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By:

Rajeev Puri

24 October 2024 at 5:11:37 am

Before Sholay, there was Mera Gaon Mera Desh

When the comedian and television host Kapil Sharma recently welcomed the veteran screenwriter Salim Khan onto his show, he made a striking claim. India, he joked, has a national bird and a national animal; it ought also to have a national film. That film, he suggested, would surely be Sholay. Few would quarrel with the sentiment. Released in 1975 and directed by Ramesh Sippy,  Sholay  has long been treated as the Everest of Hindi popular cinema -quoted endlessly, revisited by generations and...

Before Sholay, there was Mera Gaon Mera Desh

When the comedian and television host Kapil Sharma recently welcomed the veteran screenwriter Salim Khan onto his show, he made a striking claim. India, he joked, has a national bird and a national animal; it ought also to have a national film. That film, he suggested, would surely be Sholay. Few would quarrel with the sentiment. Released in 1975 and directed by Ramesh Sippy,  Sholay  has long been treated as the Everest of Hindi popular cinema -quoted endlessly, revisited by generations and dissected by critics. In 2025, the film marked its 50th anniversary, and the release of a digitally restored, uncut version introduced the classic to a new generation of viewers who discovered that its mixture of revenge drama, western pastiche and buddy comedy remains curiously durable. The film’s influences have been debated almost as much as its dialogues – from scenes taken by the Spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, particularly ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ (1968) or to the narrative architecture of ‘Seven Samurai’ (1954) by Akira Kurosawa. Others note echoes of earlier Hindi films about bandits and frontier justice, such as ‘Khotey Sikke’ (1973) starring Feroz Khan. Yet, rewatching ‘Mera Gaon Mera Desh,’ directed by Raj Khosla, one cannot help noticing how many of the narrative bones of  Sholay  appear to have been assembled there first. Released in 1971,  Mera Gaon Mera Desh  was a major hit at the box office, notable for holding its own in a year dominated by the near-hysterical popularity of Rajesh Khanna. The thematic framework of the two films is strikingly similar. In  Sholay , the retired policeman Thakur Baldev Singh recruits two petty criminals - Jai and Veeru - to help him avenge the terror inflicted upon his village by the bandit Gabbar Singh. In  Mera Gaon Mera Desh , the set-up is not very different. A retired soldier, Jaswant Singh, seeks to protect his village from a ruthless dacoit and enlists the help of a small-time crook named Ajit. Even the villain’s name seems to echo across the two films. In Khosla’s drama, the marauding bandit played by Vinod Khanna is scene-stealing performance is called Jabbar Singh. In  Sholay , the outlaw who would become one of Indian cinema’s most memorable antagonists was Gabbar Singh. There is an additional irony in the casting. In  Mera Gaon Mera Desh , the retired soldier Jaswant Singh is played by Jayant - the real-life father of Amjad Khan, who would later immortalise Gabbar Singh in  Sholay . The connective tissue between the two films becomes even clearer in the presence of Dharmendra. In Khosla’s film he plays Ajit, a charming rogue who gradually redeems himself while defending the village. Four years later, Dharmendra returned in  Sholay  as Veeru, a similarly exuberant petty criminal whose courage and irrepressible humour make him one half of Hindi cinema’s most beloved buddy duo alongside Amitabh Bachchan as Jai. Certain visual motifs also appear to have travelled intact. In Khosla’s film, Ajit finds himself bound in ropes in the bandit’s den during a dramatic musical sequence. A similar image appears in  Sholay , where Veeru is tied up before Gabbar Singh while Basanti performs the now famous song ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan.’ Other echoes are subtler but just as suggestive. Ajit’s pursuit of the village belle Anju, played by Asha Parekh, anticipates Veeru’s boisterous attempts to woo Basanti, portrayed by Hema Malini. Scenes in which Ajit teaches Anju to shoot recall the flirtatious gun-training sequence between Veeru and Basanti that became one of  Sholay ’s most cherished moments. Even the famous coin motif has a precedent. Ajit frequently tosses a coin to make decisions - a flourish that would later appear in  Sholay , where Jai’s coin toss becomes a running gag. Perhaps most intriguingly, the endings of the two films converge in their original form. In  Mera Gaon Mera Desh , the villain is ultimately killed by the hero. The uncut version of  Sholay  reportedly ended in a similar fashion, with Gabbar Singh meeting his death at the hands of Thakur Baldev Singh. However, censors altered the climax before the film’s 1975 release, requiring that Gabbar be handed over to the police instead. All this does not diminish  Sholay . Rather, it highlights the alchemy through which cinema evolves. The scriptwriting duo Salim–Javed took familiar ingredients and expanded them into a grander narrative populated by unforgettable characters and stylised action. On the 55 th  anniversary of  Mera Gaon Mera Desh , Raj Khosla’s rugged western deserves a renewed glance as the sturdy foundation on which a legend called  Sholay  was built. (The author is a political commentator and a global affairs observer. Views personal.)

