Film review:The Black Prince - A card board production

The theme of the historical and period film The Black Prince  is richly evocative the life and times of Maharaja Duleep Singh, son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sher-e-Punjab ( Lion of Punjab) is making the rounds across Britain.  The family’s fall from fortune -- from the awe-inspiring rule of Ranjit Singh to the pitiful ascendance of the boy king as a ruler at the age of five -- is a truly touching tale, worth a powerful film.

Duleep Singh’s removal -- abduction – and conversion to Christianity with love and care amid opulence and indulgence is a story of which the empire and the conquered subject could both look back with a sense of pride. Queen Victoria who  affectionately took the boy prince under her wings was more than generous to her Black Prince  when she granted the young prince his wish to see his mother and eventually  brought her to the British shores and  even had tea with her. It was a gesture almost beyond compare – imagine two imperial women  vying for the affection of the same young man!

Alas such a powerful story has simply been lost in the current film showing  all across Britain and the Indian sub-continent, including Pakistan. Writer/Director Kavi  Raz had  the right idea delivered the wrong way . The choice of singer-songwriter Satinder Sartaaj as lead actor  Duleep is simply inappropriate.  The man  does not speak like the Prince. There is no anger, no impatience, no fire in him. The ‘Lion in the  heart of the boy’ promised  early  in the film simply does not roar.

Duleep,  by all historical accounts , was a sturdy young man , fond of hunting and  game shooting at the sprawling Elveden Hall estate in Suffolk, British countryside . Not a weakling, brooding character weighed down by loss and sorrow all the time.

When the film came to the deeply emotional episode of mother and son (Rani Jindan and Duleep) meeting after years of separation, both actors were less than equal to the occasion. Shabana Azmi as  mother Jindan started well by portraying  an old and frail mother unable even to clearly see her son due to poor vision caused by long years of unbearable  separation. But once the two had touched hands, one would have expected them to caress and  hug each other. Yet nothing happened. No all-consuming embrace , no kisses or tears of joy at reunion.  No words like “My put (son), my Lal” -- any Punjabi mother’s utterance from her heart strings. Even  experienced actor Shabana failed.  She should have asked the Director Kavi  Raz to enhance the script with sorely needed additional words and gestures.  

Amanda Root as Queen Victoria was not much more than adequate. Victoria and Rani Jindan’s brief meeting over a cup of tea was too controlled. Here were two women, indeed two Queens, vying for the affection of the young Prince Duleep, yet no eye movement, no vibes.

And a glaring historical omission. The Punjab of Duleep’s father Maharaja Ranjit Singh was an overwhelmingly Muslim majority area and he was the leader of all communities, not just the Sikhs. Some of Ranjit Singh’s closest ministers, including his personal physician, were Muslims. The court language of  his domain which stretched from Khyber to the banks of Sutlej, if not more in several directions, was Persian – not Gurmukhi, Hindi or Urdu. Sadly his legacy and Duleep’s heritage is shown to be bereft of any Muslim contribution.

Today Punjab’s heritage seekers include the Punjabi diaspora in Britain, including prominent members of parliament. Virendra Sharma,  MP for Ealing Southall and chair of the Indo-British All Party Parliamentary Group, has offered to explore the idea of taking the remains of Duleep Singh from Suffolk where he is buried, back to Punjab. He is hopeful that his parliamentary colleagues in Britain would support the move.    

  Back to the film of the moment. Had the director, producers and actors read the beautifully written and touching little novel, The Exile, by Navtej  Sarna, India’s Ambassador to the USA, or read Khushwant Singh on Punjab’s  history, it could have been a much better film, doing justice to the film makers and filmgoers.

A  pulsating, soulful life story reduced to a card board production.

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Brexit Britain going through 'witthdrawal' pains

  

 Badly battered Prime Minister Theresa May whose image suffers daily media blows is finding herself out-manoeuvred at European Union negotiation tables in Brussels by the regional constituents of the United Kingdom. The leaders of Scotland and Wales have been quick to gang up against Mrs May who is increasingly being seen as a leader of England only. Northren Ireland, the other constituent, of course, has managed to have the first bite of the cherry by extracting the one billion pound bung  for its support to the government. 

