Film Review by Dr. Suneel Mehmi BA., LLB, LLM, PhD
18.08.2026
Often, I bore my readers by telling them about the origin of my name. My mother named me after Sunil Dutt because he saved the life of the actress that played Mother India, the woman that was playing Sunil’s mother in the film. He protected The Mother. A fire had broken out on set. He was her saviour. She fell in love with Sunil at the hospital while she cared for him with his severe burns. The couple married. Sunil had protected Mother India. And Sunil had married Mother India. His own mother. Here, in Batwara 1947, Sunny Deol was playing the man that protected Mother India. And this time, he was Muslim. What I was seeing on screen was the destiny that my mother had chosen for me. Not least, because Sunil Dutt was Hindu/Sikh and had married a Muslim woman.
The movie has not done good business at the box office. But is this because Sunny Deol, known for his patriotic movies, is playing a Muslim man in a film that criticises the Partition and the separation imposed on us by the Colonisers and the West? The director said that it was difficult to get funding for the movie because of this fact. Without a doubt, there is a strong current of Islamophobia in India at the moment. And this is the reason that films like Batwara 1947 should be made. Because society needs to be changed so that it accords with the Indian ideals of harmony and acceptance. These films are the education that society needs. The message that it needs.
In Indian style, the movie is about syncretism or mixing over discrete boundaries of religion. This is evident in the cast. In the movie, the Hindu mother is played by a Muslim woman. The Sikh and Hindu actors play Muslims. The content of the film is the same. Preity Zinta’s character will cook for The Mother in utensils that have never been used for cooking meat as the mother is a vegetarian by religion for instance. The message is that humanity is greater than religion. Connection is greater than the politics of hate and difference. This was the lesson that my grandfather taught me when I was a child. He would greet each in their own religion’s greeting. Celebrate all religious events despite the fact that he was himself Guru Ravidasia. It is a teaching that is familiar for us from the older generation – a lesson that those who thrive on hate have never learnt, let alone forgotten.
Above everything, the movie is about the religion of the mother. The religion of Durga, the Invincible, The Mother Queen. The one I bowed my head to as a child. It is about the love for Durga. The love for The Mother. The purest relationship and the most natural, as the movie says. The love that comes before organised religion is the love for The Mother. The love that comes before the love of the state – which the movie also criticises – is the love for The Mother. It is the love for The Mother that can achieve harmony and love in this world away from religion and statehood.
The old lessons. The women in the film are the fountains of morality just like in the Indian films of the past. They tell us that one cannot abandon one’s integrity for one’s life. They tell their husbands what to do to uphold right. In feminist thought, the angel conception of womanhood is often criticised. Surely, the Indian says, heroism is known for its morality. The women are being presented as heroines. Why would this be wrong? The hero, Sunny Deol, his fight is what we believe in because it is based on morality. Is this wrong too?
The message of the story is simple. Love triumphs over hate. Hate is peddled by politicians and not the people. Humanity is our greatest strength and virtue. Those who believe in hate are not human. They are not defenders of the faith because all they believe in is themselves and their selfish greed.
The dialogues in the movie were brilliant. It was well written. The music was good too. It was very emotional hearing the hymn of Rama and his mother. The acting in the movie was superb. It combined all of the classic elements of Indian cinema. The second half I found particularly powerful. These were the teachings I had been raised upon as a child. They were the teachings of my grandfather who had married a woman that had had to flee what become known as Pakistan in the Partition. Without making Sunny Deol purely into an action hero and typecasting him – although he still packed a punch in the fight scenes – the film raised him in my estimation as an actor with range and depth. Preity Zinta was also amazing and Karan Deol also surprised me as a talent.
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