Released: September 5, 2025
Runtime: ~3¼ hours (about 3:20–3:25)
Genre: Historical‐Drama / Political / Communal Violence
146.1) What's there in the movie?
Through a framing storyline, it moves between the 1940s and the present (modern-day West Bengal): a Dalit journalist named Gita Mandal goes missing in Murshidabad, and there are suspicions that a current politician (MLA from a minority community, Sardar Hussein) is involved.
In order to make the horror of those events more visceral, the historical flashbacks dramatise horrifying situations such as mass rapes, massacres, fires, and severe violence (including some extremely graphic descriptions).
146.2) The Direct Action Day
When & What: The All-India Muslim League, under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, announced August 16, 1946, as Direct Action Day. The League believed that constitutional talks were failing to provide sufficient protections for Muslims, hence the aim was to organise a national strike (also known as a "hartal") and protests in British India to push for the demand for a separate Muslim country (Pakistan).
Where: Bengal's Calcutta (now Kolkata) served as the violence's focal point.
The violence: There were large-scale conflicts that day. Deaths, injuries, arson, and looting all occurred. Both the Muslim and Hindu communities suffered. Estimates of the number of Hindus killed during the riots that followed the first violence range from between 4,000 to 10,000 in Calcutta alone (according to certain sources).
145.3) How does the film handle the Direct Action Day?
Drama meets History: Rather than rehashing the more frequently reported partition stories from Punjab or Kashmir, the film aims to shed light on lesser-known tales of Bengal's agony, despite some of its speech and characters being fictionalised.
Performance: A few actors receive accolades. Pallavi Joshi and Anupam Kher as Gandhi are two examples of significant figures. Moral quandaries, treachery, and bureaucratic shortcomings are depicted.
Nuance & Balance: According to several assessments, the movie tends to highlight a certain story—Hindu victimisation in Bengal—while paying less attention to complexity, such as numerous perspectives and historical ambiguity. Communal actors are frequently shown in stark black and white. A few dramatic licenses were taken.
145.4) Overall Impression
145.5) Comparison: Film vs Historical Records
Film’s Depiction |
What History Records / Scholarly Consensus |
Extremely vivid scenes of violence, including rape, murder, and burning. |
Large-scale acts of violence, murder, devastation, fire, and looting are confirmed by historical records. However, for dramatic effect, many specific situations (such as specific violence at specific homes or persons) are dramatised or fictionalised. |
Heavy emphasis on Bengal's Hindu victims and the Muslim League's and certain leaders' responsibility. |
Although there were many Hindu victims, history frequently record violence on both sides; accountability is nuanced and includes colonial policies, political leadership, and administrative shortcomings. |
Depicts Gandhi at points when he suggests that nonviolence is insufficient rather than offering no resistance. |
Gandhi's nonviolent ideology was widely accepted in the past, but the extent of violence severely disturbed many leaders and campaigners. It is up for debate if nonviolence "failed." The narrative framing that the movie adopts lays a large portion of the moral burden on those who promoted nonviolence. |
The movie implies that after incidents of violence like Direct Action Day and the Noakhali riots, the division of Bengal (east Bengal/Bangladesh) was all but certain. |
Numerous historians contend that the failure of discussions, communal rioting, and trust breakdowns all played a factor in the growing likelihood of division. However, the process had other causes, including British politics, the Congress, the League, public opinion, etc. |
Contemporary analogies, suggesting that historical conflicts still reverberate and that social polarisation endures. |
Drawing boundaries between the past and present is a popular practice in art and history. It is arguable whether or not there are direct analogies, but the movie's decision to make these connections is in line with a story of "history not healed." |
Team Yuva Aaveg-
Adarsh Tiwari
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