‘Sankaran Nair put the whole British Empire on trial': Kesari 2 director reveals how Mahatama Gandhi, who had his differences with the lawyer, changed his opinion

Indian Express

25-04-2025

Based on the aftermath of Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Kesari Chapter 2 has been in the news for its subject matter and its treatment. The film, after one week, sits at a net India collection of Rs 46.10 crore, with the Akshay Kumar starrer competing with Sunny Deol's Jatt, which has collected Rs 80 crore till now. The director of the film, Karan Singh Tyagi, recently went on a podcast and talked about the background of the narrative, including the relationship between Mahatma Gandhi and C. Sankaran Nair.
Nair, who was a believer in the British Empire, quickly changed his stance after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and decided to call out the colonisers in a book called Gandhi and Anarchy. Tyagi talked about this very incident and how much of the film was directly inspired by the book penned by Sankaran, The Case That Shook The Nation. 'Sankaran Nair wrote a book called Gandhi and Anarchy, and he got sued for defamation for writing that book. The fact that I am a lawyer helps me because to counter the defamation suit, you need to prove what happened at Jallianwala Bagh. So we have kept the soul and the essence from the book (The Case That Shook The Nation)'.
He then proceeded to talk about another story which he got from the book that highlighted the relationship between Sankaran and Mahatma Gandhi. 'Mahatma Gandhi and Sankaran Nair had their differences, but after the trial, Gandhi stated that 'Sankaran Nair has not only put Michael O'Dwyer on trial but the whole British Empire on trial, and that they have been found wanting,' he told Bollywood Hungama.
Even though many questions have been raised regarding the film's historical accuracy, Tyagi maintained throughout the interview that everything in the film comes from the original literature and that he read several books and testimonies of the survivors. 'We were honouring the sacrifice of people who came to the Bagh to celebrate Baisakhi and left as martyrs, and we were honouring the sacrifice of one of India's forgotten heroes, Sankaran Nair. So we had to be authentic, and we had to be sensitive to the material,' added the director. An alumnus of Government Law College, Mumbai, Karan did his LLM from Harvard Law School. He went on to work at international law firms in Paris and New York, but 'bitten by the Bollywood bug', he returned to India and assisted Vishal Bhardwaj on Rangoon.
The historical courtroom drama was released on April 18, and the cast of the film includes Akshay Kumar, R. Madhavan and Ananya Panday.