राम राज्य

The story of the ideal kingdom of Rama — Ram Rajya — focusing on the Uttara Kanda portion of the Ramayana: after the great war, Rama and Sita's reunion, the shadow of public gossip, Sita's banishment, and the final test. Vijay Bhatt's devotional treatment made this the most celebrated Hindu mythological film of the 1940s.

Shankarrao Vyas set Tulsidas compositions and devotional texts to film music — austere, classical, without the commercial concessions of mainstream Bombay film song. The score suited the film's pilgrim-audience rather than urban cinema-goers.

Vijay Bhatt produced the film with conscious devotional intent — distribution included temple towns and pilgrimage circuits rarely served by mainstream cinema. Ram Rajya became one of the rare mythologicals that transcended the genre's usual devotee-audience to reach secular viewers moved by the political allegory of Ram Rajya as democratic ideal.

The only film Mahatma Gandhi is said to have seen in his lifetime — he watched Ram Rajya at his ashram. This anecdote attached enormous cultural prestige to the film and aligned it with the independence movement's search for an ideal Indian polity.

Gandhi's reported viewing of this film made 'Ram Rajya' a watchword for the ideal polity across the independence era; the phrase recurs in political speech to the present day.