Gory historic details or gore fest?

Razakar: The Silent Genocide Of Hyderabad (Telegu, 2024)

Director: Yata Satyanarayana

In her last major speech before her disposition, Sheikh Hasina accused those who opposed her rule in Bangladesh of being Razakars. The opposition took offence to this term and soon widespread mob throughout the land. Of course, it is not that that single incident brought down an elected government but a culmination of joblessness and unjust reservations for a select population group. In the Bengali psyche, Razakar is a pejorative term meaning traitor or Judas. It was first used during the 1971 Pakistan Civil War. The paramilitary group who were against the then-East Pakistani leader, Majibur Rehman, were pro-West Pakistan. After establishing independence in Bangladesh, Razakars were disbanded, and many ran off to Pakistan.

Around the time of Indian independence, turmoil brewed in the princely state of Hyderabad, which had been a province deputed by the Mughals from 1794. The rule of Nizam commenced since. That vast state of Hyderabad covered Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and parts of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. In total, seven Nizams ruled Hyderabad. Barring the rule of the sixth Nizam, Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan, their rule saw much discontent, oppression and restricted liberty. Even before the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, in 1857, 1000 members of rebelling tribal members were hung unceremoniously on a banyan tree. In the present state of Telangana, there was a kingdom named Gond. Some British soldiers trespassed on their land and destroyed public property. The Gond members killed them. The British retaliated by hanging the leader Ramji Gond and others on a tree immortalised as the 'thousand skull tree'. 

Other hardships the people endured were high taxes, forced conversion and the inability to use their preferred languages. Before this, Telegu, Marathi, Tamil and Kannada were freely spoken. Then came the use of Persian and Urdu. 

When the British decided to pack up and leave, the 562 Indian states could join Pakistan or India or stay alone. Hyderabad initially wanted to be part of Pakistan. Imagine the logistics of having a landlocked independent state with the ideology of the enemy, i.e. Pakistan. The last Nizam gave Jinnah an audience, but his demeanour cheesed off the Nizam. Upon taking his seat, Jinnah sat with one leg crossed against the other and smoked a cigar. That, remarked the offended Nizam, was the end of their discussion. The Nizam vowed to stand alone, promising to develop Hyderabad to Turkistan, the apt replacement for the once splendid Ottoman Empire.

This much is known. India wanted Hyderabad to be part of India after two large chunks of land were given to Pakistan, but states made a deal with India-Pakistan. The Standstill Agreement in November 1947 gave the princely states a year to decide which side to opt for.

What happened within Hyderabad State is debatable. Though many of the gory stories that come out are denied by many journalists and historians, many swear of the atrocities that bordered on genocide that they had to endure. At the end of the day, it is a Muslim-Hindu issue. The deniers insist it was humanly impossible for a ragtag squad of Razakars to create so much damage. They blame the communists who were also trying to put footage into the state. It was a chaotic time. Peasants were rebelling, and landowners wanted to hold onto their lands. 

Hyderabad had a population of 15% Muslims, who ruled the majority Hindus. The ruling class also included Pathans, Arabs, and other foreign administrators. The frugal Nizam was, at that time, the wealthiest man on Earth, with diamonds and other priceless minerals under his thumb. When the Nizam wanted to remain independent, his yeoman, Qasim Razvi, the leader of a quasi-political party, clandestinely recruited radical volunteers to uphold Islam and prevent the fall to the control of the Hindu Rashtra. Razakar is an Arabic word meaning volunteer. 

Meanwhile, with his vast coffers, the Nizam procured surrender German weapons from the victors of WW2. Rifles and automatic guns were flown in via Pakistan with the help of arms dealers. One such person was Frederick Sidney Cotton, who was supposed to transport Qasim Rizvi out of Hyderabad when the Nizam fell, but Cotton left him behind.

 Sadar Patel was the leading man behind the liberation of the people of Hyderabad. 75 years later, the correct nomenclature for this exercise is still debated: whether it was a liberation of the state or the integration of the State into the rest of India. Nehru and Patel tried to dissolve the tension amicably through negotiations. K M Munshi was sent as a negotiator. When all talks failed, and the cry of the people of Hyderabad reached screeching levels, Patel and the Indian Army with the airforce moved into Hyderabad under what was called 'Police Action' in Operation Polo, disobeying the Standstill Agreement. Hyderabad was annexed into the Indian Dominion on 17th September 1948.

