The movie Kesari begins in 1897 ,when the
Indian troops were governed by the
colonizing British government.
On the border between British-held
Indian territory and Afghanistan
lies the Gulistan fort. In the fort,
the brave Sikh Regiment of the British Indian
Army is posted. The protagonist of the film is
Ishar Singh, a havaldar of the regiment.
One afternoon, Ishar and his fellow soldiers
are patrolling the border when they hear a
woman’s cry. On the other side of the border,
a group of Afghan tribesmen is about to
kill a married woman because she refuses
to accept her husband, who has been chosen by
her family without her consent. They are led by
a self-proclaimed prophet Saidullah who takes
the responsibility to kill the poor woman.
Ishar wants to intervene but a higher British
officer, Lawrance, orders him to stay put since
the commotion is taking place on the other side
of the border where their rules don’t work.
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The woman is seconds away from being beheaded
when her supposed husband is shot and killed.
Ishar has defied direct orders from his superior
to save her. He runs to the other side and
continues killing everyone that comes forward to
stop him. The Afghan woman is asked to run away
and anyone who tries to stop her is killed.
Eventually, the men manage to catch Ishar
and try to take off his turban to insult
him. His fellow Sikhs follow his lead
and attack the enemies when it comes to
the pride they hold in their turban.
In the end, the Afghans are defeated and
Saidullah is chased away but Lt. Lawrence
is enraged by the audacity of the Indian troops.
He is extremely racist to anyone who isn’t British
and thinks all Indians are cowards.
He writes a strong report informing his
commanding officer of Ishar’s disobedience. In
the following scene, Ishar and his comrade Gulabo
are chatting outside the fort when all of a
sudden, someone shoots Gulabo on his shoulder.
The enraged Afghan troops have attacked the
fort because of what Ishar did yesterday.
The Indian troop gets in the position, ready to
fight. As a shootout ensues, Ishar climbs down
the fort and into the enemy’s territory.
He then uses an explosive to attack them
when they least expect it.
Because of his smart strategy,
the enemy has to retreat. The commanding officer
praises him for his bravery but cannot let him
off the hook for disobeying an order. Hence, he is
transferred to a neighboring fort, Saragarhi.
No one wants to work in Saragarhi fort
because it lies between two bigger forts
and is mostly used as a post office to transfer
messages between them. No action ever happens in
Sharagarhi hence only twenty-one soldiers
including Ishar are assigned to it.
Before he leaves for the posting, Lawrence calls
Ishar and humiliates him, calling him a slave to
the British government. Ishar is made to apologize
and his cowardice is blamed on the Indian soil.
However, he refrains from talking back
to not be reprimanded further.
The next day, Ishar sets off for the new fort.
On the way, the Afghan woman he saved approaches
him. They do not understand each other’s language
but Ishar figures out that she is thanking him for
saving her life. He accepts a sweet dessert
from her before continuing the journey.
Upon reaching the fort, he is welcomed by
Corporal Lal and his assistant Gurmukh Sing.
Ishar is shocked at how young Gurmukh is
as he is only nineteen years old and knows
more English than anyone else in the fort.
Since Ishar arrived quicker than everyone else
expected, he finds the rest of the
troops watching two roosters fight.
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No one is in their uniforms or is following the
rules a soldier must abide by. On seeing Ishar,
they stand in a line but fail to impress him.
He berates the troop for being a shame to the
entire Sikh community. As punishment, they
are asked to wrestle each other while the
roosters watch them and are not allowed
to stop until the animals say so.
One of the soldiers inquires how a rooster will
speak and is made to run around the fort for
asking a stupid question. Ishar then keeps
Lal to oversee the punishment. The soldiers
wrestle for the rest of the day while one of
them continues making rounds of the fort.
Hours later, Ishar finds them joking around and
singing. When asked why they stopped, Lal claims
that the roosters asked them to. They were making
a noise that sounded like “Cook”. Hence, the troop
thought they were British roosters who wanted
to be cooked and did what the animals said.
Ishar holds his laugh and punishes Lal for not
doing his duty properly. He is asked to starve
for the next week. His fellow soldiers take a
stand and claim that they will also be punished
alongside Lal since he is their comrade.
