Film “Amu” Revisits the 1984 Sikh Massacre in Delhi

Jonai Productions/Shonali Bose’s film “Amu” is set to be released in the San Francisco Bay Area on July 27, 2007. Although no stranger to film festivals around the globe, the official release of this movie in North America (earlier this year) started off in Canada. In Toronto and Vancouver, the movie received a great deal of support from the overseas Punjabi community. From Cab Drivers to Professionals, especially Sikh youth who had not reconnected with India in a long time, received Amu with an appreciative eye. And now having seen the movie via a preview DVD courtesy of Emerging Pictures, (Amu’s US Distributor), it no longer comes as a surprise that many Indians, Punjabis and especially South Asian minorities along with Americans will find this movie worth watching.

From its website synopsis “Amu is the journey of Kajori Roy, a 21-year-old Indian American woman who has lived in the US since the age of 3. After graduating from UCLA, Kaju goes to India to visit her relatives. There she meets Kabir, a college student from an upper class family who is disdainful of Kaju’s wide-eyed wonder at discovering the “real India.”

The movie starts off with an excited Kaju (Konkona Sensharma does quite a convincing job here) who finds much color and life in the India she has an identity attached to. She is a bit of an oddball when camera in hand she visits places that are not on the tourist map. Her attempt to get on a public bus in Delhi is quite a scene. Kaju wants to relate to the people in the poor parts of Delhi and not from a ‘foreign lens” of a tourist but as a part of the landscape. Her interest in roadside sales outlets, eateries and the people in the slum areas slowly dissolve into a yearning to learn about her own past. Her mother Keya (Brinda Karat) who adopted her joins the family from the USA and tries to keep the truth from her. The reason for that is that Kaju’s past leads to the year 1984, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. Thousands of innocent Sikhs were massacred in Delhi soon after that assassination under the very nose of the authorities of that time. And even though this movie is about that year, it is also about the present. The movie’s bold search for the unpleasant truth involves not just those amongst the authorities who aided and abetted that shameful episode in India, but also asks if they will ever be brought to justice?

Kabir Sehgal (played by Ankur Khanna) becomes Kaju’s companion in her search for her past. Kabir’s parents Arun and Meera from Delhi’s high society, also appear to have something to hide related to 1984 (wishing that its memory would go away like many in India would). Kabir develops an attraction for Kaju on the journey to her past. The chain smoking Kabir cuts quite a strange figure. One cannot be sure if it the character or the actor, but something is certainly out of focus around him in this movie. Caught between his disinterest and interest in Kaju, the viewer is never sure about him.

Amu is a movie that revisits a time when thousands of Sikh males in India were killed or forced to remove their turbans and cut their hair to survive. But it is also about today and about how the life of a young girl amongst many others changed. One will observe that its strongest characters in this movie are women. From grandmother, mother and Kaju herself along with her birth mother, women strongly dominate this movie. It is from a female perspective that Shonali Bose has given the script its true strength. This movie is almost a narrative on surviving women, whether they are mothers, daughters or wives, suffering due to the sins of men against men.

There are strong scenes in the movie especially when Kaju/Amu’s birth mother runs out for help as her husband is being assaulted. She reaches out first to indifferent people in uniform and then to a politician who instead of representing all of his constituents, is busy rallying them against Sikhs (and attempting to provide humanitarian assistance to them later).

The other possibly most powerful scene is the visit to Sikh widows and their story. The words delivered by a Sikh mother who lost males of her family, especially her most loved one, have to be the most moving part of Amu’s script. This is where the writer is at her best.

Before we move on to talk with Amu’s writer, producer and director Shonali Bose, one last observation and a comparison. This film is about horrible events, but contains few problematic scenes of violence. It delivers its message slowly like a cup of tea and not a double shot of espresso coffee. The viewer will be encouraged to look back and think about injustices against the Sikhs in 1984 and injustices suffered by minorities anywhere today. This is a thinking person’s movie and not Bollywood entertainment. It does not jolt you like Sabiha Sumar’s film “Khamosh Pani” (Silent Waters) once did. There are a few flaws in its production and viewers will notice that this movie was made on limited resources. But for the message that it sends, it is worth watching.


And now we turn to six questions that we asked Shonali Bose via email and on the phone.

Q1. What motivated you to make this film? Why did a Bengali feel that the 1984 Sikh riots in Delhi needed to be revisited twenty years later?

SB: This is an issue for all Indians. An injury to one of us is an injury to all of us. None of us want a different section of Indians to be butchered at different times - no matter what religion they belong to. This is not the
India we want. And because this is what it has been carrying with 1984 being a watershed - this film is relevant. It’s not about the past but the present.
No one has still been punished for '84.

Q2. How has this movie been received thus far within the Desi Diaspora?

SB: Fantastically. They really relate to the central protagonist and her quest. They feel one with her as Indian American's. There is a really strong identification. People are also blown away by this history which most are finding out for the first time.

Q3. Who supported you most during this project? Who do you believe opposed it?

SB: My husband - Bedabrata Pain - the executive producer - without whom the film could not be made. Film financiers and production companies in India opposed it - when they found out it was on '84. The government blocked it as soon as they found out - which was at the censor stage.

Q4. Have you ever considered showing this movie in Pakistan & Bangladesh (if that has not happened already?

SB: Absolutely. it has been in festivals in both countries. I am very keen to have it released there if possible and also to go there for a screening. I am working on fixing that up.

Q5. What are you working on next?

SB: Chittagong: On the Chittagong uprising against the British in 1930.

Q6. Why did you end the movie on Godhra and Gujarat in 2002?

SB: The pattern of violence continues because nobody has been brought to justice for 1984. Gujarat is a direct parallel, which is why the film had to end on that note.