses all hope in the newly independent ‘secular’ India. He decides to leave his homeland along with his wife and son. The film ends with the father and son changing their decision at the last moment. Instead of leaving, they join a protest demanding their basic rights from the government. In this way, MS Sathyu succeeds in showing that the struggle of Muslims in India is essentially a struggle for pluralism.
What I liked most about the movie is that Partition is shown as a complex process. The hurried, chaotic process of Partition confused both political elites and ordinary people. The plight of the Mirzas reminded me of the book Qasbas in Colonial Awadh (2004), where Mushirul Hasan shows how Muslim families were overwhelmed by the rapid political changes from the 1940s onward. The path to partition was complex with considerable variation across regions, aptly shown by historians Joya Chatterji (Bengal) and Ayesha Jalal (Punjab). This fact is well established in academic history but remains marginal in popular imagination.
Crucially, the film addresses how communal violence disproportionately affects women. The plight of Muslim women is shown with utmost sensitivity. The film meticulously portrays the struggle of three generations– Salim Mirza’s mother, wife and daughter. His mother could never accept moving out of the haveli till her death. Dadda, as she was fondly called by her grandchildren, came here as a bride and wished to leave only after death. His wife had to accept living without her elder son and her only grandson. His daughter was shattered when her fiancé left for Pakistan due to economic hardships and family pressure. She eventually takes her own life.
To this day, the discrimination faced by Muslims has not decreased even a bit. Zoya Hasan shows in her Politics of Inclusion (2009) how affirmative action policies have included middle-caste Hindus but not Muslims. It is alleged that giving political representation to religious minorities might increase communalism among Hindus! Irfan Ahmad in his essay “The Politics of Narratives” (2020) argues that the term “Hindu-Muslim riot” is itself biased and should be ideally “anti-Muslim pogrom”. Ghazala Jamil in her work Muslim Women Speak (2018) details the everyday struggle of Muslim women in independent India.
Two points I would like to highlight here: first, the continuing discrimination against Muslims and second, a gleam of hope in the night of despair. Muslims face discrimination in almost all aspects of public life be it employment, health services, civic amenities or educational facilities. Sukhadeo Thorat and Paul Attewell (2007) show that CVs of potential candidates belonging to Muslim (and Dalit) communities are rejected just by looking at their names and surnames. Muslims (and Dalits) cannot get houses for rent in cities like Delhi (Sukhadeo Thorat et al., 2015). Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis are over-represented in jails as shown by Irfan Ahmad and Zakaria Siddiqui in their essay “Democracy in Jail” (2017).
The second point is the character Ajmani sa’ab (AK Hangal) who is an elderly Sindhi businessman who left all his belongings in Pakistan and is now settled in India. He regularly visits Salim Chisti’s dargah and trusts Muslims in his business transactions. His character is full of warmth, kindness and virtues. He is always considerate, helpful, honest and firm in his character. Ajmani sa’ab stands out as a role model for all caste Hindus watching the film. While negative characters are shown as mostly faceless, Ajmani sa’ab is shown at length. He stands out as a ray of hope, an embodiment of humanistic values and an ideal for today’s audience.
Today, Garam Hava (1974) enjoys a cult status – and rightly so. I could associate with the issues that Mirzas faced in 1947-48. It looked real to me. The depiction is lively and Balraj Sahni is at his best. This film made him immortal. The qawwali sung by Aziz Ahmed Warsi about Salim Chishti, the famous Sufi saint of Agra, is a collector’s item. This film is considered a must-watch in the field of film studies and is referred to in even school textbooks. Today, when the hot air of communalism is blowing again, we need more of such films. We need more MS Sathyus who can bring millions of Salim Mirzas alive on screen. We need filmmakers and artists attuned to the lived experiences of minorities. This is the only way to cure majoritarianism in a democratic society.