 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Paranjwari Guhaathakurtha. I had the honour and the privilege to spend two hours with a person who is arguably India's greatest living film director. His name is Shyam Benegal. I met him at his office in Tardew in Mumbai. And instead of half an hour, which I thought I would get from him, he gave me two hours. So we are going to publish this interview in three segments. And the first segment is all about his 23rd feature film, which is going to be released very soon. It is a film called Mujib, The Making of a Nation. It's about Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, often considered by many to be the father of Bangladesh. It is Shyam Benegal's first and so far only film made in the Bengali language. The film is not only Shyam Benegal's first and so far only film made in the Bengali language. It is unique because it is a co-production of two government bodies. The government of India's NFDC or National Film Development Corporation and Bangladesh Film Development Corporation. The film is expected to be released across the world in 2023. Different subtitled versions of the film are going to be released across the world towards the end of 2023. Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha. And I am truly honoured and privileged that I am here in the office of India's greatest living filmmaker. I am sitting in the Tardio Mumbai office of Shyam Benegal. Thank you so much Mr. Benegal for giving us your time. And the viewers of NewsClick, we are very proud that you gave us your precious time. How is your health? We are hearing that you are having to go for dialysis. You have to go for dialysis twice a week. So tell us about your health. Because your age is 88, you are 88, you are going to be 89. How is your health? Well, I would say middling. At my age I cannot complain about anything. It's good that I can at least walk and stand and come to my office and do my regular work. Now that's important. For me, the most important thing is working. And that's the only thing that keeps me in good health. If I had given up working, I mean at my age most people retire and disappear from the scene. But I decided that I wasn't going to do that. There's no question of retirement. Retirement means goodbye as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not yet ready to say goodbye. That's very good. We are very honoured and we are very happy that you are optimistic. Tell us a little bit about the current status of the film that you're making, which is a co-production of the Government of India and the Government of Bangladesh. And it is titled, Mujib, the Making of a Nation. It has been several years since this being made and kindly, and I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, this is the first time that you're making a Bengali language feature film. I mean you've been making films from the time you were 12 years old, I know, using your father's camera. But from 1974 you have been making feature films. And this is going to be your 23rd film and the first film in the Bangla language. But the new nation of Pakistan will have one national language. Tell us about the current status of this film. Well, you know, I don't really know Bengali. That's a bit of a disadvantage. But I had very good people to help me. Because, you know, the most important thing was that the Bengali has spoken in Bangladesh. It's slightly different from the Bengali has spoken in West Bengal. You know, the accents are slightly different. Some of the expressions are slightly different. The Bangal language. Yeah, quite right. Both my parents are from East Bengal. But, you know, one doesn't, if you say Bangal in West Bengal, it's seen as an insult. You know, because the fact is that, but as far as the Bangladeshies are concerned, the original Bengali is theirs. You know, West Bengal has a language that's got mixed up with several other languages. But they sort of pride themselves on the purity of their language. You know, so of course for me, all this is above me because I don't know Bengali. But what was interesting to me when making the film, since I chose to make it in Bengali, the reason being that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman fought for a Bengali nation. You know, he was East Pakistan. And he among a whole lot of people, particularly the intellectual community, was, you know, there was a kind of jackboot on top of them from Pakistan, West Pakistan. And they suffered a great deal on account of that. So these are people who rose against Pakistan. And then eventually Sheikh Mujib was a person among the people who said that we have to fight for a Bengali nation. In other words, would you agree with me when I said the birth of Bangladesh in 1971? Conclusively, I won't say conclusive, but indicated clearly the culture of which language is an integral part in more senses than one matters more than religion. It does actually. It does. It matters a lot because, you see, one of the things is the Bengali person, person of Bengali background who speaks Bengali, feels that his heir to a very rich culture where the language itself provides a very rich culture. And it's also, you know, you have a great number of people who contributed to, you know, because the 19th, late 19th century, which really is, you might call the modern age as far as India is concerned also. You know, 1857 being a kind of break between the old feudal order and the changing order from then on. And the people who created the Bengali nation saw themselves as heirs to this modernity because if you find that the first state, Bengal is the first place where you had education in English as well. You know, in a way that opened their windows to the West in a way that the rest of India did not quite have that. So they were part of a much larger culture and the process of civilization. You know, the evolution of that civilization, it was much more advanced, let's say, in terms of the world than a large part of India. And