Why Hindi blockbuster Sholay remains relevant in India today - Southasia Weekly #79
This week in Himal
This week, Anna M M Vetticad writes about the 1975 Hindu blockbuster Sholay and its enduring relevance, reflecting the degradation of India’s sociopolitical landscape even 50 years later.
Don’t miss Kanika Gupta and Safina Nabi’s article on undocumented migrants from Bangladesh fleeing natural disaster and poverty, who face anti-immigrant rhetoric and crackdowns upon crossing the border into India.
Parliamentarian Manoj Jha speaks about India’s politics of fear and division in episode 11 of ‘Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander.’
For the upcoming episode of the State of Southasia podcast, host Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Zahra Nader, editor-in-chief of Zan Times, about Iran’s brutal deportation drive of Afghan refugees, who face abuse, arbitrary detention and a humanitarian crisis in returning to Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Last week’s edition of Southasia Weekly was not delivered to all our readers due to a technical glitch - so in case you missed last week’s articles, you can browse through them in the roundup below.
This week in Himal
Calls grow for rollback on Bihar’s electoral roll revisions
On 11 August, India’s opposition leaders held a protest calling for the rollback of revisions to the voter list in Bihar, leading to Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders being briefly detained. Gandhi accused India’s Election Commission of turning a blind eye to irregularities in the voter list during the 2024 parliamentary elections, including duplicate voters, invalid addresses and bulk registration of votes at single locations, at least some of which have since been authenticated by media reports. On 12 August, India’s Supreme Court said “mistakes” may have occurred while preparing Bihar’s voter list, adding that the Election Commission was ready to correct them. Media reports found that over 5000 voters with existing voting cards in Uttar Pradesh have been illegally listed in Valmikinagar in Bihar. There have also been reports of voters being wrongly declared dead and struck off the voting list. Bihar residents have also reported that the list contains wrong photos or the details of people who have since passed away.
News of the discrepancies is being met with deep concern as India has already expressed plans to roll out revisions in other states including West Bengal. India’s opposition leaders have said that the revisions are a thinly veiled excuse for the BJP to disenfranchise the poor, oppressed castes, and Muslim voters. India’s Election Commission has also been accused of withholding documents and data on the revisions, leading to a lack of transparency. Simultaneously, the BJP has used anti-immigrant rhetoric to justify the Bihar electoral roll revisions, and the impacts of this are already being felt in northeast India - in Dhubri, Assam, Bengali-speaking Muslim citizens say they are simultaneously being evicted from their homes, disenfranchised, and sometimes deported into Bangladesh. In light of this, Makepeace Sitlhou’s article from April 2024, part of our series ‘Modi’s India from the Edges’ is worth revisiting, as is Harsh Mander’s article from June 2025.