Lagaan seems to understand this more than any other film set in that period. Resisting foreign dominance was one aspect of India’s early national struggle. “It was British rule and its direct and indirect consequences which provided the material, moral and intellectual conditions… for a national movement.” The peasants, in effect, paid for their own conquest. “The very conditions of British rule helped the growth of national sentiment,” historian Bipan Chandra wrote. This was necessary for the continued spread and consolidation of the British Empire. By the early 19th century, the English East India Company had grown ruthless in its extraction of the nation’s wealth. Almost every other empire before it thrived on the exploitation of peasantry. The brutal history of land revenue and taxation in India predates British rule. It is a parable-like story, but the title is also significant in a broader sense. The naïve villagers are dumbstruck, but Bhuvan, an angry young boy played by Aamir Khan, takes him up on the offer, and is given 90 days in which to assemble a team. The military official, Captain Russell, suggests they settle the issue with a game of cricket. It’s about a group of villagers who refuse to pay the excessive agricultural tax to their British overlords. Lagaan–meaning ‘tax’ in Hindi–is a neat summation of the film’s central conflict.
The close-to-four-hours length is cleverly belied by its concise title. Sanjay jokes about the film’s notorious runtime. “It was hard to see it as a traditional Bollywood film.” “I was convinced that this was more of a BBC/Channel Four-style production,” he says. Sanjay Dayma, Lagaan’s co-writer, attests to a mood of ‘giddy experimentation’.
The British actors were sourced from London and not the nearest tourist spot, as seems the case with many other films. It was in sync sound, the first such attempt in mainstream Bollywood. The film was shot over a gruelling six-month schedule in Bhuj, Gujarat. Of course, we never planned for this reception when we were starting out…”Īamir looks back at the unusual nature of the production. I’m glad that Lagaan too has been loved by people for twenty years. “There are a handful of films that become classics – Mother India, Mughal-e-Azam, Ganga Jamuna, Sholay. “ Lagaan for me is a journey,” Aamir shares with us.