Qasim Risvi was charged with sedition and was imprisoned till 1957. He left for Karachi after his release and died a pauper in 1970. The Nizam was not charged but was given a ceremonial post till his date.

This movie created a lot of controversies before its release. The filmmakers were accused of distorting history. The atrocities were magnified, and some of the violence committed by the upper-class Hindus, moneylenders, landowners and communists was assumed to have been done by Razakars. There were half-truths and blatant lies. The Nizam is said to have aided Hindu concerns and temples. It seemed that the Communists did fight against the Razakars, but they were not credited in the movie. Some intellectuals label it as Hindutva propaganda. The Hanging Tree incident is a fight against the British but somehow lumped here as the Nizam's doing. It turned out to be a gore fest with little cinematic value or compelling storytelling.

(P.S. Qasim Razvi's party remains a legitimate political party. From Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MIM, it is now known as All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, AIMIM. It is a formidable opposition party that regularly churns out Islam and Muslim-related issues. After Rizvi, the party's helm was passed to Abdul Wahid Owaisi, the current leader's grandfather.)

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No one gives a damn really!

Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Clapped Star, Bengali, 1960)
Screenplay & Direction: Ritwik Ghatak

I saw him brought in earlier in handcuffs and was attended to by my seniors. I noticed that everyone was looking at him with judgemental looks. So as not to embarrass him further, I just immersed myself in work. Still, from the corners of my eye, I did notice that he looked too intelligent to be wearing prison attire and be shoved around like a common criminal.

He must have seen me clerking the patients all through the afternoon, and there I was, still attending to patients at 10pm, as the first frontliner and the most junior of the staff. I must have looked gullible enough for him to quietly signal me to come beside him as I passed him by.

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So, when he called me, I was curious. He complained he had chest pains that could be a heart attack and needed a certification letter that he had a massive myocardial infarction. I was scratching my head. At most, he could be having some musculoskeletal discomfort. His symptoms and ECG suggested that the possibility of a full-blown cardiac event was remote. I told him, "I will see what I can do", and never went in his direction again.

I later found out he was a senior lawyer charged with a criminal breach of trust suit and was scheduled to appear in courts the following day, hence the delay tactic. And, I was the sucker to be used for his personal intent.

For a long time, I was annoyed by the event. There I was, squeezing my brains trying to sort out the best treatment for the ill patients, and someone out there was one-minded to get me into trouble and sweet talk me for his nefarious intentions. 

As the years went on, I soon realised that nobody actually gives anyone a damn. At the end of the day, it is all about self-sustenance and personal gratification. If I were working through lunch that day because I thought the patients needed more urgent attention than my suppressible hunger, it is no fault of the patients. It was mine for not prioritising and lack of foresightedness. As if these things are predictable? I chose my line of duty. I thought it was my calling, so stop whining. I am just a mere spoke in the wheel of human civilisation. And the direction of the human march is forward, and I am the lubrication to ensure smooth motion. Nobody is worried that the lubricant dries up or gets denatured. It is what it is.

This 1960 Bengali movie reminded me of that event that happened 33 years ago. The film was made by a legendary filmmaker, Ritwik Ghatak, who is often to referred to as the second most influential director to another great Bengali moviemaker, Satyajit Ray. Ghatak's compositions combine neo-realism with a bit of over-dramatisation to portray the society we live in. Many of his films show female empowerment, societal divisions and the effect of the 1947 Partition on the Bengal region.

Khuki's family is a refugee family affected by the Partition. The family is probably from the Bhadralok class of society who benefitted from the British Rule acquiring Western education and 'cultured' behaviour. All that came to nought overnight as they were deprived of homes and possessions after the bloody feud for statehood. So this middle-upper echelon of East Bengal spilt over westwardly for survival.

Khuki's father is an old school teacher who could recite Keats and Shakespeare at the drop of a hat, becomes debilitated after a fall. The responsibility of caring for the family falls on Khuki. She has ambitions of higher education and marriage to the love of her life, Sanat.

