Farewell Sir, Shyam Benegal – The Pioneer of Parallel Cinema

Shyam Sunder (more popularly known as Shyam Benegal), one of the greatest Indian directors, screenplay writers, and documentary makers and considered the Pioneer of Parallel cinema in India, passed away at the ripe age of 90 years on 23 December 2024

Shyam Benegal did his MA in Economics but the film-making bug bit him at a very young age and he made his first short film at the age of 12 years with the camera gifted by his photographer father. But before settling as a film director Shyam Benegal dabbled in many things, first joining as a copywriter with popular Advertising Agency Lintas, made his first documentary in Gujarati and made 900 documentaries and ad films. He taught at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune and became the Chairman of the Film Institute and served two terms.He also served as the Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) from 1980 to 1986.

Began film career with a bang 

After dabbling in Documentaries/Ad films and Documentary films for over a decade, Shyam Benegal got his first opportunity to direct a full-length feature film Ankur in 1973. Being a Kannadiga brought up in Hyderabad he took the background of Telangana in Ankur which dealt with economic and sexual exploitation in a stark manner. With this film, he introduced Shabana Azmi and Kannada actor Anant Nag, who went on to become top stars in art films and commercial films. With his first film, Shyam Benegal won the National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film and Shabana Azmi won the National Film Award for Best Actress for Ankur.

The Pandavas of Parallel Cinema

In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a big wave of commercial movies – both romantic films by Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna and Rishi Kapoor and mass masala action movies by Dharmender, Amitabh and Vinod Khanna and there was hardly any space for social dramas, not to speak of art films

Then came the Pandavas of Parallel Cinema comprising Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopal Krishna and Girish Kasarvelli.  The word Art/Parallel cinema was coined for movies made by these five and other such directors. They created a niche for themselves and garnered a dedicated `class urban elite audience’ for their type of movies. The movie buffs fed on mass masala commercial movies steered themselves far away from such movies. Though they used to struggle to find distributors/exhibitors for their movies and their movies were not money spinners at the box office at the scale commercial movies used to be, they dominated the film award circuits not only at State and National levels in India but film festivals abroad. They became household names at a Global level and were recognised and highly respected at a time when even Rajesh Kahannas and Amitabhs could not go beyond the boundaries of India.

Breaking into the big league in Art/Parallel Cinema

With a paltry budget available for art/parallel cinema, mostly financed by the National Film Development Corporation, Benegal had no option but to make his Ankur and most of his other movies with shoestring budgets, in small villages and mostly start to finish schedules. That is the main reason for his giving a break to Film Institute graduates and budding actors from NSD and the stage. Despite all the constraints prevailing at that time, uncertainty regarding their release in theatres and rhe availability of only one window of Doordarshan, Shyam Shyam Benegal was very prolific and belted out film after film at a fast clip.  The popularity of parallel cinema can largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal. Rural backdrop, economic and sexual exploitation of have-nots by haves remained the central theme of most of his movies. Some of his most popular movies made by Shyam Benegal are:

1. Ankur – deals with economical and sexual exploitation of husband and wife farm labourers by a Zamindar
2. Nishant – deals with the gang rape of a teacher’s wife by four Zamindars and the police and administration turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the complaints by the husband
3. Manthan– dealing with rural empowerment on the backdrop of Gurajat Daily success story
4. Bhumika– loosely based on biopic of Marathi actress Hansa Wadkar and her exploitation by various men including her uncle.   Smitha Patil who essayed Hansa Wadkar’s role shot up to popularity after the success of Bhumika

After the success and popularity gained with these movies Shyam Benegal has moved to a bigger league compared to his other contemporary parallel movie makers and made the following movies with better budgets and popular stars.

5. Junoon– a love story between Indian soldier and a British lady with the backdrop of the arms rebellion of 1857, starring Sashi Kapoor, Janifer Kapoor and NaseerudinShah
6. Kalyug – modern corporate war between cousins inspired by Mahabharata charactersstarring Shashi Kapoor, Anant Nag, etc.
7. Mandi – a hard-hitting movie dealing with the life of prostitutes starring Naseer, Shabhana and Smita
8. Mammo– deals with the story of a mother torn between Love and Politics starring Farida Jalal and Amit Phalke
9. Sardari Begum– deals with the life and time of a courtesan starring Rajit Kapoor, Kiron Kher and Amrish Puri
10. Zubeida– deals with the young man’s journey to find what happened to his motherstarring Rekha, Karishma Kapoor and Manoj Bajpayee
11. Suraj ka saath wah goda– deals with values and attitudes conditioned by class struggle.
12. Trikal – deals withdysfunctional family structures in the backdrop of India’s newly gained independence with the backdrop of Goa.
13. The Making of Mahatma– deals with the early life of Mahatma Gandhi starring Rajit Kapoor, Pallavi Joshi and Keith Stevenson
14. Netaji Subas ChandraBose– The Forgotten Hero – deals with events leading to the formation of Azad Hind Fauz starring Sachin Khelkar, Rajit Kapoor and Divya Dutta
15. Samar : deals with cast system starring Rajit Kapoor, Divya Dutta and Raghuvir Yadav
16. Welcome to Sajjanpur– deals with widow remarriage, caste politics and superstitionstarring Shreyas Talpadi, Amrita Rao and Ravi Kishan
17. Well done Abba– his last movie – deals with satiric comments on politics and poverty starring Boman Irani, Ravi Kishan and Manisha Lamba

Music and Masala elements in Parallel Cinema

From the 1960s to 1990s parallel/art cinema was treated to have been made only for class audiences and the majority of the mass audience hardly understood or relished the art/parallel cinema.   They used to be slow-moving, with no songs, dances, comedy, or action scenes. Many ended abruptly, leaving it to the audience’s imagination to think about what the Director wanted to convey.   Many of them were restricted to Doordarshan and film festival circuits, and even if released in theatre, they were hardly taken note by the audience.

Shyam Benegal can be credited with breaking this stereotype, introducing all elements of commercial cinema in parallel cinema, including good and popular music, drama, and packed multi-star cast of popular stars of parallel cinema.

Shyam Benegal had a good ear for music.    His collaboration with Vanaraj Bhatia, the lyricist and music director who too has come from a documentary filmmaking background is legendary.    Film after film, Vanaraj Bhatia scored good music for Shayam Benagal.   When Benegal started making movies with top star of commercial cinema like Rekha, Karishma Kapoor etc., he had gone for A R Rehman and top singers like Rafi, Late and Asha.   These popular numbers from movies directed by Shyam Benegal demonstrate his good ear for music.

1. Sawan ke din aye sajaniya an milo, Tumhare Bina jeena lage ghar main & Baaju Re Mondar Baaju Re from Bhumika
2. Kya hai tere gum bata from Kaliyug
3. Maro Gaam katho parey from Manthan
4. Sawan ki ayi bahaar re and Isq ne todi sar pe kayamat (sung by none other than the great Mohd Rafi) from junoon
5. All the songs of Sardani Begum and
6. All the songs of Zubeida, whose music scored by Oscar winner A R Rehman and a couple of songs sung by Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar

Pioneer efforts of crowdfunding

Shyam Benegal can be credited with pioneering crowdfunding efforts for the first time in world history for financing a movie, much before the word `crowdfunding’ was really understood by many. In 1975, half a million dairy farmers in Gujarat donated two rupees each to help make a movie called `Manthan’ about their lives.

When a young Benegal went to Mr. Verghese Kurien with the idea of Manthan, he flatly refused stating that his co-operative organisation is not in the business of funding Hindi movies. But Benegal convinced him that a Hindi film would convert more farmers outside of Gujarat to join the milk cooperative movement and make it far bigger than it was.

But Kurien was unimpressed. So Benegal and Kurien came up with the idea of crowdfunding the movie Manthan by requesting Rs. 2 donation from each of the 5,00,000 milk farmers. The farmers were excited that a Hindi film was being made on their lives and readily agreed. Benegal raised Rs.10 lacs in less than a week for Manthan and shot the movie in 45 days with actors like Naseer, Smita Patil, Girish Karnad and Amrish Puri, who lived in the villages of Gujarat like commoners.

