Opinion Depicting historical trauma requires sensitivity. Unfortunately, filmmakers like Vivek Agnihotri fail to recognise that
The responsible way to talk about trauma requires one to adopt a constructive lens, not to rabble-rouse. Otherwise, the film ends up being nothing more than a dog whistle
Partition’s horror must be written, painted and filmed. Sentiments may not always work under the prism of secular objectivity 
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In Kamal Haasan’s historical drama, Hey Ram (2000), we see the brutality of the Calcutta Killings in a harrowing eight-minute sequence. Saket Ram (Kamal Hasaan), a Tamil-Hindu archaeologist based in Kolkata, is out to run some chores on the fateful evening of August 16, 1946. His Bengali wife, Aparna (Rani Mukerji), warns him about the riots. But Ram is dismissive about it. “Only Muslim shops will be closed. This is Calcutta, not some village,” he tells his wife. Ram returns to find his home under attack by a group of Muslim men in skullcaps. One of them happens to be his wife’s tailor. Ram is overpowered by them, and his wife is gangraped. One of the men attempts to rape him, too, but Ram tricks him into untying him and rushes to save his wife. It’s too late by then. Aparna, whose throat has been slit by her assailants, is lying in a pool of blood, her clothes askew. The men have escaped. Ram is left howling like a wounded animal. He takes a gun and ventures out to avenge Aparna’s death. On his way, he sees a city torn apart. Muslim children being shoved into a burning house by angry Hindu men, Muslim men chasing Hindu women with swords and knives. Ram flinches, but his bloodthirst is fuelled by the scenes. He finally manages to locate the tailor who assaulted his wife. The man begs forgiveness, saying people lose their minds in such situations. Ram shoots him point-blank. Eventually, Ram is radicalised by Hindutva leaders and goaded into a plot to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi, but better sense prevails and Ram becomes a staunch Gandhian.
History provides us with perspectives. It informs our understanding of our world and reveals patterns. It also issues us warnings. Like Hey Ram did. As Vivek Agnihotri’s controversial The Bengal Files should. But the trailer of the film seems to suggest otherwise. Agnihotri calls the film the “untold” story of Hindu genocide, which is technically not true. In the past few years, there have been a few Hindi films on the same topic, like Danga The Riot (2018) and 1946 Direct Action Day (2024). Even the OTT series Freedom At Midnight (2024) talked about it and treated Direct Action Day as the catalyst for India’s Partition. These films met with little commercial success but managed to garner social media hysteria.
However, in Bengali cinemas, the events of 1946 and its aftermath are addressed with remarkable restraint and a sense of purpose. The kind of sensitivity only those who experienced the trauma could show. One of them was celebrated filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, who moved to Kolkata from Bangladesh during the Bengal famine of 1943, and was coming to terms with the city during 1946.
Partition, which followed the 1946 riots, was a recurring theme in his classics. In Ghatak’s films, we see how trauma can be represented in an empathetic manner. In his Partition trilogy — Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komalgandhar and Subarnarekha — the protagonists are all survivors of Partition who grapple with loss and try to build a new life with varying degrees of success and failure. Ghatak, through his world-building, manages to elicit a visceral response from the viewer. The scene in which Neeta, the protagonist of Meghe Dhaka Tara, a hapless victim of the vagaries of fate, breaks down is almost cathartic in its effect.
In Nemai Ghosh’s little-known Chhinnamul (1950), a Bengali Hindu family of Bangladesh, singed by the Partition riots, makes their way to Kolkata. They are subjected to a cruel, distrusting city and are shooed from one shelter to another. Ghosh shows how cities and their people are numbed after being subjected to unspeakable trauma. In the 1991 Malayalam film Vastuhara, we see a Malayali rehabilitation officer (Mohanlal) coming to Kolkata to shift Bengali families from Kolkata to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 1971. In Kolkata, he is connected to his Bengali aunt, who was displaced during the Partition and has spent all her life as a refugee, and was thwarted by her Malayali in-laws as well.
These films appeal to our better senses; they show how moments of thoughtless cruelty can scar generations. The responsible way to talk about trauma requires you to adopt a constructive lens, not to rabble-rouse. Filmmakers, like Agnihotri, who choose to dramatise historical incidents will always face one fundamental, ethical question: Is it morally defensible to dramatise unspeakable horrors and trauma? The lure of focusing on singular victims can be irresistible for many. And when that’s done, the film ends up being nothing more than a dog whistle.
premankur.biswas@indianexpress.com
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