Sharad Raj examines Sabiha Khanum and Leela Bora, two mothers whose compassion, dignity and courage reveal how motherhood can transcend political divides, sustain families, and become a quiet force of resistance in troubled times today.

Sharad Raj reflects on motherhood through cinema, memory and contemporary political struggle, drawing connections between Sabiha Khanum, Leela Bora and the mothers portrayed in Indian films. From Meghe Dhaka Tara and Deewar to personal memories, the essay explores maternal courage, sacrifice, political differences, family, grief and the extraordinary strength of mothers who stand beside their children.

Mothers And Cinema’s Moral Imagination

“Dada, ami bachte chai”, screams Nita in the last scene of Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara. A loud and agonizing call. A daughter who was a mother to her family that probably let her down. In what is perhaps an afterlife, Nita reborn as Sita in Ghatak’s Subarnarekha finds herself in a brothel leading to tragic consequences, as her brother visits her.

In Kumar Shahani’s Tarang, Janaki is trapped in a corporate battle of power and greed. By the time it is 2019, in my own film Ek Betuke Aadmi ki Afrah Raatien, the mother is either missing or a sex professional brutally murdered. In between, Yash Chopra’s Deewar takes a detour and puts the mother on a pedestal as the moral core of the film. However, in all of these presentations of the “mother figure” the consequences of brutalizing the mother are disastrous! As the well-known Dhrupad exponent Pelva Naik said about my film, “it is about the missing mother.”

So, what is it that despite patriarchal oppression, beyond a desexualized existence, the mother, whose primary purpose is reproductive in our society, emerges as the source of moral courage and the glue that keeps you rooted. Together.

Remembering Kalawati And Her Strength

My Dadi, Kalawati spent her life confined to the kitchen, cooking for her husband, my grandfather, until she left us at 62 in the room next to the kitchen itself. The family fell apart. Each child being on his own trip. So, what was it that this mute, oppressed lady had in her that the family held together until her last breath? The idea is not to glorify and romanticize her victimhood but recognize her strength and take a humble bow loaded with embarrassment for the life my paternal family gave her. Did she also cry before she breathed her last calling for her husband, “ami bachte chai?”

Today, as tumultuous times we live in continue to unfold in front of us with violent fervour, eliminating one by one every little peg on which our existence depends, two contrasting mothers display similar strength, compassion and provide an enlightening insight into motherhood.

Two Mothers, Two Political Journeys

Sabiha Khanum and Leela Bora, the mothers of jailed academic, student leader Umar Khalid and Neha Bora, the national president of AISA (All India Students’ Association), respectively. Neha, after the hunger strike she sat on at Jantar Mantar during the recent Cockroach Janata Party movement, has become the most important face of the Gen Z protests and is now actively working in the student movement in Jharkhand. Umar as we know is still in prison.

As Neha fasted steadfastly at Jantar Mantar, a colleague came and told her that she has a lady visitor who says she is her mother! Since her parents have completely opposite political views from hers, Neha couldn’t believe her mother was there. Only when her friend said she is saying she is from Bareilly did Neha realize it could actually be her mother. And soon after Leela Bora found herself standing in front of her daughter on hunger strike.

All political views were promptly forgotten by both, as Leela felt the bones on Neha’s back, took her head into her lap and started to massage it. Neha says her relationship with her parents was fractured until that moment. But at that moment, all conflicts were bypassed. Not that there was any resolution, there was simply surrender. More on the part of her mother than on Neha’s.

Leela Bora And The Meaning Of Motherhood

Is motherhood transcendental then? Perhaps. It is certainly complex, complicated and nuanced. Some days later when the minister resigned, Leela called Neha to congratulate her. Everything that Leela had believed in politically or socially had ceased to matter. Remember towards the end of Deewar when Nirupa Roy says, “ek aurat apna farz nibha chuki, ab ek maa apne betey se milne ja rahi hai.”

Sabiha Khanum And A Mother’s Patience

Sabiha on the other hand has a much longer history of uncertainties, agony and incarceration. Umar Khalid, a student leader and then imprisoned under UAPA after the Delhi riots has been in jail for 5 years without trial. Today, after his mother Sabiha received a copy of her son’s book, Fractured Communities, both she and her husband were filled with an inexplicable feeling, Sabiha implies in her column in the Indian Express.

Lauded as one of the finest works of academic scholarship by none other than Ramchandra Guha, the book is an extension of Umar’s PhD thesis on the Adivasis of Singhbhum in Jharkhand. I have had the privilege of meeting Umar long ago, and remember him being polite and humble. Someone very clear and resolute about his beliefs. There was not an iota of compromise in his world view.

Sabiha has seen all this up close. And she knows deep down that it is a long battle that not only Umar, but the whole family yet has in front of them to fight. She displays rationality and dignity in her column that is a tribute to the intellectual and moral wealth of her son. There is a quiet pride that Sabiha demonstrates in the article, but it is laced with pain.

When Motherhood Crosses Political Divides

In a world where parents deter children from taking the risky paths, in a “play safe” world, Sabiha is steadfastly standing with Umar, demonstrating a kind of patience only a parent can, maybe? She talks about nuance in understanding Umar, I feel one needs nuance in understanding a mother!

Returning to my own house, my own mother, the pride is in reverse. Into her eighties as she flew down some years ago from Mumbai to Delhi, on the top of her list was a visit to the CAA protests.

Only we know how restless she was during the recent Jantar Mantar protests, regretting not being there in Delhi. “If I could be in Delhi, I would have gone to the protest”, she told me.

No wonder one morning she overheard someone say, “Allah O Akbar” and she proclaimed, “Allah O Akbar kya hota hai, hum toh Inqilab Zindabad kehtey hein!!!”

Such is motherhood indeed.