Khuki's mother is forever complaining of increasing expenses for the household. The eldest son of the family, Shankar, is only interested in being a world-class singer. Till then, he was not planning to do any other work. A younger brother, Mantu, is a keen sportsman. The youngest, Gita, is a dreamy young girl interested in staying pretty and not in her studies.

Khuki sacrifices all desires for the well being of the family. She surrenders her salary, gives up her comfort and even gives up her man to be married off to her sister. What she gets in return is just more demands and contempt. All the stresses did not augur well for Khuki.

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Memories are made of these?

Sardar ka Grandson (Hindi, Sardar's Grandson; 2021)
Netflix

Somebody was comparing two pieces of land that were carved out of a more significant portion of land, circa 1947-48. See how the parent state reacts to the other. What a contrast!  In 1947, the Muslim state of Pakistan (1,030,000 km²) was carved out of a large piece of land that was essentially Buddhist/Hindu for thousands of years. Despite all the bloodshed and emotional trauma that accompanied this creation, India, by and significant accepted the turn of historical events and carried on with life, trying to improve itself.

In contrast, the tiny Jewish State of Israel  (22,000 km²) was reborn in 1948 after 2000 years in a place where their forefathers, thousands of years previously before, were exiled. Yet, their neighbours and their yeomen are hellbent on the state's annihilation. The problem is where to mark the beginning of history and selective bias of record to determine who was there first. 

Since its inception, Israel has been defending itself from hostile neighbours. It had turned a deaf ear to curses from many of their proxies. Collectively, the enemies of Israel have made it a crusade to fight the land held sacred by other believers as well, Christians and Baha'is included. Still, there can be no place for intellectual discourse. Instead of living in harmony with its neighbours as the great scriptures advocate and improving their living standards, they chose anarchy. There has been no peace for the past 70 years.

When someone loses a place that they call home, what do they actually lose? Is it the physical space occupied by the person, or is it the memories associated with the place? Can the experiences and feelings be quantifiable? Is it justified to live brooding over lost land, living in melancholy reminiscing on how things were? Or should we accept it as the ever-changing tide of history and move on? Cambodia was once a race of master builders. Greece was where people of Europe started thinking beyond their primal, animalistic needs. But look at them now. Wind of change does not escape anyone.

Maybe it is trans-generational trauma of sorts, or perhaps it will be forgotten as the older generation, which was there in flesh and blood during the 1947 Partition. The event has affected the Punjabi community tremendously. 

This 2021 light comedy tells the tale of a Punjabi American immigrant (Amreek) who has to return urgently to Amritsar to visit his 90-year-old ailing grandmother, Sardar Kaur. In the USA, he runs a moving business with his fiancée, Radha. Due to his lackadaisical attitude and bumbling demeanour, they part ways.

Back in India, his grandmother's dying wish is to visit her former home in Lahore. Before the Partition, she and her husband had built a home. She had to leave it in desperation when Pakistanis moved in and killed her husband. So get a visa and go, right? The problem is that the grandmother is denied entry to Pakistan. On record, she has assaulted a Pakistani official many years before, as a spectator, before during a friendly cricket match. 

By then, Radha has moved on to other things. Amreek once witnesses her advertisement of her translocating a whole tree. Amreek decides to do the same for Sardar's house. As fate would have it, the official whom Sardar had assaulted is now Lahore's mayor, and he is not going to give the permit for translocation so easily. As expected, Amreek is successful, he and Radha are united, Sardar is happy, and the film managed to portray an image of buffoonery on the people of Pakistan and their officials. Perhaps that is the reason why the film fared so poorly on IMDB and Rotten Apples' scales.  The leftist media have to stand in support of their brethren. An enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The movie is average, but there are a lot of loopholes in the storyline. Imagine navigating a double-storey townhouse through the narrow and diabolical streets of Lahore on a trailer. If the viewers were to look beyond all these faux pas, they might enjoy this romcom.

