Indian film Sardar Udham was ruled out as the country’s entry for the Oscars, with one jury member saying it ‘projects hatred towards the British’.
Shoojit Sircar directed the film, which follows the life of freedom fighter Sardar Udham Singh, reports Metro.
According to the report, in 1940, Udham Singh assassinated Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, British India, in London to avenge the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar.
Composer Indraadip Dasgupta told the Times of India (via the Independent): ‘Sardar Udham is a little lengthy and harps on the Jallianwala Bagh incident.
The publication quoted composer Indraadip Dasgupta as saying that the project is an honest effort to make a lavish film on an unsung hero of the Indian freedom struggle. “But in the process, it again projects our hatred towards the British. In this era of globalisation, it is not fair to hold on to this hatred,” he said.
For production designer Sumit Basu who said he thought the length of the film was an issue, “It has a delayed climax. It takes a lot of time for a viewer to feel the real pain for the martyrs of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.’
