I have known Anand Patwardhan for nearly fifty years, and I consider him not only one of India’s most distinguished documentary filmmakers but also a tireless revolutionary whose political convictions have always been inseparable from his artistic work. During the making of his documentary Bombay: Our City, I had the privilege of spending several days with him, observing his extraordinary commitment to the people whose lives he was documenting and gaining a deeper understanding of his approach to cinema. Despite his international reputation and the recognition his work has received at major festivals and cultural institutions, Patwardhan remains relatively unknown in Iran, even among documentary filmmakers. This is particularly unfortunate because his films offer important lessons about the relationship between cinema, political commitment, artistic independence, and social responsibility.
In War and Peace, Patwardhan confronts a disturbing reality that Aldous Huxley explored in his book Ends and Means: governments invariably insist that their own weapons exist exclusively for defensive purposes, while regarding the weapons possessed by other countries as sufficient justification for developing more powerful arsenals. Each nation responds to the military preparations of its rivals with increasingly sophisticated preparations of its own, creating a cycle of suspicion and escalation in which the pursuit of security becomes inseparable from the constant expansion of destructive power. What Huxley recognized decades ago has become one of the most dangerous contradictions of modern civilization, and Patwardhan’s film examines the political, psychological, and moral consequences of this seemingly endless competition.
Over more than four decades of filmmaking, Anand Patwardhan established himself as one of the most uncompromising voices in international documentary cinema, creating a remarkable body of work that confronts religious fundamentalism, nationalism, caste discrimination, poverty, militarism, political corruption, and the abuse of state authority. Despite winning numerous awards and receiving international recognition, his films have frequently encountered censorship battles in India, while their distribution beyond the country has remained limited. In Western countries, where commercial entertainment dominates cinemas and television programming, politically engaged documentaries often struggle to attract the attention they deserve, particularly when they demand intellectual participation rather than offering immediate and uncomplicated satisfaction. Patwardhan’s films, frequently constructed through a combination of observation, interviews, archival footage, political commentary, music, and personal reflection, are often considerably longer than conventional documentaries, but their duration allows him to investigate complex subjects with a depth that shorter formats rarely achieve.
Few filmmakers have demonstrated Patwardhan’s determination to confront those in power, and even fewer have continued to believe with such conviction that cinema can contribute to transforming society. His films do not merely expose injustice or criticize political institutions; they encourage audiences to reconsider accepted truths, recognize connections between apparently unrelated forms of oppression, and question the ideological structures through which governments exercise authority. The international recognition of Jai Bhim Comrade, completed in 2011, helped introduce his work to a new generation of viewers and programmers, creating renewed interest in a filmmaker whose artistic achievements had long exceeded his commercial visibility. In July 2013, London’s Tate Modern organized A Cinema of Songs and People, a major retrospective devoted to his work, recognizing his documentaries as significant achievements in contemporary cinema and emphasizing their commitment to social transformation. Other screenings and programs followed, while Sheffield Doc/Fest associated his contribution to documentary culture with the tradition represented by filmmakers such as Chantal Akerman, John Akomfrah, Patricio Guzmán, Chris Marker, Jean Rouch, Agnès Varda, and Dziga Vertov. The release of War and Peace by Second Run offered another welcome opportunity to discover a filmmaker whose importance has remained greater than his public recognition.
It is remarkable that an artist of Patwardhan’s achievement should remain unfamiliar to so many filmgoers, especially considering the relevance of his subjects to contemporary political and social conflicts. I have often turned to his documentaries not merely to learn about India but to understand the complicated historical and ideological forces shaping the entire subcontinent, because his films reveal political developments through the experiences of people whose lives are directly affected by them. His cinema is political without reducing individuals to illustrations of ideological positions, and its strength comes from the relationship he establishes between historical circumstances, collective struggles, and personal experiences.
