Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades, We the People (2004) a film which was considered to be a ‘film that preaches’, now considered a cult classic, takes us through the journey of a village where socio-economic issues are prevalent and people have accepted that overcoming their issues is not in their hands and need an act of benevolence and preaching. The Film takes up issues which are still prevalent in our society but showcases them with respect to a village where Mohan (Shah Rukh Khan) has come to visit his Nanny/Caretaker known as Kaveri Amma (Kishori Ballal) who lives with Gita (Gayatri Joshi), a teacher in the village.
The premise of the film and theme can be easily justified to be a preachy advert, but considering the time this film was released it should have played a huge role in shaping or changing the society’s perspective. In 2004, India did not have many multiplexes and theaters. It was still a closed society and its thinking was changing but was only restricted to metropolitan cities. The heartlands and the ‘general Indian audience’ wasn't open to watch films which preached about such issues. In the previous decade, people went to a theater with the pure motive of entertainment. They did wish to see the realities, socioeconomic issues and insecurities of people. The film deals with issues such as Poverty, Gender Issues, Illiteracy, Child Marriage, Cateism and Unemployment.
Mohan, who works at NASA, has come back to India with the intention of taking Kaveri Amma to the USA with him as he thinks that Kaveri Amma deserves a better life and living since she was a mother figure to him. Mohan doesn't know what lies ahead of him, once he has landed in India he rents an RV from one of his friends and heads to Charanpur, hoping to find Kaveri Amma. As soon as Mohan reaches Charanpur, we see the problems and issues a village faces and how different it is from a metropolitan city.
It is shown through a ‘Panchayat’ scene how little Mohan know about his own country, Mohan, who has been aloof of these issues and has remained in the dark wants to know more and do something about it. We see him meeting and dealing with each and every member of the 'hierarchical' society, and him not being raised with a casteist mentality results in him not differentiating between the people on their caste, their occupation or their position in the society. Mohan’s journey is not a typical self-realization journey like the one we see in Imtiaz Ali films but a self-realization journey which impacts people from all walks of life. It pushes us to think if we are really doing enough for the society.
This moment particularly arises when ‘Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera’ composed by A.R Rehman plays and it puts the music of the film on a center stage. This is escalated by Javed Akhtar Sahab's lyrics, who puts his emphasis on colloquial and heartland language rather than simple ‘Hindi’. Colloquialism is a major aspect and key to this soundtrack’s success it speaks to each and every member of the community.
In ‘Swades’ Shah Rukh Khan does not play as himself, rather he plays the character, he plays Mohan, he embodies a person who actually wants to make a difference in the society after a series of events where he realizes the real pain which the people have to endure due to lack of facilities or privilege. He shifts from being a consumer of packaged drinking water of 25 Rupees to buying a glass of water poured in from the rivers of the heartland for 25 paisa. He has realized that society's problems cannot be solved by preaching how and what the society should be, rather it takes active effort and practical execution to actually being about a meaningful change. Swades as a film conceptualizes minute details and issues in a way which do not feel that they have been presented to us on a plate, it is threaded in the film, it is a slow burner. As the film progresses you empathize with the villagers but you are hopeful that Mohan will do something for them. Something good, which he eventually does.