Independence Day 2024 | Sardar Udham, Ae Watan Mere Watan: Unearthing azaadi ke heroes from the shadows

In the last over a decade or so, Indian cinema has moved on from the iconic freedom fighters to more obscure figures of the freedom struggle. Read on.

Eighteen years after India won Independence in 1947 Shaheed (1965) released in theatres. Until this point most of Indian cinema had portrayed the freedom struggle in metaphors. This was the first big feature that showed an actual freedom fighter in flesh-and-blood on the silver screen. The film began a wave of cinema focused on the freedom struggle. The 2000s began with Hey Ram, The Legend of Bhagat Singh (2002), Shaheed-e-Azam (2002) and then a series of films like Rang De Basanti (2006) among others, all either about or featuring the most iconic freedom fighters — Bhagat Singh, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose.

Stills from the movies Sardar Udham (L) and Ae Watan Mere Watan (R)

The last decade or so has seen a change in this trend.

Cinema has moved on from the icons to more obscure figures of the freedom struggle. Main Khudiram Bose Hun (2017), a biographical based on the Indian revolutionary Khudiram Bose, Sardar Udham (2021), a biopic of Udham Singh who assassinated General Dyer, the British general responsible for the killing of hundreds in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, RRR (2022)—which caused a buzz at the Oscars and won the award for Best Original Song—a fictionalised account of the lives of revolutionaries Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem and Ae Watan Mere Watan, released in 2024, a film about lesser-known freedom fighter Usha Mehta who started an underground radio station in the heyday of the Quit India Movement, and Swatantra Veer Savarkar (2024), the biopic of freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, among others, are all movies that have been made in the last over a decade.

A still from the film Ae Watan Mere Watan

Allure of the ordinary

What’s making Indian filmmakers revisit the freedom struggle, pick out and tell these untold stories? Shoojit Sirkar, the maker of Sardar Udham, says it is the “ordinariness of the people involved in the freedom struggle” that prompted him to make a film on this obscure hero. “These people [who fought for freedom] were very normal youngsters. For me, that was interesting. They were heroes but they were everyday people. In cinema, we have made them into heroic taboos. Bhagat Singh could watch a Charlie Chaplin film and could drink a bottle of wine. That is what I wanted to capture,” says the director. “In the film I try to keep Sardar Udham a very regular person who is eager to voice his protest,” he adds.

A still from Sardar Udham

Meanwhile, actor Vinay Pathak, who played Indian freedom fighter Gour Hari Das in the 2015 film Gaur Hari Dastaan: The Freedom File, says he was drawn to the character because when he first met him, he was floored by Das’ energy and his genuineness. “He was already in his late 70s and his zeal and energy was infectious when I first met him. He was genuinely a happy content man. Not a sour personality at all. I really tried to derive that into his character.” He adds, “It was fascinating to see him imbibe and adapt his simple heart wherever he went , and whatever he did. And this I felt after meeting Das ji in person. He was a fascinating personality even without his story.”

A still from Gaur Hari Dastaan: The Freedom File

Speaking about what about Das inspired by, Pathak says that the simplicity with which he looked at the world around him was a source of inspiration and continues to be one. “He looked at things so simply. He understood the world around him with nothing but a simple heart approach. He was not ruffled or disappointed at all by India he felt around him. His understanding of right or wrong were also so simple,” Pathak tells us.

Asked why it took so long for Indian filmmakers to strike upon these heroes from the past, Sirkar says he doesn’t know why it has taken so long. As for him, Sirkar says, “I wanted to make this film for 20 years but I did not have the resources. To recreate a Jallianwala Bagh was a humongous task.” The other problem, he says, is “there are not many facts that you can find”. “In Sardar Udham, there are very few facts. We had to rely on whatever is available in the digital domain or in a few books. Which is why the film is a fragmented narrative.”

A still from Sardar Udham

Perennial source of inspiration

According to Ae Watan Mere Watan director Kannan Iyer, “The freedom movement is central to our identity as Indians. It is one of the movements that has defined us as Indians. Everything that happened during the freedom movement will be a perennial source of inspiration for Indians all the time.” Iyer says, “It is sad that it has been more than 70 years since Independence but no Indian has made a proper biopic on Mahatma Gandhi, who was the biggest leader of the freedom struggle.”

Talking about why it is important to continue to make films on the freedom struggle, Iyer says, “There were humongous amounts of sacrifices made by people in our freedom movement. Therefore it is necessary to continue to fight for those values. If you have shed so much blood and tears to acquire freedom it is important to fight on to preserve it. In 1947 India was in a certain place. The leaders at the time, if you would ask them how they envisaged India in 2024, I am sure none of them would have imagined there would be so much inequality and poverty in India still. It is up to today’s generations and future generations.”

A still from Ae Watan Mere Watan

Explaining what drew him to the story of Usha Mehta for his film, the director says, “There were a lot of women playing important roles in India’s freedom movement and Usha Mehta was one of them. I think it is extremely important to highlight the role of women in India’s freedom movement. That was a very strong factor that attracted us to the character of Usha Mehta."

He adds, "Other than that, she remained a flawlessly inspiring figure throughout her life. She worked with total integrity on spreading the word of Mahatma Gandhi for future generations. She also lived a very Gandhian austere life. Apart from the fact that there was the absolutely incredible event of the clandestine radio.”

Out of the shadows

Film historian Gautam Chintamani says films about unsung heroes “have been long overdue”. “The freedom struggle took a lot of people, obviously with the nucleus being Mahatma Gandhi and centripetal forces in the form of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabhai Patel. But the others [about whom films are now being made] were not as mainstream. Yet their contribution cannot be overlooked,” he says. Chintamani adds: “The contribution of these lesser-known freedom fighters was no way small but they got overshadowed by larger events.”

The historian sees a socio-political side to the rise of films about unsung heroes of the freedom struggle. “Since the advent of the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] in 2014, there has been an interest in knowing what can be called ‘the other side’.” He says that until now, smaller stories were not told unless they attracted a star. “Twenty-five years ago it would be unimaginable for someone like Vinay [Pathak] playing a Gour Hari Das or even Randeep [Hooda] playing Veer Savarkar. While Vinay and Randeep fit the characters very well their markets were not big enough to get people to cinema halls even 10-12 years ago,” he adds.

A still from the movie Swatantra Veer Savarkar

Chintamani says OTT has had a large role to play in films of the sort finding their audiences. “What is intriguing for me as a film historian is that there is no dearth of platforms and no dearth of stories. In the years to come far more stories will come out that will help us understand not only the trials of the period [of the freedom struggle] but also how the era was and the sacrifices made by the heroes.”

Is it okay to fictionalise?

Asked what he thinks of fictionalisation of the lives of freedom fighters, like in case of RRR, he says, “What Rajamouli did with RRR or what Tarantino did with Inglorious Bastards—a sort of alternate history which shows Hitler being killed in a cinema hall—brings in the filmmaker’s perspective.” “Legends are built on stories that exist,” he adds. Vijayendra Prasad, the writer who wrote RRR, says, “RRR was mostly fictionalised. But one thing that is (or must be) taken into care of is that we don’t tarnish the character.”