Earth by Deepa Mehta

1
Earth by Deepa Mehta

• Race Relations and
• Women and Childrens Positions

2
Outline

• General Introduction
• Partition and Race Relations
• Deepa Mehta and the film
• Love and Hatred before during Partition period
• Characters across the Racial Divide
• The Roles of Women and Children

3
General Introduction

• Partition Independence clips 11 (reality vs.
  the government rhetoric)

4
Race Relations

• Hindus-- 83  Muslims(??) -- 11 .
  ChristiansSikhs(???), India's armed
  forcesBuddhistsJains(???)-- Parsee, descendants
  of Zoroastrian Persian immigrants, among the
  richest groups in IndiaJews -- in the Southern
  State of Kelara

5
The Partition of India

• August 14, 1947 birth of the Islamic Republic of
  Pakistan
• August 15, 1947 birth of India

6
Two speeches

• "Leave India to God. If that is too much, then
  leave her to anarchy." --My Appeal to the
  British Gandhi, May 1942
• "At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the
  world sleeps, India will awake to life and
  freedom...A moment comes, which comes but rarely
  in history, when we step out from the old to the
  new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a
  nation, long suppressed, finds utterance..."
• India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru

7
Reasons for Partition

• The British had followed a divide-and-rule policy
  in India.
• An ideological divide between the Muslims and the
  Hindus of India. E.g.1. ??????Mughal?????????????
  ???????????????????????.2. ????????????????.3.?
  ??????????.

8
Impact and Aftermath

• Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs migrations and uprooting
  (6 million Muslims to Pakistan 5 million Hindus
  and Sikhs to India)
• Riots and violence e.g. "ghost trains
• Division of the provinces of Punjab and Bengal
• Ruined economies and lands no established,
  experienced system of government.
• Separation of Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1971.

• Wars between India and Pakistan deadlocked
  over Kashmir.

9
EARTH (1998)

• Director Deepa Mehta
• Adapted from Bapsi Sidhwa's semi-autobiographical
  novel Cracking India (the film a simplified
  version see Sidhwas account)
• Setting Lahore

10
Deepa Mehta

• Born in India in 1949, based in Toronto since
  1973
• Her feature films 1. Sam Me
• Indian trilogy
• Firelesbian plot
• Earththe partition of India
• Waterlives of Indian child widows in the 1930s.
  (Her set destroyed in Varanisi, and her life
  threatened.)
• Hollywood/Bollywood 2002

11
Love Hatred before during the Partition Period

• Qs
• Describe how the different races are presented.
  (e.g. Race Relations in the film clips 2, 9
  Parsee, clips 5 )
• How is partition presented? What are the symbols
  used? Ironies? (clips 4, 12)
• What are the significances of the park scenes and
  the friends meetings? What is the symbolic
  meaning of the park? (clips 3 7, 9, 16, 18,
  ending)

12
Partition Seen thru Ironies Symbols

• Symbols broken plate, torn doll
• Partition // the breakup of the group of friends
• Ironies kite flying riots the changes in
  Shentas fate happiness in the park and the
  desolate park.

13
Characters across the Racial Divide

• Compare the characters of Hassen and Dil Navaz.
• Discuss Dil Navazs changes in the film. Why do
  think the original novel is subtitled The Ice
  Candy Man?
• What do you think about the betrayal at the end
  of the film?

14
Characters across the Racial Divide

• Dil Navaz
• Ice Candy Good at poetry and performances,
• Tendency to violence,
• Lion in everybodys heart.

• Hassan
• Quiet and gentle,
• Wants racial harmony
• Rescues Singh
• Willing to convert to Hinduism for Shenta

The other responses escape convert to Islam,
Christianity, helpless in front of the mob.
15
The Roles of Women and Children

• The child bride (untouchable) saved by marrying a
  Christian dwarf
• The Muslim refugee child (clip 14)
• Shenta
• Lenny unhappy birthday breaking plate and doll,
  nightmare

16
Lenny as the narrator

• Narrative frame Lenny 58 (1997) Lenny 8
  (1947)
• A childs perspectivea witness of the trauma of
  partition in the individual dramas of love and
  rivalries ? the breaking up of the
  nation/frienship, the violence, and the
  distortion of human nature
• Q Why does the director choose to tell the story
  from Lennys perspective?
• innocence Parsees neutrality

17
References

• My Appeal to the British http//sourcebook.fsc.e
  du/history/gandhi.html
• The first steps of a new nation
  http//www.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/India97/india/panora
  ma.tumultuous.times/