09 September,2026 07:50 AM IST | Mumbai | Mohar Basu
A still from ‘The Revolutionaries’
This summer, India's youth took to Delhi's Jantar Mantar in a protest that ended in triumph. For filmmaker Nikkhil Advani, the guts and audacity of the young make for an evergreen story, whether it is 2026 or 1912. After exploring the Indian freedom struggle in Freedom at Midnight, the filmmaker has now gone a generation further back to tell the untold stories of the armed resistance of 1912, including those of Rash Behari Bose, Bagha Jatin, Sachindranath Sanyal, and Pratibha Lahiri. In a conversation with mid-day, Advani discussed the making of his new magnum opus and why the story remains relevant till date.
Are you excited about The Revolutionaries?
It's been about two-and-a-half years of work, and now we're a few days away. It's a very exciting moment.
This is obviously based on a book, and it's non-fiction, but you have to adapt it into a complete story that is fictional, entertaining and dramatic. How do you take that journey? What is your exact process?
I think it's important to understand why we started The Revolutionaries in the first place. We had done Freedom at Midnight, and we were also doing Rocket Boys. The idea here was more important than anything else, what these guys stood for. These guys stood for audaciousness. They stood for junoon, they stood for jazba. And they were doing all of this at the age at which they were operating in 1912, 1915. They had this incredible audacity to believe that they could actually do something about the British. We know about Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad, but we have often seen revolutionaries operating in silos. What fascinated me was the fact that there was actually a movement that was being constructed by people like Rash Behari Bose and Bagha Jatin. One was operating in Punjab, the other in Calcutta, but they had similar ambitions. Their goal was very simple: to throw the British out. You had boards saying, "Dogs and Indians not allowed" outside clubs and private establishments. They were very clear about what they wanted to do. So that's where we started. The book became our source material. When we were doing Freedom at Midnight, the Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins book was also a beginning for us. It was never the endpoint. It was a springboard to something else.
With Freedom at Midnight, the word I had in my head was authenticity. With The Revolutionaries, it was audaciousness. I basically said, how do I make this into something that is really not Freedom at Midnight, not what I've done before and not what I've necessarily been successful at doing before? I wanted to move very far away from that. The fact that the book and the show also open with the December 23, 1912 bombing of the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, became our starting point. Rash Behari Bose was involved in that. From there we asked ourselves: where do we keep going? The events between 1912 and 1915 are the events these men actually did, were involved in, or could have been involved in. We started working with that material. The idea is actually the most important thing. And the idea is irrefutable, this is what they wanted. From there, we constructed the story.
You've obviously made a whole show about the construction of India with Freedom at Midnight. This is the story that precedes it. This is the audacity that led to the construction of India. Personally, as a filmmaker or even as an artist, what is your takeaway when you read these stories? What does it leave you with?
I don't know what my one takeaway is, but I feel that, at the end of the day, with great power comes great responsibility. I feel that the most important thing is: can I take people who are just blindly following information and actually put them into the space where Rash Behari Bose existed, where Bagha Jatin existed, where Sachindranath Sanyal existed? Can I put them right into the bombing of the Viceroy? Can I put them into the investigation of who actually tried to kill the Viceroy? Can I put them there so that they become witnesses to history actually unfolding? I don't want to look at it retrospectively. I want to take everybody right then and there and put them into that place so that they are feeling the same amount of hopelessness, the same amount of euphoria when it works, hopelessness when it doesn't work, frustration when it doesn't work, and the tension of the plan - like whether people are going to be able to get off the ships.
All of those things. I want to take you and put you into that. I tried to do that with Freedom at Midnight as well, put people into the Cabinet Room, put them into the study, put them into the trains, put them into the riots. I want people to experience it rather than look at it from the distance of history. I feel that today it is more important to be informed about every aspect of history rather than just one aspect of history.
You've said that this is also a chapter of history that we weren't allowed to study or learn enough about. Why was it important for you to tell this particular chapter?
I think this is a chapter that we did not allow ourselves to study and learn about. People ask me, "We thought you were crazy about Nehru, Gandhi and Sardar Patel. What is all this?" My answer is: because I love them so much, I want to call them out on the fact that we didn't allow ourselves to study this. These guys also lit the spark.
Rash Behari Bose wrote so brilliantly. He wrote poetry, letters, diaries and journals. They sent telegrams that were so wonderfully constructed because they weren't supposed to give away information, but they were giving away information. They used to give advertisements with photographs and use things like bindis as codes. It was fascinating.
This is also my gripe with a lot of films that have been made around nationalism and our history. I feel that it is very Punjab-oriented. Bengal and its Partition history don't get explored in enough detail. We have seen films about Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh, but we haven't really seen the period between the Mutiny and what eventually led to them. Do you agree?
