Post the success of ‘Neerja’ with Sonam Kapoor and ‘Aarya’ with Sushmita Sen, celebrated ad filmmaker and director Ram Madhvani is all set to bring an untold story from India’s modern past to the audience. His latest web show, The Waking of a Nation, explores the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 and the conspiracy behind it. Following the massacre, the British government formed the Hunter Commission to investigate the incident.
In an exclusive interview with ETimes, Madhvani opens up about his experience of visiting Jallianwala Bagh. He said, “I think when you go to Jallianwala Bagh, many things happen to you. You do see the bullet holes on the wall, and there is a certain reaction that does come. But I’m also happy that there is a memorial because we’ve dedicated the show to their memory. They say history is written by the victors, and that was said by Winston Churchill. So, how do we remember what happened to us? Because it hasn’t been taught. It’s not taught in British schools, and that’s a big deal. When our 12 British actors came down from London, they didn’t know about this. When they read the script, they said this is what we genuinely want people to know about. So, I think there are various ways in which we can get people to understand what happened, and The Waking of a Nation is one way that we can actually wake up to it.”
The year 2021 saw the release of Shoojit Sircar and Vicky Kaushal’s Sardar Udham. The film and the show share the same root for their story—the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Did the two filmmakers share notes about their respective projects? Madhvani said, “I spoke to Shoojit Sircar and Ronnie Lahiri while we were doing research to just ask them how they went about it, what they did. They were very, very helpful, and I’m very thankful to both of them. However, like I said, our show deals with the idea that the massacre was really a conspiracy.”
The director also took the major decision of not showing the massacre in the show. He states that today, people know General Dyer, who ordered the firing, but no one knows the names of the people who were killed that day. In fact, the show mentions their names, which were pulled from the archives.
The show is releasing on 7th March and would be streaming on Sony LIV.