A major cause why ‘The Sabarmati Report’ didn’t appear like a documentary was that the film didn’t compel the audience to engage in trying to think which real-life character the film was trying to portray through which character of the movie while this has been the case with most other films made in the recent past on real socio-political issues of Bharat. ‘Article 370’, ‘Bastar: The Naxal Story’, ‘The Vaccine War’, ‘Sam Bahadur’ etc. can be mentioned to name a few all of which had presented a feel of a documentary watch to the audience & made the viewer ponder over who’s who.
Even if the audience was completely clueless about the Sabarmati Express fire incident of 2002 at Godhra, Gujarat, they won’t perhaps feel disconnected with the film due to lack of knowledge of what really happened in 2002. The film didn’t dictate the audience to come prepared with homework on the Sabarmati Express incident. This was the other factor that distinguished ‘The Sabarmati Report’ from other films made in the recent past on real issues of Bharat.
On the first day first show at RDB boulevard of Salt Lake Sector 5 Kolkata, quite a few boys in their teens too were present in the audience. I am not sure whether they came to watch Vikrant Massey or the film itself. Choice of Vikrant Massey as the central character of the ‘The Sabarmati Report’ was an intelligent choice keeping in mind the recent surge of his popularity amongst the present youth.
The unbiased presentation of the hypersensitive issue of Godhra Train Burning was another aspect that deserves due recognition. The horrific premeditated communal crime had all the potential to be depicted in a biased manner demonizing the whole Muslim community. But the film didn’t fall in that trap & chose a sagacious approach to depict the incident that brought in significant relief to the viewers. While it has shown a very large section of the Muslim community of Godhra co-operated with the conspirators, it had also shown, in a credulous manner, another section of the same community tried to stand up against them. The character like Mehrunnisa relieved the audience from choking suffocation watching the monstrous premeditated crime against humanity.
The major problem of making films on such issues appears to be the fact that such films bring in a lot of discomfort to the viewers as the realistic approach often appears to be too harsh on humanity and harmony. The real challenge of the film maker remains in truthful portrayal of such factors of discomfort spaced up with cushions of relief. That has been well done in ‘The Sabarmati Report’. It appears necessary to mention here that Marxist film makers attempted to make films on similar issues wherein, in order to palliate the audience from such discomfort factors, they tended to justify hate crimes by Muslims painting the hard-core communal hatred with soothing colours of their own imagination which far dissociated the cinematic portrayal from reality. ‘The Sabarmati Report’, however, didn’t try to justify the crime nor made it too harsh on nerves yet portrayed the terrible crime with due weightage in a fair journalistic approach.
The real shots of charred bodies at Godhra as available with the Indian media were much more grisly & capable to take a toll on the minds of the audience than the cinematic scenes produced by ‘The Sabarmati Report’. The movie, that is why, had shown mere glimpses of those real shots practicing laudable restraint not to expose the audience to those macabre scenes for long.
There’s a scene in the movie that showed minority children of an area which was predominantly inhabited by Muslims started celebrating the victory of India in an India-Pakistan Cricket Match though the majority residents of that area appeared to have sided with Pakistan throughout the match. The scene added glee in the audience even though the original chase sequence prior to it engendered a lot of anxiety and tension.
The film has shown the burning of Sabarmati Express was a communal misadventure of a Maulana by instigating the Muslim mob under him to use them in perpetrating such a grave hate crime. The film also indicated a devious role of a neighbouring country behind that Maulana in order to produce an unsettling disharmony between the two communities of India. While the law couldn’t hold the Maulana responsible for anything, common Muslim perpetrators couldn’t escape the grip of law & suffered punishment for the crime they committed.
The central character of the film played by Vikrant Massey had an outburst of emotions in front of the same Maulana to state that a day would come when the Muslim mob would attack the Maulana himself. In my own opinion, such a day would not come unless the common Muslims’ properties and assets be free from the grip of the Maulanas. The Maulanas allegedly collect, in the name of Zakat, 10% annually of the rupee value of each Muslim’s total assets. This means each asset of each Muslim turns out to be the corresponding Mosque’s & the corresponding Maulana’s asset in 10 years & he still has to keep on paying 10% of his total assets per annum as Zakat. This is how the common Muslim mass remain puppets in the hands of the Maulanas because their properties remain mortgaged in reality which compels them to act upon their clerics’ brazen plan of communal crimes & other instructions such as “vote jihad”.
Drafting legal provision for mandatory annual audit of Mosques’ & Maulanas’ liquid assets & properties would perhaps be a step in the right direction to protect common Muslims from the grip of their clergymen.
The mediaeval history of the world suggests that clergymen became a significant source of suffering for common people. The Muslim samaj is still passing through such mediaeval period and it is time to bring them out of such phase of history and place them on the path of the post-modern era.
In brevity, ‘The Sabarmati Report’ is an unbiased and non-communal reel-portrayal of a real horrific communal crime.