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A believable myth

Tumbbad (Hindi; 2018)

Interestingly, myths, folklores and scriptures of lands far away carry a similar line of storytelling. As a baby, we find Moses let loose on a waterproofed basket in River Nile to escape the Pharoah's clutches and how he was brought up in another family. Is it a mere coincidence that the cases of Karna whose mother, Kunti, left him in a basket in a river to escape shame and Krishna, whose mother, Devaki, did the same to escape the tyranny of an evil king strike a similar chord? Like that many similar stories are found in the Zoroastrian scriptures and even the Greek myths.

One plausible explanation was given to Moses's comparable tales, Karna and Krishna is the time Jews spend in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar decimated Jerusalem and its first Holy Temple and took Jews as slaves to Babylon. Cyrus freed them and helped them to build the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Apparently, in the 60 years, the Jews spent time in Babylon they had assimilated some of the Hindu mythology into their own scriptures!

 The exciting thing about this film is the storyline. Given a fictitious tale of a greedy child and his doting mother. The Goddess of Prosperity is said to have mothered 160 million gods. Her first child, in her womb, was a greedy one. He was eyeing for his mother's gold and food. He got the gold, but the other gods managed to stop him before acquiring the mother's food. The goddess made a deal with the other gods that the child, Hastar, would not be worshipped and lost by history. 

Fast forward to 1918, Hastar in the form of an old lady is kept in a dungeon under shackles. She is fed regularly and kept asleep by a mother and her two young sons. One day the routine goes haywire when the younger boy injures himself and has to be taken to another town for medical attention. All goes wrong when the elder son, Vinayak, is tasked to feed the old lady. She becomes violent and almost gobbled him up. The returning mother immediately sends the elder away to another town. The younger boy had died.

 Knowing that there are secrets hidden in the mansion that he lived in Tumbbad, Vinayak returns as an adult full of debts. He finds out about the gold that he has to fight out with the imp, Hastar himself. Vinayak steals a few gold coins from Hastar's loin-cloth as he is busy gobbling food. The story becomes twisted as Vinayak becomes prosperous and that stirs the curiosity of his creditor. As Vinayak gets older and too weak to fight the imp, he coaches his son to take over. 1947 had come, and Tumbbad is appropriated by the government.

An interesting piece of storytelling and has a string of accolades under its belt to prove it. It a symbolic representation of man's greed for material wealth. They fail to realise that what they need in life are simple. They need a stomach to fill and to live life to appreciate the positive things that life has to offer - the joy of seeing a happy family, seeing the children grow and nurturing them for the next generation. People take their family members for granted.

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Everything has a price; body, soul and land.

Begum Jaan (2017)

It seems that fire has a purifying quality. Rather than facing the wrath of the society and being their burden, death by immolation seems dignified. The flame has the innate essence of martyring someone. We saw in the tale of Padmavati, and we see it in the fictitious character named Begum Jaan.  

Radcliffe's line did not only cause misery to the little people of both nations. It apparently went right through the palace owned by a self-made brothel madam, Begum Jaan. She thought she had everything under control when she rescued a few women out of misery, train them into the flesh trade to give them a footing in life. The local powers were kept happy by servicing their officials, and she got the protection of a soon to defunct royalty. 

All that changed with the Partition. Overzealous in carrying out their civic duty, two of officials from both sides of the divide, Pakistan and India go to great lengths beyond their call of duty to evict the Madam from her little palace.

Widowed young at the banks from the Ganges and ostracised by society for her widowhood, Begum found her way to the courtesan courts. With the blessing and wealth from her vocation, she built her own trade. She believes that she owes nothing to society. Likewise, to her, people are all the same. They say one thing when there are in the company of their own kind, but the lights go off, race, religion and caste goes out of the window. Lust takes over, and nothing really matters after that.

The film is filled with much crude dialogue and disturbing scenes. One wrong message that the film seems to convey is that as if the rapist would be turned off if a young girl or a postmenopausal lady disrobes herself. Rape is about control and power. Lust is secondary. All the occupants of the brothel in the film seem to be loggerheads at each other and an axe to grind amongst themselves. With this background, I wonder what actually keep them together. Whatever happened to the code 'honour among thieves'?

The movie tries to tackle too many issues. Partition, feminism, the cruelty of the society to members of the female species, the blind obedience to orders from above and attachment to their home is all too much to cover in two hours.

Quote: Everything has a price; body, soul and land.

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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