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A dramatized, very accurate version of the bitterness of the partition of British India.Although this story had been brought to the screen many times in Gandhi, Sardar, Jinnah, Lord Mountbatten-The Last Viceroy, but unless history is backed up by facts, testimonies and eye-witness accounts, it cannot be considered authentic.Similar to this production was a 3-part BBC documentary titled END OF EMPIRE - India in which was shown the closing 2 years of the Raj. But here we see the story from the day Mountbatten and his delegation arrive in India.We also learn of something new....never touched upon by earlier screen versions - is that Jinnah never asked for a separate homeland to be partitioned out of India. He wanted an undivided India but Pakistan to be given the name to 4 provinces in the North West (Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan & NWFP) and 2 in the East (Bengal & Assam) with a land corridor linking them. But the Britts made a mess of it. If United Nations had ordered the end of colonial rule, they couldn't possibly leave India without stirring up trouble. Just imagine, if they had let Jinnah have a Pakistan the way he wanted it (mentioned earlier) and India remained one full unit containing areas with complete Muslim autonomy called Pakistan, then India would have become the Largest democracy in the world. Or even if India remained united and Jinnah became PM, as Gandhi suggested to Mountbatten. How could Roosevelt and the Queen tolerate that. So they (Mountbatten) decided to partition it, because he was given such kingly powers never before given to any viceroy before. Lucky that it ended up in 2 countries, because the initial Cabinet Mission Plan approved by British Parliament made a complete jigsaw out of India and broke it up completely.In one of the instances Mountbatten asks Nehru to accept the Cabinet Mission Plan and Nehru threw it back in Mountbatten's face saying Quote 'We accepted the concept of partition - of a Pakistan... But THIS (refering to the plan) proposal giving the princely states and provinces the option not only of choosing one or the other (India Or Pakistan), but also the additional option of themselves becoming fully independent, we could end up not with only 2 states, but 5 or 10 or 10 dozen...that is NOT partition.....It is FRAGMENTATION' Moreover, Jinnah was straight-forward. He didn't play with words, so the Britts blackmailed him into a power struggle to let it go down in history as though Jinnah wanted to break the country and he was obsessed with power. This production showed Jinnah as he was. Mountbatten thought of himself as the great persuader, but Jinnah was the not the persuadable type. But Mountbatten miscalculated. He had not accounted for the massive human, social and psychological consequences of partition. For him it was just as simple as drawing a partition line. As one person said 'Mountbatten did a marvelous job for England, but a lousy job for India.' The casting is the only problem and that is why I gave a 9. Nehru and Gandhi & Lady Mounbatten were aptly cast, but Jinnah, Mountbatten, Ismay were pathetically cast.Rajat Kapoor as Jinnah. He is too young for the role...and besides, he doesn't even look like Jinnah. They could have called Aleque Padamsee to play Jinnah. At least he looks like him. Where is Patel. He should have been in this. No mention of him.A very good production. Well worth watching. If you can't find a video copy....download it from Youtube - it is in 9 parts.
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