Politics has always occupied the center of Patwardhan’s filmmaking, but his documentaries are neither conventional political statements nor simple demonstrations of predetermined theories. His early documentary Waves of Revolution, made in 1974–75, was filmed clandestinely during a period of intense political unrest in India and examined the anti-corruption movement that began in Bihar and spread across the country, capturing the atmosphere of rebellion preceding the Emergency declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Prisoners of Conscience (1978) gave a voice to political prisoners, including those detained and tortured during and after the Emergency, while Bombay: Our City (1985) exposed the miserable living conditions of Mumbai’s slum and pavement dwellers, contrasting their struggle for survival with the conspicuous wealth of the city’s privileged classes. In In the Name of God (1992), Patwardhan examined Hindu fundamentalism and the political campaign surrounding the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, revealing how religious identity could be manipulated to produce hatred and violence, while Father, Son and Holy War (1994–95) explored the connections between communal violence, patriarchy, religious extremism, and aggressive concepts of masculinity. A Narmada Diary (1995), made with Simantini Dhuru, documented the struggle of communities threatened with displacement by the Sardar Sarovar dam project, placing the experiences of vulnerable populations within a broader examination of development, political power, and social inequality.
In Jai Bhim Comrade, Patwardhan turned his attention to the continuing oppression of Dalits, communities historically subjected to caste-based exclusion and discrimination, examining their struggle for dignity through the influence of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, one of the principal architects of India’s Constitution and one of the most important leaders in the struggle against the caste system. Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of followers in 1956, represented a historic rejection of caste hierarchy and an attempt to establish a new foundation for social equality. Taking fourteen years to complete, Jai Bhim Comrade examines the consequences of the 1997 desecration of an Ambedkar statue in Mumbai, the subsequent police killing of Dalit protesters, and the protest suicide of poet and activist Vilas Ghogre. Through music, personal testimony, archival images, and political investigation, the film reveals the persistence of caste oppression while celebrating the forms of cultural resistance developed by those who refuse to accept it.
With War and Peace, Patwardhan confronts an even darker subject, examining the nuclear arms race, the emergence of nuclear nationalism, religious fundamentalism, relations between India and Pakistan, and the lasting consequences of the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Filmed over four years and completed in 2002, the documentary moves between India, Pakistan, Japan, and the United States, combining historical investigation with encounters that expose the human consequences of military ambition. Organized into six chapters and an epilogue, the film shifts between different historical periods and geographical locations, but these movements gradually reveal the connections between national identity, militarism, social inequality, and the political manipulation of fear. Although the subjects are frequently disturbing and the historical evidence often overwhelming, Patwardhan maintains an underlying faith in the possibility of resistance and change, refusing to allow the horrors he documents to become arguments for resignation.
The documentary begins with powerful archival images of Mahatma Gandhi’s funeral in 1948, an event that holds particular significance for Patwardhan because members of his family participated actively in the Indian independence movement. He has described himself as an unworthy but passionate admirer of Gandhi, whose principles of nonviolent resistance influenced his understanding of political action and moral responsibility. One of his uncles was associated with Gandhian resistance, while another, Achyut Patwardhan, became a committed socialist and underground political activist. Their gradual withdrawal from politics after independence reflected a broader disillusionment with the direction of the newly established nation, as the idealism of the independence movement increasingly encountered corruption, inequality, political opportunism, and religious division. Gandhi’s assassination consequently becomes more than a historical event in Patwardhan’s film, functioning as a point of departure for an examination of the moral and political choices through which independent India gradually moved away from some of the principles that had inspired its liberation.
Patwardhan examines how the democratic, secular, and nonviolent ideals associated with the independence movement came into conflict with religious nationalism, economic inequality, and the increasing militarization of the state. He explores the ways in which political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress, have appealed to patriotic sentiments to strengthen their authority, even when their political programs and ideological positions differ substantially. In this context, nationalism becomes an instrument through which political leaders can transform public anxiety into support for policies that might otherwise provoke serious opposition. The first part of War and Peace traces the gradual abandonment of India’s nonviolent traditions in favor of forces resembling the interconnected evils that Martin Luther King Jr. identified as racism, economic exploitation, and militarism, demonstrating how these forces reinforce one another within modern political systems.