When Manthan was released, the same 5,00,000 farmers and their families paid for the tickets and watched the movie in makeshift tents and single-screen theatres across Gujarat making it a huge hit. Besides this, Kurien distributed the film for free to teach more farmers about starting cooperatives, sending teams with movie reels and projectors to hundreds of villages. Millions of farmers watched Manthan and the idea of milk cooperatives spread like wildfire across India.

Thus, Manthan is the first-ever crowdfunded movie in the world. These days crowdfunding is a commonly used funding mechanism for making films, music albums and documentaries. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Manthan was not just a film, it was a movement that led to transforming India into the largest milk producer in the world with a whopping 31% market share.

Introduced and popularised many actors who became stars

Shyam Benegal has the unique distinction of introducing and/or encouraging large number of actors from the Film Institute, NSD and stage. Some of the actors who were regulars in his movies and went on to make it big in commercial movies also are

Naseeruddin Shah, Amrish Puri, Om Puri, Anant Nag, Kulbushan Kharbanda, Rajit Kapoor, Girish karnad, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Ratna Pathak, Nina Gupta and Divya Dutt.

The way Prakash Mehra, Manmohan Desai and Raj Kumar Kohli used to make big-budget multi-starrer commercial movies, it was Shyam Benegal who used to make multi-starrer art movies. In most of his movies, he used to feature at least half a dozen of the above referred talented actors.

Virtual monopoly at Award functions

Shyam Benegal and his movies were so regular at various film award functions including the National Film Awards by the Government of India and many State Governments, none of his movies ever missed figuring at award functions in the years in which he made a movie.

Apart from box office collections winning awards is considered as a barometer for the success of movies, actors, directors and others involved with the making of a movie.   Going by both barometers, especially winning awards, Shyam Benegal was undoubtedly the most successful director and can be put next and very close to Satyajit Ray.

Benegal has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times. Some of the noteworthy National awards won by him

1. 1975 2^ndBest feature film – Ankur
2. 1976 Best feature film in Hindi – Nishant
3. 1977 Best feature film in Hindi – Manthan
4. 1978 Best Screenplay – Bhumika
5. 1986 Best Director – Trikal
6. 1992 Best Feature Film in Hindi – The Seventh Horse of the Sun
7. 1995 Best Feature Film in Hindi – Mammo
8. 2001 Best Feature film in Hindi – Zubeidaa
9. 2005 Best Feature film on national integration – Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

Besides these national awards, Shyam Benegal has won many State Awards and Film fare awards.   He was conferred with Padma Shri, and Padma Bhushan by the Government of India, and he has won Dadasaheb Phalke Award and ANR National Award.    He was nominated as Rajyasabha member for one term of six years.

Apart from Shyam Benegal, many actors, actresses, music directors and technicians have won National and other awards for the movies directed by him.

Bharat Ek Khoj – The Masterpiece:

In late 1980s at the peak of his career and busy schedule when Doordarshan has commissioned to make TV serial on The Discovery of India by Nehru, the responsibility was given to Shyam Benegal, who has written, produced and directed the 52-episode  star studded serial`BHARAT EK KHOJ’ with Om Puri, Roshan Seth, Tom Alter and Sadashiv Amrapurkar.    Not only it is a widely watched and popular TV serial but used as a reference point of Indian history.

The multi-talented Shyam Benegal has taken the parallel cinema to dizzy heights and is probably the only director who not only brought up but made the parallel cinema compete with mainstream commercial cinema by roping top stars like Sashi Kapoor, Naseeruddin, Amrish Puri (after he became top villain) Shabana, Smitha, Rekha, Karishma, Rafi, Lata, Asha and A R Rehman.   In this respect, there is no parallel to Shyam Benegal.

A long inning well played Benegal.  The Indian cinema especially the parallel / art cinema will always remain indebted to you for your wonderful contribution.   When the history of Indian cinema is written, a glorious chapter will be dedicated for Shyam Bengal

It is in the fitness of things, that the Government of India constitutes an award in the name of Shyam Benegal