“Kaala Pathar” is a film that deals with the conditions of the workers in coal mines and their exploitation by the capitalists.
The film’s hero, Vijay (Amitabh Bachan) was a captain in a ship who has become a worker in Dhanraj Coal Mines, owned by Dhanraj Puri (Prem Chopra). He decided to become a worker because as a ceptain he had left his sinking ship. This shame drives him into the ranks of the working class.
Full of anger with himself, he stops caring about his life, When an accident occurs in the mine and a worker is trapped, he fearlessly enters the shaft and rescues him. On another occasion, he beats up Ohanna, a local bully, for refusing to pay up his debt at a restaurant. But these actions are the result of Vijay’s anger with himself, rather than anger with the society that can permit such exploitation.
Meanwhile the capitalist Dhanraj Puri flies to the coal fields in his private airplane. He drives through the workers’ quarters-dark, unhealthy hell-holes and says: “I feel like selling off the mines, when I see the conditions in which these people live. But what can I do ? After all, it is business”.
Soon, he is joined by Ravi Malhotra (Shashi Kapoor), an engineer who has been lucky enough to get a job at Dhanraj Coal Mines, unlike thousands of unemplo-yed engineers in the country. He arrives (singing) on a motor bike while several women dance around him like decorations.
On meeting Puri, Malhotra tries to warn him about certain dangers in the mine shafts. There is a large quantity of water beyond one of the tunnels (tunnel 4). If digging continues, the water is certain to flood the tunnel, which could kill almost 400 workers working in that shift. But Puri does not listen to Malhotra. He does a simple calculation: If the digging continues, he would lose 400 workers, but would earn Rs. 40 lakhs as profits. Caring more for his profits than the safety of the workers. Puri decides to continue digging.
Soon, two ladies arrive at the coal mines. One is Dr Sudha Sen (Rakhee) who comes “to serve the poor”, and is told that “there are no patients in this hospital, but living corpses”. The second is Anita (Parveen Babi). a journalist, who arrives by Puri’s private plane to write about the coal mines.
They are followed closely by a third arrival-Mangal Singh (Shatrughan Sinha), an escaped convict, who decides to hide from the police by becoming a worker in the mines. He soon finds a friend, Chenno (Neetu Singh), a village girl who sells combs and tantric rings”. But as Vijay later says, “these tantric rings are not really rings. They are dreams. The workers’ life is as dark as a coal-tunnel, so they keep buying these dreams”. Not realising that only struggle can lead them to freedom, the workers try to find their liberation by these illusory means,
It is this same dependence on illusion that the workers show while waging their limited struggles. For instance, a huge demonstration takes place out-side the capitalist’s house when the workers demand three months wages as bonus. Ravi Malhotra is asked to speak on the workers’ behalf, and like every ruling-class unionist, his first step is to curb the militancy of the workers. He agrees to speak only on the condition that the workers do not shout any slogans. “You won’t get anything if you shout”, he says. His conversation with Puri, the capitalist, makes his class-nature even clearer. He argues: “If the workers demand only a small part of your profit, after earning so many lakhs of rupees for you, is that unfair ?”
In other words, the demand for bonus is fair because it is “only a small part of the profits that the real producers earn for the capitalist not because it is a right won through bitter struggle which ruling-class “union leader does not use the same argument to fool the working people? The capitalist, realising this advantage, grants the demand immediately. Amid cries of “Ravi Babu Zindabad”, Malhotra drives home the lesson that the ruling classes wish to teach the workers-demands can be won without struggle.
Meanwhile, a cat-and-mouse game begins between Vijay and Mangal, who wishes to prove that he is the “dada of the area. After a great deal of provocation, a fight becomes inevitable. Just as the fight is about to begin, a police-van appears and an inspector, showing Mangals photograph, asks Vijay whether that man lives there. Vijay looks at Mangal, who is standing a short distance away, and denies it. This shows that he recognises the basic truth that although workers may fight among themselves, they are one against their common enemy the capitalist-landlord state.
