'I will destroy you all': the star of the Indian nationalist epic fights against its detractors | News from the world

An Indian queen is conducting bloody and bloody battles against British soldiers as part of a Bollywood colonial blockbuster, which will open Friday in Indian movie theaters.

Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi is a nationalist epic about life – and death at the hands of the British – of Rani Lakshmibai, an Indian woman who learned martial arts, married a maharajah and became leader in the 1857 rebellion against the British East India Company.

The lead actress, Kangana Rangaut, also fought off the screen. This week, she warns extremist Hindu groups who have apparently threatened to disrupt the film's release, saying it would "destroy all of them."

The film's trailers, which will be released in time for Republic Day of India on January 26, show a Lakshmibai splashed with blood wielding his sword during bloody battles against red-skinned British soldiers.

Lakshmibai, who died at the age of 29 at the last battle of the Gwalior rebellion, has been praised for her virtues in ballads, poetry and Indian books, but not yet in the country's popular cinema.

Legends about her life tell that she was born in a royal court where she was trained in combat and riding with two other boys. She married the Maharajah of Jhansi, whose kingdom was annexed by the East India Company in 1854.

Three years later, company soldiers in northern India began to rebel against the colonial administration and Lakshmibai joined the uprising. "In reality, she led an army in battle against the East India Company's army," says Harleen Singh, an badociate professor at Brandeis University, who has written a book on the Queen.

The first representations of Lakshmibai come from Victorian novelists, who described her as a cunning oriental despot, says Singh. In a fictional tale, she kidnaps white men and keeps them in a harem, eventually falling in love with a British soldier. "She is subject to the supremacy of British masculinity," she added.

It was at the beginning of the 20th century that she began appearing in Indian works in her modern portrayal as a goddess of war and heralding independence.

Singh said: "Whatever the historical and literary myths about it, the historical fact is that this young Indian queen fought against the British army and died. This was a remarkable woman.

Activists claiming to belong to a fanatical Hindu group, Karni Sena, have seized false rumors that the film would allude to Lakshmibai having an affair with a British soldier.

Last year, the same group rioted in several Indian cities and threatened to mutilate the actor Deepika Padukone for equally false claims that the film Padmavaat, which tells the story of Another historic Indian queen, portrays scenes of love with a Muslim ruler.

A national spokesman for Karni Sena denied that the marginal group had mobilized against the film and said that unauthorized people were using his name.

At a press conference on the film last week, Rangaut said that Manikarnika was a celebration of the queen's life that harsh Hindus should embrace. "They should support us and support the film," she said. "[] Lakshmibai is the daughter of India and everyone should advance this film. "

She added that although the film has been approved by historians and censors, "Karni Sena continues to harbad me. If they do not stop, they must know that I am also a [member of the] Rajput [caste] and I will destroy each one of them. "

In India, the law requires that films meant to portray historical events, or with content that may offend a person's faith, be approved by a censorship committee that includes historians or religious leaders.

Subhash Jha, Indian film critic and writer, said that popular Indian films about the colonial era frequently portrayed the British as bad guys in opera. "All these films describe the British in a very flat and caricatural way," he said.

Westerners such as Australian actor Bob Christo have made decades of career in the role of threatening white villains in Indian films.

After the suppression of the 1857 rebellion, the British government officially replaced the East India Company as the ruler of India. It aimed to prevent future uprisings by gaining power over princes and local landowners rather than aggressively seeking to usurp them.