SonyLIV‘s Indian historical drama series “The Waking of a Nation,” directed by acclaimed filmmaker Ram Madhvani, examines the untold conspiracies surrounding the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre through a lens deeply informed by the director’s personal experiences with racism.
The series is set against the backdrop of an infamous event in Indian colonial history, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which took place on April 13, 1919. A large peaceful protest gathering, part of the Indian independence movement, was taking place at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab. British troops led by Brigadier-General R. E. H. Dyer surrounded the venue, blocked the only exit and opened fire on the gathering, causing the deaths of hundreds and injuring thousands.
The massacre is considered to be a pivotal moment in the Indian freedom movement. A commission, led by Lord Hunter, was appointed by the British Indian government in October of that year to look into the events in the Punjab.
“This is not about the massacre. I don’t even show it in a way. It’s about the commission,” Madhvani, creator of the Emmy-nominated Disney+ Hotstar series “Aarya” and director of Netflix original film “Dhamaka,” tells Variety. “But more than that, it’s about racism and colonization, and things which bothered me about how this happened to us.”
The six-episode series, co-produced by Ram and Amita Madhvani, was born partly from a traumatic encounter that has haunted the filmmaker for decades. During his first trip to London with his mother years ago, Madhvani attempted to cross an airplane aisle when a white passenger confronted him with the words that now inform his creative approach: “Sit down, you brown bastard.”
“I was so shocked that I just sat down,” Madhvani recalls. “That humiliation has remained with me. Why is there ‘The White Man’s Burden’? Why is there a superiority? Why were we called natives? Why were we taught to eat with forks and knives and not with our hands?”
This incident catalyzed Madhvani’s exploration of colonial identity and historical narrative. “It’s been troubling me — the colonization of our lives and ourselves,” he explains. “At least the English, the British, came and colonized our land. The Americans came and colonized our mind, and now we can’t even throw them out. So at least the British, we could say, ‘Quit India.’ But with the Americans, what do you do?”
The Waking of a Nation
SonyLIV
Rather than recreating the massacre itself, the series examines its causes and aftermath, particularly focusing on the commission that investigated the tragedy. Madhvani positions General Dyer, who ordered troops to fire on unarmed civilians, as “the fall guy” in a larger imperial conspiracy.
“You can’t just go off your own accord to a peaceful crowd and start firing,” he says. “When you read the commission reports, he’s completely unapologetic about what he did. It’s shocking. But if you dig a little deeper, there’s a character called Hans Raj, who’s a police informer. And where he went, nobody knows. There is a lot of stuff, which is part of the public domain, which says that the commission’s findings were a whitewash.”
The ensemble cast features Taaruk Raina as protagonist Kantilal Sahni alongside Nikita Dutta, Sahil Mehta and Bhawsheel Singh Sahni. The four main characters represent a microcosm of India’s diverse religious communities, with Hindu, Muslim and Sikh characters whose friendship forms the emotional core of the narrative.
The production features 12 British actors who, according to Madhvani, were largely unaware of this chapter in colonial history. “When they came they said, People need to know that this is what happened. This is what they did over there. It is erased here.’”
Madhvani approaches the massacre with deliberate restraint. “I have stayed away from showing [the massacre] because I want to respect what happened. I want to treat that with dignity,” he says. “I do show the soldiers coming in, but after that, you see the people in the commission.”
SonyLIV supported Madhvani’s vision for authenticity, allowing British actors to speak in English rather than accented Hindi. The filmmaker employed his signature “System 360” approach: using long takes without calling “action” or “cut,” shooting with natural lighting and focusing on performance authenticity.
Through “The Waking of a Nation,” Madhvani attempts to reckon with questions of cultural identity and historical truth. “This is really about me trying to ask myself questions about roots,” he says. “I’m a filmmaker making something on something that happened to me and that was personal to me and my own colonization.”
If successful, Madhvani hopes to develop a second season focusing on the 1857 rebellion, continuing his exploration of “how India became India” through historical drama. His ultimate aim transcends simple entertainment — it’s about confronting historical erasure and examining the psychological impact of colonization that continues to resonate today.
“The Waking of a Nation” streams on SonyLIV from March 7.
