The Bengal Files Review: Uncomfortable, Imperfect, Yet Unavoidable

When India remembers Partition, it usually remembers Punjab. The haunting images are almost always the same: blood-soaked trains, endless caravans of refugees, villages engulfed in flames. In recent years, Kashmir too has begun to reclaim its place in the nation's conscience, with the stories of exodus and targeted killings finally breaking through popular silence.

Bengal, however, has remained a blind spot. The narrative of its suffering has been buried under layers of denial, selective historiography and a wilful forgetting that has distorted the memory of 1946 and 1947.

Yet, Bengal was the site of horrors that rivalled anything seen in Punjab. The Great Calcutta Killings of 1946, planned and executed under the stewardship of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and his Muslim League machinery, were not spontaneous riots but systematic pogroms. Hindus were butchered in their homes, women violated on the streets and entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.

What followed (the mass displacement, the forced conversions, the steady demographic upheaval) was not an accident of Partition but its very essence in Bengal. And yet, generations of Indians have grown up with little to no awareness of this chapter of history.

The Bengal Files steps into this silence like an uninvited guest who insists on telling the story you never wanted to hear. It is not elegant cinema. It is not subtle storytelling. But perhaps it was never meant to be. The film throws the brutality of 1946-47 onto the screen in raw, unmediated fashion, with the clear intent of making the audience uncomfortable. Because discomfort is the only honest response to what Bengal went through.

The film is set in the present day where an IPS officer is dispatched to unravel the mystery of the missing girl in Murshiabad (a reference to Sandeshkhali). During his investigation, Ma Bharati recalls the horrors of the Noakhali riots and mass rapes which she had seen, tying the Bengal of the past to the Bengal of the present, to show that the Partition was never the conclusion but just the beginning.

As such, it reminds us that the ghosts of that time are not safely locked in the past. They linger, shaping the Bengal of today, where questions of identity, demography and civilisational survival remain as urgent as ever.

In that sense, The Bengal Files is less a work of cinema than a work of historical reclamation. It asks the questions official narratives tried to bury: Who speaks for Bengal's victims? Why was their suffering denied? And what happens to a civilisation that forgets its own wounds?

A Raw, Necessary Reminder

If The Bengal Files has one undeniable strength, it is its refusal to look away. Most films about Partition, when they do venture into Bengal, tend to soften the edges, diluting the horror into montage sequences of trains and crowded refugee camps. This film makes the opposite choice: it lingers, sometimes uncomfortably, on the raw brutality of 1946-47.

From the very opening sequences, the audience is confronted with the planned ferocity of Direct Action Day. The streets of Calcutta are shown filling with League mobs armed with machetes, sticks and kerosene cans, not as a chaotic eruption of anger, but as a disciplined, almost military-style operation.

The camera tracks the men as they enter Hindu homes, dragging out families, setting ablaze shops that had stood for generations. Idols of goddesses like Kali are burned. In one harrowing sequence, a mother is forced to watch her child butchered before she is assaulted. The scene is not stylised for dramatic flair; it is shot in harsh light, with minimal music, to evoke the sense of being trapped in a nightmare that was, in fact, all too real.

What is commendable here is the historical honesty of the portrayal. The film does not shy away from naming names. Suhrawardy is depicted not merely as a passive bystander but as the orchestrator of the violence, standing in stark contrast to the sanitised figure celebrated in official West Bengali memory.

His cynical collusion with the League mobs, his cold-blooded dismissal of Hindu casualties, his reference to young Mujibur Rahman are shown in detail, making the audience reckon with the uncomfortable truth that the Calcutta Killings were not "riots" but an early template of ethnic cleansing.

One of the most memorable achievements of the film is the immortalisation of Gopal Patha on screen. Too often erased from official narratives, Patha is shown as a true organiser of Hindus during the Calcutta killings: disciplining volunteers, coordinating relief and striking back to prevent complete annihilation.

