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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... and that's how the cookie crumbles.

Belfast (2021)
Director: Kenneth Branagh.

In the mid-70s, as a secondary school student, I saw some of my classmates leave the country. Their parents were affluent and had lost confidence in the Malaysian education system. They thought that the New Education Policy after the May 13 riot with Malay as the medium of instruction was doomed to fail. And the New Economic Policy, which emphasises affirmative action, will only produce a nation of mediocres at best.

Affluence could make them picky on their choices in life, whereas the rest of us, the mere mortals, could only make do with what is available to us. We took everything in a stride with the sentimentality of nationalism thrown in and the conviction that the divine forces would help those who help themselves. Still, we were grateful that opportunities unavailable to our parents were there for our taking, so we thought. 

Then came the early 80s. Suddenly, we saw another section of our classmates disappear. They had been offered national scholarships to study overseas. Some were pinched by our neighbour. In contrast, the rest of us were thrown into the deep end of the pool of cramping 2-years' of studies into an 18-month extensive course which is viewed as the most difficult examination in the world, equivalent to the A-levels, the Higher School Certificate. The added problem was that they were no books in Malay, but we were to use older English books and do our mental translations as we answered the questions! We soldiered on.

Then came university, the ridiculous bi-peaked academic performances of its students and the apparent push to pass sub-standard 'scholars' came to light. As if like magic, mediocre students miraculously perform well in final examinations. We turned a blind eye.

Fast forward to the present era. We now realise that the bubble of a dream that we had all this while had just popped on our faces. We wake up rubbing our eyes, trying to make sense of the time of the night. Then it dawns upon us. We realise the master plan of social engineering. The bus has left. Now, our children feel unwelcomed to serve the nation. They have a funny feeling that we threw them under the bus. They now have to seek greener pastures elsewhere, much like what the millions had doing the same over the last century. It is just our predecessors marched into the country, not out.  Only migrants of a particular religion are welcomed, not the rest. This, my friend, is modern religious cleansing.

This film is about the tumultuous time of the Northern Ireland conflict in August 1969 when a riot broke out in a Catholic neighbourhood in Belfast. The story is told from the point of view of a 9-year old boy. It is a coming of age tale of the boy who has to grow up fast to face the challenging times as unrest spread in the housing estate, and his family, being a closet Protestant, are forced to choose sides. His parents have to decide whether to stay on despite the uncertainty or flee to more peaceful environments. With them are the grandparents who feel sentimental about their Irish identity and the good old days.

Between the push and pull factors, everybody has to make life-altering decisions to face their futures. Even though events in life are by chance, mere coincidences, altered by simple things like just a flutter of a butterfly, our actions and inactions are in the equation that changes the course of destiny.

(P.S. I write this as I witness ridiculous things happen around me. Pea-brained people argue about trivialities as the elephant in the room goes on a rampage. Young larks fly off the roost seeking newer terrains as their nests become toxic cesspools. The cacophony of small minds in big numbers is mind-blowing.)

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Everything is fake!

Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
Screenplay and Direction: Victor Erice

This offering is said the best film ever to come out of Spain. To a movie connoisseur, this film is all about what filmmaking is all about. It is about the depiction of subliminal messages in symbolism and in such a subtle manner that beats the censors but not the intended target, the audience.

To a regular filmgoer, the movie would be as exciting as watching paint dry. It is relatively slow, with frequent long pauses between takes. It is said that it was intentional to drive home the point about Spain's tumultuous times under the fascist dictator General Francisco Franco between 1939 and 1975. It tried to show how people led hollow lives; there was silence due to the dearth of human economic activities and governmental censorship that altered people's reality.

It narrates a family of four, a father, a mother and two young sisters with a live-in maid. Both the parents are obviously not on cordial terms. Both of them seemed to be engaged in their own activities. Father (Fernando) is into writing poems and tending to his beehives day in day out. Mother (Theresa) is in her own world, writing letters to an unknown lover.

The setting is 1940s Francoist Spain, in a small village where nothing is happening. The excitement of the day is the arrival of the movie screening van. That day, they were screening a butchered version of Frankenstein. The two sisters (Isabel and Ana) are watching the film. Ana, the younger one, is confused about the story and why Frankenstein is beaten up by the villagers in the movie. Isabel tells her that everything on film is unreal. Frankenstein is very much alive and is hiding in a nearby barn.

The director, Victor Erise, has a particular interest in telling stories from children's point of view. (See El Sur). Ana slow learns about death. She thinks that an army deserter who hides in the barn is the Frankenstein from the film. She feeds him and gives her father's coat to him. So, when the deserter gets killed, Fernando is summoned by the Francoist police, and Ana goes into hiding.

What about the beehive? What is the symbolism here? In my mind, the activities surrounding the beehive are pretty unproductive. The worker bees work laboriously in what seems like forever unfinished tasks. They appear perpetually busy, working non-stop. All their efforts, the intricate organisation, and the complicated distribution of labour mainly fatten the Queen Bee and ensure her fertility. The worker bee would probably get a pittance for his life-altering endeavours. His life purpose, much like the peasants in the lower rung of the pecking order in a fascist regime, is just to fatten the elites under the pretence of doing a noble job in the name of the country.

Capitalism, vulture capitalism and the post-truth era are not different from a fascist organisation. The commoners are sold a particular idea. That idea is emphasised and reminded repeatedly to generate a false sense of urgency in their minds. The powers-that-be utilises the power of media towards this end. We all end up doing a lot of unnecessary chores to satisfy the agenda of the top 1%.

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