The film follows the emergence of nuclear nationalism from India’s first nuclear test in 1974, ironically code-named Smiling Buddha, to the Pokhran-II nuclear tests of May 1998, which were followed later that month by Pakistan’s own nuclear explosions. What both governments celebrated as achievements of national pride and security also intensified the possibility of catastrophic confrontation between two neighboring countries with a history of military conflict. Patwardhan places these developments within the broader context of hostility between India and Pakistan, including the war of 1971 and the Kargil conflict of 1999, but he is less interested in conventional military analysis than in the psychological and political transformation through which weapons capable of destroying millions of lives become objects of collective celebration. His camera records nationalist demonstrations, political speeches, and public ceremonies in which nuclear technology is presented as proof of national greatness, revealing the disturbing contradiction between the pride associated with military achievement and the economic hardships experienced by large sections of the population.
This contradiction becomes particularly powerful when Patwardhan contrasts the enormous resources devoted to nuclear weapons with the persistence of poverty, inadequate healthcare, and profound social inequality. Governments that claim to defend the welfare of their citizens invest extraordinary sums in technologies capable of annihilating them, while politicians transform the threat posed by rival nations into justification for further military expenditure. Within such a political atmosphere, questioning the nuclear program can easily be interpreted as disloyalty, and opposition to weapons of mass destruction may be condemned as a betrayal of national interests. Patwardhan reveals how nationalism becomes inseparable from the manufacture of fear, encouraging citizens to view the military strength of their country as a measure of personal dignity while overlooking the suffering produced by the priorities of the state. Yet he also introduces courageous members of peace movements in India and Pakistan whose determination to establish dialogue demonstrates that hostility between governments does not necessarily represent the attitudes of ordinary people.
In the second part of the documentary, Patwardhan moves beyond the Indian subcontinent to examine the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing the consequences of nuclear warfare into direct human focus. Until this point, nuclear weapons have frequently appeared through political speeches, military calculations, nationalist demonstrations, and the language of strategic necessity, but the journey to Japan confronts viewers with the destruction hidden behind these abstractions. The devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not simply a demonstration of military power or an event belonging to a distant historical conflict; it was the annihilation of human lives on a scale that continues to challenge our ability to comprehend the consequences of modern warfare. By examining the experiences of survivors and the lasting physical and psychological effects of the bombings, Patwardhan restores human suffering to a historical discussion too often dominated by governments, military authorities, and political commentators.
The film also questions the ways in which the American public has been encouraged to understand these events, particularly the familiar justification that the atomic attacks were necessary to bring the Second World War to an end. Rather than relying on a single counterargument, Patwardhan examines the relationship between historical memory and political authority, asking whose suffering receives public recognition, whose testimony is preserved, and who possesses the power to establish an officially accepted interpretation of history. His criticism extends to censorship, selective presentation, and the political manipulation of information, demonstrating how public understanding of military conflict can be shaped by institutions that control the circulation of images and historical evidence. The film’s exploration of American nuclear history also reveals a central contradiction in international politics, since the United States, the only country ever to have used atomic weapons in war, has simultaneously played a decisive role in determining which other nations should be permitted to possess them.
Patwardhan does not use this contradiction to justify the nuclear ambitions of India or Pakistan, because his opposition is directed toward the broader political logic that presents nuclear arsenals as guarantees of peace. He challenges the assumption that national security can be measured by the capacity to inflict destruction and questions the moral legitimacy of a system in which the ability to threaten civilian populations becomes an accepted instrument of international relations. When the documentary returns to India, its examination of the glorification of nuclear scientists develops into a wider consideration of national identity, political insecurity, and cultural dependency. Patwardhan explores the contradictions of a nationalism that celebrates independence from foreign domination while seeking validation through the technologies, military structures, and cultural symbols associated with powerful Western nations. The film eventually reaches the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, where Gandhi’s commitment to nonviolence provides a moral counterpoint to the continuing escalation of military power.
