Lagaan

Rachel Young
2001’s Lagaan is a moving film which focuses on the power of the meek and downtrodden. Set in 1893 in a village in central India, Lagaan, as its name suggests, is about a land tax raised on the poor natives by the domineering British and the villagers’ fight to escape the tax. Bhuvan is a young villager who is struggling along with his entire village to make a living, but with two years of no rain, the people are barely harvesting enough to survive on. Soon the villagers learn that their normal tax (which they can’t pay as is) has been doubled, due to the cruel humor of the British Captain Andrew Russell. When the villagers attempt to request leniency from the tax, Russell challenges them to a game of cricket. The stakes are: if the Indians win, they are relieved of the tax for three years, but if the British win, the Indians must pay three times the amount of the current tax. Bhuvan accepts the wager, and the villagers find themselves trying to master the game within three months.
Throughout the movie, we see the faith of the Indians in their country and culture: the villagers sing about how this is their land (and even their sky), they pray constantly for help from both Allah and Hindu deities, and of course, the whole film plots Indians against the British, in a high-stakes game. There is also a scene where the villagers are complaining about their local king, who had been the one to inform them about the tax. The angry shouts of the villagers is silenced by a town elder, who tells them that the king and his family had protected the people for years and were not the cause of the suffering. In another scene, Bhuvan is showing the whole village how to hit a ball, but his bat keeps slipping. On the third try, he bends down and rubs his hands in the dirt, then hits the ball so hard that it flies to the temple and hits the bell there. The link between the power of the earth of India and Hinduism is unmistakable.
The film just oozes with nationalistic fervor, but also carries some other important messages within its plot. For instance, the Indian cricket team starts out being formed by Hindus, but soon they are joined by Muslims and Sikhs. All three religions come together peacefully to fight for the cause of freedom. The message is clear that under the banner of Mother India, no religion is above another and all men are equal.
This message of equality also arises in another way. During the search for the Indian team’s eleventh player, Bhuvan discovers that a man named Kachra has the ability to pitch the ball with a tail spin, so that the ball bounces the other way when it hits the ground. The problem is, Kachra is an Untouchable, someone who belongs to the lowest class within India and who is avoided by all other castes of Indians. At first, the other members are outraged when Bhuvan asks Kachra to play, but after a lengthy, nationalistic speech by Bhuvan, they come to realize their mistake and accept Kachra onto their team. The whole subject of Untouchability seldom arises in Bollywood films, so this heartwarming scene of acceptance and equality sends a powerful message to Indian filmgoers on the outdated nature of the caste system.
The love story in this film also feeds more nationalistic ideas. Bhuvan and the Indian team are helped in their efforts by Russell’s sister Elizabeth, who knows that what her brother is doing is unfair. During the course of their training sessions, Elizabeth falls in love with Bhuvan. However, Gauri, one of the village women, is also in love with Bhuvan, and it is her in the end who Bhuvan falls in love with. Though Elizabeth is helpful, kind, and noble, her foreigner status automatically disallows her to become the heroine and love interest within the story. We even learn at the end of the movie that Elizabeth returns to England and remains a bachelorette all her life, while Gauri lives happily with Bhuvan. It seems that the film cannot allow any British character to live happily, even one who helped the hero gain his victory.
I really enjoyed this film, as I’m sure many Indians did. Along with its touting of Indian greatness and ability to overcome, the movie’s cricket-based plot represents another huge aspect of Indian life. As the most popular game in India, cricket is a national treasure and the use of it in Lagaan surely touched many Indians deeply. I’m sure that audiences were moved by the game depicted in the movie, since they know and love the game so much. The intensity of the game is so powerful that any viewer would be moved, let alone someone who felt a deep sense of pride in “their game”. Lagaan is truly a masterpiece which reached out to all people of every caste and religion and sought to teach them the importance of working together for the sake of their India.