NEW DELHI:Eighty-four-years after it was released, a blockbuster black and white film has got a minor resurrection, virtually, due to the link between its ingenue heroine and India’s biggest diplomatic summit in decades. The India-Africa Forum Summit has led to not just sprucing up of Delhi’s roads, but also to the evacuation of rare nuggets from history to demonstrate India’s historical linkages with Africa. The first-ever Indian talkie made in 1931, Alam Ara is a historical romance based on a Parsi play. Ironically, the female lead was played by a Sidi princess named Zubeida, whose father was the Nawab of Sachin State in Gujarat. He was of African origin, descended from a diaspora of the Dark Continent to India around the 15th century. This concept of shared history is at the forefront of India’s African initiative to give it a distinct colour as opposed to Africa’s partnerships with China or the United States. On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a group of 40 African editors that this relationship went “beyond strategic considerations”.
“It has been forged by our intersecting history; our centuries-old ties of kinship, commerce and culture,” noted Modi.
On Facebook and Twitter, the coy smile of 20-year-old Zubeida is repeated almost every other day on the Ministry of External Affairs’ pages to promote the summit.