When
Britain contemplated granting independence to India, leaders
of the future Pakistan encouraged Moslems to press for a separate
country. When the partition occurred on August 15, 1947, with
the collaboration of Britain and the Pakistani leaders and
over the opposition of Mohandas Gandhi, Pakistan was carved
out of India into Eastern and Western parts. Earth,
directed by Deepa Mehta, tells us at the end of the film that
ten million persons became refugees and one million died in
the resulting ethnic cleansing, but these statistics do not
include three later wars, an arms race that has led to nuclear
proliferation, and occasional flare-ups over Kashmir that
have brought the countries to the brink of war. But the real
purpose of her film is to show what happened at a more personal
level in the city of Lahore, Punjab, which fell into Pakistan
hands. The film is based on the novel Cracking India
by Bapsi Sidhwa about a crippled girl Lenny (played by Maia
Sethna), a Parsee who was only eight at the time; her voice-overs
begin and end the film, and it is through her eyes that we
see the senseless tragedy. (Parsees escaped to India from
Persia during the ninth century to escape Islamic persecution,
cooperated with the British and all other ethnic groups, and
prospered.) As the film begins, around the dinner table are
seated British, Hindus, Moslems, Parsees, and Sikhs, who had
been getting along for 250 years of colonial rule. But all
that is now breaking down as independence and partition are
imminent; some fire verbal brickbats about other groups during
the conversation, and the affected interlocutors almost come
to blows. At first, everyone featured in the film planned
to stay, believing that the transition would not be difficult.
On the night before independence, however, fire breaks out
in Hindu homes, and Hindus and Sikhs soon decide to flee as
soon as possible, paying a Moslem to provide safe conduct
who, in the end, could not be relied upon. Most of the film
focuses on a young Hindu named Ayah Shanta (played by Nandita
Das), who is Lenny's nanny; she is courted by two Moslems.
Hassan (played by Rahul Khanna) wins her affections; however,
since mixed marriages are not tolerated, the two agree to
escape to Amritsr, the Sikh capital within India. The other
Moslem suitor Dil Navaz (played by Aamir Khan), however, arranges
to kill Hassan and incites a mob to kidnap and execute Ayah
Shanta. Lenny innocently betrays the whereabouts of her nanny,
an indiscretion that haunts her for the rest of her life,
just as the ethnic cleansing resulting from the partition
has haunted a subcontinent ever since. In this déjà vu film,
we are reminded that Britain, the United Nations, and the
United States winked while massive human rights violations
occurred, and that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
came one year later-in 1948. MH
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