Ram Rajya
About Ram Rajya
After fourteen years of exile, Rama destroys Ravana's kingdom, brings Sita back, and is crowned in Ayodhya. He has Sita step onto a funeral pyre. She comes out unburned, and the fire god asks Rama to take her back, saying she is pure. Later her sons stop the royal horse sent out from Ayodhya and stand ready to fight its army.
Cast & crew
More about Ram Rajya
Vijay Bhatt directed. Kanu Desai wrote the story from Valmiki's Ramayana. Shankarrao Vyas composed the music. Prem Adib plays Rama and Shobhna Samarth plays Sita. The film runs 132 minutes and was released in 1943 in Hindi and Marathi. It was the third-highest-grossing Indian film of that year.
Themes
Background
During the independence campaign Gandhi used 'Ram Rajya' for the just rule he wanted. The film takes that phrase as its title and tells the return to Ayodhya from the Ramayana.
In film history
It is the only film Gandhi is known to have watched.
Making
Bhatt had wanted Gandhi to see the film because the title used Gandhi's own phrase, Ram Rajya, for a righteous rule. The screening happened two years after release, not at the premiere.
Audiences
It was the third-highest-grossing Indian film of 1943 and, by a later family account in the Indian Express, ran more than a hundred weeks.
Music
Shankarrao Vyas composed the music.
Notes
- Umakant plays Lakshman. Yashwant and Madhusudan play Luv and Kush. G. Badri Prasad plays Valmiki.
- Wikipedia calls it the first Indian film to premiere in the United States.
- Mahatma Gandhi, who rarely went to the pictures, saw it in 1945 while convalescing at a bungalow in Juhu. His secretary Sushila Nayar had allowed Vijay Bhatt forty minutes. Gandhi watched for more than ninety, and on a day of silence he gave Bhatt a pat on the back.
- Indian Express later reported that the film played packed houses for more than a hundred weeks.
Scenes
- Sita enters the fire and comes out untouched, and Agni tells Rama to take her back.
- Luv and Kush stop the horse from Ayodhya.
Influenced by
- Ramayana (Valmiki)
