The Different Approaches to the Angry-Man Genre: Juxtaposing the Long-Term Legacies of Sholay and Zanjeer

By Krisha Sikka, Edited by Bridget Zhang and Enoch Lai

Introduction 

1970s Bollywood reflects the transition from an optimistic, post-Independence atmosphere to one depicting a lack of trust in the government after the appointment of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Spearheading a mass sterilization campaign, her regime was linked to the censorship of free speech and neglected lower classes in society by denying them basic civil liberties (Raghavan). Movies like Zanjeer (1973) and Sholay (1975)—directed by Prakash Mehra and Ramesh Sippy respectively—established the angry young man genre, which features enraged heroes seeking revenge for injustices committed against them through their own means, rather than relying on law enforcement. Zanjeer revolves around a young man avenging the death of his parents through partnership with a crook, while Sholay focuses on two thieves avenging the death of a local police officer’s family by hunting down a treacherous bandit. Although the two films have different storylines, they are both centered on a lack of trust in the government due to the political climate in India during the 70’s. 

Despite both being of the same, revolutionary genre, Sholay was able to differentiate itself from Zanjeer and become the highest grossing Indian film for almost a decade due to its ability to appeal to public opinion by incorporating ideals that aligned with the current political climate, as well as its innovative use of advanced foreign technology. More specifically, Sholay’s increased success over Zanjeer can be attributed to 1) its realistic depiction of life after the issuance of the Emergency—a period from 1975 to 1977 in India in which Gandhi’s administration tightened their control through mass arrests and censorship; 2) its pioneering role as the first “curry western” influenced by narrative styles and technology from Hollywood; and 3) the portrayal of an antagonist whose sadistic violence mirrored the oppressive actions of the government.

The 1970s and the Emergency: A New Era of Bollywood Cinema 

When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi took power, she wanted to prevent civil disobedience against the corrupt government and, thus, issued the Emergency on June 25, 1975. Under this order, Article 359 and the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of the Publication) Act prohibited reporters from discussing or distributing any of the discussions occurring in the government, and protections for free speech were abolished (Jha 120). Authoritarianism reached an unprecedented level and was largely a response to the mass protests that called for Gandhi to step down. Various opposing leaders who spoke out against her were incarcerated, which created a general sense of fear in India regarding speaking out against her injustices (Caravan Magazine).  

Zanjeer uses storylines that represent a fantasy, pre-Emergency world. This resembles movies from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s administration, where social classes get along and women embody ideal Indian womanhood. For example, the main character, Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan), is able to avenge the death of his parents by killing Teja (Ajit Khan), their murderer, without facing consequences. He does so with the help of Sher Khan (Pran), a former crook; earlier in the movie, Vijay is able to make him change his ways because Khan is impressed by his down-to-earth character and determination. Furthermore, he has a successful love story with Mala (Jaya Bhaduri), a homeless knife-sharpener that he nurtures into an obedient wife with the help of his adopted brother and sister-in-law. Vijay is able to end up happily-ever-after with a woman that successfully depicts Indian womanhood—exemplified by women who are dedicated to serving their husbands and managing the household—even though she is from another class. 

On the other hand, Sholay depicts the reality of life after the Emergency. The antagonist Gabbar (Amjad Khan) is a ruthless criminal who makes a living off of theft and cuts off the arms of a local police officer, Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar), as revenge for arresting him. The famous line, “Yeh haath mujhe dede Thakur [Give me this hand, Thakur], '' remains timeless and depicts the vulnerability of law enforcement, who Indira Gandhi intended to be at the top of the social ladder but yet did not have as much power as various bandits and criminals. Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) and Veeru (Dharmendra) are two thieves that Thakur enlists to capture Gabbar in exchange for money but later realize that they themselves are encouraged by justice, rather than monetary value. In Bollywood’s India: A Public Fantasy, Priya Joshi states, “In the new world of the Emergency, these two are as good as the police'' (Joshi 47). Thus,  Jai and Veeru represent an era in which people of the lower class were utilized by those of higher classes, in this case Thakur, in the name of morality. 

Although the successful mixing of the classes is shown in Zanjeer, in Sholay, Jai ends up losing his life, shedding light on the death of pre-Emergency ideals. He wants to marry Radha (Jaya Bachchan), the widow of Thakur’s son, but eventually realizes it was wrong for him to think that he would be accepted by someone belonging to a higher class. Furthermore, Veeru is not able to avenge Jai’s death by killing Gabbar himself because he is subject to Thakur’s authority. Compared to Mala in Zanjeer, Veeru’s love interest Basanti is not tamed to become the perfect wife; she continues to own a horse-carriage transport system to sustain herself, while Mala gives up her knife-sharpener business. In the iconic song Jab Tak Hai Jaan Jaane Jahan [As Long as I am Alive], Basanti is told by Gabbar that he will not kill Veeru if she keeps dancing, even after he throws broken glass on her feet. For the first time in Bollywood cinema, a woman is dancing to save the hero, rather than needing to be saved herself. 

