主播大秀

This Friday (3 March) will see the cinema release of new 主播大秀 Films co-production 'Viceroy's House'. Here writer and director Gurinder Chadha, OBE (Bhaji On The Beach, Bend It Like Beckham and Bride & Prejudice) talks about how her upbringing and featuring in an episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are' influenced her approach to the film.

When I was growing up in Southall, West London, my family almost never spoke about Partition - the decision in 1947 to divide India into India & Pakistan. My grandmother was still scarred by the experience of being made a refugee overnight. It was a painful subject and the little I learned about it at school made me feel as if Partition was our fault - Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus could no longer live together and therefore Viceroy Mountbatten had no choice but to divide India.

After doing Development Studies at UEA, I became a journalist because I wanted to tell stories about people like me - to take characters who were often on the margins and put them at the centre of the frame. I started out working at 主播大秀 Radio West Midlands in Birmingham and soon realised that telling your own stories in the newsroom could be a battle in itself. I was fortunate to do a Directing scheme at the British Film Institute which led to me finding my cinematic voice with films like Bhaji On The Beach, Bend It Like Beckham and Bride And Prejudice.

In 2005, I was the subject of the 主播大秀’s series, . I travelled back to my ancestral home near Jhelum, which is now part of Pakistan. I found my grandparent’s home where several Muslim families now reside. They greeted me in familiar Punjabi as their daughter returning home and their warmth and generosity touched me deeply. I realised that like my own family, these families were displaced and had fled the opposite direction across the border with nothing. This gave me the strength to make - my own perspective on the human cost of Partition, the people’s Partition.

I had grown up loving British epics on the Raj and I knew if I was going to add my take on the genre, the first thing I would do was make certain that Indian characters who had been extras - seen as part of the furniture in most Raj movies - would have voices and dignity. It has been 35 years since Attenborough’s Gandhi hit our screens and it felt like Partition had vanished from our screens. It was a huge responsibility to tell the story with balance in a manner which wouldn’t point fingers at black and white villains and stoke up more violence between India and Pakistan.

Seven years ago when I was researching Viceroy's House I discovered Top Secret British documents in the British Library which tell a very different story about why India was divided. These government documents showed that Partition was not about communal violence between neighbours who had lived together for centuries. It was a political act by the British Government, a strategic geopolitical decision about the world map after World War II and the role Britain would play in global affairs.

Viceroy's House opens with the quote ‘History is written by the victors’, which is often attributed to Churchill. I did this because this film is my opportunity to tell my own history - a British Asian perspective which will be lost if we don’t document it. My film shows that the lives of ordinary workers downstairs at Viceroy’s House are just as important as the politicians upstairs. When I watch the film now in this current climate of building walls and creating new borders, it feels like a warning for what can happen when the politics of hate and division go unchallenged. My aim was to make a human, healing film so that all families can talk openly about Partition and hopefully future generations will never experience a tragedy like it again.

Gurinder Chadha, OBE is a writer and film director and 主播大秀 Alumni member.

• Find out more about Viceroy's House on the .