It was probably a coincidence that Sholay was released on Independence Day in 1975. But this does add a quixotic twist to the story we can call India after Sholay.

The legend, as told in the film world, is that the film was already before the censor board when the Emergency was declared on June 25, 1975. In the version the censors first saw, Thakur, the chief protagonist of the film, kills the villain Gabbar Singh.

This was unacceptable to the censor board — in keeping with the Indira Gandhi government’s projection of the Emergency as a tool for restoring order and rule of law. The producers of Sholay changed the ending so they could get the censor board certificate. In the version we have been watching for 50 years, the climax of the film is that the police arrive just in time to, gently but firmly, persuade Thakur to not kill Gabbar. Bloodied and beaten, Gabbar is taken off to prison.

Scholars of social history may well quarrel over whether the original version, with Thakur exacting vengeance, was more in sync with the mood of the times or whether it was a warning about where we were headed. In hindsight, those of us who grew up in the 1960s, can see Sholay as a landmark event in the decline of a social milieu in which reality was not a simplistic binary of good versus evil.

Films about dacoits and other doers of bad deeds were commonplace. But it was Sholay that gave us a sociopathic villain whose cruel wit, brutal violence, and dramatic macho swagger resulted in iconic status. In later years, a popular brand of biscuits was actually advertised as Gabbar ki asli pasand (Gabbar’s true preference), complete with a photo of the villain and his self-satisfied grin.

However, Sholay did something........

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