Amrik Singh/Amritsar

The release of the Pakistani film The Legend of Maula Jatt featuring Fawad Khan as the hero who fights his enemy Noori Natt, played by Hamza Ali Abbassi, who has been in the news for his extremist religious views than roles in TV serials, has given rise to the debate in Punjab and among the Diaspora about the reality of Muala Jatt.

The film is based on the 1979 Pakistani cult classic Maula Jatt. As it was then, people are against trying to find out if Maula Jatt was a real character.

Maula Jatt was made in Punjabi and Urdu while The Legend of Maula Jatt has also been dubbed in English for a worldwide release Urdu-Punjabi and English.

Famous Indian filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has also evinced interest in seeing The Legend of Maula Jatt. The film has not been released in India, so far though it been a huge commercial success elsewhere.

Through the portrayal of the character Maula Jatt in the movies, an impression was sought to be created that he was a Rambo or a Robin Hood, given to violent ways and yet a benefactor of the common poor people.

Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi

Many films based on this character have been made both in Punjab and Pakistan with Muala Jatt as the hero have been made in the Punjabi, Hindustani (Urdu) languages in India and Pakistan.

Punjab has a tradition of celebrating its heroes through movies, television serials, and folklore. Some of the legendary stories of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Dulha Bhatti, Sohni Mahiwal, Sassi Pannu, and Heer Ranjha have become instant hits in the Punjabi film industry.

All the films based on these historic characters were huge commercial successes but the hero in each of them is a well-known name whose memory has been perpetuated and popularized in history and folk tales and legends.  

In India, only a trailer of The legend of Maula Jatt was released.

The search for the reality of Mala Jatt takes us to Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, an Urdu story writer, novelist, poet, and journalist whose works have been translated into almost every language of the world. His translated works are also a rage with people in India. His Ghazals are sung by great singers and his stories have been adapted for theater shows.

Interestingly, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi’s famous story, Gandasa'. (a handheld axe) is quite famous. Its main character is named Maula; he is an ordinary youth of the village. His father is killed due to personal enmity.

 Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi belongs to the Sargodha district of Pakistan. He has created the character of Maula as a conventional villager with tones of self-respect bordering on haughtiness akin to that of a Jatt, which is a social caste. His narration is full of the local ethos

In Gandasa, the young Maula aspires to become a wrestler. However, his father’s killing changes his life.

A Poster of movie The Legend of Maula Jatt

He moves around in the village with his Gandasa and wants to shed the blood of his father’s killers. He takes a pledge to kill each member of the family of his father’s killer.

Maula Jatta leads a restless and chaotic life and his mind seethes with a sense of revenge.

Seeking vengeance, he roams around with his Gandasa all the time, day and night for years. The villagers start calling him  'Maula Gandase Wala'. He becomes famous by this name and there is no mention of his social caste.

Nor does the novel have dialogues used in the films based on Gandasa. Pakistani film script writer Nasir Adeeb was the first to write a script and screenplay of Gandasa for the movie Vehshi Jatt (Wild Jatt).

That movie had a new actor Sultan Rahi playing the role of Maula Jatt. This film got a good response and Sultan Rahi became a big star in Pakistan.

Gandasa is an iconic story far removed from the commercially appealing masala-film version of the movies based on it.

Once in an interview with BBC Radio, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi said that he is very attached to this story. Critics have also rated Gandasa among his representative and realistic, meaningful stories, and yet the over-dramatic film script plays a role in bringing the story to a younger audience.