Ma Bhoomi

Watched one more Telugu film- “Ma bhoomi”. The film is the debut film for Goutam gosh, after this he started to make movies in Hindi. This is a B&W film shot in 1980. It is a screen adaptation of Urdu novel by Kishanchander. The story is about the feudal structure and telungana struggle in 1940’s. The film is produced by Narsing rao. I landed up in this film, as I liked Dasi. The film tracks the story of a guy who is born to peasant in telungana. His great grandfather had some land, his grandfather had 2 acres and his father had nothing and he works in a land of zamindar. Actually the British government gave the tax collecting right to nizam which in term gave it to zamindars, who using it usurped the whole land from the peasants and made the poor people as their bonded labors. The boy is forced to do cattle rearing in his childhood and he grows up as a bonded labor. At one point, he runs away from village. After some errands he ends up in a factory as a labor. There he joins local union and learns to read. In some strike, he goes to jail. There he meets his village friend and learns that people in village tarted to revolt. So he returns to village and starts guerrilla fight. With help of entire village people, he drives away the zamindars and burn all pawn papers and distribute land to landless.

The film is poetic when it shows the poverty in which the child is brought up, his life style, his ignorance, his reactions when he sees mirror first time in his life. But in the middle it becomes preachy. When it speaks about communist ideology, it fails to use cinema language, and looks like our poorly shot documentaries. The villagers fighting without knowing what communist or Marxist means is a beautiful idea. It makes me to remember what nalla says in “anbe sivam”. Communism is a concept that exists for so long, its just Karl Marx named it. It will never die and will exist as long oppression exists in the world. But after the protagonist returns back to village the director is in a hurry to finish the movie. The film which starts so beautifully, becomes in the middle something like a school student essay: “if I become a CM” and maintains same tone till the end.

I know naxalites in a way fight for land. But I thought it came into existence after freedom, somewhere close to MISA. But after seeing this movie I got a doubt whether it existed even before independence. Then I searched Google. It looks like naxalites as an organisation was started after independence but we can say this event back in 1946 as a precursor for those organisations. There are few interesting things that popped in my mind associated with this. These naxal activities are so strong in Andhra, Bihar and in some northern states also, but it looks as not so big in Tamilnadu. What could be the reason ? I can try to read more on this. May be I am wrong and some existed in Tamilnadu too. We have to consider this in the light that most part of present Tamilnadu was not under control of Tamils and under the control of Telugu people before British took complete control.

My belief that arm based struggle can give immediate advantage but can never give final solution, gets re-in forced. The telungana struggle changed its masks but it still continues. All the arm struggles lost their path in the middle . The final solution remains always elusive and they end up at a stage where they have no other option other than to fight and die. History is full of examples and still continues to produce examples.

I saw this movie too in Google videos. Interestingly it has lot of Malayalam movies but not a single movie directed by people like adoor. But in Telugu I was able to find these two movies. Even in Tamil “terrorist” directed by santhosh sivan is there. Though I have seen it already in DD planning to see it one more time.