From India with Love - The Many Bonds of Indian Cinema
                     From India with Love : The Many Bonds of Indian Cinema
With the success of Bond Films – Dr. No (Terence Young, 1962), From Russia with Love
(Terence Young, 1963) and Goldfinger (Gut Hamilton, 1964) - in the early 60s, Hindi spy
films  were  able  to  establish  their  own  formula  for  spy  genre  while  incorporating  the
character  of  Bond –  a  ruthless  spy and an  irresistible  womanizer,  equipped with  many
wondrous gadgets.
In  1967,  Ravikant  Nagaich came  up  with  the  film  Farz  –  probably  the  first  film  to
experiment  with this  genre  in Hindi  cinema. This film was a remake of  a Telugu film,
Goodachari 116 (Mallikharjuna Rao M., 1967) which was again a remake of a French-
Italian co-production Banco a Bangkok (Anre Hunebelle, 1964). The film presents to us the
dashing, flirtatious and ferocious Gopal Kishen Pandey or Agent 116 (Jeetendra), whose
mission is to investigate the death of another operative agent 303. He discovers that his
colleague was killed by the men of Damodar, a rich businessman who is acting only as a
puppet of a shadowy mastermind, Supremo – a man with mongoloid features dressed in a
Mao suit, incapable of speaking English. Farz slips in numerous indirect references to the
Indian political situation of that time, finding favour with the film audience. In the context
of the Indo-China War in 1962, Supremo acts as the invading foreign enemy who wants to
cripple  Indian  infrastructure  and  agriculture  by  poisoning  the  farmlands  with  chemical
fertilizers and bombing the dams. While the bruises of war are very visible in Farz, Ankhen
(Ramanand Sagar, 1968) brings back memories of a war where India was fighting a battle
with two powerful neighbours on the east and the west, seeing the collapse of Nehruvian
policies and facing insurgent forces and Naxalism in many parts of the country. This period
also witnessed the enactment of AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958) in many
north-eastern states that gave Indian Armed Forces the special power to maintain public
order in the areas when it became difficult for the state governments to do so. Thus the
nation needs the eyes (Ankhen) that can see the enemy and guard both the borders, hence
the call for a spy.
Hindi spy films were able to establish their own formula for spy genre while incorporating
the character of Bond – a ruthless spy and an irresistible womanizer, equipped with many
wondrous gadgets.
Patriotism is a characteristic that is instilled in most of the initial spies in these films with a
dash of romantic flair to the character. In Farz, Agent 116 is introduced with the song Mast
baharon ka main aashiq romancing women, very unlike his British counterpart Agent 007.
He ultimately falls in love with Sunita (Babita) who turns out to be the daughter of Damodar
(Sajjan). Now the problem for 116 is to convince her that her father is a criminal and only
she can induce her father  to surrender,  as he feels  his  love does not matter if  it  means
betraying the  nation.  This  particular  aspect  is  also  quite  evident  in  the  film The  Train
(Ravikant Nagaich, 1970), where CID police officer Shyam (Rajesh Khanna), a very lazy
secret agent in the spy race, chooses to arrest his fiancé’s father because he is a criminal,
sabotaging his own relationship with her because the nation and its law come first.
Patriotism is a characteristic that is instilled in most of the initial spies in these films with a
dash of romantic flair to the character
Shyam is also being chased by Agent 303’s sister, Kamala (Kanchana), who is brainwashed
to think that Agent 116 has killed her brother,  a plot used again in Nagaich’s later film
Wardaat (Ravikant Nagaich, 1981) where the agent G-9 (Mithun Chakraborty) is thought to
be the murderer of another operative and is followed by his sister for revenge. It  is not
surprising how both the sisters in these films try to take revenge by seducing the spies with
their song and dance and drugging their drinks. While women’s role in earlier spy films was
confined to either remain the love interest or a cabaret dancer, there were a few who came
out as intelligent and strong minded to compete with the Bond girl character. The character
of Lily (Helen) from The Train, possibly the most interesting character in the entire film, is
a member of the gang responsible for the murders of wealthy businessmen in the train. Her
feelings for Shyam, the CID agent in the film, makes her vulnerable to the extent that she
disguises herself as his fiancé Nita (Nanda), commits crimes using her face but ultimately
dies in the arms of the man she loves. In films like Surakksha (Ravikant Nagaich, 1979) and
Wardaat (Ravikant Nagaich, 1981), we see similarly strong characters in the form of Priya
(Ranjeeta)  and  Kajal  (Kajal  Kiran),  both  of  whom get  into  fistfights  with  the  villain’s
henchmen. In 1968, Homi Wadia paid his own tribute to Bond films when he cast Fearless
Nadia as Agent Madam X1 in the film Khilari (1968) where she is assigned to work with
another spy, Agent 707 (Dilip Raj) to save an atomic scientist who has been kidnapped.
Agent X1 is introduced taking bullets while giving a demonstration for a bullet proof jacket,
training other agents and changing getups. The bond style opening credits  where she is
firing gunshots just like James Bond is impossible to forget. She uses a watch which has a
“transistorized walkie-talkie” to contact the other agent. The film was clearly an ode to her
career as the stunt queen but gave Indian cinema one of the earliest memorable lady-spy
figures.