that was very important because, you see, in India, the rest of India, it really was only the South. Actually, because, you know, you had the Calcutta University was the first one among the universities. Then you have the Madras University and after that everybody else came later. So that in terms of education, you know, and also education that would be kind of the link to the rest of the world was much, much more advanced than any other part of India. Mr. Shyam, this film is being made for a long time. In this, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Indian Government is the Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Bangladesh is the government, your National Film Development Corporation is also the NFDC. So where did it come from? Were you shooting in Dhaka and in different places? So what is the current status of the production of the film? Because I was reading and I was told that by this time, the film was supposed to be ready and completed. So you tell me, how far is this film? Well, you see, it was not, it was a force of circumstances. You see, the pact between Dharin Modi and Sheikh Hasina was signed in 2019. So you, and then the fact... Four years ago, four years back. But the fact was that it took time. You know, who was going to share how much and so on and so forth. Because, you see, the government of India, that is, Dharin Modi, said that we would like to make a film about Sheikh Wajib Arama. And then Sheikh Hasina said, see, I mean, it's a wonderful idea. It's marvelous that we should do this. But I personally feel being the daughter of Sheikh Wajib, you know, we should participate. You know, we should participate in the making of this film. So let it not just be a film that is being made by India for Bangladesh. Let it be a joint venture between Bangladesh and India, you know, together. So the contract that was signed was between the Bangladesh Film Development Cooperation and the National Film Development Cooperation of ours. You know, so between the two of them, they put this project together. And another thing was that Sheikh Hasina also said that, look, I think we should put a little more money. Then India. So you are saying Bangladesh is putting more money into the project than India? Because, you see, she said, look, I mean, it's a film about the father of our nation. You know, now like what happened when we made a film on Gandhi in India. You know, because the Admiral wanted to make a film. But Mrs. Gandhi at that time said, sorry, you make the film, but we pay the pay for it. I'm going to come to that. I'm going to come to the other films you made on Gandhi on Moundas Karamchand Gandhi on Netaji Subash Chandra Bose. But before that, what is the current status of Mujib, the making of animation? What is the present status? The film is more or less ready. It is ready, but it requires a few things like, say for instance, the film we shot was in Bengali. But India wanted, you know, in this BFDC and FDC thing, India wanted the film to be, that we would be able to show the film all over the country, in our country. In which case, by having a film in Bangla, it's reach becomes limited. So they said you should have a Hindi version as well. You know, and then in any case, Sheikh Hasina had said that you should have a version that can be shown abroad. So an international version? An international film, mainly because, you see, the Bangladeshis are all over the world now, and particularly in the western world. And in the western world also, in countries like Germany, France, you know, Britain, Canada, U.S. So you have large numbers of Bangladeshis, and they, you see, unlike a lot of other people from South Asia and East Asia, they never lose their links with their home. You know, that umbilical cord is remains, and which is why she felt that it was important. Alright. Sheikh Hasina felt it was very important that the film should be shown to people, Bangladeshi people in the rest of the world. So we felt that yes, that's a good idea actually. And then what we did was that we would have, you know, one was to dub the film. But I stood firm, I said no dubbing. So it's being subtitled. Yeah, the reason for that being that, see, Sheikh Mujib fought for Bengali and fought for a Bengali nation. You know, you cannot tamper with that by dubbing it in other languages. So we decided on subtitling the film. So currently it is being subtitled to Hindi and English. And English, but it will probably, depending on, you know, where people, where you have a large congregation of Bangladeshis. Now you see, at the moment it is capable of being shown in Canada because you have a very large Bangladeshi community there starting all the way from the east to the west. So today we are in Mumbai. This is the first of July 2023. When are you hopeful that this film would be shown to the public at large? Well, you know, originally because of these, because it was between two countries, there were many, you know, bureaucratic hurdles to be cleared. So it took a long time. In fact, the film was supposed to be ready and would have done some part of its run by now. So when are you hopeful it will be really useful? We are hoping that we are hoping that, you see, there needs to be some occasion, you know, to open the film. March next year? Yeah. So one of the things was to open the film in Toronto. You know, because Sheikh Hasidna was very, you know, very interested in having the film shown at, you know, international film festival. Particularly in the countries where you have a large Bangladesh presence. So we did, I mean, we did do a few things, but even when it was not fully complete. For instance, we had a curtain raiser, you know, in the Toronto film festival. Although it was just a curtain raiser, but it had excellent response. So now we will, you know, we can do it with caution. There's no date that's been fixed. What's this? No date has been fixed. No, no, no, no date we wanted to keep it on the, you know, I mean, the, I mean, Mujib, as