A description of the subjects covered by War and Peace cannot fully communicate the cinematic intelligence with which Patwardhan organizes his material, because the documentary’s artistic achievement lies not simply in the arguments it advances but in the relationship it establishes between images, sounds, historical experiences, and political contradictions. Although the film may initially appear to follow a broad historical progression from Gandhi’s assassination to the nuclear confrontations of the late twentieth century, its structure is considerably more sophisticated, moving repeatedly between different periods, geographical locations, personal encounters, and emotional registers. Arguments introduced in one sequence return later under different circumstances, while images acquire new meanings through their association with other images and statements made by political leaders are challenged by the experiences of ordinary citizens. These connections gradually create an intricate network of intellectual and emotional associations through which viewers recognize the relationship between authoritarian political systems, religious fundamentalism, economic exploitation, social inequality, militarism, and aggressive nationalism.
The effectiveness of this approach depends on Patwardhan’s ability to accommodate complexity without sacrificing emotional immediacy, and the film’s extended duration becomes an essential element of its achievement. Rather than forcing complicated political questions into simplified conclusions, he allows contradictions to emerge naturally and gives the audience sufficient time to examine the evidence, reconsider assumptions, and establish connections between seemingly unrelated experiences. His cinema demands concentration, but this demand is inseparable from the pleasure of discovering patterns that would remain invisible within a more conventional approach to documentary filmmaking. The gradual accumulation of images and arguments produces a powerful emotional effect, and the viewer becomes increasingly aware that the subjects being examined are not isolated political problems but interconnected manifestations of a broader system of power.
Film critics frequently approach politically serious documentaries with a peculiar sense of caution, as though the discussion of difficult subjects must be accompanied by assurances that audiences will nevertheless find the experience entertaining. Such qualifications are rarely considered necessary when discussing serious works of fiction, and their repeated appearance in documentary criticism suggests an unfortunate tendency to underestimate audiences and diminish the artistic possibilities of nonfiction cinema. In her influential essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey challenged the conventional pleasures offered by dominant narrative cinema and argued for the possibility of breaking established ways of looking. The radical achievement of Patwardhan’s filmmaking can be understood in comparable terms, because his documentaries offer forms of intellectual and emotional satisfaction that arise not from escaping reality but from confronting it, questioning established assumptions, and discovering unexpected relationships between political experience and artistic expression.
As the title of the Tate Modern retrospective, A Cinema of Songs and People, suggests, Patwardhan’s films are distinguished by their combination of music, imagery, political analysis, personal testimony, and carefully chosen references to popular culture. Humor and humanity repeatedly interrupt the seriousness of their subjects, allowing the audience to experience the vitality of individuals and communities whose lives might otherwise appear defined exclusively by suffering. In this respect, certain similarities can be found between Patwardhan and British filmmaker Terence Davies, particularly in their understanding of music’s ability to preserve personal and collective memory. For both filmmakers, music is far more than an emotional accompaniment, since it connects generations, sustains communal relationships, and preserves experiences that might otherwise disappear. Their cinematic approaches, however, remain fundamentally different, because Patwardhan frequently uses songs as instruments of political solidarity and resistance, allowing music to challenge official language and expose the contradictions of political authority.
In Jai Bhim Comrade, songs express the suffering, dignity, anger, and determination of oppressed communities, becoming essential elements of a struggle for social recognition and equality. In War and Peace, music often functions as a counterpoint to nationalist rhetoric, creating powerful contrasts between expressions of human experience and the abstract language through which governments justify violence. One might describe these documentaries as political essays shaped through music, although such a description can only partially capture the complexity of Patwardhan’s approach. His achievement lies in the integration of intellectual argument and sensory experience, through which the audience is encouraged to respond emotionally without abandoning critical thought.
