Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN notes that "Mother India" "didn't just put India on the world map, it also defined Hindi cinema for decades that followed." Film critic Dave Kehr agrees that it influenced Indian films for the next 50 years. A 1983 Channel 4 documentary on Hindi cinema describes the film as setting a benchmark in Indian cinema. The shooting stance of Nargis at the end of the film is one of the all-time iconic images of Hindi cinema. Other iconic scenes include Radha pulling the plough through the field (see film poster at the top) and feeding chapatis to her two sons as they pull the plough. The "Hindustan Times" states that Nargis symbolised mothers in "which all the mothers later films had the same clichéd roles to play. Representing both motherhood and Mother Earth, who also nurtures and occasionally punishes, Nargis immortalised the Indian mother on celluloid." The film pioneered the portrayal of two morally opposed brothers personifying good and evil, which became a repeated motif in Hindi films, including "Gunga Jumna" (1961) and "Deewaar" (1975). The rebellious Birju also inspired the "angry young man" stock character that arose in 1970s Hindi cinema. According to scholar Brigitte Schulze, "Mother India" played a key role in shaping the young Republic of India's national identity in its early years following independence from the British Raj, due to how the film was able to successfully convey a sense of Indian nationalism to the urban and rural masses.