Adapting Imtiaz Ali Taj’s play “Anarkali” (1922/31) in post-independence Hindi cinema: changes and challenges.

Abstract

The legend of Anarkali originated during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, in the city of Lahore, where the so-called tomb of Anarkali is located. Adapted into a play by the Urdu playwright Sayed Imtiaz Ali Taj in 1922 (Désoulières 2007), the stage version enjoyed some success, which culminated in two film adaptations in 1928: The Loves of a Mughal Prince (dir. Prafulla Roy & CharuRoy) and Anarkali (dir. R.S. Choudhury). In the following decades, Taj re-adapted his play to better suit the emerging sound film industry (1931), R. S. Choudhury remade his film in sound (1935) and new directors brought their visions of Anarkali to the silver screen (Anarkali, 1953, dir. Nandlal Jaswantlal; Mughal-e-Azam, 1960, dir. K. Asif). It was the 1960 adaptation called Mughal-e-Azam (The Great Mughal) that became the most successful and the best-remembered version of the Anarkali story, already breaking records upon its release. Despite adapting the same source material (Taj’s play), the two surviving adaptations (the 1953 and 1960 versions) differ significantly, both from each other and from the original play. In this paper, I propose to analyse how important elements from the stage play and its two film adaptations vary, and how those changes can be explained by the social context of their production (Bhaskar & Allen 2009). In particular, the analysis will focus on the evolution of the portrayal of power and the political authority before and after the independence of India.