His portrayal is powerful, and for many viewers, it will be the first time they encounter his name in popular culture. Yet, the film makes the mistake of underusing him; given his pivotal role in saving Calcutta from descending into total massacre, he deserved far more screen time. In fact, the film could have cut down on the present-day political signalling to give more screentime to the historical aspect.

Another standout is Simrat Kaur, whose performance anchors some of the film's most poignant moments. Her emotional monologues, whether grieving the loss of Bengal or defiantly affirming her community's right to survive, are delivered with such intensity that they rise above the occasionally heavy-handed script. In a film that often struggles with performances, she is a revelation.

In many sections of the film, the depiction of crimes against women was brutal. I could see the majority of people covering their eyes whilst others wiped teardrops. In one particular scene, League mobs grab a woman, strip her and proclaim that whoever rapes her is a true Ghazi.

The discomfort is necessary. Bengal's reality was, in fact, worse than anything cinema could depict. Survivors' accounts from 1946 speak of pregnant women disembowelled, of Hindus hunted in broad daylight whilst police looked away, of entire localities depopulated overnight. By choosing not to flinch, the film performs a civilisational service; it forces remembrance.

Even the brutality of the portrayal (the blood, the screams, the relentless violence) serves a purpose. It is meant to make the audience uneasy in their seats, to reject the comfort of cinematic escapism. For far too long, the violence against Hindus in Bengal has been glossed over in textbooks and political discourse. By showing it as it was, the film corrects the narrative.

Ultimately, the power of The Bengal Files lies in its refusal to dilute. It is unapologetic in saying: "This happened. And you must see it."

A Flawed Cinematic Vehicle

For all its raw power, The Bengal Files often feels like a film at war with itself. It knows what story it wants to tell, but it falters in how it tells it. What should have been a taut, harrowing narrative of remembrance frequently drifts into overstatement, repetition and indulgence.

The most obvious flaw is the lack of subtlety. Every frame seems to scream its message at the audience, leaving no room for nuance or introspection. The League mobs are depicted with such single-minded brutality that they risk becoming caricatures rather than complex antagonists.

Whilst the historical reality was indeed ruthless, good cinema often draws its power from restraint, something this film refuses to attempt. For instance, the scene where Hindu families hide in temples whilst mobs outside chant slogans is extended far beyond necessity, with dialogue hammering home points already visually established. Instead of heightening tension, the repetition blunts its impact.

Then there is the length of the script. At over three hours, the film strains the patience of even a sympathetic audience. Several sequences feel unnecessarily stretched: Darshan Kumar's extended speech on how "At 20% Muslims want separate rights while at 30% they want a separate country."

Whilst the point carries weight, the way it is written and delivered is too raw, too expository. Instead of letting the audience absorb the reality through narrative, it is thrust upon them as lecture. The scene drags far beyond its natural endpoint, contributing to the film's bloated runtime. The result is a bloated middle act that diffuses the urgency built so carefully in the first hour.

Darshan Kumar, who was so effective in The Kashmir Files, falters here. His delivery feels overwrought, with monologues that lean more towards sermonising than storytelling. He moves on the subjects ranging from fake identification cards to demographic change. The writer and the director could have stuck to just the Calcutta Killings instead of connecting too many themes and producing a bulky two and a half hour film.

Most disappointing, however, is the absence of a climax that lingers. The narrative builds and builds but never resolves. After wrenching depictions of atrocities, one expects either a cathartic release or a shattering conclusion. The ending feels hurried, as though the filmmakers, having exhausted themselves in depicting brutality, had little left to say. For a film that demands so much emotional investment, the payoff is surprisingly thin.

Another major misstep is the portrayal of Gandhi. Rather than presenting him with nuance, as a leader whose commitment to nonviolence may have blinded him to Bengal's suffering, the film reduces him to a near-villainous figure, indifferent to Hindu deaths and obsessed with appeasement.

