Why Hindi blockbuster Sholay remains relevant in India today

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This week in Himal

A still from the Hindi blockbuster Sholay, starring Dharmendra (left) and Amitabh Bachchan (right), both holding guns with a hilly landscape in the background

This week, Anna M M Vetticad writes about the 1975 Hindu blockbuster Sholay and its enduring relevance, reflecting the degradation of India’s sociopolitical landscape even 50 years later.

Don’t miss Kanika Gupta and Safina Nabi’s article on undocumented migrants from Bangladesh fleeing natural disaster and poverty, who face anti-immigrant rhetoric and crackdowns upon crossing the border into India.

Parliamentarian Manoj Jha speaks about India’s politics of fear and division in episode 11 of ‘Partitions of the Heart: Conversations with Harsh Mander.’

For the upcoming episode of the State of Southasia podcast, host Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Zahra Nader, editor-in-chief of Zan Times, about Iran’s brutal deportation drive of Afghan refugees, who face abuse, arbitrary detention and a humanitarian crisis in returning to Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Last week’s edition of Southasia Weekly was not delivered to all our readers due to a technical glitch - so in case you missed last week’s articles, you can browse through them in the roundup below.

Also read: Climate refugees from Bangladesh face a political storm in India

Also read: Ipsita Chakravarty on resistance, remembrance and storytelling in Kashmir: Southasia Review of Books podcast #30

Also read: Manoj Jha & Harsh Mander on India’s politics of fear and division

Also read: How the Tablighi Jamaat is reshaping Khyber Pakhtunkhwah and opening doors for radicalisation

Also read: Searching for Swadesh Deepak in Hindi literature

Also read: Fifty years on, Sholay’s triumphs and flaws echo through Hindi cinema and Indian society

This week in Himal

Cartoon of Narendra Modi peeping out of the top of a ballot box, to illustrate Bihar's electoral roll revisions

Calls grow for rollback on Bihar’s electoral roll revisions

On 11 August, India’s opposition leaders held a protest calling for the rollback of revisions to the voter list in Bihar, leading to Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders being briefly detained. Gandhi accused India’s Election Commission of turning a blind eye to irregularities in the voter list during the 2024 parliamentary elections, including duplicate voters, invalid addresses and bulk registration of votes at single locations, at least some of which have since been authenticated by media reports. On 12 August, India’s Supreme Court said “mistakes” may have occurred while preparing Bihar’s voter list, adding that the Election Commission was ready to correct them. Media reports found that over 5000 voters with existing voting cards in Uttar Pradesh have been illegally listed in Valmikinagar in Bihar. There have also been reports of voters being wrongly declared dead and struck off the voting list. Bihar residents have also reported that the list contains wrong photos or the details of people who have since passed away.

News of the discrepancies is being met with deep concern as India has already expressed plans to roll out revisions in other states including West Bengal. India’s opposition leaders have said that the revisions are a thinly veiled excuse for the BJP to disenfranchise the poor, oppressed castes, and Muslim voters. India’s Election Commission has also been accused of withholding documents and data on the revisions, leading to a lack of transparency. Simultaneously, the BJP has used anti-immigrant rhetoric to justify the Bihar electoral roll revisions, and the impacts of this are already being felt in northeast India - in Dhubri, Assam, Bengali-speaking Muslim citizens say they are simultaneously being evicted from their homes, disenfranchised, and sometimes deported into Bangladesh. In light of this, Makepeace Sitlhou’s article from April 2024, part of our series ‘Modi’s India from the Edges’ is worth revisiting, as is Harsh Mander’s article from June 2025.

Also read: Under Modi, the Northeast is more united with India, but more divided within

Elsewhere in Southasia

LGBTQ+ Pride parade held in Nepal coinciding with Newari Gaijatra festival, 1200 people participate
Maldivian president terminates its environmental watchdog and places it under control of its environment ministry to “shorten and expedite” development projects
Sri Lanka permits cannabis planting by seven foreign companies in six-month-long trial cultivation project
UK government adds Indian nationals to “Deport Now Appeal Later” migration list of foreigners sentenced for crimes, leaving appeals processes to be conducted virtually
US classifies Baloch Liberation Army as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation after signing a trade deal with Pakistan permitting access to Balochistan’s oil reserves
Indian media coverage of attacks on Indians in Ireland spark cancellation of India Day events in Farmleigh, though risk assessment remains underway
Sri Lanka pauses work on two wind power projects in Mannar in the northern province after days of protests from residents on sand-mining, wind power projects
Nepal removes permit fees for ninety seven mountains in a bid to encourage tourism
Mudslide in Danyor, Pakistan kills seven individuals trying to fix water channel damaged in monsoon
Sixteen civilians lose their lives in bombing by junta warplanes in Myanmar
Supreme Court of India orders protection of editor of The Wire Siddharth Varadarajan and the trust Foundation for Independent Journalism against Assam Police in sedition case on article about Operation Sindoor
Myanmar junta detains toddlers in place of their parents within prisons, UN Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar reports, documents systemic torture including sexual violence
Six Afghan citizens killed in Iran in three months, none of their cases addressed, Taliban regime-led refugee commission says
Hundreds gather in Mullaitivu, Sri Lanka for funeral of youth found dead after working in army camp before it was dismantled, army denies involvement
Revisit some of our archival stories adding more context to some of this week's news updates from Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan