Cinematic Bharat : A Silent but Sure Shift

“Gad ala, pan Sinha gela” (Won the fort but lost the Lion) these were the famous words of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj after the conquest of Sinhagad by his army in 1670. He had won the Sinhagad but lost his finest general Tanhaji Malusare in the process of capture of Kondhana fort from Mughal General Udaybhan Rathod. Let’s remember, Ajay Devgn’s ‘Tanhaji’ directed by Om Raut is not the first movie on this subject. Legendary V Shantaram made ‘Sinhagad’ in 1933, based on the Marathi classic novel “Gad ala, pan Sinha gela” by Sri Hari Narayan Apte.

It isn’t as if Om Raut’s ‘Tanhaji’ is a perfect historical movie. It isn’t and there are a few things that are difficult to digest.

• The illogical, numerology inspired title ‘Tanhaji’. He was T?n?ji M?lusare. The distortion isn’t nice, even if it’s in English.
• Historical accuracy goes for a toss towards the climax. Tanhaji actually was gravely wounded and died in the hands of Udaybhan Rathod. It was Shelar Mama who finished off the mortally wounded Udaybhan as Tanaji’s younger brother Suraji lead the transiently demoralised troupes to victory. By the time Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj came with back up, the Marathas had won the ‘Battle of Sinhagad’. Tanhaji was a martyr and was aptly lamented by Chhatrapati in those legendary words “Gad ala, pan Sinha gela”.
• Udaybhan Rathod was a Rajput. He wasn’t an Alauddin Khilji wannabe. Saif Ali Khan’s portrayal of Udaybhan reminds us of Ranveer Singh’s Khilji in ‘Padmavat’. That sticks out like a sore thumb, especially the Rajput in black attire.
• Dialogue writing is below par and a good historical movie needs rousing dialogues. That is a bit of a shortcoming.

Leaving out these minuses, Om Raut has come up with an extremely well made and unapologetically straightforward film that is a must watch for all those who love historical movies. The extraordinarily crafted 3D scenes also tell us another story. Almost everyone in the audience feels startled when those arrows and spears reach close to our shoulders. It forces us to think about those real soldiers; those who had faced the real arrows, spears, bullets and bombs in real life. Those moments force us to realise the extraordinary toughness required to be a soldier. It just isn’t a job. It is passion. It is perhaps madness but it is magnificent. And that is what differentiates a Soldier from ordinary mortals.

Most thankfully, there is no monkey-balancing of overt secularisation of the theme in Tanhaji. It is unapologetic when it declares the Mughal rule as ‘era of darkness’. It doesn’t flinch one bit while mentioning Swaraj as well as Bhagva, several times in the movie. ‘Tanhaji’ the movie has its heart in the ‘right’ place and it flexes the muscles the ‘right’ way. That makes for a wonderful viewing.

Historical Tanhaji Malusare belonged to the Koli tribe. Considered to be from a lower strata in caste hierarchy, Tanhaji became the most trusted General of Chhatrapati Shivaji on merit. He lived a very good life. This is a strong point against the allegations that Marathas and Peshwas encouraged caste based oppression.

The success of “Tanhaji” and the huge appreciation recieved by the Telugu Historical movie “Sye Raa Narasimha Redd” are definite signals for the Indian film industry. Though the trend was set by Telugu blockbuster “Bahubali”, now there is a demand for more authentic historical movies. New India wants to explore our rich culture, history and heritage. The people have had enough of sanitised history and secularised movies that were busy glorifying Mughals and ignoring everything else in the past seven decades.

In the pre-independence days, films by legends like V Shantaram definitely helped people to establish contact between our history and the people of those times. The dramas too were helpful in those days. But the post-independence India progressively began ignoring our history, especially the Hindu history. We were fed with more and more films that glorified everything that was against India, our culture and the very identity of Hindus.

