Educational Media Reviews Online

The maker of this anti-war/anti-nuclear documentary film, Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, describes it as “a work in progress.” At 3 hours long, it can be an exhausting experience for a viewer, but social activist Patwardhan’s passion for his subject and his reluctance to leave anything out of his narrative are understandable. These are cutting-edge serious life-and-death matters.

I come to this review with the experience of having lived in India and having close ties to Indians; in addition, my husband is a documentary filmmaker who taught film in India. What I have to say may be considered tainted by the fact that I am an American. India suffers from a national inferiority complex vis-à-vis the United States, underscored by several incidents in the film. This teeming sub-continent wants to be thought of as a super-power, as good as, if not better than, the United States. With the explosion of a nuclear device in 1998, as documented here in several chilling sequences, India became a nuclear power, joining a heretofore-exclusive club (the US, Russia, China, France, and the UK). On the heels of the nuclear tests in India came tests in Pakistan, never a country to be outdone by its archrival. North Korea recently announced it had nuclear capability; Israel, Iran and Iraq may also possess the technology if not the weaponry. The club is getting less exclusive as we speak.

Nationalism/patriotism, whatever one wants to call the intense feeling of pride and love one has for one’s country, can rapidly escalate into jingoism and hatred for other nations and peoples. Intensely nationalistic countries, especially those with a bloody history of conflict, like Pakistan and India, are dangerous nations to possess nuclear technology. In a Scientific American article published in December 2001, the case was made that the next nuclear war would originate on the India/Pakistan border. (This was before North Korea made its announcement.) It is a volatile area – who hasn’t heard of Kashmir? – where thousands have already lost their lives. The Indians constantly saber-rattle at the Kashmir border. The Pakistanis respond in kind. And meanwhile the nuclear capability of India becomes stronger. It is a national objective to amass the most sophisticated nuclear weaponry. Building of nuclear plants is a priority. Indians are exhorted to be proud of their country’s nuclear capability. Pro-nuke songs are sung at rallies. Though Russia (a close ally of India) has more stockpiled nuclear weapons, it’s the comparison with America – perceived as the pre-eminent nuclear power – that’s always made in the media and by the government. There seems to be a national love affair with the atomic bomb, encouraged by the current party in power.

Meanwhile, the anti-nuclear movement in India is tiny. Intelligent and vocal, yes, but in terms of numbers, miniscule. Anand Patwardhan, who grew up in a family influenced by principles of Ghandian non-violence, is a powerful speaker for the pacifist movement in India, and this is a powerful film. If nothing else, it should make Americans aware that India is no longer a benign, non-violent country. India, under the influence of a strong and growing right-wing Hindu nationalist movement – the same people who assassinated Mohatma Gandhi -- could very well be the nation that starts a nuclear holocaust.

We watch the fat cats in the Indian government and distinguished nuclear scientists (not unlike Indian versions of the fictional and god-like Dr. Strangelove) brush aside problems of nuclear contamination and harmful waste and ignore nuclear fallout from testing (they are now testing underground, as is Pakistan). They pooh-pooh the growing deaths and genetic abnormalities occurring among the poor people who live too close to these plants and testing sites, and we as viewers who’ve lived with the nuclear spectre for a long time, are appalled. In America, there is a much more sophisticated awareness of nuclear dangers, and there are many more outspoken and respected critics of the price we pay for nuclear energy and nuclear superiority. In India, they are ignored.

Patwardhan makes his case effectively by interviewing villagers, the middle-class, doctors, and concerned scientists. He goes into Pakistan and finds citizens there who do not hate Indians (just as there are Indians who do not hate Pakistanis) and talks to them. A particularly affecting sequence is the one in which a group of Lahore high school girls debate the nuclear safety issue. At the end of the debate, the most eloquent girl shamefacedly admits that she took the side she did (pro-nuclear power) because that was the side that would win her the debate.

There is much to admire in War and Peace, and it brings together footage and interviews that few have seen outside of India, or even IN India. It deserves to be widely disseminated. That may not happen. A little known fact about making films in India is that there is a strict censorship policy to which all films are subject. No country purporting to call itself a democracy – when I lived in India I was constantly reminded that India is the world’s oldest democracy – not true, and never more false than in this issue of censoring the media. (See Anand Patwardhan’s web site for the list of 21 cuts -- all of them political -- that the Indian government demanded before the film could be shown in India. http://www.patwardhan.com/ )

Anand Patwardhan is bucking the government as well as the patriotic feelings of most Indians with this controversial film, but it is a film that had to be made. Nuclear power is dangerous (yes, the requisite deformed children are shown throughout the documentary, and it is not a pretty sight) and the government of India is so enamored of its status as a nuclear power (yes, the pun is intended), that grassroots anti-nuclear movements will never get any respect, much less be heeded. This is a wake-up call for Americans and Europeans that unchecked nuclear proliferation will one day most probably kill us all. The filmmaker is to be commended for his courage in making this documentary and for taking it outside of India to film festivals and other venues.

Having said all this, I have to add that it is a very long film at 3 hours and repeat that it could exhaust even the most committed viewer. Patwardhan, who’s made a number of excellent documentaries (among them Bombay Our City, 1985, about the slum dwellers in the hutments who were removed by the government, their rights as citizens trampled upon), loses dramatic impact when he becomes repetitious and goes over the same ground again and again. Edited down, this probably could be much more effective; he may lose viewers at this excessive length. A shorter version by a half-hour (148 minutes) is available from the distributor. Patwardhan is, however, an outstanding observer and documenter of Indian social issues, and clearly someone the Western press will follow. He was interviewed on NPR’s On The Media on August 30th, 2002 concerning the cuts the Indian government’s censoring board tried to force on War and Peace. He’s beginning to make a name for himself and this is a film that people in the West should see, a side of India that few have ever seen.

Note: As an American, I have to say that I’m offended that two sleazy cable tv televangelists decked out in red, white and blue spangles – caricatures, really – were presented as typical Americans. Shame! It’s a cheap shot in an otherwise extremely intelligent and utterly absorbing film.

Awards: Grand Prize Winner 2002 Earth Vision Film Festival (Tokyo); Best Film &International Jury Prize (2002) Mumbai Film Festival (India)