The First Minsters of Scotland and Wales have revealed their hand by issuing a joint declaration on the “European Union Withdrawal Bill” – the official title of the Brexit or  Repeal Bill -- that their governments  “ cannot recommend that legislative consent is given to the bill as it stands.”  The Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones have both questioned  London government’s authority in Brussels talks and dubbed the bill as a “naked power grab.”  Edinburgh and Cardiff governments want to dictate their own terms to safeguard their regional interests.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was equally swift to pre-empt any deal by Mrs May’s government when he flew to Brussels to hold talks with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator. At his flamboyant best, Corbyn presented his football club Arsenal shirt  and a copy of Labour  election manifesto to Barnier.  Corbyn’s  150-minute meeting with Barnier is said to have indicated Labour’s search for a potential compromise on the UK’s access to the EU single market after Brexit. Of course, both Corbyn and Barnier denied that their talks amounted to any parallel negotiations or undermined formal government talks which will continue over the next weeks and months.

The Liberals like Sir Vince Cable, the probable  next party leader who has family connections with India, are asking for a second referendum to reverse the entire Brexit project. “ I’m beginning to think Brexit may never happen,” he told a BBC TV show. The whole question of  EU membership would once again arise if living standards suffered  and unemployment rose, he said. But  after the battering the party received at the June elections its voice doesn’t carry much weight.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has jumped into the fray by suggesting a compromise with EU. Himself a pro-European, he believes that Brexit need not be too hard and claims that EU can be persuaded to offer some leeway or concession to Britain over the right of free movement of workers (EU migrants). At the same time  Blair has paid a left-handed compliment to Corbyn for boosting the labour party at the general election while warning that an “unchanged Corbyn programme” would prove disastrous for the country.  

“I pay tribute to Jeremy Corbyn’s temperament in the (election) campaign... and to the enthusiasm it generated.” But his supporters “shouldn’t exaggerate it,” and “ his critics, including me, shouldn’t understate it.” Blair is known for his  opposition to Brexit, which he has previously urged his supporters to overturn.

However, overturning Brexit doesn’t seem to be anywhere on the horizon; the die has been cast and Britain  must  grapple with making the best of  the choice of its own making. And a long haul it looks to be.  

The confusion is being further confounded by differing voices within the ruling Tory party. Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said the other day that the EU could “go whistle” if it demanded too high a price for withdrawing from the bloc. There is talk about the divorce bill costing as high as one hundred billion euro.  Johnson’s remarks drew an immediate retort from Brussels boss Barnier who said, without mentioning any figures, that he was “not hearing any whistling, just a clock ticking.”  

Elaborating the EU stand, Barnier said: “People have used words like ransom... It’s not an exit bill, it’s not a punishment, it’s not revenge, it’s simply settling accounts.”

EU officials have made it clear that failure to acknowledge the principle of continuing budget obligations would prevent talks from proceeding at all and could stop discussions on issues like a free trade deal. “The three priorities for the first phase are indivisible,” declared Barnier. He was referring to the divorce bill, EU citizens’ rights in the UK and issues like the Northern Ireland border.

 The British Chancellor, Philip Hammond, who was being reviled in the Tory press before the election, has suddenly regained listeners in the party for his soft stance on Brexit to retain London’s place as a financial centre and to stop the exodus of  banking sector jobs to Europe. Trade and industry organisations have already voiced their support to the Chancellor’s strategy. Another  sector which has  warned  against any hasty decisions relates to Euratom treaty on the movement of European scientists and materials. Leaving Euratom in haste could see the loss of as many as 5,ooo highly skilled jobs. Other issues, including security and the role of European Court of Justice, are grave cause for concern.

It’s just the start of divorce talks, how it unravels is anybody’s guess.

Private Eye, Britain’s leading satirical magazine which has delighted, informed and alerted its readers for more than 50 years, in its irreverent take on ‘Britain’s Brexit Strategy’  carries in its latest issue a mock-up of two people with food in their hands, one under the sub-heading ‘THEN’ showing ‘Cake and eat it’ and the other under tag line ‘NOW’ telling ‘Eat humble pie.’

Tail-piece: Britain’s dress-down spree, which started with the House of Commons Speaker making tie an optional that can be dispensed with, has moved to broader fields. London Transport’s Tube or metro rail has dropped its centuries old greeting phrase ‘Ladies and Gentlemen.’ From now on it is “Good morning everyone,”  in deference to the gender-neutral campaign of  LGBT groups, supported by Mayor Sadiq Khan. 

Britain:From hung parliament to ‘bung’ parliament...