Another fight breaks out between Anita, the journalist, and Dhanraj Puri. She had written articles attacking the capitalist and he is furious. Defending herself. Anita argues: “Your workers live like ants and cockroaches, because you run the colliery for your profit. The wealth of the country should not be owned by individuals but by all. I am going to demand that your mines should be nationalised. Look at the mines run by the government-their workers get every facility”. But is this true? As a matter of fact, most mines are owned by the govern-ment today, but the conditions of the workers remain as miserable as ever. The murder of our comrades in Chasnala took place despite their being owned by the government. This is not surprising since the govern-ment is also a capitalist-landlord government. So long as the government is used by the exploiters to rule over the workers, nationalisation can only mean the substitution of one kind of exploita-tion for another. This is what the journalist fails to point out, and thus helps the capitalist to spread illusions about the class nature of our government although she appears to be opposing him.
Some days later, an explosion takes place in the shaft and five workers are killed. The workers are shocked into anger. That evening as the capi talist drives along the road, Vijay stands across it to block his way. “Are you blind ? shouts Puri at him. “It is you who are blind, Dhanraj Puri”, replies Vijay. “Today, five workers died in an explosion. But why should you care? Many poor people live here. Twenty-five more will come to take their place. Your mines are like pythons, who squeeze the workers to death. If you do not take care of the workers, they will keep on suffering, and the women will become widows again, and again, and again”.
A brave speech-but is it realistic ? No class-conscious worker would say that the workers suffer because the capitalist “does not take care of them. On the contrary, knowing that the capitalist has eyes only for his profits, he would organise his comrades to struggle against the capitalist system and the capi-talist-landlord government. But for Vijay, struggle is a personal battle against Dhanraj Puri, it is more a product of his bravery than his class-consciousness.
In spite of Vijay’s warnings and Ravi Malhotra’s efforts to stop work in Tunnel 4, Puri forces the wor-kers to dig for more coal. Soon, water begins to seep through the shaft walls, pushes against them with increasing force and finally breaks them down. The shafts rapidly begin to turn into a watery grave for the workers trapped inside.
Dhanraj Puri’s reaction is typical. “Accidents keep happening”, he says. Suddenly, Vijay bursts into the room and seizes him by the collar. After beating him up he drags Puri to the coal mines where the workers are waiting helplessly. In fact, there is not a single scene in the film in which the mass of the workers show any initiative let alone heroism.
Passively, as they had let Malhotra fight for their bonus, they wait for Vijay to save them from death. This focus on the individual and not on the class, is just what the ruling classes desire. On the other hand, all class conscious workers recognise that only the militant struggle of the exploited masses can lead to victory.
Mangal Singh, Vijay and Malhotra continue to save the workers, and Mangal Singh is killed in the pro-cess. Finally, as the last batch of workers is about to be pulled out, the cable of the lift breaks. Jagga, an enterprising truck-driver, ties a rope to his truck and pulls the workers out.
But Vijay and Ravi are still trapped inside. Just as Jagga begins to pull them out, his truck’s machine goes dead. Thousands of workers stand around watching. But do they seize the rope, welding the power of individuals into the power of a heroic class, and pull up the lift? They don’t they are as passive as ever. Jagga mumbles a short prayer. and miraculously, the engine starts. Thus, the workers are robbed of their initiative and Vijay is saved
by an act of God. Suddenly. Vijay’s parents appear in a car as big as the capitalist’s. (Puri himself is hiding in a police-van, where his police watchdogs protect him from the anger of the widows). They have been called by Dr. Sudha Sen, who then marries Vijay. The final scene shows a government run coal-mine, with the words “The dawn of a new era and the beginning”.
But if the capitalist-landlord government takes over the mines, for whom will a “new era” dawn? Only for the capitalists themselves, who will get a “new” chance to indirectly continue exploiting the workers. It is this ruling class out-look which makes “Kaala Pathar a half-truth.
It shows the exploitation and suffering of the workers; to some extent it praises militancy, and finally proposes a ruling class solution to the problem. And such a half-truth, as most people know, is worse than the blackest of lies. Each worker must, there-fore, recognise the film for what it really is a film about the exploited, made by the exploiters,