The evergreen Bollywood movie “Amar Akbar Anthony” (AAA) from 1977 was remade in Tamil as “Shankar Salim Simon” (1978), Telugu as “Ram Robert Rahim” (1980), and Malayalam as “John Jaffer Janardhanan” (1982). Is there a chance we’ll see another, a “Charles Rishi Sadiq,” or any permutation thereof, soon? Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, at least hopes so.
He recently requested Bollywood to remake a British perspective of the religious tolerance classic AAA, as the UK now has a Christian king, a Hindu prime minister, and a Muslim London mayor (who may one day become prime minister). It’s quite probable that AAA and other Bollywood classics thrilled Sadiq Khan as a youngster, given he was born in 1970 to Pakistani immigrants in the UK. So much so that he even wants to star in AAA as Anthony Gonsalves! But it’s never that simple. To be honest, even within an Indian set-up, Bollywood finds it challenging to recreate AAA. Salman Khan had once expressed a strong desire to unite with brothers Arbaaz and Sohail in a modern remake to be directed by David Dhawan and with Salman himself as Anthony Gonsalves.
However, the project was abandoned. “Amitji (Amitabh Bachchan) is outstanding in the film and started a trend of sorts,” Salman claimed in 2010. “If I did the scenes differently, people would be disappointed.” Dhawan also asserted that “it was just impossible to do it again. Can you imagine anyone else except Mr. Bachchan as Anthony Gonsalves? It’s a role he has made his own for as long as time exists.”
Having said that, however, one cannot claim that Bollywood will never attempt to recreate it. And this concept of remaking AAA from a UK perspective has been circulating for a while, as when Prime Minister Sunak congratulated Humza Yousaf, a Muslim born in Glasgow to Pakistani immigrants, on taking over as leader of the Scottish National Party in March 2023, succeeding Nicola Sturgeon. Since its release about half a century ago, AAA has truly become a cultural touchstone in India and is frequently cited as a reminder of a secular India. Shah Rukh Khan stated in January 2023 that he and fellow “Pathaan” stars Deepika Padukone and John Abraham wanted to promote “love and brotherhood” as performers, comparing themselves to “Amar, Akbar, Anthony.” How should we envision AAA from the perspective of India and its ethos? Is AAA a critique of the way the Indian nation was formed? Or is it a lost-and-found-themed escapist adage that promotes unity and brotherhood? August 15 – Independence Day, sometime in the 1950s – marked the separation of three young brothers from their Hindu parents and one another. The brothers were then raised in three different religions, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity.
The film’s memorable melodies, one-liners, and Gonsalves’ persona all had a long-lasting effect on pop culture. The movie chronicles the journey of the three boys as they recover from this loss, emphasising the functions of love and religion, family and substitutes, and the city and the state.
However, this is also a tale about “Partition” and “Emergency,” the scars these events left behind, and the significance of a subtle yet potent kind of Hinduism as a curative. Incidentally, the Preamble of the Constitution of India was changed a year prior to the release of AAA, from “unity of the nation” to “unity and integrity of the nation.”
One could look for the essence of “integrity” at its core within the movie as well. Is it therefore a lens through which to view India’s experience with secular democracy? Nonetheless, many commentators believe that the movie shows the theological differences as nothing more than external artifice. To address one of India’s most popular films in all its complexity, on its own terms, requires an understanding of the intricate and frequently contradictory frames of Indian religiosity.
Oh, Indianness! That is unquestionably an integral part of AAA. The three young boys in the movie have their famous separation moment at the foot of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi. All things considered, AAA has continued to be a genuine secular guide for Indian films for nearly half a century. Although AAA offers us multiple love stories, the central figure of the film’s partitioned, estranged, and eventually reunited family is Bharati, the “Maa” of the three main protagonists. Is she a devotee of the goddess Santoshi Maa, or might she herself be a goddess?
The mother serves as the three brothers’ centrifugal force despite having lost her eyesight. She is compassionate and strong, and she is the mother of divine agony and transcendence. Is she a hero as Mother India’s symbol? Is AAA in favour of all-powerful individuals like the Mayor, PM, and King living together? Well, these kinds of people will never experience intolerance as a problem in any community, for sure. And the South Asian diaspora’s growing economic and political influence in the UK influences the election of the UK prime minister and mayor of London, although this may not necessarily translate into social harmony.
Contrarily, AAA depicts the coexistence of many religions in order to illustrate what national integration is or should be in India, despite all class differences. It does this by using Kishanlal’s broken family to create a miniature version of India in the late 1970s, complete with a multicultural fabric and interreligious harmony. The lives and ways of common people demonstrate the coexistence of diverse cultural colours. It could be necessary to have commoners like a Christian liquor vendor, a Muslim qawwali singer, and a Hindu police officer, for instance, to portray that kind of social harmony.
Overall, it blends with the Indian way of life. And not to forget that the narrative of the movie is deeply rooted in Indian culture and values. AAA has been written off far too lightly as a corny, clunky relic from the 1970s. Was it just another Bollywood masala movie? At that time, was it just nationalist propaganda? Or, as William Elison, Christian Lee Novetzke, and Andy Rotman observe in their 2016 book “Amar Akbar Anthony: Bollywood, Brotherhood, and the Nation,” is it full of contestation and even confusion, where the logical and illogical coexist and provide a window into the popular imagination?
In any event, AAA serves as a sort of barometer for the general sentiment of the populace. Bollywood could give in to Sadiq Khan’s request. But how simple and thrilling would it be to adapt AAA to the set-up of a different nation and society in a different cultural setting? You also require the Maa, Bharati, whose name also alludes to Bharata. What ties AAA together coherently is a little bit of Indianness. In the iconic opening line of the last song, the three brothers sing, “Anhoni ko honi kar de…”
The millions of spectators in the country feed off the adoration and nourishment of Bollywood’s magic, which makes the impossible possible, sometimes, at least on the silver screen. That’s the Hogwarts magic of Bollywood that you might not find anywhere else, perhaps. While we wait for a potential remake of AAA set in London, a place noted for its melting pot of nationalities, faiths, and ethnicities, let’s take this into consideration. “Excuse me, please.” For the hints of uncertainty I harbour.
(The writer is a Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.)