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EARTH Julie Patel About a year ago, Deepa Mehta’s Fire was banned across movie theaters in India for its portrayal of lesbianism. Her new film, Earth, is also stimulating controversy for criticizing the partition of India and Pakistan. In Earth, Mehta elegantly depicts how very sad Independence was for Indians because of the religious controversies that arose at the time. She erases the golden light History casts on Independence to show us the stark realities of it. Earth stars a little girl, Lenny (), who offers an objective account of Independence because of her age and her family’s neutrality on religious and national issues. Although Lenny is part of a wealthy family of Parsis in Lahore, India–which becomes part of Pakistan halfway thorugh the movie–she spends a lot of time with her nanny, Shanta (Nandita Das). While tensions rise among Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, Shanta's male friends–who are of varying religious and economic backgrounds–continue hanging around her because they are drawn by her youth and beauty. Thus, we get to see Independence through the eyes of real people, the people who Lenny encounters. Mehta works off of the premise that most people view Independence from the perspective of India’s elite: they glorify it and mythologize leaders like Gandhi. Yet, in Earth, we see an Independence period full of murder, fear, and revenge. Through Shanta’s friends, Mehta points out that while India’s leaders triumphantly declared Independence, the mark it left on the everyday people of India was a bloody war among Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. The post-Independence period left ___ million people dead due to fighting among India’s religious groups. The violence and upheaval of post-Independence also led people to take drastic measures. People of the untouchable Hindu class, like Lenny’s family’s servants, changed religion and became either Muslim or Christian, to avoid getting killed by the Muslims of Lahore. An untouchable ten-year-old girl is married off to an old man for money. Families suddenly moved away from Lahore, leaving the places they called home for generations. On top of the many problems the British brought to India, they also fueled tensions between Hindus and Muslims. And ironically, though the British united India, Mehta suggests that they also controlled the means by which Independence was carried out, namely, the decision to divide Hindus and Muslims into India and Pakistan. Mehta imparts that the British, who thought of themselves as coming in and trying to “improve” India, actually divided a country of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, who had been living together peacefully for centuries. Mehta’s interpretation is off for the simple fact that India’s religious groups—Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Christians, and Buddists—have fought and killed one another throughout modern history. The British are easy scapegoats for India’s problems but to blame them for the division of India and Pakistan is not completely accurate. Earth depicts the ways in which the religious differences of Indians—that led to so much violence and hatred—were in many ways superficial. Religion simply sparked a vengeful flame in characters like Dil Nawaz (Aamir Khan), a Muslim who was deeply scarred by the murder of his sister by Hindus and by Shanta’s rejection of his love. Early in the film Nawaz actually mocks his own religion, Islam, when he pretends to telephone Allah in the park. He tricks a Muslim family into paying him for calling Allah for them. Yet, when religion begins dividing Indians, Nawaz becomes one of the most violent and cruel Muslims in the movie. Nawaz understands that religion is a front for revenge; he says that it isn’t religion that divides people, it’s anger. Shanta’s friends show us how much their culture is a shared one, an Indian one, rather than a Muslim, Hindu, or Sikh one. They eat at the same restaurants and mill around in the same parks. They speak the same language, have the same inside jokes, sing the same songs, and make the same jabs at politicians. Thus, Earth relays that the commonalities of Indians outweigh religious differences. My biggest problem with the film was the title: the title suggested
it would connect in some way to Fire, but it didn’t, and moreover,
it didn’t even seem appropriate in describing the content of the
movie itself. Regardless of the title, because Mehta’s portrayal
of Independence is as nuanced, particular, and interesting as her
depiction of two Indians who engage in lesbianism, I for one am
deeply anticipating her next movie. Only please, Ms. Mehta, don’t
call it Air or Water.
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