Patwardhan’s political consciousness developed during his years as a student in the United States, where he encountered the radical counterculture and antiwar movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. While studying sociology and communications, he began filming political demonstrations and gradually came to regard the camera as an instrument of political action rather than simply a means of artistic expression. His conception of filmmaking shared certain characteristics with the British documentary tradition associated with John Grierson, whose emphasis on cinema’s social responsibilities had influenced documentary production internationally, including in India. Nevertheless, Patwardhan rejected aspects of that tradition, particularly its relationship with colonial institutions and paternalistic assumptions about the people being documented, and his artistic development was more profoundly influenced by the revolutionary ideas of Third Cinema that emerged in Latin America during the 1960s.
The Argentine filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, whose monumental The Hour of the Furnaces appeared in 1968, argued that cinema could become an instrument of resistance to imperialism, economic exploitation, and political domination. Their understanding of filmmaking challenged both commercial cinema and forms of artistic production that remained detached from collective political struggle, proposing instead a cinema capable of participating directly in the transformation of society. There are unmistakable echoes of The Hour of the Furnaces in the chapter-based construction of War and Peace, particularly in its use of archival materials, political commentary, intertitles, and popular music. Although Patwardhan has sometimes downplayed his identity as a film theorist, his work demonstrates a sophisticated engagement with the ideas that shaped politically radical cinema, and his 1981 master’s thesis at McGill University, The Guerilla Film, Underground and in Exile, examined the revolutionary possibilities of filmmaking within precisely this intellectual tradition.
Patwardhan was particularly interested in the argument advanced by Solanas and Getino in their essay Towards a Third Cinema, which proposed that cinema should move beyond passive entertainment and become part of the struggle against alienation and oppression. Within this conception, the camera becomes a political weapon, while filmmaking assumes the character of resistance against established systems of domination. Patwardhan has also acknowledged the influence of Cuban filmmaker and theorist Julio García Espinosa, whose concept of Imperfect Cinema challenged the pursuit of technical perfection and conventional artistic polish as the primary objectives of filmmaking. For García Espinosa, cinema’s political and social significance mattered more than its ability to satisfy established aesthetic expectations, and Patwardhan’s own methods reflect a comparable conviction that human intimacy and political urgency must take precedence over technical perfection when the two come into conflict.
This philosophy does not mean that Patwardhan’s films lack artistic sophistication, because their emotional power depends precisely on his exceptional ability to organize images, voices, sounds, and experiences into meaningful cinematic structures. What distinguishes him is his refusal to treat artistic achievement as something separate from social responsibility, and his documentaries consequently demand more from viewers than admiration for their technical accomplishment. They encourage audiences to think, question, interpret, and respond, transforming spectatorship into an active intellectual and political experience. Patwardhan has often described himself more as a political and social activist than as an artist, and this understanding of his own identity helps explain both the subjects he chooses and the methods through which he approaches them.
His early documentaries were made with modest equipment, including Bolex cameras and 8mm and 16mm film, and he quickly learned to work independently, frequently functioning as a one-person film crew. By conducting interviews, operating the camera, and participating directly in the editing process, he maintained a degree of creative freedom that would have been difficult to achieve within larger production structures. This independence helps explain the extended production periods of many of his projects, but it also contributes to the extraordinary sense of immediacy that distinguishes his work. His films are not produced from a comfortable distance, because he remains present among the people he documents, listening to their experiences, asking questions, and confronting the authorities whose decisions affect their lives.
