Diksha Sundriyal
In Netflix’s period drama series, ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar,’ power, romance, and the fight for a country’s freedom emerge as the central themes that overlap to pave the path for the characters. While the first two themes take center stage, the cause of the revolutionaries remains the most important factor in deciding how the whole thing eventually turns out. While being familiarised with the revolutionaries, we are also introduced to their ways of fighting against the system, and the local newspaper plays an important part in it. They rely on Hazoori Bagh Patrika to spread the word with patriotic sentiments and gather more support from the masses to push back the colonial rule.
Hazuri Bagh Patrika Represents the Real Newspapers During the Colonial Rule
‘Heeramandi’ is a fictional story that uses real-life things to set the foundation upon which its lavish world stands. So, it’s real that people in Lahore were rising against the British rulers and fighting tooth and nail, like the rest of the nation, to win their freedom. However, the story introduces fictional characters under fictional personal circumstances to define the dramatic twists and turns in the story. In the same vein, while Hazoori Bagh Patrika does not represent a real newspaper, it does show the audience how the real freedom fighters used the power of the press to further their cause.
Hazoori Bagh Patrika gets its name from Hazoori Bagh in Lahore, where the story is set. It makes sense for the freedom fighters to use that name because it is a local newspaper targeted towards the people of Lahore, talking in their language and vernacular to connect better with their sentiments. In real life, there were local newspapers run by freedom fighters, written in the vernacular of the locals to propagate the ideas of freedom and the pushback against the oppressive colonial regime. While there were newspapers that gained national popularity, most newspapers stuck to local languages simply because of the diversity of the languages throughout the country and because most of the people in the country were restricted to speaking and reading their local languages.
The local newspapers were also more effective in sending the message because they focused on local rather than national issues, which hit home harder for the people, riling them up to join the freedom-fighting movement. Newspapers like Kesari, Maratha, Navjeevan, Swadesamitran, and Mathrubhumi, among others, gained immense popularity among the masses and brought together the people unlike anything else. The newspapers were an important tool to awaken the nation’s soul, with each one playing its part in a different side of the country, and the ripples created by them led to an effect that changed the fate of the world. With Hazoori Bagh Patrika, ‘Heeramandi’ acknowledges the contribution and the importance of the press in such times.
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