top of page

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.)

Democratic Mirage

Somalia’s flirtation with universal suffrage promises democratic renewal but risks entrenching elite power in a country where the state remains perilously thin.

For the first time in more than half a century, residents of Mogadishu queued up to choose their municipal leaders by direct vote. To foreign diplomats and Somalia’s own weary reformers, the images carried a powerful symbolism of a country long synonymous with state collapse gingerly reclaiming the rituals of democracy.


The last time Somalis voted directly in national elections was in 1969, months before Mohamed Siad Barre’s coup ushered in two decades of authoritarian rule, followed by one of the modern world’s most complete state implosions. Since Barre’s overthrow in 1991, Somalia has been governed by improvisation: warlordism gave way to Islamist rule, foreign intervention and, eventually, a fragile federal order stitched together under heavy international tutelage. Elections, when they returned in 2004, were indirect by design. Clan elders selected lawmakers and lawmakers chose the president. In a shattered polity riven by clan rivalries and stalked by jihadists, consensus mattered more than ballots.


Two decades on, that ‘pragmatic’ logic has curdled into something else. Indirect elections have ossified into an elite cartel, lucrative for politicians and brokers who thrive in the shadows of clan arithmetic. Parliamentary seats are bought and sold. Presidents are chosen not by citizens but by carefully managed caucuses. Mogadishu’s mayor, until now, was appointed from above. Ordinary Somalis, particularly the young, have watched politics become a closed shop.


Against this backdrop, the municipal poll is meant to be a rehearsal for universal suffrage in a country where more than 70 percent of the population is under 30. A 2024 law restored the principle of one person, one vote, and federal elections are notionally slated for next year.


In theory, Somalia is turning the page. But in practice, the script remains familiar. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has already cut a deal with segments of the opposition ensuring that, while lawmakers will be directly elected in 2026, the president himself will still be chosen by parliament. This has led Opposition figures to complain that the rushed introduction of a new system favours the incumbent, who controls the levers of state and the flow of foreign funds.


Security concerns provide the most obvious alibi. Al Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s East African franchise, still controls large swathes of the countryside and retains the ability to strike at will in major cities. Mogadishu may be safer than it was a decade ago, but it remains one of the world’s most dangerous capitals. Asking millions to vote under such conditions is no small feat. Yet security has long served as both a real constraint and a convenient excuse. Somali leaders invoke it to delay reforms that might dilute their influence, even as they struggle to extend the state’s writ beyond a few urban islands.


Somalia’s political order rests on an uneasy bargain between clans, regions and foreign patrons. Federalism, meant to accommodate diversity, has instead produced mini-fiefdoms dependent on external backers from Ethiopia and Kenya to Turkey, the Gulf states and the West. Each has its own interests: counterterrorism, port access, Red Sea trade routes, or simple geopolitical leverage. Elections, direct or otherwise, unfold within this crowded chessboard.


History offers sobering lessons. Somalia’s brief democratic experiment in the 1960s collapsed under the weight of corruption, patronage and Cold War meddling. Barre’s dictatorship promised unity and delivered ruin. The Islamist interlude of the 2000s imposed order of a grim sort before provoking invasion and insurgency. At each turn, institutional shortcuts produced short-term stability at the cost of long-term legitimacy.


That is why Mogadishu’s municipal vote matters and why it should be viewed with scepticism rather than sentimentality. Democracy cannot be reduced to polling stations guarded by soldiers, nor can it flourish when elites reserve the right to choose the chooser. Universal suffrage is not merely a technical reform; it is a wager that citizens, not clans or patrons, should ultimately arbitrate power.


Somalia deserves that chance. But unless its leaders are willing to relinquish some control and unless foreign sponsors stop treating the country as a security project rather than a political community, the ballot box risks becoming yet another prop in a long-running charade. 


Comments

bottom of page