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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.)

Damascus Gambit

Washington’s courtship of Syria’s former jihadist-turned-president reveals how swiftly geopolitics can turn enemies into partners.

America’s foreign policy in the Middle East has always had a flair for reinvention. Its latest experiment in welcoming Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa into the global coalition against the Islamic State may be its boldest yet. Barely a year ago, the United States branded the man a terrorist and placed a bounty on his head. Today, he is feted at the White House as a reformer and ally.


The announcement that Syria will join the 90-nation coalition against jihadist remnants marks not merely a diplomatic thaw but a full-blown reversal. Of course, sanctions on Syria had already been suspended earlier this year by President Donald Trump during his Middle Eastern tour. The Caesar Act, Washington’s chief sanctioning instrument against the Assad regime, has been frozen.


For Washington, the calculus appears simple. The Islamic State’s embers still glow across the Syrian desert, and America’s appetite for direct military engagement has long waned. Al-Sharaa, once the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham - an offshoot of Al-Qaeda - commands the tribal networks and battlefield experience that Washington now finds useful. To the Trump administration, he is a man hardened enough to impose order where American soldiers no longer tread.


Syria’s long agony, however, gives this new partnership a darker resonance. Thirteen years after the uprising that began in Daraa in 2011, the Assad dynasty is gone but the wreckage endures in form of a hollowed-out economy, a fractured state and a society scarred by sectarian mistrust. Into this vacuum stepped al-Sharaa, a onetime insurgent who now sells himself as a moderniser intent on rebuilding a shattered country. Despite speaking of a “new era” of reconstruction and reconciliation, violence still flares between Bedouin and Druze militias, and reports of killings of Alawite minorities continue to emerge from Syria.


The United States has walked this path before. In the 1980s, it armed Saddam Hussein to counter Iran, only to confront him later in Kuwait. Two decades ago, Muammar Qaddafi was courted as a partner against terrorism, before NATO warplanes toppled him. In Iraq, insurgents were rebadged as ‘Sons of Iraq’ and paid to police the peace they had once shattered. Will the rehabilitation of al-Sharaa fit this pattern of short-term utility trumping long-term memory?


Al-Sharaa’s transformation from jihadist commander to President owes much to timing. After breaking with Al-Qaeda, his forces emerged as the dominant power in north-western Syria, combining Islamist rhetoric with bureaucratic pragmatism. When the Assad regime collapsed, he was well-placed to seize control. Since then, his government has sought legitimacy through cautious engagement with the West, while still tolerating elements of the old militias.


For the Trump administration, lifting sanctions and restoring diplomatic ties is not so much a reward for reform as a bid for influence. By drawing Damascus away from Tehran and Moscow, Washington hopes to anchor a new balance of power in the Levant. In theory, a ‘normalised’ Syria could act as a buffer against both Iranian expansionism and jihadist resurgence. But that vision rests on an untested assumption that al-Sharaa’s ambitions align with America’s, and that his past will not resurface when interests diverge.


Rehabilitating a former jihadist to stabilise a war-torn state is a gamble steeped in irony. The United States once found in Egypt’s Anwar Sadat a partner who recast the Arab world’s relationship with the West. But where Sadat inherited institutions and a functioning state, al-Sharaa presides over rubble. Reconstruction will demand not just money but legitimacy.


The rapprochement may yield tactical dividends in form of intelligence sharing, coordination against residual Islamic State cells, perhaps even movement toward peace with Israel. But to airily speak of a “new era” in such a fraught landscape is to forget how easily old ghosts can return.


Whether this partnership heralds stability or merely rehearses another cycle of betrayal will depend not on the promises made in the Oval Office, but on whether Syria itself can finally break free from the gravity of its own past.

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