Batwara 1947 — Partition is not a balance sheet

Partition was not a cricket match. There was no toss, no scoreboard and certainly no winner. There were only corpses, burning homes, refugee trains and millions of people who went to bed in one country and woke up in another.

That is why a film about Partition cannot afford to treat history as a balance sheet.

"Batwara 1947", released on Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, presents itself as a story of love, brotherhood and communal harmony. There is nothing wrong with that. After 1947, we could use more brotherhood and less communal arithmetic.

My difficulty begins when the film appears to balance the violence of Partition — Hindus and Sikhs suffered here, Muslims suffered there, therefore both sides are equally accounted for.

History is rarely so tidy. There was a sequence.

On August 16, 1946, the Muslim League called for Direct Action Day. The violence that followed in Calcutta was devastating and spread into Bengal. In March 1947 came the Rawalpindi violence, with large-scale attacks on Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab. By the time the British left in August, the subcontinent had already been through months of communal mobilisation, killings, fear and displacement.

This does not make the suffering of Muslims less real. Nor does it mean that every subsequent crime can be assigned to one community. It means only that history has a chronology.

A film should tell us not merely who suffered, but what happened first, what followed, how the violence escalated and what political circumstances produced it.

"Batwara 1947" gives us Sikandar Mirza, played by Sunny Deol, a patriotic Indian Muslim who believes India is his country. His daughter sings "Sare Jahan Se Achha;" his son carries the Tricolour. Yet violence drives the family towards Lahore, while his son is left behind.

That is powerful.

But the film then repeatedly makes another point: Yakub Pehalwan has never read the Quran and therefore has no real understanding of Islam. The Maulvi, by contrast, represents a humane and peaceful Islam.

Asghar Wajahat, whose play "Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya, O Jamyai Nai" forms the basis of the film, deserves credit for being clear about his beliefs.

The Maulvi protecting the funeral rights of a Hindu woman is one of the film's finest ideas. He does not save her because he wants to prove something about Islam. He does it because, in the middle of madness, he chooses to remain human.

The history of the play itself is revealing. It has faced censorship-related controversy in Pakistan, although accounts of its performances there make the simple claim that it was permanently “banned” rather more complicated. The controversy nevertheless tells us something: the play was willing to disturb comfortable memories of Partition.

It should disturb ours too.

If the play could challenge convenient versions of Partition memory, why should the film shy away from the political chronology that preceded Partition?

Why should Direct Action Day, the violence in Bengal and Rawalpindi be reduced to background noise? Why should "both sides suffered" become the final historical verdict?

Of course Muslims suffered. Of course Hindus and Sikhs suffered. Both truths can stand together. But one truth does not cancel another.

Yet, despite these reservations, "Batwara 1947" is brilliant cinema. My criticism is of its historical framing, not of its craftsmanship. Every character in the film is wonderfully realised and the performances are superb. 

Sunny Deol, in particular, is magnificent as Sikandar Mirza. He puts aside the familiar swagger and plays a man watching his world collapse around him with remarkable restraint. There is anguish in his silence, helplessness in his anger and tenderness in his patriotism. This is, in my view, the best performance of Sunny Deol’s career.

The other characters, too, are fabulously played. The film succeeds because Partition is not presented merely through statistics but through fathers, mothers, children, refugees, neighbours and strangers. Its greatest strength is its human dimension.

The same applies to the refugee and property question. If the film raises the fate of Muslim refugees and abandoned property in India, it should also acknowledge what happened to Hindu and Sikh property, temples and institutions in territories that became Pakistan.

Otherwise, complexity becomes selective.

Partition was not merely about two communities killing each other. It was about neighbours becoming strangers overnight. A man who had shared his hookah with his neighbour suddenly saw him as a Hindu or Muslim first and a neighbour second.

That is the tragedy worth filming.

So my objection to "Batwara 1947" is not that it shows Muslim suffering. It should. Nor is it that it shows Hindu or Sikh violence. It should. 

As cinema, it is powerful; as performance, it is exceptional; as history, it invites argument. And that distinction is important. One can admire a film enormously and still argue with the history it chooses to tell.

Partition does not need another prosecutor or another defence lawyer. It needs a witness. A truthful one.

Because a wound does not heal when another wound is placed beside it. It heals when we have the courage to look at it.