Period films have always had ardent fans in Kerala. Most of the Malayalam films rooted in history — from the first historical drama film Marthanda Varma , South India’s first cinemascope film Thacholi Ambu, India’s first indigenously produced 70-mm film Padayottam to the aesthetically distorted history in Oru Vadakkan Veeragadha — have been lapped up by the masses. While the grandest and costliest Malayalam film Pazhassiraja is awaiting release, Jifry Jaleel is getting his debut directorial venture Khilafat ready for a year end release.
Based on P Valsala’s symbolic historic novel Vilapam , the film is set against the backdrop of the Khilafat movement in the second decade of the 20th century. Says the director, “The film 1921 dealt with a similar theme. But Khilafat examines the role of the Indian National Congress against the backdrop of the movement.”
The story is unveiled in a flashback through the eyes of two old men who witness the Babri Masjid demolition and recollect the tumultuous days of the
Khilafat movement that they lived through in their childhood. Malabar was rife with the spirit of revolution way before the 1920s as the relation between landlords and their tenants worsened day by day. “Hindu and Muslim landlords who had the support of the ruling British squashed the tenants,’’ Jifry elaborates on the plot of Khilafat . ‘‘Those who rose in rebellion were either killed or deported. It was at this time that
the Congress party came on the scene. The tenants — Hindus and Muslims — joined hands in the Khilafat movement and gathered in large numbers under the Congress banner.” Thus the movement which till then had a namesake presence only in nooks and corners of Malabar gathered momentum and became a force to reckon with.
“The unforeseen Hindu-Muslim unity came as bolt from the blue to the landlords and the divide and rule policy of the British. But when the landlords and the British turned to inhuman means to crush the revolt, the Muslim youth in the movement who until then owed allegiance to Gandhiji’s ahimsa principle resorted to violence.”
Congressman Gangan (Anirudh Saiju Kurup) who gave up his lawyer job to strengthen the Khilafat movement is a character who symbolises the policy of the party during the time. Zareena Wahab etches out the role of a leader who exhorts the tenants to demand their rights and to fight the injustice meted out to them through non-violence. While Manoj K Jayan plays Abdul Rahman whose family has been reduced to rubble in the riots, Vinu Mohan plays a character who becomes a victim of the fanatic teachings of religious scholars. Others in the cast include Bhama who dons the role of Abdul Rahman’s wife who looks at the world with fear filled eyes, Muktha who plays the daughter of a Hindu landlord, Jagathy Sreekumar who plays a physician and Kozhikode Narayanan who breathes life into the character of a fanatic Muslim scholar.
Khilafat has Hindi, English and Arabic songs. The music has been scored by Jyotish Krishna and Rudolph.
— parvathynayar@epmltd.com