In ‘Razakar’, women receive special attention. As with ‘The Kashmir Files’ (2022) and ‘The Kerala Story’ (2023), ‘Razakar’ tries to shock us with visual after visual of Muslim men brutalising Hindu women.
In the long lineup of films attempting to “educate” the audience about “hidden” truths and “forgotten” history comes Razakar: The Silent Genocide of Hyderabad, directed by Yata Satyanarayana and produced by Telangana BJP leader Gudur Narayana Reddy. The film was released in the south on March 15, but the Hindi and Marathi dubbed versions were pushed back by over a month and hit the screens on April 26th.
Razakar is ostensibly about the integration of the princely state of Hyderabad into the Union of India. But like several films of this genre (and by that, I mean propaganda), it is more invested in scaremongering and imagining parallels in the present than telling a real-life story with integrity. The message etched in gory visuals is simple: Watch out, O Hindus! If Muslims come to power, they will destroy your language, kill your cows, raze your temples, rape and impregnate your wives and daughters, murder your babies and execute all the men.
Not surprisingly, the complicated history of a peasant uprising against the Nizam (Makarand Deshpande), his brutal militia – the Razakars – and the oppressor landlords who colluded with them, is pushed into a simplistic Hindu-Muslim binary. So, the scenario presented to us is Telangana Hindu villages where there are castes but no casteism, and a rapacious Muslim army that is out to harass and humiliate the helpless Hindus.
This story was originally published in thenewsminute.com. Read the full story here.