Ishar allows it and continues torturing the
group for the next two days. During this time,
we find out that all twenty of the soldiers
have family back home who they are hoping to see
soon. One man’s father has worn the same shoes
his whole life so he is getting a pair of shoes
ready to give him as a gift. Another man is a
father himself whose wife just sent him a letter
with the handprints of his month-old daughter.
Similarly, there are people who have been
oppressed because of their social class,
and the ones who miss their mothers dearly.
After two whole days of not eating anything,
the soldiers start to complain. Ishar feels bad
for them and allows him to end the punishment
early. However, a soldier named Chanda
retaliates, saying that they do not need
pity from Ishar. He doesn’t like Ishar and
thinks he is a servant to the British.
The cook named Daad reveals that Ishar also hasn’t
eaten for the past two days and asks the soldiers
to decide what they want to do accordingly.
When they ask Ishar why he punished himself
for their mistake, he replies that he wouldn’t
dare to eat when his comrades are starving.
He manages to win their hearts with the comment
and they feast together. In the meantime,
Saidullah, the Afghani man who wanted to
kill the woman earlier, arranges a meeting
with the leaders of three Afghan tribes.
Till now, they have been fighting against
the British government on their own. But
if they continue the battle as a team,
they will have a higher chance to win. The tribe
leaders agree and start devising an attack.
They plan to take over all three forts on the
same day, starting with the one with Ishar since
it is the easiest to conquer. Saidullah predicts
they will take less than two hours to kill the
twenty-one soldiers because their army consists
of around ten thousand people. After defeating
Ishar’s troops, they will make their way toward
the other two forts and conquer them as well.
Somewhere else, Ishar is told that their
informant from a nearby Afghan village
has been missing for the past two weeks.
Assuming that something is wrong, Ishar
and Lal go to the said village to investigate.
They find the village filled with women, children,
and elders but no young men. Moreover,
the responsibility to build a Mosque
is also upon the elderly and women of the
village. On returning to the fort that day,
Ishar reveals that he wants to help the village
build the Mosque. Most soldiers are against it
since their religion doesn’t align with Islam.
Still, Ishar goes on his own and starts helping
the villagers. At midday, a kid is almost killed
under a falling ceiling. Ishar saves him and is in
turn saved by his comrades who have come to help.
By the end of a few days, they complete the Mosque
and an old woman feeds them one almond each. One
of the soldiers keeps the almond as something
valuable because it reminds him of his mother.
In the following scene, the soldiers are in their
posts when they get a message from the neighboring
fort, asking them to stay alert because the Afghan
troop is planning to land an attack on them.
Ishar looks at the faraway mountain through
his monocular but sees no one. Just
when they think it is a false alarm,
the sound of war drums echoes in their ears.
One man, followed by a hundred, then thousands
come into the view. The crowd makes way
for Saidullah who has caught the woman
Ishar once saved. To declare the
initiation of the war, Saidullah
beheads her and the crowd erupts into cheers.
Then, Ishar receives a letter from his superiors
through the lamp post. He gathers the soldiers and
tells them that they have been ordered to retreat
and run away for their lives. A loud laugh
interrupts Ishar as the soldier famously
known for never smiling bursts out in front
of everyone. He and the rest of the soldiers
think it is funny that the British believe
the Shiks will run away like cowards.
Ishar understands their sentiment but
asks them to give it another thought
because their death is confirmed if they
choose to fight. Chanda, who never liked Ishar,
thinks he is trying to shake their spirit
and is afraid to get into the battlefield.
As a reply, Ishar goes into a room and comes out
wearing a saffron turban, symbolizing courage.
He plays the war drum and kills the first enemy
to start the battle. Everyone gets ready in their
posts except the nineteen-year-old Gurmukh who
seems confused. He asks Ishar why he lied to the
troop, saying that the superiors wanted them to
run away when the actual orders were to fight.
Ishar reveals that by giving the soldiers
a choice, it is proven that they are not
cowards like Lawrence once said. Then,
he orders the cook to serve water to
everyone injured, even the enemies.
The shootout begins and the sound of
continuous gunshots follows. An explosive is
thrown toward the Sikh soldiers which causes
a man to fall off the fort. Before he is
killed, a comrade goes to his aid.
They are being aimed at by the sharpest shooter
of the enemy, hiding behind a stone. Before he
gets to shoot them, Ishar arrives and does the
same to him. When they reach inside safely,
Ishar scolds Gurmukh for not shooting
the man who threw the explosive.