The talk of the town or rather of the country in the UK since last month’s  election has veered from hung parliament to what is being called ‘bung’ parliament. The word bung is as old as beer kegs or casques and its dictionary meaning is the wooden cork or stopper of the beer or wine barrel to prevent the liquid from overflowing. In the current parliamentary parlance, however, it has acquired a sort of reverse connotation to allow the flow of one billion pounds to Northern Ireland the votes of whose ten, anti-abortion, ultra-Catholic MPs have saved Prime Minister Theresa May’s Tory government, at least for the time being.

A further grant of about one million pounds a year has also been agreed to cover the cost of travel for abortion in mainland Britain required by about 1,000 N. Ireland women every year.

The billion pound allocation to N. Ireland has acquired the sobriquet of  bung or bribe to save Mrs May’s government. The bribe translates into 540 pounds for every person  in N.Ireland. A mega case of cash-for-votes. All too familiar in India !

How long Mrs May’s government or her premiership lasts is anybody’s guess. But the Brexit project of Britain to leave the European Union hasn’t started well. Britain has lost the first round, with Europe demanding issues of its three million migrants in the UK and the UK-EU divorce bill to be discussed first before going further. The British offer of  allowing EU migrants to remain in the UK, subject to completing a five-year residency clause, in return for reciprocal rights for UK migrants in EU, has not enthused the Europeans, in fact quite the reverse.

Within Britain, the talk among almost all parties is about how to enjoy the trading benefits of EU’s single market without remaining in the EU. To have the cake and eat it too !

Britain’s Brexit decision, after 44 years of EU membership, is its own and has its costs too. During all those years Britain extracted a fair amount of flexibility  or ‘independence’ while remaining a full member and exercising veto on various issues. It opted out of  euro, the EU’s common currency, and also out of Schengen travel arrangements which make a single visa good for all EU countries. Thus Britain retains its own sterling pound, besides keeping its own separate visa which makes Schengen visa non-applicable for UK travel.

Reminding Britain of such major concessions, former Southern Ireland Prime Minister John Burton has said that time has come for the UK to realise what it will be giving up. “ It will lose common arrangements on everything from flights taking off and landing, lorries on the toad, the safety of food, the movement of workers and many more matters on which agreed standards have been built up over the past 44 years. It will lose the benefits of hundreds of treaties the EU has negotiated with other countries.”  

“The UK will have to negotiate a new deal on every topic, then agree a procedure for subsequently amending, enforcing, and interpreting each one.”

And that’s not all. Major issues like that of  security and intelligence cooperation to fight the new menace of terrorist attacks will have to be dealt with, besides the much larger issues of  defence and technological cooperation.

 In common with other mega cities, London, like Indian metros, is grappling with the menace of air pollution. The British capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, is proposing  a 12.50 pound (Rs 1,000) charge on most polluting vehicles entering congestion zones of the city from April 2019.  The announcement coincides with a report which reveals that seven in ten hospitals and health centres in inner London areas are blighted by illegal levels of toxic air.

Marking the National Clean Air day, the report found that as many as 577 hospitals and medical facilities were in areas where nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels breached EU guidelines. Additionally, all 800 health facilities were in areas where PM-10 particulates level was above WHO limit. Nitrogen dioxide and PM-2.5, identified as major pollutants, are both found in diesel  emissions and linked with the deaths of nearly 9,500 people every year in the British capital, according to a King’s College, London, study.

Greenpeace campaigner Baroness Jenny Jones called for local government action to encourage people to drive less and use public transport to reduce pollution in hotspot areas. Already in 15 London boroughs or municipalities, parents who keep their car engines running while waiting outside school gates face crackdown by ‘ant-idling’ patrols. Drivers who refuse to turn off their engines can face penalties of up to 20 pounds per each offence.

The conditions in Indian cities like Delhi, with ever burgeoning population, are more acute and more complex due to a dismal lack of buses and over-use of cars as a status symbol by the urban elites. Badly maintained diesel or petrol cars and failure to switch to electric or  hybrid vehicles are challenges that must be faced for a modicum of healthy living in Indian cities.

Tailpiece: To tie or not to tie has become a parliamentary question. The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has allowed MPs to dispense with the ties, if they so wish. Comment from angry quarters was swift. “Are you going to wear tracksuits next?” If put to a vote, the issue might end in a tie !   

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