The ‘Angry Young Man’ of ‘Zanjeer’: From Osborne to Bachchan by Maanvi Changes in cinematic idiom are usually a reflection of change in social, political and economic discourse of a country. The decade of 1970s in India was a period that was characterized by ‘increasing unemployment, poverty and political violence’.1 The youth of the country were disillusioned and angry, and it is this anger which was reflected in the rise of the ‘Angry Young Man’ stereotype in Bollywood. However, the term ‘Angry Young Men’ has a much deeper history that can be traced back to post World War Britain of the 1950s. This paper attempts to look at the translation of the term from a British context to a post-independence Indian context through an analysis of the 1973 classic film ‘Zanjeer.’ Britain in 1950s, was a country that was beginning to wake up to the reality of unfulfilled promises. Despite Prime Minister Macmillan’s declaration that ‘most of our people had never had it so good’2 in 1957, growing economic affluence led to an increasing gap in class divides. This was because economic prosperity was unequally distributed between the working class and the aristocrats. According to estimates made by ‘The Economist’ for 1959-60, 88% of tax payers owned only 3.7% of private wealth while the richest 7% owned 84%.3 Politically too, Britain’s standing in international politics diminished in importance with the beginning of the Cold War and the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Unemployment rates were high and even university educated young people were unable to find appropriate jobs. There was a feeling of resentment against the past and angry disillusionment with all established structures – whether it was the government, the aristocracy, the universities or even the Church. It was against this backdrop, that John Osborne wrote his landmark play ‘Look Back in Anger’ that led to the rise of the ‘Angry Young Men’ movement in theatre and literature. Jimmy Porter, Osborne’s protagonist, is a rebellious, university educated, poorly employed young man who rails against the establishment that had denied him the opportunity to fulfil his potential. He is the representative ‘Angry Young Man’ – a label that interestingly came about by accident.4 In May 1956, ‘Look Back in Anger’, opened at the Royal Court in London. The theatre's press officer, George Fearon, had a problem: he didn't like the play. During his chat with Osborne, he ended up saying, somewhat dismissively, ‘I suppose you're really an angry young man.’ When Fearon then mentioned this to some journalists, the phrase was taken up. The phrase became so popular and underwent such various adaptations, that it found a sonorous resonance in a far removed context from Osborne’s Britain – India in the 1970s. Black marketing, unemployment, hoarding and smuggling – these were just some of the problems that afflicted the Indian social landscape in the 1970s and 1980s. Domestic politics was in a period of great turmoil, traditional ideologies were being dismissed and the joyous optimism in the immediate aftermath of Independence seemed like a distant mirage. This was an India that was facing ‘an atmosphere of discontent and resentment, which underpinned ideological realignments and political fragmentation.’5 Just like the youth in Britain in 1950s, young, educated people in India who were scarred with unemployment, poverty and injustice were angry at the nonfulfillment of the promises of the Nehruvian dream. They were rebellious, frustrated and angry – and they couldn’t identify with the romantic idealism that Hindi cinema portrayed. They wanted an adequate representation of their anger and frustration, and this is what Amitabh Bachchan did in 1973 with his iconic film ‘Zanjeer.’ Directed by Prakash Mehra, ‘Zanjeer’ not only gave rise to the ‘angry young man’ stereotype in Indian cinema, but it also created a space for a new kind of hero – a brooding, angry, despondent Amitabh Bachchan as opposed to the romantic, charming Rajesh Khanna or Dev Anand. The Indian film hero was no longer a well-dressed affluent man interested in only wooing his lady love, but a frustrated, disillusioned young man whose idea of fulfillment was in his revenge against unjust atrocities. This is not to say that films before ‘Zanjeer’ didn’t portray poverty or had leading heroes that only belonged to the upper class elite. But the worlds that Rajesh Khanna and Dev Anand inhabited existed in a kind of a bubble where even the poor thief with the heart of gold eventually got his due. Bachchan’s Vijay Khanna broke that bubble and he was characteristic of an existence where injustice is a daily reality. (Quite similar to Osborne’s reality where the ‘the wrong people go hungry, the wrong people be loved, the wrong people dying’6) As a film, ‘Zanjeer’ doesn’t shy away from class realities and instead is a film that forcefully reminds the viewer of the middle class or lower middle class background of its protagonists. Vijay Khanna, played by Amitabh Bachchan is a police officer who was orphaned when his parents were killed at an early age. He is driven by the desire for revenge against his parents’ murders and a desire to right all the wrongs in society. He is a self-made man, barely surviving on the salary that is given to him yet standing steadfastly by his ‘imaandaari’ or integrity. Mala, Vijay’s love interest portrayed by Jaya Bhaduri, is an orphaned, lowly street performer. The lack of parentage in both Mala and Vjay’s personal history