The relationship between filmmaker and subject is therefore not merely professional but founded on political commitment, trust, and human involvement. Patwardhan does not approach ordinary people as illustrations of a political theory, nor does he reduce them to passive victims whose suffering exists only to support a predetermined argument. Their voices, contradictions, humor, anger, and dignity become essential elements of the films, giving his documentaries an emotional authenticity that elaborate production methods cannot manufacture. His presence behind the camera is active without becoming oppressive, and although he challenges those who exercise power, he also listens carefully to those who live with its consequences. The result is a cinema that combines political argument with compassion and places human experience at the center of even the most complicated historical questions.
More than two decades after the completion of War and Peace, the central question raised by Patwardhan’s documentary remains unresolved, because the nuclear rivalry between India and Pakistan is only one expression of a larger international system in which military strength is repeatedly presented as the ultimate guarantee of security. Governments continue to justify military expenditure through the threats posed by their rivals, while weapons are developed to counter other weapons and each escalation becomes the justification for the next. The language of defense makes this process appear reasonable and sometimes inevitable, but Patwardhan asks viewers to consider what happens when national security is defined primarily through the ability to destroy. His film raises profound questions about the future of democracy when opposition to military policy is treated as disloyalty, about the survival of moral responsibility when the deaths of millions can be discussed in the abstract language of strategy and deterrence, and about the condition of societies in which the celebration of destructive power becomes more important than concern for human welfare.
The extraordinary importance of War and Peace lies in its refusal to separate these questions from the lives of ordinary people, because Patwardhan understands nuclear weapons not simply as military technologies but as expressions of political priorities, social inequalities, cultural anxieties, and ideologies capable of transforming fear into national pride. His documentary reminds us that peace cannot be reduced to the absence of war, since genuine peace also requires justice, dignity, democratic responsibility, and a willingness to recognize the humanity of those whom political authorities describe as enemies. This is why Gandhi remains such an important presence throughout the film, representing a commitment to nonviolence that challenges the assumption that political authority must ultimately depend on the capacity to inflict suffering. In a world where technological advancement is too often measured by the sophistication of weapons, Patwardhan insists that the true measure of progress must be the quality of human life and the capacity of societies to protect rather than destroy it.
I remember the days I spent with Anand during the making of Bombay: Our City, and what impressed me most was not simply his political conviction or his talent as a filmmaker but his patience with people, his willingness to listen, and his determination to remain close to the realities he was documenting. For him, filmmaking was never a profession separated from life but a form of participation in the struggle for a more humane society, and War and Peace stands as one of the most remarkable expressions of that commitment. Although the documentary is concerned with nuclear weapons, its deeper subjects are fear, memory, nationalism, responsibility, and the possibility of human solidarity, all examined through a cinematic language that combines uncompromising political criticism with profound respect for human dignity.
Patwardhan’s film ultimately reminds us that the future of humanity cannot be entrusted exclusively to governments, generals, or those who manufacture weapons, because the continuation of the arms race depends not only on political decisions but also on the willingness of societies to accept the arguments through which those decisions are justified. The possibility of change begins when ordinary people challenge the assumption that military superiority guarantees safety and recognize that the enormous resources devoted to preparing for destruction could instead be used to improve human life. Perhaps the most enduring achievement of War and Peace is that it transforms this recognition from an abstract moral proposition into a deeply felt cinematic experience, leaving viewers with the conviction that the struggle against militarism is inseparable from the struggle for democracy, equality, and human dignity.
The question of when the arms race will end therefore remains open, but Patwardhan’s documentary suggests that the answer will never be found in the development of a more powerful weapon or the establishment of a supposedly permanent military advantage. It can only emerge from a fundamental change in political priorities and in humanity’s understanding of security, because a civilization that measures its strength by its capacity for destruction will remain trapped in the fear that drives the production of ever more destructive weapons. The arms race can end only when humanity comes to recognize that genuine peace cannot be secured through the perpetual threat of annihilation, and that the ultimate purpose of civilization must be the preservation of life rather than the perfection of the instruments capable of destroying it.
