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'The Waking of a Nation' Series Review: All Gunpowder, No Bullets
Ram Madhvani’s period drama lacks the technical finesse to explore the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Director: Ram Madhvani
Writers: Ram Madhvani, Shantanu Srivastava, Shatrujeet Nath
Cast: Taaruk Raina, Sahil Mehta, Bhawsheel Singh Sahni, Nikita Dutta
Streaming on: Sony LIV
In cricket, when the fielding team challenges an LBW (Leg Before Wicket) call, the DRS (Decision Review System) comes into play. This DRS process is a lot like reviewing a film or show. Every stage corresponds to real-world parameters. First, the third umpire checks if it’s a legal delivery — the equivalent of checking if the craft and shot-taking and basic staging are fundamentally sound. Then they move onto Snickometer to see if there’s an edge off the bat or glove — the equivalent of checking if the storytelling is engaging. Finally, Ball Tracking is used to project the trajectory of the delivery. Even here, it doesn’t matter if the ball is hitting the stumps, it has to pitch in line — the equivalent of checking if the intent and politics of the narrative add up. If all checks out, the on-field decision can be reversed and the batsman is ruled out — the equivalent of defying an anti-art industry and making a good show.
For Ram Madhvani’s The Waking of A Nation, Ball Tracking is a success. The six-episode period series is centered on the fallout surrounding the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. A young lawyer named Kantilal Sahni (a miscast Taaruk Raina) joins the Hunter Commission to prove that the attack was an elaborate British conspiracy. Inspired by true events, The Waking of a Nation is part courtroom drama and part historical fiction. Its intent and politics add up — its patriotism is in service of a secular Amritsar (Kantilal is part of a trifecta featuring an idealistic Muslim friend and a peace-loving Sikh friend) that’s incited by a racist British administration. The fate of their friendship speaks to the fate of a future India in which all communal and religious unrest can be traced back to the colonialism of the British Raj. Their tagline ('teen yaar barkarar') brings to mind the Bagpiper slogan in the early 1990s. In Hindi cinema’s freedom-struggle multiverse, Kantilal is laying the ground for the events of Sardar Udham (2021), the recent Sony LIV show Freedom At Midnight (2024), as well as Madhvani’s own short film, This Bloody Line (2017). It strives to be a reminder of people, not borders.
Read More | ‘Freedom at Midnight’ Review: A Brave And Bulky Historical Thriller
But the grand vision of The Waking of a Nation is futile — because it fails on the most fundamental levels of film-making. The Snickometer not only shows a massive nick, but it’s also a no-ball because the bowler overstepped the crease. Which is to say: DRS wouldn’t even reach the Ball Tracking stage. The staging and acting veer into amateur student-film territory; the performers walk and talk 2025 in 1919. The production value feels like both hangover and leftover from Freedom At Midnight (which was campy by design). The dubbing and sound mixing are so off that you can’t tell voice-over from dialogue. The writing stretches an episode of courtroom action into six episodes of Kantilal — a young-adult romcom star in a parallel universe — ending every speech with faux suspense: “So who is the cunning Ringmaster?”. The shaky-camera aesthetic and the colour-to-greyscale transitions are disorienting — an attempt to jazz up a premise that needs no jazzing up. It’s a surprise coming from creator-director Madhvani, whose hijack thriller Neerja (2016) and (Season 1 of) Aarya were technically proficient.
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A lot of this show unfolds like the tacky recreation and flashback parts in a commercial documentary. Even the filming of the Civil Lines riots — which happened a week before the massacre — is chaotic and far from immersive. The few half-moving moments — for instance, when Kantilal’s grief has him hallucinate on the terrace or when the weeping relatives of the dead stand up in court — are milked for so long that it’s like watching replays of one scene again and again. That’s another problem with the tone. The suffering and injustice suffered by the locals are overpitched to a point where it’s not too different from the victim complex perpetuated by toxic Bollywood historicals these days.
That’s not to say it’s false or any of the research is inaccurate, but it’s almost like makers don’t trust the truth to be compelling enough. The craft weaponises a fact instead of amplifying it. Even if it isn’t the purpose, the one-note British characters may as well be Mughal or Turco-Afghan villains. I like that Kanti’s conflict with his friends stems from his divided loyalties; he works for the British and had a hand in drafting the incendiary Rowlatt Act. But their arguments never go beyond the "you’re a sellout, and I’m a brave journalist" rhetoric. It does reflect a more contemporary moral conflict, but Kanti’s transformation is at no point convincing enough to pull off a revolution.
There are also narrative framing issues. The intent is to reveal that Lieutenant Governor of Punjab Michael O’Dwyer is the mastermind, while General Reginald Dyer — the man who gave the orders to open fire — is just a trigger-happy and vengeful puppet. (Naturally, Kantilal spends an inordinate amount of minutes and metaphors comparing Dyer to a bullet because the person who pulled the trigger remains ‘protected’). But the show’s version of this is to show old O’Dwyer trap-shooting, chatting, smirking, eating and enjoying life in a forest while Kantilal performs for the Hunter Commission every week. Every time Kanti says “ringmaster” in court, a match is lit and O’Dwyer smokes his pipe. Even the transitions are unimaginative. Doubt is cast over how Dyer arrived to take charge in Amritsar, but he’s presented as such a sociopath that all the tension is sacrificed at the altar of white-superiority tropes.
O’Dwyer gets lured out of his (alleged) holiday to attend the hearing of course, but Kantilal’s plan to bring out a confession is smarter on paper — politically, culturally, emotionally — than it appears on screen. It doesn’t help that Kantilal explains and narrates his findings to the audience like he’s a genius detective talking down to everyone; Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock would be proud. By the time our hero reaches this volume of passion and wisdom, though, DRS has long dismissed the appeal. The umpires have resumed play, the pitch is flat, the batsmen are scoring runs, the nation has undone its own awakening, and the next kohl-eyed villain is around the corner.