In one controversial scene, Gandhi is shown dismissing eyewitness testimonies of Hindu atrocities presented by Gopal Patha with a wave of his hand whilst lying down, insisting women should commit suicide rather than resist if a Muslim man lays a hand on them.

The depiction strips Gandhi of any nuance, turning him into a caricature of helplessness and appeasement. By pushing him into such a docile, almost cruelly indifferent stance, instead of inviting the viewer to debate Gandhi's choices, the film instructs them to despise him. In doing so, it inadvertently weakens its own narrative.

Anupam Kher also, surprisingly, does a horrible job as Gandhi. Be it in his conversations with Jinnah or with Patha, Kher delivers his lines with a theatricality that borders on artificial. In scenes where anguish or gravitas is needed, he slips into didactic monologues.

His character becomes less a person than a mouthpiece for the script's arguments, robbing the film of emotional depth. In contrast, many of the lesser-known actors portraying victims deliver more authentic, visceral performances, highlighting the unevenness in casting and direction.

Finally, there is the issue of tone. By opting for relentless brutality without variation, the film exhausts its audience rather than guiding them through waves of emotion. Great historical cinema often balances horror with moments of quiet, reflection or even fleeting beauty. On the other hand, the horrors are supplemented with political sermonising over strongmen politicians, the TMC nexus protecting them and demographic change.

In short, The Bengal Files achieves the difficult task of showing history as it was, but it often fails at the equally important task of shaping that history into effective cinema.

What the Film Still Achieves

And yet, for all its flaws, The Bengal Files cannot be dismissed. In fact, its very existence is an achievement. Cinema in India has long colluded in erasing Bengal's Partition horrors, either reducing them to background noise or avoiding them altogether. This film, despite its excesses, forces the subject into the public eye.

The most important thing it achieves is restoring historical memory. By showing Direct Action Day and its aftermath without euphemism, it tears apart the sanitised narrative of "riots" or "clashes" that dominated textbooks for decades. The Muslim League is not presented as a misunderstood nationalist force, but as a communal machine that deliberately engineered violence.

Suhrawardy is not romanticised as the "Lion of Bengal," but shown as the butcher he was. These are not small corrections, they are seismic interventions in how Bengal remembers itself.

The film achieves something that far outweighs its cinematic shortcomings: it forces India to remember. It rips open a chapter of history that was deliberately pushed to the margins, and it does so without apology. In doing so, it reminds us that cinema, even when clumsy, can still perform a civilisational duty.

The film also connects Bengal's past to India's present. Without being overly didactic, but by having characters in the present reminiscing their past (props to Pallavi Joshi who was brilliant as always), it draws a straight line between 1946 and the Bengal of today, where demographic anxieties, communal flashpoints and political compromises continue to shape the state.

The questions it raises (about who controls the narrative of history, about what happens when violence is forgotten, about how civilisations are hollowed out from within) are not academic. They are living, urgent questions.

Perhaps the most powerful achievement of the film is the parallel it draws with Kashmir. Just as The Kashmir Files gave voice to a community silenced for decades, The Bengal Files insists that Bengal too has its silenced victims. It asks whether the Bengal of the future is heading towards the Kashmir of the present, reminding the audience that the story of Hindu genocide is not an isolated tragedy but a recurring civilisational wound.

Even its relentless brutality, which often weakens its cinematic value, has a civilisational purpose. This is not a film designed for repeat viewing or for awards. It is a film designed to sear into memory. And in that, it succeeds. If people walk out of the theatre disturbed, unsettled or even angry, that is precisely what the film intended.

For Bengal, the film is a reckoning. For India, it is a warning. The story it tells is not just about what happened in 1946, it is about what can happen again when truth is buried, when appeasement is prioritised over justice, when communities are asked to quietly absorb unspeakable violence for the sake of "harmony."

It asks questions that Bengal and India have avoided for too long: Why was this suffering erased? Who benefits from silence? And what happens when a civilisation abandons its own dead?

It may not be great cinema. But it is a film that had to be made. And it is a film that must be seen.