Kesari, Chapter 2, The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh, Review: Trigger-happy General Dyer, and Barrister Sankaran Nair on fire

It is the era of real stories, ‘based on real incidents, and biopics. Here is none more of the popular genre. Kesar is the Hindi word for saffron. It is also used as a patriotic symbol. Kesari means saffron-coloured. A film titled Kesari was released in 2019, the centenary anniversary of the Jallianwala massacre. It retold the story of Battle of Saragarhi, where 21 Sikh soldiers fought against an Afghan army of 10,000 men, in the year 1897, and held fort, till death. It received mixed reviews, but became the fastest Rs. 100 crore earning film in the domestic circuit, in 2019. Kesari eventually grossed over Rs. 200 crore, worldwide, in its fourth week.

Six years later, producers Karan Johar, Hiroo Yash Johar and Apoorva Mehta, sticking to the Sikh/Punjabi realm, call their new film Kesari, Chapter 2, having no connection with Kesari, except the ethnicity of its characters. Director Amritpal Singh Bindra, a lawyer and film-maker, is best known for films like Maja Ma, series like Bandish Bandits, and more. Amritpal has a post-graduate degree in Fine Arts from New York Film Academy, and has had sound experience, working in various aspects of film-making. He worked as an assistant director on films like No One Killed Jessica and Barfi. He has also directed and produced the critically acclaimed web series Chukyagiri for ARRE and co-produced Still and Still’s first feature film, Love Per Square Foot, a Netflix Original, with Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP.

The massacre, in the holy city of Amritsar, which stopped only when Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, who led the genocide, realised that his soldiers had ran out of bullets, occurred on 13th April. Kesari 2 was released yesterday, April 18. It is a sincere attempt at recreating the genocide and the high level court-room drama that unfolded afterwards. Except for a couple of tangential deviations, the film has a humane soul, and is definitely worth a watch. It calls itself Kesari, a word with multiple meanings, primarily referring to a lion or a horse. It can also refer to a specific kind of heron, or an outstanding individual, or thing, in their category. Additionally, Kesari can also mean saffron (kesar) or yellowish orange colour. Showing a mature approach, the ultra-nationalism is played down, the film sticks to its subject, and performances are largely convincing.

Kesari 2 delineates the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of an unarmed gathering of about 1,650 persons (the film suggests that must have been over 10,000 deaths, but this seems incredible, judging by what we see on the screen. 1,650 appears as the more accurate death toll). It was on the day of Baisakhi, that the crowd, predominantly Sikhs, had gathered to observe the Punjabi festival, but the British imposed a curfew, which was not publicised, leading to the gathering of men women and children at the Bagh. The police wanted to cover-up any action they might take, by proving that there was a curfew order in place and that the crowd that assembled at Jallianwala Bagh was, thus, an illegal assembly. They stood and watched, as hundreds of Indians rushed past their posts, not taking any steps to stop them from heading for Jallianwala Bagh.

Two more reasons were attributed to the assembly: the public was misinformed and led to the venue by the British, who spread word that noted Hindi poet, Kanhaiyalal, was going to address the meeting there, and, secondly, it was a protest against the imposition of the draconian Rowlatt Act. Horrific as the incident was, the film is based on a book that recounts the dreadful bullet fest, the grand-children of Chettur Sankaran Nair, a former President of the Indian National Congress party, lawyer, a member of the legislative council and the first Indian member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, who, along with Dilreet Gill, the frail-looking but gutsy woman, who made this her first case, after completing law studies, vainly fought a massive court battle to get justice to the victims, their kin and their country.

The Case That Shook the Empire, hardcover, was published on India’s independence day, 15th August, in 2019, by Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat. Raghu is a banker, with a passion for writing, having written nearly 50 books so far. Pushpa, his wife, has been a writer for four decades, having written for the Times of India, Economic Times, Destination Traveller, foreign travel trade newspapers and several online and print periodical and journals. Raghu, a banker, happens to be the great grandson of the Maharaja of Cochin, and Pushpa, also banker, has a passion for writing, having written nearly 50 books so far.

Akshay Kumar, who played the lead in Kesari, transforms into Nair for Kesari, Chapter 2. Akshay whose grand-father was from Amritsar, and privy to the events, turns in a heart-felt portrayal. His fans will love him in this role, wherein he never so much as smiles. Ananya Pandey is Dilreet Gill, a woman on a mission, who crosses the path of a male domain, the haloed precincts of a court-room, far removed from her comfort zone. No glam, no coquetry, no chick flick, so skin-show…just pure artistry and grit. R. Madhavan, who has become heavier and sports a beard, was chosen to play McKinley, apparently child of nan illegitimate alliance between an East India company official and an Indian paramour, brought in by the British, to counter every decimate Nair in court, and help Dyer go scot-free. Additionally, he is an alcoholic who was pipped at the post by Nair, the man who had never lost a case, in getting a seat on the Viceroy’s Council, and nurses a grudge against him, that the British and their high brass Indian minions re-ignite. He is totally convincing, and comes across as a real person, who gives-up whiskey to fight the case, and shows equanimity, even when the case drifts away from him, a circumstance he had never dreamt of.

