B.R. Chopra: Film-maker whose work struck a balance between commercialism and social relevance

During a career that stretched five decades, Baldev Raj Chopra achieved what most other film-makers only dream of. His films were popular, but bore a social conscience. They tackled some of the most pressing issues ofthe day, yet were presented in such a manner that they were devoured by audiences.

A giant during the golden age of Hindi cinema, Chopra also pushed at the boundaries of what was acceptable. In a movie culture where song-and-dance routines were considered an absolute requirement, he produced a courtroom drama, Kanoon, that was a big box office success and yet did without any such songs. He also examined social issues that few others would dare risk looking at. In films such as Insaf Ka Tarazu and Gumrah, he looked at the taboo topics of women's rape and extramarital affairs.

Chopra was born in Ludhiana in pre-partition India to a middle-class Hindu family. He had six brothers and sisters and his father was a government officer. After studying for a Master's Degree in English Literature at Lahore University, he planned for a career in the Indian civil service. Such a career was thwarted, however, when he failed the entry exams, and instead he turned to journalism. In 1938 he became editor of a well-known movie magazine.

With such an immersion in the industry, Chopra was inspired to make a film of his own. Gathering funds from friends of his father, he was ready to proceed with his project in 1947. Instead the brutal and bloody division of the nation that year, and the subsequent evacuation of millions of people on either side of the new border, saw Chopra and his family flee to Delhi.

The family then moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) and invested all their money in what would be Chopra first film, Karwat, which was a failure. With Chopra as the only wage-earner the family went bankrupt and the ambitious young movie man returned to journalism in order to survive. Two years later, he produced and directed a thriller, Afsana, and in 1955 was in a position to establish his own production company.

From this base he then went on to produce a series of classics. Among his best-known films was a musical, Naya Daur, that looked at the potential conflict between new technology and India's rural traditions. The film told the story of the struggle over whether to replace a village's two-wheeled horse-drawn cart with a bus. Ever relevant, the film was rereleased in India last year in color with digital sound. His film 1958 film Sadhana, that looked at the rehabilitation of prostitutes, was also a hit.

But there was controversy too. After the release in 1980 of Insaf Ka Tarazu, some critics said he had plagiarised the Hollywood film Lipstick for the basis of his movie. The explicit scene portraying a rape was also controversial but Chopra defended it as being essential to the story he was trying to tell.

Chopra's younger brother, Yash, also enjoyed a successful career and for several years in the early 1960s the two brothers worked together. They eventually went their own ways because of artistic differences. As a director, Yash worked on a series of hit movies with Amitabh Bachchan, perhaps India's most famous actor.

In the late 1980s Chopra, whose son Ravi is also a film-maker, turned to television and produced Mahabharat, based on the classic Hindu story that tells of the struggle between good and evil. The series, directed by Ravi and broadcast every Sunday morning, was a massive hit and became one of the most successful Indian television productions. Chopra continued to make the series, which also found a sizable audience in Britain, until 1990. As an indication both of the respect he was held in by the industry and the success of the series, he persuaded a number of major Bollywood actors to participate in the project.

Andrew Buncombe

Baldev Raj Chopra, film director and producer: born Ludhiana, Punjab, India 22 April 1914 ; married (one son, two daughters); died Mumbai, India 5 November 2008.