With Zanjeer being released prior to the Emergency and Sholay being released after, the latter film went down as more symbolic of that time period, with the censoring of the ending depicting an abuse of power from the law. Originally, Thakur was supposed to murder Gabbar by pummeling him with his feet. However, since the Emergency was instated, the Central Board of Film Censors did not approve of the original ending and the violence, forcing director Ramesh Sippy to cut out some of the gore. Thus, law enforcement arrests Gabbar for his crimes instead, reinforcing that the police are still more powerful than the people in terms of carrying out justice (Chopra 150-151). Even though Zanjeer had the same message as the uncensored Sholay ending, as Vijay kills Teja instead of the police doing so, it was not censored and was able to depict vigilantism without the police being involved because it was released pre-Emergency. With a few of the non-censored copies slipping its way into the general audience, Sholay’s issues during distribution shed light on the unfair oppression and censoring that occurred during the Emergency, making it a historical artifact. It reflected a period in which the government could control almost every facet of life, specifically film and creativity in this sense, and thus exemplified the effects of the Emergency. 

Foreign Influence: The Making of the First “Curry Western” 

With a movie intended to be the first “curry western”, director Ramesh Sippy and the entire crew for Sholay utilized foreign features and techniques, such as 70 mm print, stereophonic sound, and meticulously choreographed action scenes. Sippy wanted to depict the movie’s big vision through utilizing a 70 mm film print for the first time in Bollywood cinema, shooting each shot in 35 mm and enlarging it to the 70 mm size in post-production. On the other hand, he found that the action stunt coordinators were not at his desired level; he turned to foreign technicians instead. Foreigners from London who specialized in film production, such as Jim Allen, Gerry Crampton, and John Gant, were able to introduce innovative techniques, such as how to realistically time the jumps and incorporate boxes to protect the actors from falls. For example, the attack on Ramgarh scene incorporated numerous fake gunshots and individuals being caught in the staged fire, which took the team over two weeks to shoot (Chopra 37-38). 

Another innovative concept in Sholay’s production that helped set it apart from the rest of Bollywood was the opening train ambush to show the first on-screen interaction of Jai, Veeru, and Thakur. It also sets the stage again for how this movie is like a Hollywood western by showing how the thieves defended Thakur, rather than leaving him to fend for himself against the numerous attackers. However, the crew ran into an issue; it was not legal to have two trains running on the track simultaneously, but they could not stop the originally scheduled train from running. They came to an agreement with the railway company, paying a fee everyday and providing a langar, or free meal, to not only the officials but also the local farmers influenced by the production (Chopra 38). The langar not only allowed for Sholay to successfully complete its shooting of this scene but also helped rally individuals of different social classes together to watch the production.

To match the incredible visuals, the team chose to use stereophonic sound. However, no studios in India were suited to handle such a mix, so they instead utilized London’s Twickenham Studio. Although most of the sound effects were generated in Mumbai and taken to London, they

decided that they wanted to switch up action sounds and the typical “dishoom-dishoom” sounds of gunfire, generating them abroad (Chopra 40). These new techniques gave Sholay a sense of novelty that had never been seen in previous films, including Zanjeer, and also led the way for new themes and settings to be expressed.

Although Sholay and Zanjeer both fall under the angry young-man genre, the adoption of the “inclusion of the outsider into the community” and the “iconicity of a barren landscape” from a Hollywood western set apart Sholay as the first “curry western” (Mukherjee 1). The Hollywood western can be defined as centering around conflict between “civilized order and the lawless frontier.” The hero is also commonly torn between two worlds, one which is disorderly and one centered around morality (Bordwell and Thompson 339). Jai and Veeeru were accepted as honorable in Ramgarh because of their dedication to bringing Thakur justice; although they could have just stolen the money he had given to them, they took the moral route. Bound by codes of honor, Jai and Veeru do not kill Gabbar, as Thakur wanted to do so himself; on the other hand, the opposite is depicted in Zanjeer, where Vijay is drawn by his own personal motivation. He is already somebody in law enforcement and joins the lawless frontier to achieve justice. Furthermore, Sholay’s setting, being the first dacoit, or criminal, movie shot in the South in Ramanagaram and requiring the construction of an entire village, mirrored the wilderness setting that is often portrayed in Hollywood westerns (Chopra 42). On the other hand, Zanjeer has many grand set pieces, such as Teja’s fancy party and mansion. Thus, Zanjeer’s“urban setting,” which was often featured in many other films of this period stood in stark contrast to Sholay’s “wilderness” setting, which was instead similar to the Hollywood western.