Cinema is an extremely strong medium and we have to admit it even if we don’t like it. We had movies like “Haider” that glorified a terrorist. “Haseena Parkar”glamorised the Underworld Don Dawood Ibrahim’s sister. “Raees” turned a terrorist into a philanthropist and martyr. “Shahid” was another movie that turned a terrorist into a folk hero. The Liberal ecosystem hailed most of these movies as rave reviews were written by decorated critics in mainstream media.

Almost all movies with nationalistic content were downgraded and abused by the same set of reviewers. “Uri: The Surgical Strike” was a blockbuster in spite of extreme negative reviews by Secular media. “Batla House” was criticised and “Manikarnika”, the movie on Jhansi Rani too was razed to the ground by the usual suspects among critics. Every time a movie attempted honest narration of history or politics, the leftist critics slammed them as “Hypernationalistic and jingoistic”.

“Tashkent Files” was a brilliant movie exploring the hidden secrets behind the untimely death of former PM Sri Lal Bahadur Shastri. But our critics worked overtime to run it down. Yet, people showed they were indeed interested in our “real history” and the movie was a sleeper hit. This created reinvigorated interest in “Tashkent Files” director Vivek Agnihotri’s previous movie “Buddha in a Traffic Jam” that was demolished by our critics because it narrated the true story of “Urban Naxal” ecosystem.

At this point in time, our Secular fundamentalists are running down “Tanhaji” as a movie peddling Hindutva agenda. Some of them also want “Shikara” to be banned for spreading Islamophobia. “Shikara” is Vidhu Vinod Chopra directed movie on the hitherto untold story of genocide of Kashmiri Hindus. Our intelligentsia spent three decades either negating or hushing up the tragedy of Kashmiri Hindus. When someone finally decided to speak up for the victims, the Secular brigade wants to shut those voices lest it hurt the perpetrators of genocide.

For film-makers, cinema is finally about money. All claims about art and creativity are definitely determined by commerce in the end. Till a few years ago, the excuse given by film-makers was, “There are no takers for historical subjects and such movies don’t work out due to heavy budget.” The stupendous success of “Bahubali” and now the success story of “Tanhaji” have quashed those myths.

In spite of the “Secular Intellectuals” exhibiting extreme allergy to subjects with Patriotism or real history, the demand for such movies is burgeoning. Young people who were smitten by the kitschy romantic movies dished out by our film makers are making a beeline to watch “Tanhaji”. Indian audience is growing up to mature cinema. They want more reality, more substance and more honesty in what they watch.

Telugu Superstar Chiranjeevi said this in an interview, “I always wanted to make a grand historical movie. But the budgetary constraints were limiting us. Today it is different. We are bringing together actors from different languages and making grand movies and releasing in multiple languages. The huge success of Bahubali has given us the boost. We are confident of such efforts getting rewarded.” His “Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy” was released in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and English and the success of the movie has given confidence to filmmakers to go for more such efforts.

India needs more and more honest historical movies. Prithviraj Chauhan, Sri Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagar, Emperor Rajaraja Chola, Raja Martanda Varma of Travancore, Rani Abbakka Chauta, Lachit Bhorpukan and many more in that category. We also need popular movies on Chanakya, Shankaracharya and Swami Vivekananda. Ramayana and Mahabharat need to be retold for present and future generations. The Jain legend of Bahubali and Chakravarti Bharat has to be popularised on celluloid. People will be eager to watch such movies or serials and know more about their history.

A minuscule segment of self-proclaimed Intellectuals decided what was good for India. They forced their contrived ideology as “Idea of India”. They wanted people not to look beyond their world of make believe history. They censured anything that didn’t conform to their ‘egalitarian world view’. They resisted the new world order tooth and nail. They wanted to stop, ban and banish these hyper-nationalistic and jingoistic movies and maintain their “Secular, Sanitised and Sensitive” narrative.

And then all hell broke loose after 2014. The more they condemned the “nationalistic fervor”, more people have turned against them. People are setting right, all the wrongs of the Left. The ‘Righting’ is on the wall. Those who can see the writing on the wall, make movies like “Tanhaji” and those who have lost touch with the world continue to glorify terrorists.