As India rises on the global stage, it is beginning to confront and reclaim narratives long buried by post-independence consensus. This is not regression — it is renewal
In an increasingly polarised media landscape, especially outside India, it has become routine to portray cultural productions such as Chhaava — the recent historical about the torture and execution of Maratha leader Chhatrapati Shambhaji Maharaj at the hands of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, as tools of political messaging. Yet to reduce such works to mere propaganda is to misunderstand a far more complex and necessary civilisational shift.
To accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi of stoking divisiveness each time history is revisited is not only simplistic — it is a refusal to engage with the deeper process underway in India: a long-deferred reckoning with its past. This is not a distortion of historical memory but a release of long-suppressed narratives. Far from being a cultural regression, it reflects the growing maturity of a democracy that is learning to look itself in the mirror, however uncomfortable the image may be.
For decades, certain episodes of India’s history, many of them documented, studied, and preserved through folklore and regional traditions — were curiously marginalised in mainstream discourse. The reasons were often political: the forging of national unity in the wake of Partition demanded a careful, often sanitised story of the past. But this came at the cost of clarity. The spiritual resistance of Sikh gurus, the armed struggle of Maratha warriors, the contributions of revolutionaries such as Veer Savarkar, and even the traumas of India’s wars and internal displacements were frequently consigned to footnotes.
Chhaava is only the latest in a line of films Uri, The Kashmir Files, to name a few, that challenge this selective remembering. None of these films present new “facts”. Rather, they give voice to chapters that were absent from cultural and institutional platforms for decades. Predictably, the sudden presence of these suppressed truths in the public square has unsettled some sections of society. But this discomfort speaks less to historical inaccuracy and more to an ideological dissonance — the shock of losing monopoly over historical interpretation.
To argue that this is the majority “asserting its narrative” misses a more vital point: must the pain of the majority always be dismissed as majoritarianism? India, with its civilisational ethos of resilience and coexistence, once mistook acceptance for passivity. Not any more. As the country ascends towards great power status, it is beginning to shed these reflexes.
The process requires clarity, not confusion; memory, not myth. It will test not only India’s democratic institutions but also its emotional and historical intelligence.
PM Modi’s declaration of 14 August as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day is emblematic of this new posture. It was not a call to vengeance but to reflection — a national gesture honouring the millions displaced or killed during Partition and a reminder that social divisions must be confronted, not buried. As the Prime Minister himself stated, the day is meant to “remove the poison of social divisions, disharmony, and further strengthen the spirit of oneness”. That such a move is viewed as politically motivated in some circles reveals more about entrenched biases than about the act itself.
The criticism, then, needs to be reframed. Why did it take India more than seventy years to allow mainstream films on such episodes? Why were imperial invaders like the Mughals consistently romanticised while the resistance they faced from native dynasties was downplayed? Why, until very recently, did Indian cinema steer clear of stories that showed the armed forces in active combat, or acknowledge that India fought four wars over Kashmir between 1947 and 1999?
The idea that India is sliding into cultural intolerance because certain stories are now being told is ironic, especially when one considers the long-standing stereotyping of Sindhis, Parsis, Sikhs, and others in Indian films of the 1950s through the 1990s. If anything, today’s cinema is less caricatured, more layered, and finally courageous enough to explore civilisational complexity without being hemmed in by post-independence dogma.
There is also a geopolitical dimension to this debate. In contrast to authoritarian states like China, where historical memory is tightly controlled by the state, India remains a democratic and open society. Its cultural expression — however noisy or chaotic — is a sign of institutional resilience. India is not perfect, but it is plural. It is not uniform, but it is unafraid to debate. And that very openness, while a source of domestic contestation, is what makes India a more viable long-term partner for the democratic world.
Some argue that this cultural assertiveness will make India less tolerant. But the greater risk lies in suppressing civilisational memory in favour of a bland, borrowed consensus. As India becomes more geopolitically important, economically, strategically, and demographically, it will naturally also face more pressure to conform to global narratives shaped elsewhere. Expecting the world order to let a rising India be is naïve. These very tools — cinema, media, social debate — will be used to push back against its rise. But the country is now more aware than ever that strength must come from a sense of historical rootedness, not denial.
In this context, Chhaava is not a piece of political theatre. It is part of a larger moment — an opening up of the cultural space where India’s diverse past can be re-examined with courage and complexity. It is not about stoking communalism.
It is about recognising that trauma, when acknowledged honestly, need not lead to vengeance; it can lead to reconciliation. The global tendency to interpret India’s cultural debates through the prism of immediate electoral politics misses the scale of what is happening. India is not just changing Governments. It is rediscovering itself.
The next fifty years will be critical. If India is to fulfil its potential as a stabilising power in the multipolar world, it must continue on this path of self-clarification.
Not all truths will be comfortable. But no democracy, especially one as large and diverse as India — can afford to run from them. Cinema may not be a constitutional tool, but it is a cultural one.
And if it becomes the vehicle through which India finally tells the whole story of itself, the world should not fear it. It should listen.
(The writer is the author of Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna and The Midway Battle: Modi’s Roller Coaster Second Term. Views expressed are personal)