Gurmukh replies that he has never killed anyone
and is scared of the enemy troop. Without wasting
more time, Ishar assigns him to the lamp post
duty from where he has to continuously send
updates to the other forts.
When Ishar gets back to his spot,
the enemy troops start to retreat. Saidullah and
the tribe leaders come forward with a white flag,
asking to talk to him.
The leaders of both parties meet and
Ishar instantly recognizes Saidullah. He inquires
if Saidullah is willing to put his life at risk
or is he just good at killing helpless
women. While the tribe leaders are calm,
Saidullah burns in rage, promising to
step on Ishar’s turban later that day.
Two Sikhs soldiers hand over two Afghan prisoners
who were arrested earlier. Ishar claims that
they don’t kill people who surrender.
However, it turns out that the prisoners
are bait. As soon as a cloth is removed
from their faces, an explosion occurs
that kills several Afghan soldiers.
The fight continues but by now, the rivals
have reached the outer walls of the fort. Another
soldier dies of a gunshot while the Afghans start
banging on the fort’s door. Three soldiers are
sent to stop the door from being broken.
Meanwhile, Ishar focuses on the
sharp-shooter who killed the soldier.
He straps his monocle to the rifle to get a better
aim and shoots the man dead with a single shot.
Downstairs, the soldiers wait until the troops run
out of bullets and land their attack. They manage
to kill many but more enemies keep on coming.
Suddenly, a soldier named Bhola is shot.
During the last minute of his life, he says that
he is happy because death makes everyone equal
and he is no longer inferior to the upper caste.
The others try to stop his bleeding and a fellow
soldier even offers his turban to put over
the wound but Bhola dies in the end.
Soon, they run out of bullets and think of another
tactic to stop the rivals. They open the door,
making it seem like they have given up
before attacking the group outside.
Even though they are a few fighting against a
hundred, they display a great show of bravery
and kill as many people as they can. With his
last breath, Lal asks the only surviving soldier
to run inside and close the door.
He does as told but is heavily injured.
Before dying, he sits beside Bhola’s dead body and
recites the joke that he used to hate. Outside,
Lal dies while looking at the picture
of his daughter’s handprint.
In the meantime, several dead bodies
have piled up beneath the wall.
The Afghans use the bodies and ropes to climb up
the fort. The first few men are defeated but then,
more start climbing and killing.
Ultimately, the last comrade also dies
when he pushes himself and a bunch of Afghans
off the wall. He also detonates an explosive,
killing many right before his death.
Now, only Ishar, Gurmukh, and Chada are left
out of the twenty-one soldiers. Ishar orders
them to stay upstairs in the lamp post while
he fights the entire army on his own.
The enemy finally gets into the fort and
is welcomed by the leader. The first person
to attack him is sliced through his stomach
which sends the others behind him into a
frenzy. Ishar is surrounded but he fights
like a beast and stands in the battleground for
several minutes against a horde of enemies.
Suddenly, he stops when he sees the man he is
about to kill is a young boy. Someone shoots
him on the shoulder which weakens him but not
his spirit. Chada also joins him in the fight
and is killed with several knives in his body.
When Ishar has no weapons, he fights with stones
but is ultimately subsided. The boy who he
didn’t kill earlier is the one who stabs
him at last. Saidullah arrives inside the
fort and kills the poor cook even though he
is feeding water to the Afghan troops.
Then, he tries to take off Ishar’s turban.
With all his remaining strength, he stabs
Saidullah in the throat and kills him.
It is about to get dark and the other forts
have probably called for backup by now.
The soldiers were able to complete the mission
even after their deaths. A tribe leader orders
everyone to stay away from Ishar’s turban,
impressed by his bravery. He leaves but the second
leader still wishes to hear a Sikh cry in pain.
They set fire to the lamp post, waiting for the
only surviving member Gurmukh to cry. Instead, the
brave teenager runs outside shouting a war cry of
the Sikhs. He then grabs the leader and triggers
the grenades attached to his body, resulting in
a huge explosion and the deaths of many.
In the end, the surviving Afghans loot the
fort and set it on fire. After that, the British
Parliament honors the martyrs with the British
Order of Merit, the highest award an Indian
soldier could receive. Two Gurdwaras are built
in the memory of the brave soldiers which are
still visited by many tourists every year.