An Endless War

Boko Haram’s enduring insurgency and the failure of Nigeria’s “resettlement peace” reveal a state caught between illusion and exhaustion.

When the authorities in Nigeria’s Borno State recently began sending displaced families back to their villages, it was meant to signal ‘victory.’ Governor Babagana Zulum’s ‘stabilisation’ strategy promised to rebuild homes, restore livelihoods and reassert control over a region ravaged by jihadist terror. But the illusion of progress has proved short-lived. A surge of attacks in the past months on supposedly ‘safe’ settlements has laid bare the fragility of Nigeria’s security gains and the perils of declaring peace too early.


In September this year, jihadists from Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad - better known as Boko Haram - stormed the town of Darul Jamal on the Cameroon border, killing more than 60 civilians. The victims were internally displaced people (IDPs) who had been moved there as part of the government’s resettlement drive. The attack was a reminder that Boko Haram’s territorial decline has not meant its demise.


The Nigerian army’s ‘super-camp’ policy - fortifying troops in major garrisons while abandoning rural outposts - has ceded much of the countryside to jihadist control. For residents of Borno’s hinterland, life remains perilous. The military, stretched thin across multiple conflicts, is often unable to respond.


Borno’s return policy is part of a broader ‘Reconstruct, Rehabilitate and Resettle’ initiative that has seen more than 170,000 IDPs sent back to areas once overrun by insurgents. Camps around the state capital, Maiduguri, are being closed ahead of a 2026 deadline. The goal, officials insist, is to reduce dependency on aid and restore dignity to displaced families. But the returns are only nominally voluntary. Many IDPs have built livelihoods in the city; few wish to trade them for precarious safety and barren fields. To entice them, the state offers modest stipends and food and tools.


The optimism that once surrounded the ‘Borno Model’ has faded. Between 2021 and 2024, some 160,000 Boko Haram fighters and their families surrendered under a locally crafted amnesty. Yet, while surrenders mounted, so too did attacks. The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), the deadlier offshoot of Boko Haram, has evolved into a disciplined and tech-savvy force. Its fighters use drones, improvised explosive devices and coordinated night raids to overwhelm Nigerian bases.


Nigeria’s security crisis extends well beyond Borno. Across the Middle Belt, herder-farmer conflicts, fuelled by land pressure and climate change, have turned deadly. In the northwest, bandit militias carry out mass abductions and extortion with impunity. In the southeast, secessionist unrest has flared anew. According to Amnesty International, more than 10,000 civilians were killed across six northern states between mid-2023 and mid-2025.


The government of President Bola Tinubu faces a grim arithmetic of overstretch. The army is deployed in nearly every region; morale is poor; reinforcements and air support are often delayed. Corruption and logistics failures sap capacity. Abuja’s reliance on aerial bombardment and short-term offensives has produced sporadic tactical gains but no strategic coherence.


International attention, meanwhile, has returned in fits of misunderstanding. Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that Islamic terrorists were conducting a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria and called for military action. Western governments, fatigued by years of counterterrorism campaigns in the Sahel, are reluctant to invest in Nigeria’s recovery.


Boko Haram’s endurance owes much to Nigeria’s chronic governance failures. Poverty, unemployment and corruption provide steady recruits. Borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroon remain porous, allowing fighters to regroup and resupply. The withdrawal of Niger from the regional Multinational Joint Task Force earlier this year weakened cross-border coordination. ISWAP’s reach now extends around Lake Chad, threatening regional stability.


For Borno’s returning civilians, the human toll is stark. Fifteen years of war have hollowed out the countryside, destroying farms, schools and clinics. Insecurity has strangled the agricultural economy, driving up food prices and deepening hunger across the north. Young men who once picked up arms for jihad now find few alternatives; women widowed by war struggle to feed families.


Nigeria’s war with Boko Haram has entered its sixteenth year. The group may no longer hold swathes of territory, but its ideology and networks still endure.

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