I think that is a very fair gripe. I just think that period did not get enough screen space in mainstream filmmaking. Possibly because a lot of our filmmakers are from Punjab and North India. And maybe the Bengali filmmakers did not necessarily want to make the kind of films that mainstream audiences were watching. But when we were doing our research, Bagha Jatin is an iconic figure in Bengal. Rash Behari Bose, I could find hardly anything written about him. I was so excited when I thought, "Oh my God, where is Rash Behari Bose's house?" We found out that his house was not where I initially thought it was. I think even in Bengal, these guys have been forgotten. Unless you really study history and go through it, you don't necessarily know these people. I was also stunned when I started researching and realised that in the UK, colonisation isn't really part of their school curriculum. They have no idea about Robert Clive, they have no idea about what happened in India in the way we understand it. You have to go to Cambridge or Oxford and do a doctorate to study something about colonisation. But at school, they don't necessarily learn what their country did to the world. That's tragic and ironic.
We know the story of 1920s to 1947, but we don't necessarily know the story from 1857 to the 1920s. Do you feel history is finally coming back into mainstream consciousness?
I hope so. And I think the important thing is that people start reading more and more. That's what I want to encourage. With Freedom at Midnight, I had people calling me and saying, "I spoke to my father or grandfather about this for 40 years, and today he knows what Gandhi stood for," or people telling me they had gone back and researched something they saw in the show. I had people from both sides of the aisle calling me and saying, "You have changed my understanding of this. You have balanced this." Even people at Prime Video told me, "I didn't know most of this stuff. I kept stopping and Googling and checking whether this really happened." I think the same thing will happen with The Revolutionaries. People will watch it and then hopefully go back and research these people themselves.
I also feel that the challenge for you must have been to fictionalise some parts of the show. How difficult was that?
It wasn't really a challenge because the idea is irrefutable. We knew what these people wanted. The historical events gave us a framework. We had to ask ourselves how we could dramatise the spaces between those events. For example, we knew about Pratibha Sanyal from a later period. We knew that when Chandrashekhar Azad was assassinated, she, along with other women, went and picked up his body, participated in the funeral and smeared the ashes on themselves before moving forward with the revolution. But Pratibha was very young in the period that we're showing. So we said: if we know that this is what this woman could have done later, what was she like when she was 16 or 17? So we backdated her. And then I said, you can't tell a story about revolution without a love story. Sachin and Pratibha had to have a relationship. These people had families. They had personal lives. They weren't revolutionaries every minute of every day. So we created that emotional and romantic dimension while staying within the historical framework.
How difficult was casting the show? Because these are young people and they need to have that spunk.
The first person was Bhuvan. Nikhil Madhok had done Taaza Khabar with him and told me, "I think you should meet this boy." I met him and immediately thought, "Yes, I want somebody like Bhuvan Bam in this." Rohit was somebody I had already been speaking to. I had seen some of his work and I knew he could do this. I met him and he actually left the office wondering whether I had offered him the part because he was ready to audition. I told him he didn't have to audition. He just had to make sure he did what I wanted him to do.
I knew I needed him to become a langot-wearing, akhada kind of guy because I needed his body to be what it was for the character. With Gurfateh, I wanted something very specific. I wanted to create this physicality around Bagha Jatin. I told him I wanted Iron Man, Spider-Man, Hulk, I wanted that kind of presence. I wanted to manifest that whole kind of sequence where you feel the physical force of the character. So I needed him to get angry, and the actors did what they had to do. With Pratibha Ranta, Kiran Rao had spoken to me about her. I met her, and she was fantastic. She came back with notes and notes and notes. She would say, "Can I try this? Can I try this?" And I said, "Yes, we should. We should change it." We rewrote so much because of Pratibha.
The women were clearly an active part of the revolutionary movement, but that doesn't necessarily come through in the source material. How did you approach that?
The women were a very active part of it, but it isn't really in the book in the way we wanted it to be. In the book also, the women come much later. But we felt, how can we talk about revolution without women being an active part of it? Pratibha is an amalgamation of Bhikaji Cama, Annie Besant and other women and ideas from that period. She is the one character I am most proud of writing because of what we managed to do with her. And Pratibha Ranta was a huge part of that. She would say, "Why are they only doing this? I also want to do this." And she was right.
How do you take actors from 2026 and train them to be people from that time?
I tell them to forget the burden of who they are. Forget the actor. Forget 2026. Be in the situation. They were very excited because this is a real story and these are real characters. We gave them copious amounts of material, whatever we could find. We had a very young team making the show. The writing team was very young. The crew was very young. But I kept telling the actors - you don't know in 1912 that people are going to be talking about you in 2026. In 1912, you want to bomb the Viceroy. That's it. Be in that moment. Because I am trying to make the audience be in that moment too.
