DAMINI (1993): The Perennial Dilemma between Moral Duties and Personal Loyalties

DAMINI (1993) Starring Rishi Kapoor, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Sunny Deol & Amrish Puri

It is not very common for a mainstream Bollywood movie to highlight several important social issues in a realistic manner and at the same time retain its box office appeal. DAMINI, a 1993 movie directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi achieved this extra ordinary distinction with a story that involved love, a gruesome crime, a respectable family, a lady unable to suppress her conscience, a husband torn between his wife and family, and a courtroom drama that many can identify with. In the process, it raises an issue that has occupied central stage in Indian literature since several thousand years and the final answer to which continues to remain elusive. 

It raises the dilemma that most of us face at some point of time in our life, the choice between our moral duties on one hand and the duties towards our personal loyalties to someone on the other. It is the same question that was faced by Bhishma, Krishna and Karna in the epic story of Mahabharata. But, DAMINI raises other issues too. The plight of poor domestic maids faced with exploitation in households that they desperately cling on in search of livelihood, the dichotomy of standards that differentiate privileged from the unprivileged and the problems faced by those lacking adequate resources in the face of manipulation of criminal trials inside and outside the courtroom. Every one of these issues remains as relevant today as it was a quarter of a century back when this movie was released.

Meenakshi Sheshadri in DAMINI (1993): Arguably her Best Performance

1993 gave us a number of movies that can be considered a milestone for different reasons. These include Govinda and Chunkey Pandey’s AANKHEIN, Sharukh Khan’s BAAZIGAR, and Sanjay Dutt’s KHALNAYAK. One of those hits was DAMINI (1993), a movie that is difficult to forget. In many ways, it was an atypical movie, which threw two unexpected stars, Meenakshi Sheshadri and Sunny Deol, and can be arguably considered the best movie, even though both have illustrious careers and have given bigger box office hits.

The Plot

The movie begins with a young man from a rich family, Shekhar Gupta attending a dance performance that features Damini (Meenakshi Sheshadri) and Aamir Khan (in guest appearance). Shekhar instantly falls in love with Damini. When his parents, Mr. Gupta (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and Sumitra  (Rohini Hattangadi) visit Damini’s house to seek her for their son, Damini’s father, Chandrakant (Anjan Srivastav) boasts untruthfully about her, which she refutes and plainly speaks the truth. Her truthfulness impresses them and soon, Shekhar and Damini are married. In her new household, Damini is greeted by Urmi (Prajakta Kulkarni), the young housemaid and they develop a bond of affection. During the Holy festival, Shekhar’s young brother, Rakesh (Ashwin Kaushal) along with his friends, rapes Urmi, which is witnessed by Damini and Shekhar.

During police investigation, Urmi names Damini as her witness, which begins the struggle between truth and family interests. Under pressure from family, Damini first refuses to state the truth, but then is torn by her conscience and decides to seek justice for Urmi, in spite of all the pressure by her in laws, who are desperate to protect Rakesh at any cost. When she goes against them, she is shunned away. Even her own parents advice her to side by her family and not take this course, but she does not relent. Shekhar also tries his best to persuade her but in vain. 

Shekhar’s family hires indrajeet Chaddha (Amrish Puri) as the defence counsel, who is a master at manipulating trials by all legal and illegal means. They try to establish that Damini is mad, and get her admitted in a Mental Asylum where colluding staff get her drugged with medicines. However, she runs away. She is also targeted by Rakesh and her friends, and while running to save herself one night, she comes across Govind (Sunny Deol), a lawyer who had lost hope and stopped practicing. Govind takes up her case and what follows is a courtroom drama that itself raises several issues about the ways in which judicial process is manipulated by counsels in India.

 The Perennial Dilemma

If one was to provide the essence of Mahabharata, the great Indian epic written several thousand years ago, in a single sentence, it would be the struggle between duties towards truth, right and morality or dharma on one hand and duties towards one’s personal loyalties and relationships on the other. This is exactly the dilemma that Arjun faced when he refused to take up arms to kill those whom he respected and loved, like Bhishma and Dronacharya. This is also the same dilemma that Karna faced when asked by Duryodhana to fight against Pandavas, and it was also the same dilemma that Krishna solved in dealing with Bhishma with Shikhandi, with Dronacharya with a false rumour reinforced through Yudhistira and with Karna through a cowardly act against the prevailing moral code of the times. In fact, even Bhishma, Dronacharya and several others fighting on both sides faced the same dilemma, and each one resolved it in his own way.

Rishi Kapoor & Meenakshi Sheshadri: Story of a Couple torn between Moral Duties & Family Loyalties

This very dilemma forms the core of DAMINI too, wherein a housewife with a strong conscience is torn between her duties towards the young and innocent housemaid who showered her with love and affection, and becomes the victim of a brutal crime within the household she treated as her home and her husband and their family members who all huddle together to save one of them from the repercussions of criminal prosecution. Whatever may be the theory, Indian morality of the last century and even this one puts an onerous duty towards one’s family. While Indians may not provide the greatest examples of moral duties towards the society or law, the family still occupies the centre stage in Indian moral compass, and one can say with conviction, that most Indians may prefer to side with their families rather than sacrifice their family for a theoretical code of moral duties.

And yet, Damini, who does the exactly opposite in this movie, emerges as the undisputed hero. One wonders as to how many in the audience would have really been sure that what she was doing was the right course of action. It is that perennial question to which there are still no simple answers, nor may ever be. Perhaps, what makes Damini’s act heroic is not that she was doing what was correct, but the fact that she had the courage and perseverance to be guided by her convictions. The ability to follow one’s convictions, irrespective of the consequences is what makes a person great in these times, when the conduct of most people is directed by narrow and materialistic interests. 

Epilogue

There are many more questions that this movie should raise, though it didn’t because it involves issues of morality that are almost invariably, across the world, taken as given. This leads to a complete absence of a discussion on what is morality and why something is considered morally right or wrong. As a result, we are often faced with a given moral value that no one is willing to discuss, and which at the same time, few can afford to practice!