ABSTRACT

Through the late 1960s and early 1970s the political situation in India remained volatile; there was urban working class militancy, a Marxist uprising, as well as a Marxist democratic electorate creating a degree of confusion. The rise of the ex-socialist J. P. Narayan and his challenge to Indira Gandhi were reflected in the rise of Bachchan to tackle the establishment. The fall of Congress, the chaos following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, the end of the Congress Raj after the electoral defeat in 1994, and the emergence of the third front with the re-emergence of the Hindu nationalist party all reflect some of the psychopathic tendencies observed in the films. The happy consensual marriage was under threat from the obsessive stalker, who may be the globalization/westernization enemy of the Hindu fundamentalist Swadeshi Morcha.