Sholay set the wave for a new subsection of the angry-young man genre, the “curry western,” which highlights the struggles of ostracized classes. Upon its release, it initially received backlash for not including the familiar themes of the Golden Fifties, such as patriotism, social welfare, and overall prosperity; for example, it emphasized the friendship between Jai and Veeru more than the romantic relationship between Jai and Radha (Kalia 140). It broke away from the escapism that other movies provided, but was popular because people wanted to see more of what they were experiencing in reality on the big screen.

Gabbar: An Unprecedented, Sadistic Villain 

Perhaps the most important factor that helped set apart Sholay from Zanjeer and make the audience truly resonate with the movie was the villain Gabbar, who represented someone that was forgotten in India and was able to inflict violence that mirrored what many lower-class individuals were facing in real life from the government. When picking the villain for the film, Salim-Javed, a popular screenwriter duo during this time period in Bollywood who wrote both Zanjeer and Sholay, knew that they needed someone who stood out from the cliché villains of that era, even one that stood apart from Teja in their creation Zanjeer, and was not restrained by the law. They cast Amjad Khan, whose peculiar but recognizable voice “sounded like a child with a bad cough” (Chopra 138); To make him look like the bandit Gabbar, they blackened his teeth, dressed him in army gear, and splotched dirt across his body (Joshi 53-57). When Gabbar kills a villager for simply being from where Thakur resided, it is parallel to innocent people in India being thrown off their land simply for urbanism. While Indira Gandhi aimed to provide poor people with housing, they were often placed in areas that were underdeveloped and thus left them unable to make a living for themselves (Dhume). On the other hand, Teja in Zanjeer was not nearly as evil or sadistic, being the leader of the oil mafia and having acquired wealth. His glasses and fancy attire depicted his elevated status in society and did not resonate as well with the people, not inflicting nearly the same level of pain on people of the lower-class. 

Gabbar went down as the more memorable villain in comparison to Teja, with his actions shining light on the terrible acts that the government committed against people. People were able to remember Sholay more when thinking about how brutal a character could be, with Gabbar’s inflicted bloodshed permanently smeared across the brains of every viewer. While Sholay is purely fictional, this bloodshed can be compared to the turmoil that Indians experienced during the Emergency. For example, according to Caravan Magazine, Indira Gandhi issued “a large-scale demolition of slums,” which led many lower-class individuals to wander the streets of Delhi looking for a place to reside (Caravan Magazine). Although Gabbar himself was a villain, he and the two thieves were all influenced by poverty and living in a low infrastructure area in Delhi; the key difference between them was morality. Due to his popularity and distinctiveness, he was even featured in popular advertisements, such as for Parle-G biscuits, which added to the continued longevity of his character (Chopra 175-176). 

However, it was not only the media that adopted Gabbar’s dialogue and presence but even common people that had come across the movie and also resonated with the character. For example, there was an instance when Amjad Khan entered a small shop in Gujarat, and his voice echoed as he spoke into the microphone “Kitne aadmi the (How many men were there)?” (Chopra 177). His influence was all over India and reached multiple groups of people, something that Teja from Zanjeer was unfortunately never able to achieve. Thus, Sholay’s viewers still bring up Gabbar and his iconic dialogues and actions, which have contributed to his long-lasting legacy for the past 40 years. Gabbar himself became a trademark character for the film, as viewers had never seen not only unique mannerisms but also a figure who inflicted unprecedented violence on the Bollywood screen. He represented an ability for the screenwriters to no longer play it safe when depicting evil but unleash the full potential of a villain. 

Conclusion 

When watching Sholay, the audience was taken aback by its bold commentary on the failures of law enforcement, which resulted in a mix of positive and negative reviews from individuals. However, after finishing the film, many people came back to the theaters to witness this masterpiece—a pioneer of foreign influence and the “angry young man” genre—again and found that they themselves could relate to Thakur’s struggles, causing the film to achieve tremendous success. Sholay’s usage of foreign technology to create new sounds and visuals in the angry young man genre made the film a huge success and set it apart from Zanjeer by not just sticking to previously used techniques. Therefore, Sholay represented the start of a new era by its politically subversive response to the circumstances of the Emergency and the birth of the “curry western.” The film not only introduced characters who took up vigilantism and did not glorify the government but also included romance and friendship as key themes to serve side-by-side with action and justice, influencing future films to also mix these themes together and challenge political authority. 

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Sholay. Directed by Ramesh Sippy, performances by Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Dharmendra, and Hema Malini, Sippy Films, 1975.

Zanjeer. Directed by Prakash Mehra, performances by Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan, Prakash Mehra Productions, 1973.