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From: Zerksis%syr-cis-aos.CSNET@ucbvax.UUCP (Zerksis Umrigar)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: Re: Mountbatten series
Message-ID: <126@Shasta.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 28-Feb-86 19:14:31 EST
Article-I.D.: Shasta.126
Posted: Fri Feb 28 19:14:31 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Mar-86 23:34:38 EST
Sender: tag@Shasta.ARPA
Reply-To: Zerksis%syr-cis-aos.CSNET@ucbvax.UUCP
Organization: Stanford University
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Mark Garrett writes:

>up, if something like it didn't really happen.  What I object to is
>the fact that the writing (and maybe the acting) was so bad that the
>viewer could not tell *WHY* the crowd settled down.  He didn't do
>anything but wave at them!  If Mountbatten was a great man, they

I do not think that anyone knows for sure why the  crowd  settled  down.
One  of  Mountbatten's  aides hypothesized that it may be because of the
color green. The  series  shows  that.  Any  further  explanation  would
probably not be warranted by the historical evidence.

>series.  Does anyone know what was going on when Mountbatten and
>Jinnah were in that car; they knew someone was planning to bomb it;
>you saw people in the crowd with grenades; and then the parade ended
>and Jinnah claimed to have saved Mountbatten's life.  I didn't have
>the slightest idea what was happening.

Once again, I suspect that all that the  historical  evidence  shows  is
that  there  was a plot to assassinate Jinnah and it was not carried out
for unknown reasons. I think that the TV series is probably on thin  ice
when  they  show people in the crowd with grenades. According to Collins
and Lapierre in "Freedom at Midnight" (why do I feel that certain people
may  not like this :-), one account for the failure of the plot was that
the leader lost his nerve when it was time to throw the first grenade.

I presume that making a historical series like this  is  complicated  by
the  fact  that  not  everything  is neatly tied up in real life. Hence,
there have to be holes in the presentation if  they  are  to  avoid  the
charge of fabricating history.

Tho' I disagree with Mark on the above two incidents, I did  think  that
the  last  espisode  could  have  been  clearer.  When  they  showed the
beginnings of the Kashmir incident (with the Tata  trucks!),  it  was  a
couple  of minutes before the audience was informed that it was Kashmir.
A simple sub-title would have helped.

Usually the history of recent events tends to  be  taught  poorly  -  at
least that has been my experience. For me at least, this series has been
useful in that it encouraged me to inquire into events which occurred  a
few years before I was born.

- zerksis.
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Zerksis%syr-cis-aos.csnet@ucbvax.uucp