Mother India Synopsis & Summary

Bharat Mata (Mother India) was Indian filmmaker Mehboob Khan's remake of his own 1940 film Aurat (Woman). The intervening years had somewhat altered Mehboob's attitudes towards his characters and their surroundings. In the original Aurat, an Indian mother (Sardar Akhtar) suffers monumentally on behalf of her two sons, much to the disinterest of the rural community where she lives. In the remake, the mother (now played by Nargis) likewise suffers, but her plight now affects her entire village, even inspiring her neighbors to shed their own selfishness. What was once a wholly personal drama has been expanded to near-mythical dimensions. The ending, however, is still tragic, with the long-suffering heroine being forced to kill one of her own offspring to uphold the family's honor. Enormously popular in its native India, Bharat Mata remained in constant reissue throughout the next four decades. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide