Razakar: A propaganda film on Hyderabad’s annexation, ultra loud and agitated

The latest to join this list is the multilingual Razakar: Silent Genocide of Hyderabad which, as the title would suggest, turns back the clock to the events surrounding the annexation of Hyderabad to the union of India. That the Nizam-led Hyderabad was a highly contentious region immediately after independence is a largely known fact, but that the scenario entailed several other sensitive subtopics is a matter waiting to be discussed in cinema.

A one-sided account

Director Yaata Satyanarayana forays into this dense subject quite passionately but his pre-set gaze and highly polarised view of the conflict get in the way. And the result is an ultra-loud, agitated and bombastic film that has very little room and time for subtext. Although the film deals with a tragedy meted out to thousands of people, if not more, it hardly makes a case for them because of being ill-intended. It is important to note that the film has been produced by Gudur Narayana Reddy, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

That is to say that Razakar plays out as a one-sided account that makes no bones about who it roots for and who it whole-heartedly wants to vilify. The title refers to the massive paramilitary force that was created in the 1930s to ably support the Muslim rule in Hyderabad and resist the princely state’s absorption into India. Simultaneously, the Razakars (under the leadership of Kasim Razvi) are accused of dispensing many atrocities against the state’s majority Hindu population, using violence of myriad kinds as its chief instrument. The film, thereby, becomes a visual reconstruction of the barbarism that Razvi and his many men execute and how the victims ultimately retaliate in their own manner.

In the film, every single Muslim character has evil pouring out of their eyes and every time they slash a throat or sexually assault a woman, their unrealistic smiles grow bigger and bigger. The victims, the Hindu population of the erstwhile Hyderabad state, are equally one-dimensional except that they only bawl and exclaim in their highest possible voices. Bheems Ceciroleo’s background score further accentuates the polarity of the film, underlining the Muslim identity with Persian-like string instruments and employing a lot of traditional pathos for the Hindus.

A gross distortion of history

What it does well is play fast-and-loose with history and conveniently forget numerous key aspects. Many have reported that right after Hyderabad surrendered and joined independent India, thousands of innocent Muslims were massacred by Hindus. A ‘conservative’ estimate suggests that between 27,000 and 40,000 people lost their lives. Or the fact that in many sections of the Hyderabad state, Muslim families have protected their Hindu neighbours during the genocide. All we get in response to this is a small, terribly flimsy moment in the climax that barely does the job.

In an attempt to tell this sprawling story that includes the annexation struggle, the Telangana Peasant Rebellion, Operation Polo and so much more, Satyanarayana (also the writer) forgets to give its film a decent protagonist. Instead, what we get is a plethora of crusaders that crop up for not more than a scene or two, with each of them meant only to face the wrath of the Razakars and expose their over-the-top brutality. Well-known actors like Bobby Simha, Indraja, Anasuya Bharadwaj, Prema and Vedhika make valiant appearances for these parts but they add very little to the narrative because of the appallingly unimaginative writing.

Instead, the film lays all its focus on its two chief antagonists Mir Osman Ali Khan (played by Makarand Deshpande) and Qasim Razvi (Raj Arjun). The two glaringly diabolical people occupy almost every single frame and spew the same venom over and over again, and after a point, every scene begins to look exactly the same as the previous. Satyanarayana often begins a scene showing an honourable Hindu family that will soon be hacked to death by a jeep full of Razakars, who apparently have no humanity about them.

Undermining the tragedy to polarise

The problem with Razakar isn’t in the pontification or its attempt to state the facts of a story that’s not widely known to us. It exists in the fact that it vehemently remains myopic and does not use any nuance to make its point.

In one scene, Qasim Razvi slits open a man’s throat and sniffs the blood like perfume. In another, a top-rank officer orders his men to seize the cows from a Brahmin household so that they can have a Biriyani feast. The only redeeming character, to a small extent, in the film remains the Nizam's new bride who becomes his voice of conscience. That bit, too, is so poorly staged that it leaves no impact on us.

At one point, it seems as though the film gets off on the very violence it condemns, revealing a strange kink it has for these kinds of moments. The savagery shown against the many women characters in the film is probably meant to be graphic so as to elicit sympathy for those who experienced it in real life. But the approach is so boorish and repulsive that the viewer is likely to completely dismiss the message.

But what’s really tragic is that the writer-director uses the plight of those countless victims for propaganda and forgoes the chance to bring to light something far more significant. The Telangana Rebellion is an extremely valid subject in the study of communism and how rebellions in contemporary feudal societies have fared. Razakar spares not more than 5-10 minutes of its 155-minute runtime and brushes off the long and enduring struggle of the peasants with no sense of awareness.

Razakar: Silent Genocide of Hyderabad is evidently not a story that's interested in the complexity of a time in Indian history, which still warrants a better perspective. The tragedy of the incident can never be undermined and there’s nothing worse than picking sides. But when a film poses itself as art and attempts to further polarise viewers, the onus is perhaps on us to accept or reject it.