General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Namak Haraam (नमक हराम)

Namak Haraam (नमक हराम) is a 1973 Hindi-language drama film directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, starring Rajesh Khanna as the working-class Somu and Amitabh Bachchan as the wealthy Vicky, whose friendship is broken by a labor dispute at a factory. The title translates roughly as "ungrateful" or "unreliable" (the opposite of namak halaal, faithful to one's salt).¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	23 November 1973 (censor certificate dated 19 November 1973)³^•⁴
Director	Hrishikesh Mukherjee¹
Writers	Story by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and D.N. Mukherjee; screenplay and dialogue by Gulzar¹^•³
Music	R.D. Burman; lyrics Anand Bakshi; playback by Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle, and Usha Mangeshkar³^•⁴
Source	Adaptation of the 1964 film Becket, with Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole⁵
Runtime	2h 20m on Apple TV and Rotten Tomatoes; 146 min on JustWatch; censor length 145m 34s⁶^•⁷^•⁴
Reception	IMDb rating 7.2/10 from about 2,000 votes; a box-office hit of 1973⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Plot

Somu (Somnath) lives in a shanty house in a Delhi slum with his widowed mother and unmarried sister Sarla; he is close friends with Vikram "Vicky" Maharaj, son of the wealthy Calcutta industrialist Damodar Maharaj (Om Shivpuri). When Damodar has a heart attack, Vicky takes charge of his father's factory and comes into conflict with the senior employee and union leader Bipinlal Pandey (A.K. Hangal). A worker loses his arm in an accident, and Vicky asks Somu to infiltrate the workforce and turn the workers against Pandey. Somu succeeds in replacing Pandey as union leader, but living among workers whose wages cannot buy grain, rice, or oil, and whose families die of preventable illnesses for lack of treatment, he begins to side with them, opening a rift between the two friends.¹^•⁹^•⁷

The A.V. Club's history of 1970s Hindi cinema identifies two central virtues in this setup: the idea that friendship can transcend class, and the question of what happens when class transcends a friendship. When Vicky advocates raising the workers' wages to his father, Damodar's cold refusal marks the point of no return.⁹

Cast and crew

Rajesh Khanna plays Somnath "Somu" Chander Singh and Amitabh Bachchan plays Vikram "Vicky" Maharaj. The supporting cast includes Simi Garewal as Manisha, Rekha as Shyama, Asrani as Dhondu, A.K. Hangal as Bipinlal Pandey, Durga Khote as Somu's mother, Om Shivpuri as Damodar Maharaj, Manmohan as Jai Singh, and Raza Murad as Alam.⁷^•³

The film was produced by Jayendra Pandya, Raja Ram, and Satish Wagle for R.S.J. Productions, with cinematography by Jaywant Pathare, editing by Das Dhaimade, and art direction by Ajit Banerjee.³^•¹⁰

Music

R.D. Burman composed the score and Anand Bakshi wrote the lyrics. The songs include the friendship anthem Diye jalte hain ("Diye Jalate Hain, Phool Khilate Hain, Badee Mushkil Se Magar Duniya Men Dost Milate Hain"), sung by Kishore Kumar, along with Nadiya se dariya, Main shayar badnaam, the Holi song Holi hai, and the satirical electoral song Wo jhootha hai vote na usko dena. Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle, and Usha Mangeshkar were the playback singers, and the soundtrack was released on the Saregama-HMV label.³^•⁴^•¹¹

Production and the changing of stardom

When shooting began in 1972, Rajesh Khanna was the reigning superstar with almost no dates to spare, while Amitabh Bachchan, before the release of Zanjeer, was widely available. Mukherjee therefore shot most of Bachchan's solo scenes without Khanna. When the unfinished film was shown to distributors, they took Bachchan to be the lead and Khanna a special appearance, and declined to buy it; one distributor mocked the hero's haircut. After Zanjeer became a blockbuster, that same distributor demanded that Bachchan's role be enlarged and that he receive equal prominence on the posters.⁵

Khanna had been offered the role of Vicky first and declined it, asking for the other role instead. After watching Bachchan's performance, Khanna said that someone had come to replace his stardom; the A.V. Club calls the film the beginning of the end of Khanna's reign in Hindi cinema. At the premiere, Khanna reportedly told Mukherjee, "Here's the superstar of tomorrow."⁵^•⁹^•¹²

This was the second and last time Khanna and Bachchan shared the screen, after Anand (1971), owing to the rivalry between them.⁵ The film also marked a departure for Mukherjee, known for warm comedies and family dramas such as Anand, Bawarchi, and Chupke Chupke: set against the backdrop of the textile mills, it was his most political film, dramatizing the clash between capitalism and socialism.¹¹^•¹³

Source and context

The film adapts the 1964 Hollywood classic Becket, mapping the Burton and O'Toole roles onto Khanna and Bachchan respectively.⁵^•¹¹ It appeared in November 1973, months after Zanjeer had introduced Bachchan as the "Angry Young Man" in May of that year, and it reinforced that screen persona.¹²

Availability

As of the most recent listings, the film is not included with any subscription streaming service in the United States; it can be rented from $3.99 or bought from $9.99 in HD on Apple TV, Prime Video, Google TV, and YouTube, and on DVD from Amazon. In India it streams on Airtel Xstream Play via Amazon MX Player with eligible Airtel plans.¹⁴^•⁷^•⁸

Other uses of the title

A separate Pakistani Urdu television series, Namak Haram, aired on HUM TV from 3 November 2023, starring Imran Ashraf as Mureed and Sarah Khan as Asma, written by Saqlain Abbas and directed by Shaqielle Khan; its finale aired in May 2024.¹⁵^•¹⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Hindi films of the 1970s › Released 1970 to 1975

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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