At sunrise, Saleem parachutes from a Pakistani Air Force transporter plane with a mission to kill. But he arrives too late in what was then East Pakistan – the Pakistani Army has already lost to the Bengali Mukti Bahini (freedom fighters) and the Indian Army. Mass killings of Bengali civilians had taken place at the hands of Yahya Khan's ruthless army. Among the trapped Pakistani soldiers is Saleem, a young recruit in the Pakistani army. He finds himself in the midst of a lush green landscape, wearing his helmet, protective glasses and uniform. The camera slowly ascends to capture the beautiful Bengali wetlands, and moves over piles of half-naked bodies, spread over the wet grass, mingling with the idyllic landscape. Smoke rises in the distance from behind the jungle. Saleem limps past dead civilians in his Pakistani uniform. A singing farmer appears. The only living person in sight, he desperately tries to catczh up with Saleem. He rushes past half-naked, blood-smeared bodies of men, both Mukti Bahini and ordinary farmers, who seem to have been handcuffed and executed. Some of the dead are blindfolded, too. Sounds of gunfire can be heard in the background. The fighting is still raging, it appears, despite Pakistan's official capitulation. The farmer catches up with Saleem, who trips and falls into a puddle surrounded by dead bodies. He examines Saleem, who lies exhausted and wordless, before helping him up. Saleem stares in confusion at the bodies around him. The farmer tells Saleem about Pakistan's defeat. Saleem and the man suddenly get into a fight over a silver basin Saleem is carrying. Saleem clings to the item and walks off, looking confused. The farmer throws a sarong at him, instructing him to change out of his army uniform. This is now Bangladesh.
This scene appears half-way through Canadian-Indian director Deepa Mehta's 2012 film Midnight's Children, an adaptation of Salman Rushdie's bestselling, award-winning novel of the same title published in 1981. Both the novel and the film follow the life of Saleem Sinai, a Muslim boy born with magical powers, at point zero of India's Independence. The story traces 30 years of postcolonial developments and catastrophes in both India and Pakistan.
Mehta and Rushdie are artists whose works have been widely celebrated but also tied to local and global controversies. Their collaboration for Midnight's Children was always going to be controversial, as both artists have prompted violent reactions in Southasia and around the globe. Ever since Mehta made headlines with Fire (1996), a film depicting a same-sex relationship between sisters-in-law, she has been the target of Hindu fundamentalist backlash in India, accused of falsely depicting Hinduism and catering to Orientalist Western cinematic desires. The story of the 1989 Iranian fatwa against Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic Verses needs no repetition. The controversies surrounding the work of both diasporic artists have had long-lasting effects upon their lives and work. Rushdie, as well as having to go into exile for a number of years, continues to face obstacles when travelling to India. Mehta's attempts to film and screen her films in India have been blocked, and mere rumours of her presence have at times provoked violent protests from Hindu fundamentalists. Despite virulent opposition to their creative work, the artists have resisted attempts to silence their expression.
The fear of a Hindu and Muslim fundamentalist backlash in India and Pakistan forced the film's production team to scout for an alternative location with a similar landscape to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka emerged as an ideal location. It could, visually, pass for its three major Southasian neighbours, and the bargain of this three-for-the-price-of-one deal paid off economically and politically for the director and her team. Mehta had earlier made a film in Sri Lanka, so she was familiar with the nation. Water, about the treatment of Hindu widows, had initially begun production in Varanasi in 2000, but came under violent attacks from Hindutva activists. Mehta was forced to relocate filming to Sri Lanka after receiving little support from the governments in Lucknow or New Delhi. Water began filming again in 2003, a time when war-torn Sri Lanka was just one year into a fragile ceasefire. During this period, peace was no longer just an abstract idea, but seemed to be an actual possibility. A peacetime economy began to flourish, and filming movies in Sri Lanka seemed an ideal way of advertising "Brand Sri Lanka", as well as stimulating the local film culture. The relationship between Mehta and Sri Lanka was symbiotic and highly beneficial to both parties.