Desis School A Historian Who Slammed SS Rajamouli's 'RRR' For Showing Britishers In Bad Light
British historian Robert Tombs thinks RRR portrays them in bad light. He said that the film has violent Hindu nationalism fanned by the Modi government. Desis schooled him.
While international celebrities including James Gunn, the writer and director of Guardians of the Galaxy, are lauding SS Rajamouli's RRR and going bonkers over the magnum opus - some are even planning to cast Ram Charan in a lead role - a Brit is not happy with the portrayal of Britishers in the movie.
Historian slams RRR for the portrayal of Britishers as villains
Twitter
Robert Tombs thinks that the movie showing Britishers causally roaming and committing crimes is a "sign of absolute ignorance or of deliberate dishonesty". The fact that Britishers are shown as villains, he says, is "a way that quite a few countries make up heroic stories about themselves."
Not just that, he also said that, "RRR panders to the reactionary and violent Hindu nationalism that is coming to dominate Indian culture and politics, fanned by the Modi government".
Who is Robert Tombs?
Twitter
Robert Tombs wrote this about RRR in an article for The Spectator. For the uninitiated, he is a professor of French history at the University of Cambridge. He even said that Netflix should be ashamed of promoting the movie.
Fans are not happy with what he wrote in the article, and hence, he is subject to massive backlash. Some of them even gave him a lesson in history. Here's what people are saying.
Robert Tombs is an absolute bigot as his racism is reflected in this article itself where he says ¡®Indians came to him to practice their English¡¯. This is why RRRs should be made, atrocities displayed and gruesomeness of Raj ought to be publicised. https://t.co/l8wd4UpYot
¡ª Ajeet Bharti (@AjeetBhartii) July 20, 2022
the guy complaining about Britain being portrayed as historical villains by producers in countries we colonised & killed tens of millions is literally named "ROB TOMBS"
¡ª chewtoy ???? (@FENNERGY) July 20, 2022
ROB
TOMBS
If this was satire it'd be too on the nose https://t.co/DoiVAX8voB
Masterda Surya Sen was tortured in worst possible manner .His teeth were uprooted. His limbs were broken . His unconscious boby was hanged . But yeah RRR made British as villians . The audacity ?. These are just documented ones . There are lakhs of undocumented ones like this . https://t.co/ArczNRP7Lu pic.twitter.com/GHOUuL7Mdc
¡ª Subham. (@subhsays) July 20, 2022
You can always hate on the British Empire, it is always morally correct https://t.co/TFfhJGvhGK
¡ª CEO Of Harper Row! OCTOBER 28! (@MayonettaMatty) July 20, 2022
Speaking as a Brit, if we didn't want to be the villians of other cultures stories, we should have thought about that before we invaded and occupied them. https://t.co/beqwGCHGp2
¡ª Matt Farr (@thegrampus) July 20, 2022
The Jallianwala Massacre and tens of millions of famine dead under the British in India, would beg to disagree. Tell Robert Tombs his lot absolutely deserve it.
¡ª TheseLongWars (@TheseLongWars) July 19, 2022
A people colonised for 200 effing years with their riches looted, their bodies mutilated and their souls dipped in a cesspool of inferiority mustn¡¯t portray British Colonisers as what they were: VILLAINS https://t.co/Q4RoqeNEbR
¡ª Monica Verma (@TrulyMonica) July 20, 2022
To British who were global looters,
¡ª ~Harish~ (@fluidopinions) July 20, 2022
Fuck you.
To British who were in India,
Fuck you(except Orwell)
To British of current Era, RRR showed good, didn't exist in British Raj.
To Ignorant British,
educate yourself.
To Robert Tombs,
Biggest fuck you.Also, I cannot find your IQ. https://t.co/V0zKiUHCt4
What I love about RRR is that it paints the British Empire like the Nazis without being apologetic & the only people humanized are Indian officers who worked in the Raj. It doesn't even try to present a benevolent side of the Empire and is confident in the story it wants to tell. https://t.co/W27l8QOZXv
¡ª Hardik Rajgor (@Hardism) July 20, 2022
Let me fix this quote from the article for the Spectator Coffee House team.
¡ª Chris Richards ??? #ClassWarNotColdWar (@EclecticRadical) July 19, 2022
"If you tell the truth about British imperialism and the ways colonial governors abuse their power, then you must be supporting Hindu Nationalism."
- Robert Tombs https://t.co/h0QLceGpxy
No "two sides" are demanded from Schindler's List because the world has universally accepted Nazi barbarity. However, the British live in denial about their past. Victory doesn't erase history. Churchill maybe a hero for you but for colonized countries, Empire = Nazis. https://t.co/W27l8QOZXv
¡ª Hardik Rajgor (@Hardism) July 20, 2022
British historian watching a pretty accurate portrayal of British rule like https://t.co/S5yIt0opgD pic.twitter.com/9ENeCXgYJJ
¡ª Paxton??????? (@PaxtonPaxtonIII) July 20, 2022
Watching RRR trigger white people is sometimes even more entertaining than watching RRR https://t.co/ly0zTNWIq9
¡ª Rin (@GrinchReality) July 20, 2022
In 1930 around the time this series takes place and after 150 years of British rule, the average Indian life expectancy was 27 years old https://t.co/pnUtV2EnzR pic.twitter.com/gZUDK0j8FV
¡ª Mr Demos of Pnyx (@gem_ste) July 20, 2022
In his review, he had also written, "If similar films were made slandering other nations, they would be regarded as crudely racist. Imagine a film showing twentieth-century Nigerian rulers as cannibals, or Hindu politicians burning widows alive. But we can¡¯t imagine such films, because they would not be made. Yet the British have long been fair game. Usually, we shrug this off. We have played such an important role in the world over the last few centuries that we have accumulated enemies as well as friends. In many nationalist myths, we are cast in the role of villains. It¡¯s a way that quite a few countries make up heroic stories about themselves. But that is no reason why we should accept these stories as true, or start apologising for things that did not happen."
Twitter
While the movie comes with a disclaimer, "the story is purely fictional", earlier, a former BBC producer who is also the author of several books on British Raj, Dr. Masani, had reportedly said, "I don¡¯t think the disclaimer is enough. (The film) will be understood by many as gospel. It is irresponsible for Netflix to present this sort of thing and I would advise them to withdraw it."
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Garima Satija leads the Entertainment vertical of Indiatimes. A storyteller at heart who enjoys the thrill of writing, she is sometimes found daydreaming about living the lives of movie characters. Also, she hates talking about herself in the third person.
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