The film Chhava (The Lion’s Cub), which tells the story of the Marathas’ continued struggle for self-determination from a domineering empire in the late 17th century, has been a glorious hit in India.
That’s a surprise, since even modern democratic states do not view claims for self-determination, considered secessionist, with any sympathy. They are put down with brute force and with popular nationalist support. In fact, even with respect to far-off lands, we have preferred, of late, to preserve our solidarities, not lending them to emerging post-colonial struggles, or to every revolutionary; nor do we judge adversely the violent, imperial tendencies of allies. We are hawkish about territory and suspicious of dissent. We often argue that centralised, authoritarian policy-making makes for efficient government, rather than gram panchayats taking their own decisions about local land and forests.
It would seem that we have developed a liking for an overbearing state. We would happily have ‘anti-nationals’ shot dead, or locked away at the very least, without the courtesy of a trial. Yet, popular passions have been aroused by the Maratha peoples’ challenge to the Mughal empire, their king’s valour and, in response, the empire’s extreme cruelty in service of its own preservation.
There is a sleight of hand here, though. Chhava refers to Sambhaji, the second Maratha king, and insurgent hero against the Mughal empire. His father, Shivaji, in revolt against the Mughals, had consolidated Maratha sardars and founded a confederacy. The narrative around the film does not explain Sambhaji’s continued opposition to empire as one between the subaltern subject and a tyrannical state, in the sense of Jyotirao Phule’s readings of revolutionary king as “bahujan pratipalak”, saviour of the socially marginalised, fighting for more autonomy. No, it doesn’t take that line. Rather the narrative frames him as “dharamveer”, a Hindu king fighting a holy war against an Islamic empire.
The idea of holy war seems to have been borrowed from the crusades; the long climax that shows Sambhaji’s torture by the imperial army in agonisingly graphic detail is reminiscent of the crucifixion in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. That film, too, like the present one, focused on pain and torture in order to remind viewers of the suffering their saviour had to endure for their sake, and to invite them to defend his cause with renewed vigour. Chhava implicitly invites its viewers to renew the pledge to wage holy war. (Children, too, despite the film having a restricted viewing certificate.) The revolutionary potential of demanding accountability from arrogant power is subverted and channelled towards jointly creating a Hindu nation state and resuscitating a strong, unaccountable government.
The idea of holy war is reductive. It is also often employed by Islamist groups to mobilise against western/regional imperialism in the Middle East, and also in Kashmir, instead of framing those tensions in more nuanced terms.
Every story has many perspectives. I suppose one difference between art and propaganda is that while the former opens up new ways of imagining and interpreting, the latter forecloses all other questions and only drills home the one chosen truth. It sets up stick figures to be used as props for centring hate, or devotion. In the film, too, Sambhaji is beyond reproach and Aurangzeb beyond redemption. It leaves out narratives that may have made Sambhaji’s character more complex, less virtuous. But it has become an act of blasphemy to even offer other interpretations, to draw other comparisons. That results only in the ‘hurting of sentiments’ and in the filing of FIRs alleging wanton provocations.
There were so many thoughts that came to mind while contemplating Chhava. They could have formed the subject of rich public debates. The film could have been a meditation on the violence inherent in revolutionary struggles, which is a topic of contemporary interest, too, and which was evident in Sambhaji’s annexation and sacking of Burhanpur (in the end, when a formal reason was needed, he was tried and sentenced to death for “crimes against the people of Burhanpur”), or in his excesses against the Portuguese in Goa, or even his execution of Maratha sardars on mere suspicion of collusion with empire. It could also have explored the violence of the centralised state itself, especially one presuming to maintain its territorial integrity.
In the event, all that emerges from the film is anger at ‘Aurangzeb’s people’, helpfully reimagined as India’s Muslims.
However, regional kingdoms and communities within Aurangzeb’s empire were variously aligned to the imperial state. The Rajputs were at the very centre of the Mughal court and thus very close to power. Mirza Raja Jai Singh first defeated Chhatrapati Shivaji, as a commander of the imperial army, and forced him to sign the treaty of Purandar. He then took young Sambhaji back with him to Amber as hostage to ensure compliance with the treaty. At the same time, there were also kingdoms that chose to not collaborate with the Mughal empire, purely for their own survival. The Adil Shahs of Bijapur and the Qutub Shahis of Golconda initially refused to ally with the Mughals against the Marathas because they were wary of the presence of the imperial army in the Deccan and feared complete annexation of the region. They had hoped to form a regional axis with the Marathas to fight the Mughals. They were also those regions that were attacked and looted by the Marathas either as punishment or during expansionist wars.
People’s sympathies for the Maratha kingdom thus depended on where they were positioned in the complex geo-politics of the times and not on their religion. They could be supportive or indifferent, suspicious or hostile depending on their own relationship to Mughal or Maratha power. So it is in the present too: people are often supportive of dissent, or suspicious of it, depending on their own proximity to privilege and to the establishment of the day. The closer one is to state power, the more dissent seems like negativity and attempts to destabilise good intent, if not sheer lawlessness. In a similar vein, Mughal court traditions refer condescendingly to the Marathas as looters or minor trouble makers, who indulged in guerrilla tactics.
In a scene towards the end, when Sambhaji is captured and imprisoned, the film shows him in direct audience with the emperor. The emperor facing the heroic rebel. The rebel himself, tortured and bloodied, in chains and yet full of dignity, looking the emperor in the eye and clearly stating his version of events, his belief in dignity and freedom, and his reasons for rejecting authority and the laws of empire. I rarely get that kind of audience in the constitution courts even, where it would be very useful to expound on context while defending some minor dissident.
There is an even more rousing recitation by Sambhaji’s friend, the poet Kalash in front of generals and judges. Modern and more advanced states do not afford that privilege to offenders against the state: I can’t remember any political prisoner being given space to present the version of the vanquished in recent history. Very possibly, Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash were not actually afforded that courtesy either, and the film has only taken creative license. However, it is still something to think about: what does the modern state do to those it accuses of sedition or, much worse, of attempting to wage war? It continues to forcibly disappear and to torture all manner of dissidents, but at the same time it has also mastered the ability to fashion the truth. It crafts narratives that ensure the silence of the rebel, or worse still, twists her story into absurdity. At the same time, a cacophony of voices speaking on behalf of national security and national interest drown out all doubt. They construct terrorists and “anti-nationals” out of dissidents. They punish friends and poets for remembering. The nature of brute power has not changed much over the years.
Shahrukh Alam is a lawyer who practices in Delhi.
