"Earth" is the second of an announced trilogy by Deepa Mehta, a Toronto-based Indo-Canadian director. It follows her controversial "Fire," which was severely criticized for presenting a distorted view of Hindu culture. The subject matter of "Earth" is the partition of India in 1947 and its list of actors is impressive: Nandita Das, Rahul Khanna, Aamir Khan, Kitu Gidwani, and Maia Sethna among others.

However, Mehta's rendering of the horrendous tragedy of the partition of India in "Earth" is simplistic. In this film Mehta manages to distort the complex history of the partition and in the process depicts the role of the Hindus and Sikhs falsely and negatively. The film's weak storyline, its limiting viewpoint, its poorly developed characters, and the distorted roles of the different Indian religious communities and the British- produce a dismal picture of the complex background-events of the partition

"Earth" is based on Bapsi Sidhwa's novel "Cracking India," which was first published under the title "Ice-Candy Man." The novel set in Lahore of 1947 does not come to grips with the events of the partition of the Punjab and the historical roles of the British, the Muslims, the Hindus and the Sikhs. The novel is too weak as a partition story; its first title was far more accurate. A Muslim ice-candy man is one of the several admirers of Shanta-bibi, a nubile Hindu maid-servant of a Parsi family and the principal care-taker of their 8-year-old polio-disabled daughter, Lenny-baby. After he loses out to his rival, the massage-man, the ice-candy man leads a Muslim mob, frenzied up by the enveloping 1947 inter-communal riots, to abduct Shanta-bibi, knowing full well that she would be raped and forcibly converted to Islam.

The screenplay of Earth, also by Deepa Mehta, tells the story, for the most part, from the viewpoint of Lenny-baby. The viewpoint chosen is too limiting for the subject, but it could be offset by a more skillful writer. However, Mehta's script fails to create dramatic situations that could bring out Lenny Baby's anguished bewilderment of the tragic events of the partition. Very early in the film, we see Lenny-baby (Maia Sethna) dropping a plate and asking her mother (Kitu Gidwani) whether a country can be cracked up like a plate and worrying how she and Shanta would get to the park if Lahore also gets cracked up. Another scene shows Lenny-baby tearing off the limbs of her doll. Simplistic treatment of a complex history.

The characters are poorly developed. For example the transformation of the ice-candy man from a poetry-reciting admirer of Shanta to her betrayer is poorly dramatized. The several subaltern characters- the zoo-man, the gardener, the barber- are types and lack individualized motivations. Only the massage-man comes across as a somewhat developed character.

The complex roles of the British and the Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh communities are over-simplified and present a distorted picture. Early in the film is a dinner party scene at the home of the Parsi family where an Englishman is confronted by a Sikh neighbor. The Englishman calls the Sikhs fanatics. (Yes, the Sikhs were fanatics in the cause of India's freedom from the British. As Maulana Azad has written, the Sikhs, who constitute less than 2 percent of India's population, were Britain's strongest opponents: "Out of 2125 martyrs, 1550 or 75 percent were Sikhs; out of 2600 deported to Andaman, 80 percent were Sikhs; out of 127 Indians sent to the gallows, 92 percent were Sikhs." )

However, Mehta's film viciously distorts the historical role of the Sikhs in the freedom struggle and during the partition of India to convey the strong impression that they initiated the riots. On the contrary, most historians agree that it was Jinnah's and the Muslim League's intransigent demand and their announced and cruelly implemented "Direct Action Day" which started the riots and made the partition inevitable. In the Punjab, Muslim Leaguers began the riots in December 1946 in Rawalpindi and in March 1947 in Lahore. The first victims were Sikhs: "The largest number of victims at the March riots were Sikhs. The murderous game of stealthily creeping up, quickly stabbing the victim, and running away could best be played against the easily identifiable Sikh rather than the Hindu or the Muslim, who, unless attired in his special dress, had to be stripped naked to see whether or not he was circumcised before his fate could be decided. The Sikhs took a terrible beating....The communal bent of the police was an important factor in the killings. Over 74 percent of the Punjab force was Muslim. [Muslims were 55 percent of the population.].... The riots were a rude awakening to the Sikhs." (Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, vol. II, pp. 271-72, published by Princeton Unversity Press, 1966.)

It was several weeks later that a counter-attack by Sikhs and Hindus began. Historical studies by Stanley Wolpert, G. D. Khosla, Collins and Lampiere's "Freedom at Midnight," among many other books all agree on this. Yet, Mehta's film inflicts a cruel travesty: It blames the victims.

Despite good acting by Nandita Das, Maia Sethna,Rahul Khanna and good music by A. R. Rehman, "Earth" fails as a film because of the writer-director Deepa Mehta's deliberate distortions and simplistic presentation of the tragedy-laden partition of India.