Shrinking worlds of Indian history

In India, Bollywood—as rightly described and named by Helle Ryslinge in her film—makes cinema that is often ‘larger than life.’

- Rohan Basu and Soumyadeep Guha

In India, Bollywood—as rightly described and named by Helle Ryslinge in her film—makes cinema that is often ‘larger than life.’ Chhaava, yet another Bollywood release about a ‘righteous Hindu king’ standing up to an evil Mughal emperor, and the post-cinema reaction videos which have come out on YouTube, proves exactly this. From wailing sermons, reverent chants to the glory of Shivaji and the erstwhile Maratha empire, down to the tearing of a cinema screen, the reaction to the torture and killing of Sambhaji by Aurangzeb in Chhaava made clear the actual intent of the film—to reinforce a simplified Hindu-Muslim binary aligned with Hindu nationalist ideology, erasing historical nuance and complexity.

Historical films are never just about the past; they are reflections of contemporary politics and ideologies. Chhaava, centered on Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, has already sparked debates about its portrayal of history. Yet, rather than simply asking what the film gets right or wrong, perhaps we should ask: Why does such distortion happen? The answer to the question lies in understanding the result of a fundamental rift—between conceptions of history outside its academic confines, as opposed to its academic counterpart that strives toward ‘decolonization.’

The national populace’s general mistrust towards the academic practice of many historians and archaeologists working in universities comes from the latter’s refusal to engage in the pursuit of a ‘glorious Hindu nation’ that supposedly was. Any other historical undertaking would inevitably lead to derogatory tags like ‘urban naxal’, ‘Lutyens gang’ or ‘left-liberal.’