Freedom At Midnight review: A relatable, racy-pacy account of build-up to India’s tumultuous independence

Plus, we are warned astir the makers of the bid having taken ‘creative liberty’ successful definite parts, arsenic good arsenic immoderate bits being fictionalised due to the fact that the bid is ‘not a documentary, and is not intended to accurately bespeak those incidents that whitethorn person occurred.’ Right, we get it: these excessive, near-contradictory clauses are needed adjacent erstwhile addressing events which person been well-documented, and comprehensively peer-reviewed.

If there’s 1 happening that Collins and Lapierre tin beryllium accused of is that their racy, pacy penning benignant turns 1 of the astir violent, hard partitions of a onshore into an easy digestible socio-political thriller, which flattens the complexity and nuance of the subject. That, and the chiseled bent towards Mountbatten, the past Viceroy of India who presided implicit the past fewer months of the British Raj, helping carve the portion connected spiritual lines.

Given the polarised, ‘post-truth’ times we unrecorded in, I’m definite determination volition beryllium arsenic galore arrows slung astatine the omissions and commissions successful the series. Condensing a 1000 positive pages into 7 episodes of 40-45 minutes necessitates a pruning, and a point-of-view: you tin spot the effort astatine equilibrium and objectivity, but nary quarters are fixed erstwhile portraying Jinnah (Arif Zakaria) arsenic an adamant-beyond-reason, insecure idiosyncratic who is shown being eaten up by his tendency to beryllium seen ‘equal’ if not greater than Gandhi (Chirag Vohra) and Nehru (Sidhant Gupta).

I work the publication galore years back, beauteous overmuch arsenic I’d work the authors’ different books arsenic popular past entertainers, and don’t retrieve uncovering thing excessively violative fixed the genre, but for their wide White-washing the relation of Mountbatten, whom they evidently admired a large deal, and whose meticulous and exhaustive note-taking helped them successful their probe portion moving connected the volume. If I callback correctly, they besides utilized the words ‘dark-skinned’ for ‘natives’: they besides termed Indira Gandhi ‘fair’ astatine 1 constituent successful their introduction, without the slightest shred of irony.

ALSO READ | Why Pakistan celebrates Independence Day connected August 14, and India connected August 15

Lapierre and Collins whitethorn not person been British, but they are precise intelligibly Anglophones. Getting our radical backmost into our ain history, oregon rather, histories, and putting Mountbatten and his machinations wherever they belong, is the load of the series. And it does succeed, to a ample extent, astatine putting the grounds straight, seen from the eyes of those who were warring for freedom, alternatively than those who were forced to springiness it, adjacent if it comes disconnected not arsenic profound arsenic it could have. But then, the publication itself is patently not aiming for profundity: it’s casual readability tin beryllium seen successful the series’ attempts astatine making itself relatable to an assemblage which has byte-sized attraction spans

The standard of the operation, which the leaders of the Congress tried to stave disconnected till the precise past moment, was staggering: drafting a enactment betwixt rivers, fields, forests, deserts, mountains, created India, with West Pakistan and East Pakistan connected either side. Jinnah, who refused to budge from his request of an autarkic federation for Muslims, called it a ‘moth-eaten Pakistan’, but had to beryllium contented with the mode the colonisers, loath to springiness up their booty (that they hoped the recently created federation could hold to ‘dominion’ status’ nether the Crown is made wide each implicit again), gave him what helium wanted.

By the extremity of the archetypal episode, it’s wide that Advani and his squad of writers are going to archer america this communicative chiefly successful a bid of conversations betwixt the main dramatis personae: there’s Nehru and Patel and Gandhi and the others successful the Congress connected 1 side, and there’s Muslim League’s Jinnah, and his compatriots Liaquat Ali Khan (Rajesh Kumar) and Huseyn Suhrawardy (Anuvab Pal) connected another, with the Sikhs and different players successful between.

While re-creating each events would person been acold excessively unwieldy for the format (there are a fewer exceptions, similar the Chauri Chaura ‘kaand’ and the devastating Noakhali riots, among others), the bid of conversations does marque things static, particularly erstwhile the actors follow their favourite stance of facing beforehand and speaking to the camera, with their companions down them.

Then, of course, determination is the insistent inheritance euphony — my apical bugbear — which is truthful large that it threatens to drown retired some the dialogues arsenic good arsenic the staging. It got to the constituent wherever I virtually fell upon with alleviation connected the fewer portions which person the courageousness to dispense the bgm.

This is an absorbing ensemble, with nary effort made to usage large stars to play acquainted characters: what, nary Rajit Kapur arsenic Nehru? But the prime of a fewer actors makes things uneven. However adept the precise talented Sidhant Gupta (so close successful ‘Jubilee’) whitethorn beryllium successful looking and sounding remarkably similar Pandit Nehru, with his khadi achkans and the reddish rose, helium cannot flight the information that helium is simply a 20 thing playing a sixty something.

Zakaria is fantabulous arsenic Jinnah; successful fact, this whitethorn beryllium his champion relation successful galore years. McGibney and Bugeja, arsenic the Mountbatten couple, trying hard to just to those they are leaving behind, are bully too, with conscionable a hint astatine the colourful presumption of the purported closeness of Nehru and Edwina.

As Gandhi, Chirag Vora, astir fantabulous successful ‘Scam 93’, is again a terrific lookalike, but his transportation is underlined. It could good beryllium that playing Gandhi automatically gives you a escaped walk into dhoti-lathi-and-sing-song-speech territory, but the curve of his chemoreceptor stays distracting each the mode through. KC Shankar arsenic V P Menon has a juicy part, and helium makes the astir of it; Malishka Mendonsa arsenic Sarojini Naidu comes disconnected arsenic a Delhi lady-about-town successful her tasteful Emporium saris; Ira Dubey, who makes up different uncommon pistillate quality successful this all-male party, is acold excessively youthful, contempt her artfully crimped-and-grey hair, to go Jinnah’s loyal sister-and-companion.

ALSO READ | Dominique Lapierre and his heavy enslaved with India

The 1 histrion lasting caput and shoulders supra everyone other is Rajendra Chawla who afloat embodies Sardar Patel. He has been written powerfully and clearly, and done the telling of this tale, helium comes disconnected the existent designer of modern India, surpassing some Nehru, who had to enactment his fealty speech to springiness Bapu the ultimatum (if you cannot travel with us, bash not basal successful our way), and the Mahatma himself, who cannot locomotion past past his abiding sadness astatine the imminence of Partition.

Despite its problems, I’m gladsome that the bid exists. The communicative of India, and Pakistan, which came into beingness astatine that changeable of the midnight hr immortalised successful the haunting words of Nehru, is inactive being written. It was a fraught freedom, with millions losing their lives and their livelihoods connected either broadside of the newly-formed border, drawn successful blood. The questions — what that hard-fought state has travel to mean, and however escaped are we truly — are inactive blowing successful the wind.

Freedom At Midnight cast: Sidhant Gupta, Chirag Vohra, Rajendra Chawla, Luke McGibney, Cordelia Bugeja, Arif Zakaria, Ira Dubey, Malishka Mendonsa, K C Shankar, Rajesh Kumar, Pawan Chopra, Anuvab Pal, Khurshed J Lawyer, Shreya Nair, Urvashi Dubey, Andrew Cullum
Freedom At Midnight director: Nikkhil Advani
Freedom At Midnight rating: 2.5 stars