locates them as characters without the conventional advantage of a family name or wealth. Sher Khan, a former gambler, earns his livelihood by being a street mechanic after Vijay reforms him. Thus, not only is class an important factor in the film, it also provides the impetus through which the corrupt and wealthy merchant-don Teja (played by Ajit Khan) is challenged and overthrown. On the surface, the villain of the film seems to be Teja. But a closer look at the way the narrative progresses shows that it is not the rich upper classes that are being criticized but the social conditions and institutions that have enabled people like Teja to dominate. The police force, the judiciary and the government is also severely indicted in the film, which can be seen in the instance when Vijay is arrested and thrown in jail on a fake charge of bribery. Underlying this indictment is a rejection of these institutions and so the possibility of justice is not located within the courts but instead in the honorable, angry ex-police officer, Vijay. This is why when De Silva wants justice for the death of his three sons due to alcohol poisoning; he refuses to go the police even when Vijay expresses his helplessness as a civilian to bring him justice. However, this disillusionment is not so great so as to affect a complete disavowal. Whether it was the demands of the box office or a true reflection of the hollow anger of the ‘Angry Young Man’, Salim-Javed, the scriptwriters of the film, don’t reject the police altogether and establish complete anarchy within the film. Police Commissioner Singh, played by Iftikar, is aware of the injustice that has been inflicted on Vijay, but he is as helpless as the other characters to bring about a long term change. The pervading feeling of simmering anger against the very establishment that has given rise to these characters has been tempered by frustration and helplessness. (As Vijay says in the movie ‘Jo haath angaare ko chupaaye angaara ussi haath ko jalaa deta hai.’ Trans: The hands that hide the burning coal are burnt by that very simmering coal.) Any analysis of the phenomenon that was ‘Zanjeer’ will be incomplete without looking at the brevity and vitality added to the film by Sher Khan, the fiercely loyal Pathan played by Pran. Sher Khan is introduced to us as a principled gambler who runs gambling dens and trades money in the black market. However, even when Khan is talking about his illegal exploits, there is an underlying current of honesty in his dealings – he is principled, honest, loyal yet by all conventional ways of thinking a ‘bad guy’, a villain. This reversal of sorts where the thief is shown as the paragon of virtue and the villain Teja is supposed to be the honest, reputed merchant in society is a severe criticism of the hollowness of the society at that time and increasing materialistic attitudes of 1970s India. Not only is Sher Khan shown to be honest, he is also shown to be in alignment with the traditional values of respect, integrity and chivalry – a fact that is driven home when Sher Khan gives up his gambling career due to his new found respect for Vijay’s courage and fearlessness. Khan is the epitome of loyalty and friendship in the film and it is interesting to note that this friendship survives despite the fact that Vijay and Khan are from different religions. In fact, underlying the story of revenge and injustice is an indication of a new kind of secularism. In a relatively minor scene in the middle of the climax, Khan asks De Silva whether he wants to share a cigarette while Vijay (a Hindu) puts his life on the line to ensure that De Silva gets justice. Class conflict and not the conflict between different religions form the crux of the main battle in this film. The fact that the religious identity of the characters and the coming together of De Silva and Khan is shown in such a minor way, can be seen as a departure from the tokenism and overt emphasis on religious identities of characters as seen in the films of the 60s. The agenda, as Mehra forces the viewer to realize, has changed. But what is the most striking about ‘Zanjeer’, is that for a film that is firmly rooted in a certain social context, it also remains immensely relevant and contemporary. In a scene in the movie, Mala asks Vijay what kind of curtains he would like for the house. Vijay replies angrily, ‘Any curtains that don’t remind me that outside in the world a man is looking for his son’s killers!’ These curtains are symbolic of the apathy that pervades us as a society, more today, than in the time that Salim-Javed wrote this dialogue. Today, ‘Zanjeer’ serves as a reminder to us, a reminder to not shut ourselves in to the exclusivity of the atrocities of the outside world, to pause for a moment in the fast paced world we live in and let the voice of injustice filter through the curtains. Sources cited: 1. https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/history-of-emotions/projects/cultivation-of- emotions/angry-young-man-in-indian-cinema-1970-90 2. http://www.nkjoleszno.pl/publikacje/tzuczkowski1.htm 3. http://www.nkjoleszno.pl/publikacje/tzuczkowski1.htm 4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7633432/Alan-Sillitoe-Who-are-you-calling- angry.html 5. https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/history-of-emotions/projects/cultivation-of- emotions/angry-young-man-in-indian-cinema-1970-90 6. Weiss, Samuel (1960). “Osborne’s Angry Young Play.” Education Theatre Journal: Vol. 12, No. 4: 285-288