Several British actors play the roles of their respective real-life figures, and some of them speak slightly broken, but fully intelligible, Hindi. These include Simon Paisley Day as General Reginald Dyer, Mark Bennington as Punjab Governor Michael O' Dwyer, Sammy Jonas Heaney as Harold Laski, a soldier, Steven Hartley as the Hindi-favouring Judge McArdie and Alexandra Moloney as Martha Stevens. Day and Moloney get a large slice of the proceedings. The script digs into his past, to ferret out the reasons behind his sadism and his patent hatred for Indians, particularly Sikhs. Moloney is brought to the witness box twice, firstly as a defence witness, stooge, to strengthen the British case, and the second time turning hostile, and crumbling, in the face of the evidence against her stand, obtained by Nair and Dilpreet. Impressive. Regina Cassandra is well cast as Mrs. Parvathy Nair. Jaipreet Singh as Kirpal Singh, the Sikh leader is a good representative of the man he plays, Luke Kenny as Appeal Court judge, looks young and is made to give a surprisingly controlled retort when Nair becomes abusive. Atul Kumar has a minor role as the Crown's lawyer. Among Indian actors is Krish Rao, as the little boy, Pargat Singh, Kripal’s son, who tugs at your auricles and ventricles, has a bright future. Amit Sial, who does not sport a turban, gets into his sinister plotter and strategist persona for the British-lackey mode, Tirath Singh, with ease and fluidity. There is a fleeting character by the name of Jaan-Nisar Akhtar, played by Rohan Verma, and Masaba Gupta leads the item song. Item song? In 1919? Well, the male gaze is not a 21^st century invention.

Director Amritpal himself, and Karan Singh Tyagi have written the screenplay, while Akshat Ghildial and Sumit Saxena provide the dialogues. We miss the profile of poet Kanhaiyalal, who is mentioned just once in the film. The dead included quite a few Muslims, a point that needed underscoring, but is noticed only in the end, when the names of victims is scrolled down. The assembly chants anti-British slogans, mainly “Inquilab Zindabad” (Urdu for ‘long live the revolution’). Urdu was the dominant language in the period in which the film is set. By 1854, the whole province of the Punjab (which included the North West Frontier Province, NWFP, used Urdu in the lower levels of administration, judiciary, and education. This position was challenged first by the British and then later by the Hindus and Sikhs, while the Muslims continued to support Urdu. Yet, there is no sign of Urdu in the film. Even placards are either in English or Gurmukhi, the Punjabi script, and whenever there is a reference to language, only Hindi is mentioned. Press coverage of the court proceedings too are devoid of Urdu. Not a trace of it. Very strange. Though the press is banned from entering the court after McKinley argues that it will adversely affect the case, there is, initially, very little or no coverage, though members of the fourth estate have sources that feed them in such situations.

It is not explained why Nair was practicing in Amritsar, Punjab, where he lived with his wife, while leaving his children in native Kerala, and running a school there. Dyer is shown sporting a wig, and giving the appearance of a man in his late 50s or early 60s. Yet, he has had only 18 years of army service, which usually begins in the late teens or early 20s. The two positions are incongruent. Nair and Dilreet unearth vital evidence with little effort, which is hard to swallow. As a high grade lawyer, he should have visited the site of the incident, Jallianwala Bagh before taking up the case, not much later. Dialogue hammers two contrasting credos in legal practice: it is either ‘right v/s wrong’, or ‘winning v/s losing’. For the rest, no attempt is made to load the film with claptrap clichés, which is welcome.

The ‘f’ word is cleverly used, as many as a dozen times, making it a peg to hang the ‘adults only’ certificate on, by the censors. I don’t think it is the blood-bath and massacre that mattered, because many Hindustani and South Indian films of the recent past have shown blood-curdling mayhem, bodies, body parts and fountains of blood, not once, not twice, but multiple times in each film. In Kesari 2, it is only one massacre and one murder, and both emanate from recorded history. Songs, though sparingly used, could easily have been done away with. Music is scored by Shashwat Sachdev and Kavita Seth–Kanishk Seth. Cinematography by Debojeet Ray is routine, with an occasional glitch in light and shadow.

Editor Nitin Baid cuts and splices many shots of the young boy with shots of adult Nair, giving the unlikely impression that the little boy is related to him in some way, which he is not. At 135 minutes, the duration of the film is firmly under control. Many historicals tend to drag on to 150 minutes or more. Picking out the most cinematic bits from a story that has a large span and numerous characters, and filming it in a manner that resonated with an audience, who is watching it 106 years after it occurred, is no easy task, and in this, writer-director Bindra has largely succeeded.

At the launch of the film’s trailer a week ago, “I want British king Charles III to see this film. Maybe it will move him so much as to consider tendering an apology,” asserted Akshay Kumar.

While one can speculate on whether Britain will ever apologise, and, in any case, an apology is not commensurate with the crime, by far, it is a fact that Kesari, Chapter 2, The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh, updates viewers on a history chapter that is recalled only as a massacre, and Udham Singh’s assassination of O’Dwyer, mistaking him for Dyer. The epic battle on court turf, led by Nair, to put the Crown in the dock, does not get place in text-books. Although the film offers nothing, except an item song, as entertainment, it is interesting and gripping to watch Nair on Fire.

Kesari 2 revives memories of pulsating court-room rivalry that was filmed in some Hindustani films of yore, like Yeh Raste Hain Pyar Ke and Kanoon, and being history-based (never mind the disclaimer that it is a work of fiction), is more likely to withstand loss of topicality, compared to fiction films of the genre.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dr-7g08INMSI&psig=AOvVaw1-8h3kjhVuxZDp4bsGBrBl&ust=1745085275093000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCKjPw7aT4owDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE