Hum Hindustani traces the story of administrators and field officers tasked with taking democracy to a country that had never voted before, across languages
By the time LOC: Kargil released in 2003, Saif Ali Khan was still being seen largely through the prism of romantic leads and urban charm. His role as Captain Anuj was tellingly unflashy. It did not announce a “patriotic star” but showed him as the actor he is – someone willing to step into large stories without demanding the spotlight.
More than two decades later, as
Saif Ali Khan returns to the genre with Hum Hindustani, a Netflix film centred on India’s first general election, once again proving his brand of patriotism is all about telling stories about nation building.
Patriotism in Hindi cinema has, over the years, narrowed into a vocabulary of volume with raised slogans, pumped-up background scores, muscular masculinity. The nation is often invoked as something to be defended or avenged, or asserted. What gets lost is the idea of the republic as a process. Hum Hindustani, directed by Rahul Dholakia, places itself squarely in that oft ignored space. Set against the logistical challenge of conducting India’s first democratic election. There are no wars to be won, or villains to be slashed.
That
Saif Ali Khan is fronting this story is crucial. He is not an obvious choice for chest-thumping nationalism, and that is the point. Over the last decade and a half, Khan has carved out a body of work – Omkara, Aarakshan, Tanhaji, Sacred Games, Laal Kaptaan. Even when playing warriors or kings, he has resisted the flattening impulse of heroism. His characters are nuanced and his patriotism with has the willingness to sit with complexity and that becomes a political statement in itself.
Hum Hindustani traces the story of administrators and field officers tasked with taking democracy to a country that had never voted before, across languages, castes, terrains and deep mistrust. Khan’s presence here reads as a statement that patriotism does not have to shout to be sincere. It can ask questions, show process and foreground collective effort over individual heroics.
End of Article
