Another great showing at Cannes: A look back at Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar

It was a different Grand Prix that he won, from the one Payal Kapadia brings home, but how richly layered his allegorical film was nonetheless.

With all the excitement and joy around Payal Kapadia winning the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, for All We Imagine as Light, I decided to look back at Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar (1946).

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It won what was then the Grand Prix, and would today be more or less the equivalent of the Palme d’Or, at the first edition of this festival, in 1946. And while it is a matter of gratification that India won this prestigious prize 78 years ago, the story of what exactly happened is a little complicated.

The French first thought of setting up an international film festival in time for 1940. Then World War 2 broke out, so it was only in 1946 that the first edition of the festival could be held, at Cannes. Nineteen countries submitted films in competition. “Every nation represented left with a Grand Prix and this first Festival finished on a unanimous note of success”, the festival website states. (IMDb lists 11 winners, so perhaps some countries had more than one film in competition.)

Anand won the Grand Prix alongside greats such as Billy Wilder, Roberto Rossellini and David Lean. It was certainly an honour, but not quite the Cannes awards as we know them today.

Which doesn’t take anything away from the film; it just interests me how facts live on, but context fades away.

Neecha Nagar, loosely based on the Russian writer Maxim Gorky’s 1902 play, The Lower Depths, is an uplifting story of an impoverished community’s battle for justice. Sarkar is a greedy, corrupt industrialist-builder who lives in Ooncha Nagar and wants to divert a ganda nallah (dirty drain) from a swampy area into Neecha Nagar.

He has plans for a lucrative housing project once the swampland is cleared. In his sharp double-breasted suit, smoking a cigar, the imposing actor Rafi Peer plays the role with a smug, mocking air of thuggish power. The Neecha Nagar villagers launch a spirited protest under the inspirational leadership of a college-educated, kurta-pyjama-clad young man named Balraj (Rafiq Anwar). After many hardships and heart-wrenching sacrifices, the villagers ultimately prevail.

The film was made at a time when socialist and leftist ideas dominated intellectual and creative thought. Anand, originally from Lahore, had come to Bombay to work in films. His home in Bandra soon became a meeting point for painters, writers, dancers, poets, musicians and budding filmmakers, some of whom went on to found the influential Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), a leftist organisation that served as a nursery of talent.

Neecha Nagar was written by Hayatullah Ansari, who was influenced by leftist progressive writers and later by Gandhian ideals. He was editor of the Urdu newspaper Qaumi Awaz for several years. Though leftist writer Khwaja Ahmad Abbas is invariably referred to as co-writer of the film, there is no mention of him in the Neecha Nagar credits, nor in the film’s credits as cited on the Cannes festival website, nor on IMDb. So I’m a little puzzled as to how his name keeps cropping up.

Neecha Nagar is quite clearly a metaphor for British rule in India.

It is a well-told, moving tale of oppression and protest, with some arresting visuals. There are stark close-ups of the filthy drain as it snakes its way through the poorer neighbourhood, oozing thick sludge, full of litter, a magnet for vultures.

When Sarkar then cuts off water supply to the village, causing disease and death, there is the unforgettable scene in which a thirsty boy sits at the edge of the drain, and eventually drinks from it.

The film contains intense close-ups of villagers’ stoic faces, as they face calamity after calamity. The climactic sequence is particularly stirring, as men and women hold up mashals (lit torches) and sing the rousing song Hum Rukenge Bhi Nahin, as they march in protest. Sometimes they are visible only as flickering specks on a black screen. And there is that inspired moment when the mashals seem to form a rough map of India.

The film has many interesting firsts to its name. It was Anand’s directorial debut. It was actress Kamini Kaushal’s first film (she plays Balraj’s sister). It was the first film for which Ravi Shankar composed the music (he would go on to compose for many more).

Balraj’s love interest Maya, Sarkar’s daughter, is played by the director’s wife Uma Anand; it was her only screen appearance. Actress, dancer and choreographer Zohra Sehgal too appeared on the screen for the first time, in a small role; she choreographed the film’s graceful, sinuous dance numbers, of course.

Unfortunately for Chetan Anand, despite the Cannes award, Neecha Nagar didn’t make any waves in India. It was only later, with films such as Taxi Driver (1954, starring his younger brother Dev Anand), Haqeeqat (1964) and Hanste Zakhm (1973) that he found success.

(To reach Poonam Saxena with feedback, email poonamsaxena3555@gmail.com)