you know, was assassinated. One day before our Independence Day, you know, on 14th of August. So we thought that, you know, but then it was, it was a slashing with India's Independence Day. You know, so we didn't want to do that. And we wanted it absolutely clear of all of that, you know, so that politically speaking, we wouldn't do something that would be, that would affect them or affect us in any way, you know. So it was, so obviously now it will be released anywhere between September and December. But the most important thing was that there were other things that came in the way because, you know, you had Ramzan coming, which meant that the month of Ramzan is very little is done in Bangladesh. You know, because they keep those very, they keep it very, they're pretty orthodox like that. You know, you have very, very few people, I mean, certainly no Muslim will eat anything during the day. You know, so you have, it's not some time when you can release the film. All right. We are not yet sure, but it's likely to happen within this calendar year. Yeah, all right. All right. Tell me a little bit about the film, the actors and what were the challenges you faced in the making of the film? Well, the most important thing was the question was of language. Since the film was going to be shot in Bengali. And since I couldn't, I mean, one of the things that was not acceptable, easily acceptable, let me put it that way, was to take Bengali actors from our country to make the film. So I had to cast everybody from their side, from Bangladesh. Although the film was shot partly in Bangladesh and partly in Bombay, but we had to bring the whole lot of actors from there. You know, because it mattered a great deal because they're very particular about the, you know, accent and speech and all of that kind of thing. So I had to have actors from there. Fortunately for me, the actors from Bangladesh are outstanding. Who plays Mujibu? Arifin Shoo, he's a, he truly is a brilliant actor. So most of the actors who, if they have to make a reason of living, have to do a lot of theatre. So he's a theatre actor? Same thing with the, like in Calcutta actors also do the same because they can't make a living doing films. I got you. You know, so Arifin is a brilliant actor, but he also acts a lot on stage and particularly all over, you know, between Dhaka and Chittagong everywhere. So he's a, he, along with the other actors, Bangladesh actors, they are acting in the theatre much of the time. All right, I got you. And do you have an actor playing Sheik Haseena's role? Yeah, Sheik Haseena, but Sheik Haseena is also playing young Sheik Haseena. And she's also one of that group of actors along with Arifin. You know, the young Sheik Haseena is in the film, you know, because he was assassinated in 1975, I think. Do you also in the film talk about what happened after the assassination? No, after, you see, the film actually naturally will end when 14 people, 14 members of Sheik Mujib film including himself and his wife and a whole lot of relations were assassinated. Only the two daughters were not, that was only because they happened to be abroad at the time. You know, Helen and Sheik Haseena, these are the two who, you know, survived. The massacre. Because the whole plan was to massacre the entire family. Okay, I wanted to ask you a different question. You have made a film on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. That was a film that you made in 2005. In 1996, you made a film on the Mahatma, the making of the Mahatma on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. You have made a television serial on Jawaharlal Nehru's discovery of India, Bharat Ek Hoj, 1988. And also on Jawaharlal Nehru himself. That's correct. It was a three-part film because, you know, it became a three-part film because it was meant for television. That's correct. And you have made not only biographies of people who were politically important and historically important, you've also made a film and you've also, you know, written a book on Satyajit Rai with whom you have had a long association and you interviewed him over several years and you put it together. In what way was the making of this film, Mujib, the making of a nation, different from your experience in making films about Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru? Well, you know, there's only one point to be made here, which is that you have to, you cannot defy the person. Then you lose a lot of the person's characteristics, you know, character also. Because human beings are not gods. You know, they have their flaws but their flaws are outweighed by so many other things that they do which helps people around them, you know, and also generations that come after them. Now the fact is that this is very important because for me, when I'm making a film about some great historical personality then I have to remember that he is not simply to be defied. You want to portray a person not, as you say, diified that person but as a human being with limitation. That's the main thing, a human being but there's always a plus factor, you know, that makes him, that makes him rise because there is a certain kind of integrity, there's certain kind of moral integrity there, you know, which is very important. Like when you look at Gandhi, there are flaws in everybody but the fact is none of these people intentionally have done harm to anyone, you know. They're not like a whole lot of other people who are also leaders of their country. You know, these are people who are untainted by that sort of thing. You just heard Shyam Benegal discussing his yet to be released film called Mujib, The Making of a Nation. In the second part of this interview, Shyam Benegal talks about his trilogy of films on Muslim women. We discuss politics, we discuss the Muslim question in Narendra Modi's India. Keep watching, news click, subscribe to the channel and wait for the second part of this interview with India's greatest living filmmaker, Shyam Benegal.