Dharti Ke Lal
| Dharti Ke Lal | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Khwaja Ahmad Abbas |
| Produced by |
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, IPTA Pictures |
| Written by |
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas(Screenplay), Bijon Bhattacharya (Screenplay), Krishan Chander (Story) |
| Story by | Krishan Chander |
| Starring |
Balraj Sahni Tripti Mitra Sombhu Mitra |
| Music by | Ravi Shankar |
| Cinematography | Jamnadas Kapadia |
|
Release date
|
1946 |
|
Running time
|
125 mins |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi |
Dharti Ke Lal (Children of the Earth in English) is a 1946 Hindi film and the first directorial venture of the noted film director Khwaja Ahmad Abbas (K. A. Abbas). It was jointly written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and Bijon Bhattacharya, based on plays by Bijon Bhattacharya and the story 'Annadata' by Krishan Chander.
The film had lyrics by Ali Sardar Jafri and Prem Dhawan.
In 1949, Dharti Ke Lal became the first Indian film to receive widespread distribution in the USSR.
Dharti Ke Lal was critically acclaimed for its scathing view of notorious Bengal famine of 1943 in which over 1.5 million people died. It is considered an important political film as it gives a realistic portrayal of the changing social and economic climate during the World War II.
The film uses the plight of a single family caught in this famine, and tells the story of human devastation, and the loss of humanity during the struggle to survive.
During the Bengal famine of 1943, members of the IPTA travelled all over India, performing plays and collecting funds for the survivors of the famine, which has destroyed a whole generation of farmer families in Bengal. Thus Abbas was deeply influenced by the work of IPTA, and hence based his script upon two of IPTA's plays, Nabanna (Harvest) and Jabanbandi by Bijon Bhattacharya, and the story Annadata by Krishan Chander. Even the cast of the film was mainly actors from IPTA.
The film marked, another chapter in the influential new wave in Indian cinema which focussed on socially relevant themes as in Neecha Nagar (1946), made by Chetan Anand, also scripted by Abbas, and which continued with Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zamin (1953).
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