The Sabarmati Report movie Review, Cast, Budget, Collection, Release Date, Story & Where to Watch

The Sabarmati Report is a 2024 released Hindi film based on political drama surrounding the Godhra train burning incident which burned the Sabarmati Express train in 2002. The movie was in controversy from the start of its production, as its director Ranjan Chandel left the project in the middle of the shoots. Later he was replaced by another director, Dheeraj Sarna who completed this movie. After delays and controversies, it was later released on 15 November 2024.

Basics overview of The Sabarmati Report

Cast of The Sabarmati Report

The Sabarmati report Story & its Historic Background

The movie claims to talk about the Godhra carnage. It was 27 February 2002 when 59 Hindu karsevaks were returning from Ayodhya after doing their karseva (service) for the Ram Temple movement. These Hindu pilgrims were coming back in the Sabarmati Express train. A Muslim mob surrounded the train and burned these 59 karsevak Hindus alive.

A special SIT court in 2011 convicted a total of 31 people and acquitted a total of 63 people. Among the 31 convicted, 11 were given death sentence whereas 20 were given life imprisonment as a punishment. These convicted criminals belonged to the Islamic faith and did this horrible crime in the name of their religion. So the audience was interested in knowing if the makers of this movie will be able to show the harsh truth of the Godhra carnage, including the religious motivations of the criminals who did this heinous crime against 59 innocent Hindus.

The Sabarmati Report movie Review

The Sabarmati Report won’t be my first choice as a movie goer if I was expecting it to show the full and harsh truth of the Godhra train burning incident. At least not in the same way that ‘The Kashmir Files’ or ‘The Kerala Story’ showed the harsh truth without any political correctness or bias. I’m just trying to save you from disappointment.

It’s now confirmed that this film does not exactly deliver what it promised while promotions and marketing of this movie. It markets itself like ‘The Kashmir Files’ but delivers like a cheap version of ‘Kabir Singh’ along with various elements of many cliché Bollywood movies. But if you still want to enjoy a movie about the hero’s journey where the main protagonist has to face a tragic case of brutality with his own eyes, then this is a good movie to watch.

This movie goes into the life of the protagonist and shows exactly how that one tragic case changed his life as a cameraman. That one case turned him into an obsessive news reporter who wanted to show the truth of the tragedy to the world. Further, this movie will also show how the main hero struggled personally in his love life as well as professional life.

No Hard Truths

Ever since ‘The Kashmir Files’ was released, its permanent effect lingers in the film industry. Every film that claims to portray history and truth tries to present itself as the new ‘Kashmir Files’ by its makers. These movies even have titles similar to Kashmir Files, like ‘The Kerala Story’. Following the same trend, ‘The Sabarmati Report’ tries to give you that vibe from the title itself that you will be told a real story. And that all the facts will be presented to you without any political or religious bias, which is not the case in this movie.

While films like ‘The Kerala Story’ aim to continue the legacy of hard truths, some films come as imposters with big names, but they deliver small truths or no truths at all. This film definitely falls into that category as it shies away from showing the real hard truth.

Meanwhile, the leftist part of Bollywood sees movies like “The Kashmir Files” as a trend to cash in on. They pretend to show the truth by picking up a serious topic and then not delivering on it. They just market their movie as a truth telling tale, when often it is not the case. Moviemakers do this only for the purpose of scamming their own audience into buying the tickets for their movie.

Problems

Ekta Kapoor is one of the main producer of this film. She said, “I am a Hindu, which means I’m secular. I will never make comments about any religion.” She made this statement at the trailer launch of the film The Sabarmati Report. This is a stupid thing to say in itself, and let me tell you why.

Firstly, by definition of the word secularism, people are not supposed to be secular, the state is supposed to be secular. The concept of secularism applies to the state, as it has a responsibility to stay neutral and not get involved with any religion. How can individuals be neutral when follow faiths and can support faiths they like. Also, they don’t have to stay neutral, especially when they claim to show the truth. If the truth hurts someone’s religious feelings, the makers of the movie still have a duty to show that harsh truth. After all, they are the one who claimed to show the full truth without any bias, or without holding back the facts.

The second thing – Why aren’t you saying that we will only show the truth, no matter how offensive or bitter that truth might be? When their priority is already set to appear secular, how will they portray the Godhra carnage, where Hindus were burnt alive by a Muslim mob? Without showing the absolute hard truth, how will the makers of this movie do justice to those Hindus who were targeted and killed only because of their religion? Obviously, It can’t be done by secularizing (clouding) the hard facts. But this movie does do its best to secularize the whole reality so that it can present a fiction to its audience. That’s why you see extreme monkey balancing in this film.

Monkey Balancing

Because this film doesn’t openly show anything in harsh, honest words, its main focus becomes monkey balancing. It even becomes biased toward a Political Party, but never biased towards showing the truth.

Some might not even know if this film is biased, and yes, it is 100% biased. But not in the way it should have been, which is towards the truth. People were under the impression that they would see the reality of the Godhra carnage, all religious and political angles exposed without any political correctness; people expected this film to be biased towards the truth.

But there was nothing like that. Instead, this film tries to please certain political personalities without showing the whole truth. If you think those political personalities will at least be happy that their flattery was done, that won’t be the case either. Because the film is so mediocre that even they will feel embarrassed. As Pratik Borade (a movie critic) said in his review, it seems like the makers are giving a secret message to the audience. The message is as follows: We the makers of this movie are making this film with a gun to our head, so we will mess this entire movie up, and we will not show the full truth.

There are scenes in this movie with PM Modi in this film. Narendra Modi was the CM of Gujarat in 2002 when the Godhra carnage incident happened in the state. These scenes are so cringe that even PM Narendra Modi might feel embarrassed watching them. And the audience will think this film was made by PM Modi’s blessings, while it was made by people who oppose PM Modi’s ideology. So, this film is very cunning in its intentions; it wants to show lies, do monkey balancing, and also, please political players. Supporters of the political party might be happy seeing it, but those who wanted to see the reality of the Godhra carnage will never be satisfied with this film.

Instead of showing the truth, this film turns into an Ekta Kapoor TV serial, mixing Kabir Singh, bad cringe comedy, mediocre content, and bad dialogue delivery. It’s all packaged in such a way that it makes you think that it’s another ‘Kashmir Files’, but it delivers nothing of the sort.

Lies

Claim of the movie: This movie claims that the Godhra carnage was just an exception, where members of the Muslim community burnt Hindu karsevaks alive. Before this exceptional case, Hindus and Muslims used to live together peacefully for centuries.

Reality: The reailty of this claim is quite brutal. This claim is obviously false. We have a history of over 1000 years of Muslim invaders attacking India, destroying thousands of temples in the name of Islam, including the most precious holy sites of Hindus. Besides, countless massacres were carried out by those invaders. And in the end, even this country was divided by people with the same Mughal mentality, taking Pakistan in the name of their religion. That religious hatred towards Kaffir Hindus continues till this date. Nupur Sharma case and Sambhal riots are just few a few example of that continious religious hate.

All of these negative points does not make it a negative or a bad movie. Do keep in mind that these points only apply when you are considering this movie as another Kashmir files or Kerala story. If you want to watch this as a typical bollywood movie meant for only entertainment ppurpose, then this is an above average movie which can be easily watched to pass the time.

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