I want to know your take on whether history can be relevant to today. How relevant is history today?
I think it is extremely relevant. There is that famous idea that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. It is extremely relevant because what we are doing today, what we are living today and what we are writing today, all of that is history. And more than ever, everything is digital. Everything is available. Everything will be available 100 years from now. What you say today, the comments you make today, the things you stand for today, 20 years from now, people will look at them and say, "Boss, you said this three years ago. This is what you stood for." You can't run away from that anymore.
People are listening. People are archiving. People are taking notice.
We are living history as we speak.
What was your primary logistical challenge in making this? What were the real challenges?
The Bombay rains came a month early last year. We had put up a six-acre set in Madh Island and we thought we would at least have until June. But the bloody rains came in early May.
We were already running about a month behind schedule because we had to keep stopping and starting, covering and recovering the set.
By May 28, we still had about two weeks of shooting left, and we just stopped and said, "Okay, October, we'll come back."
That meant the entire unit had to be held back. Whatever plans they had for other projects had to stop. Everything was affected by the rains.
What's interesting about a show like this is that it reaches people all over the world. A lot of people watching on Prime Video may have no idea about this part of India's history. What do you think is the most special part of this project that people across the world will connect with?
There was actually a scene that I cut out, but I wish I had kept it.
It was in Episode 6, where Lala Har Dayal is in San Francisco and is being detained. They ask him if he is against the British government and whether he is there to overthrow the British government.
He starts narrating one massacre after another. And you feel as if he is talking about India. Then you realise he is talking about what the British have done to the world.
That was important to me because colonisation was not only about India.
The British had the East India Company and other companies across the world. They enslaved people because they wanted resources and wealth. At one point, families in places like Bristol, Liverpool and London were making money from the colonies.
They were making money from other people's countries while putting indigenous people into misery and poverty.
There were famines as well. The Bengal famine was caused by British policies. Rice and food were being diverted during the war while people were starving. We need to talk about these things. I want people to start reading more and more. I want them to understand that history isn't just one story.
When a filmmaker is picking up a subject like this, there are always too many voices and too many suggestions. Do you ever fall into any sort of self-censorship?
No, because I believe I'm on the right side. If I'm on the right side, then the people making the noise are on the wrong side.
There is no wrong side to throwing the British out of India.
My heroes wanted one thing. They wanted the British out. They were willing to die for it.
How do you make a person who has no fear of death afraid? What's the worst thing that will happen to us?
Their belief was that through their martyrdom, more people would rise.
That was Rash Behari's call - the others will rise.
Whether you did it through non-violent Satyagraha later or through armed resistance, the objective was freedom.
Before Gandhi came in 1915, there wasn't this dominant concept of Satyagraha and non-violence. These people were operating in a world where the idea was essentially: you shoot my person, I'll shoot your person. You kill people, I will retaliate.
So in terms of the argument, I believe I'm on the right side.
And that's why I'm trying to teleport you to that time. I'm trying to tell you what it felt like to be there then, rather than judge them 50 or 60 or 100 years later.
Tell me a little bit about the music because it's unusual to have such a robust soundtrack for a series like this. How did you go about getting the music?
Again, I come back to what I said earlier. Music plays a very big part in our lives, particularly in India.
The revolutionary idea has always been celebrated through poetry and music.
We know Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna. We know Rang De Basanti. We know Jana Gana Mana. We know Sare Jahan Se Achha. There are so many things that have become part of our collective memory.
There is a moment in the show where they are making bombs and Rash's mother is singing Dhono Dhanyo Pushpe Bhora. I had heard it because my wife keeps singing it. I asked the actor if she could sing it, and she said, of course.
Tagore has some incredible songs about patriotism and identity, and I wanted that music to be part of the show.
My favourite sequence is in Episode 3. It is a rocked-out version of Ekla Chalo Re. They are preparing to take down the British, and the song is driving the whole sequence.
We also have Pagdi Sambhal Jatta, because Bhagat Singh's uncle was associated with the movement around which the song emerged.
And then we have some incredible original music as well.
I wanted the music to be part of the revolutionary world, rather than something that was simply put on top of it.
Now that you're sending this show out to the world, what's that one message you want everyone watching it to take away?
A lot of people did some extremely brave and courageous things to get you to the place where you are today. And that is very important to remember. You cannot remain quiet today because people before you did things that allowed you to have the freedom to speak, to live and to make your own choices. That's what I want people to remember.
[popcorn number="9" desc="Number of songs in the âThe Revolutionaries'" class="Default"]
"A lot of people did some extremely brave and courageous things to get you to the place where you are today. You cannot remain quiet today because people before you did things that allowed you to have the freedom to speak, to live, and to make your own choices. That's what I want people to remember"
