Independence Day 2016: Gulaal to Haider, 5 Hindi films that tore apart the idea of India - the nation

While India celebrates 70 years of independence today, it is most natural for TV channels to telecast patriotic films all throughout the day. You have your usual suspects - Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, all the Bhagat Singh films ever made, Border, Chak De! India, Rang De Basanti, so on and so forth. There's no dearth of patriotic films in a country which loves itself so much.

But what about the films which question the very idea of the nation state that forms the basis of celebrating Independence Day? Independence means freedom to self-govern. What we are witnessing in Kashmir now or in Bastar - protests for azaadi - will appear confusing to the everyday man living in the suburbs or the cities, seemingly not oppressed for his caste, class or religious identity. However, the country is boiling from within and if reel echoes the real, it is only natural for Bollywood to highlight these issues on the big screen. Although not many directors have had the guts to walk the road less travelled.

Here are the five most UNpatriotic films in Bollywood that bursts the bubble of nationalism and makes you question, exactly what is 'India' today?

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Maachis (1996)
Dir: Gulzar

Gulzar's most politically charged film takes a look at Sikh militancy post Operation Bluestar. The film explores the political climate of Punjab after the government's brutal manhunt throughout India for any and every 'Anti-National' Sikh (Sikh youths who protested against the brutality of the Indian armed forces and the police through militancy) following the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Gulzar again dealt with a similar anti-nation-state theme, albeit, in a milder way, in Hu Tu Tu (1999).

Gulaal (2009)
Dir: Anurag Kashyap

Anurag Kashyap's 'college-politics' film Gulaal has, at its centre, the mercurial character Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon), who is challenging the Indian idea of democracy which has yielded nothing for the Rajputana. One of the film's famous scenes is the Yeh Duniya song sequence. The song is a reworking of the famous Pyaasa (1957) song.

Interestingly, Pyaasa, which was released five years after the launch of the first five-year plan, also criticised the Indian state through the song Jinheh Naaz Hai Hind Par, which compared the Indian nation state to a brothel.

Shanghai (2012)
Dir: Dibakar Banerjee

Dibakar Banerjee's darkest film till date deals with a political conspiracy which leads to the killing of an activist who is protesting the demolition of slums to build high-rises in a fictitious city, Bharat Nagar. This fictional city, aptly named 'Bharat Nagar' was basically an allegory for the Indian state. The film ends on a pessimistic note, signalling that nothing changes in India and that the ruling class has the final word here.

Chakravyuh (2012)
Dir: Prakash Jha

Prakash Jha's mainstream take on the Naxalite problem is, of course, a 'Why Naxalism?' for dummies, but at least it makes an attempt to understand the constant subjugation and oppression of tribals in India, which leads to them joining Maoist and Naxalite groups. The ongoing tribals versus corporate encroachment and the Indian state problems in Chattisgarh's Bastar district make the film all the more contemporary.

Haider (2014)
Dir: Vishal Bhardwaj

Perhaps the only film among the list that made the most noise, Haider is the first Bollywood film to push the envelope as far as exploring Kashmir's self-rule issue is concerned. Partially based on Basharat Peer's non-fiction book Curfewed Night, Vishal Bhardwaj's adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet does more for the Kashmir issue than it does for making a Shakespeare adaptation.

( The writer tweets as @devarsighosh )