Critical Analysis of Lagan - once Upon a Time in India

Lagan - Once Upon a Time in India was released in 2001 directed by Ashutosh Gowariker and has prominent movie stars such as Amir Khan and Gracy Singh. This movie presents not only various postcolonial discourses but it also sheds light on cultural discourse, religious symbolism, nationalism and imagined communities and also on the politics of the subaltern. 

To begin with cultural aspect of the movie, Ashish Nanday, a cultural theorist once said, “cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the English”. In his book The Tao of Cricket, he identifies three obsessions of the contemporary India as cricket, politics, and the Bombay cinema. This movie combines all these elements within the historic Indian cinema patten of lengthy hours, nearly four hour long, which puts forth metaphorically the independence struggle and the on going struggle of the recovery of what was lost during the period of colonisation. This makes this film a text for study of postcolonial and cultural discourses in which the idea of cultural hegemony comes into play and how the colony enacts the way of the coloniser in other to defeat him. Cricket is one such example in which the game created by the coloniser is used by the colonised in the movie in order to achieve victory against the coloniser. This concept is also given by Homi K Bhabha who talks about ambivalence and mimicry between the coloniser and the colonised. According to him it is not always disempowering to the colonial subject but is rather ‘two powered’. In this case, cricket is also treated as a symbol of nationalism and to be more precise it’s looked upon more as nationalist symbol than a colonial one. 

Another feature of this movie would be its representation of a subaltern as the protagonist which might give a hint towards the representation of the subaltern on a bigger platform but it could also be studied as a text which reaffirms the hegemonic nationalist project in which the subaltern has no place. The portrayal of the subaltern in this movie moves history into a completely different direction. It is highly misrepresented which again satisfies the elitist nationalism and what is visible is the construction of the ‘other’ in order create a notion of nationalism. The movie does not represent any direct nationalist symbols like nationalist slogans or reference to motherland but rather creates a psychological impact on its audiences by creating a foreign other in order for the audience to visualise it as a nationalist propaganda. This relationship of the white coloniser is shown as of an exploiter where as the relationship of the Raja with his population is of benevolence and it is due to such bipolarity in the characters that audience generates a nationalist tendency in the wake of their emotions. Though there is a scene in which the people blame the Raja for increase in the taxes but the situation is overturned by his redemption and hence he becomes a noble man who was a victim of the situation. There are other characters who have been portrayed in a similar fashion such as Lakha, who spies on the Indian team for the British due to his personal hatred for Bhuvan and also Ram Singh, an aide and translator until he is struck at the match by Russell. The fact that the destiny of the subaltern has been represented as the destiny of the nation shows the lack of the display of caste, creed, and gender politics. Even though the protagonist is a subaltern but the way the struggles are dealt are rather the ways of an elitist. The struggles of the subaltern had no voice in this narrative though it claimed to have represented the same. It is also true for the representation of gender in the movie. Women are mere bystanders and have no active role to play in the game. Though it was a woman who taught Bhuvan how to play cricket but it is important to note that she was a British woman and hence the role of cultural hegemony should not be neglected. 

Religious symbolism is a prominent feature of the Indian cinema. The link between myth and mythology has often been crossed in order to reach a wider audience. This could be seen in the plot of the movie itself in which the reason of crop failure was drought and due to which paying tax became an issue but at the end when the protagonist wins the match and it starts to rain. This is accompanied by continuous prayers of the Bhuvan’s cricket team who practiced Hinduism, islam and Sikhism and hence the rain can be interpreted to be a blessing of the God and all this struggle was a quest for the followers to find their identity in a time when imperial cultural hegemony was a dominant force. This representation is also reflected in the songs of the movie, such as, Radha Kaisai na Jalai which draws a parallel between the love story of Lord Krishna and Bhuvan. 

To conclude, Lagan has not only influenced India but has impacted the foreign markets. It was nominated for 2002’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It created a mass audience and has been highly influential in terms of its impact on the people which explains its popularity even in year 2020. This fictional narrative which is set in year 1873 tries to bring out a version of how oppressive the British Raj was and also how Indians were fighting it in their own creative ways. Elements such as a foreign rule, cricket, religious unity and symbolism and a rural setting has given this movie an authentic setting and a creative plot which would appeal to the masses not only on lines of fiction but of history also. 

References 

• Chavda, A., Saikia, G., & Sharma, B. (2020, February 17). david1992. Retrieved from https:// scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/21/mimicry-ambivalence-and-hybridity
• Madan, T. (1984). Book reviews : ASHIS NANDY, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1983. The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 21(2), 256–258. doi: 10.1177/001946468402100209 
• Mannathukkaren, N. (2001, December). Subalterns, Cricket and the 'Nation': The Silences of 'Lagaan'. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4411449.pdf? refreqid=excelsior:b6ebd8294298d17b03c1ee6ec89195d6
• Rushdie. (n.d.). Cultural Connections: Lagaan and its audience responses.