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By:

Shoumojit Banerjee

27 August 2024 at 9:57:52 am

Sands of Empire: Revisiting Khartoum

If you thought Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was the only great desert classic, think again. Overshadowed for decades by David Lean’s masterpiece, Khartoum (1966) remains one of the great neglected historical epics. Directed by Basil Dearden and anchored by commanding performances from Charlton Heston and Laurence Olivier, it deserves a place alongside the decade’s finest large-scale historical dramas. While it falls short of the towering achievement of Lawrence of Arabia, it remains a worthy...

Sands of Empire: Revisiting Khartoum

If you thought Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was the only great desert classic, think again. Overshadowed for decades by David Lean’s masterpiece, Khartoum (1966) remains one of the great neglected historical epics. Directed by Basil Dearden and anchored by commanding performances from Charlton Heston and Laurence Olivier, it deserves a place alongside the decade’s finest large-scale historical dramas. While it falls short of the towering achievement of Lawrence of Arabia, it remains a worthy epic unjustly overshadowed by Lean’s film. More importantly, it belongs to a now-vanished tradition of historical filmmaking that believed audiences could appreciate history, ideas and spectacle in equal measure. Set in 19th century Sudan and Egypt, Khartoum sees the flamboyant General Charles ‘Chinese’ Gordon, played with tremendous conviction by Heston, square off against Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed ‘Mahdi’ or the ‘Expected One,’ portrayed by Olivier. Amid tangled imperial geopolitics, the British government dispatches Gen. Gordon to oversee the evacuation of Sudan, where the Mahdi has ignited a rebellion against Egyptian and British authority. The Mahdi was a nineteenth-century Osama bin Laden-like prototype – a ruthlessly charismatic religious figure capable of rallying thousands through a potent mix of faith, prophecy and political revolt. The duel between Gordon and the Mahdi is alone worth the price of admission. Heston, relishing the opportunity to play something far more nuanced than his usual larger-than-life heroes, delivers what may well be the finest performance of his career. Sporting a British accent, Heston’s Gordon is a vain man (with a monumental ego) driven equally by courage and conviction. Heston creates a character far more interesting than his celebrated household roles of Judah Ben-Hur or Moses. Indeed, Heston personally regarded Khartoum as one of his favourite films as the role allowed him to move beyond heroic certainty and explore the contradictions of a deeply complex historical figure. Olivier’s performance has long attracted controversy because of his use of blackface. Yet as an acting performance, it remains extraordinarily compelling. His Mahdi is intelligent and magnetic; a man whose seething fanaticism and certainty of purpose makes him a lethal opponent. The conflict between Gordon and the Mahdi is not simply military but philosophical. Each sees himself as the instrument of a higher cause and recognises something admirable in the other. Their exchanges possess an intellectual weight seldom encountered in contemporary blockbusters. That quality owes much to the literate screenplay by playwright Robert Ardrey who has his characters debate faith, empire and political expediency in scintillating dialogues. The supporting cast is equally distinguished. Sir Ralph Richardson is magnificent as the British Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone who embodies British pragmatism and Machiavellian statecraft in equal measure. He admires Gordon while recognising that empires cannot be run according to the impulses of heroic individuals. Richardson captures the tension between moral rhetoric and political calculation with a finesse that only a legend of his stature could. One should perhaps be thankful that such a film got made at all. Never mind today’s audiences, the tangled skein of late 19th century British imperial politics was hardly an easy sell for audiences in the 1960s as well. Americans, in particular, would likely have had little clue about Sudan, Khartoum, Gordon or the Mahdist revolt. Yet Khartoum succeeds brilliantly in bringing this forgotten era to life. The political intrigues of Whitehall and the desperate military situation on the Nile acquire genuine dramatic force. It belongs to a period when filmmakers trusted audiences to listen and follow ideas rather than watch mindless action. The 1960s were the golden age of the literate historical epic. Films such as Spartacus, El Cid, The Fall of the Roman Empire and The Charge of the Light Brigade combined spectacle with serious engagement with history. Khartoum stands proudly within that tradition. Gordon and the Mahdi have long gone. The British Empire has vanished. But Sudan remains trapped in seemingly perpetual cycles of conflict. Coups, civil wars, military strongmen, competing centres of authority and devastating violence have haunted the country for decades. The headlines change; the instability persists. That is what makes Khartoum feel unexpectedly contemporary. Beneath its grand costumes and imperial pageantry lies a story about a state struggling to define itself, about rival claims to legitimacy, and about the dangerous collision between political power and religious conviction. 60 years after its release, Khartoum remains not merely a superb film but a haunting reminder that history, especially in Sudan, has a habit of repeating itself.

India’s AI Leap and the Politics of Disruption

As India unveiled its ambition to become an artificial-intelligence superpower, an unsettling sequence of protests and riots marred the summit.

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 last week brought together global technology chiefs, investors, policymakers and heads of state from some 20 countries. At New Delhi’s Bharat Mandapam, gleaming halls hosted what the government billed as the largest artificial-intelligence gathering the world has yet seen.


But disturbingly, outside the halls, the country seemed seized by a very different energy in form of topless protests by members of an irresponsible Opposition, communal skirmishes, terror alerts and social-media frenzy. While India was announcing its arrival in the AI big league, it seemed simultaneously to advertise its vulnerability to disorder. Whether this was coincidence or something more deliberate has quickly become a matter of political argument. But even without indulging conspiracies, the contrast reveals something important about India’s moment. As it inches closer to the technological frontier, the costs of instability - real or manufactured - are rising.


Watershed Moment

The summit itself was carefully choreographed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, inaugurating the main sessions on February 19, framed artificial intelligence not as a Silicon Valley toy but as a development tool. India, he argued, could fuse scale, data and democratic legitimacy in a way neither China nor the West quite manages.


More than 840 exhibitors, over 500 parallel events, delegates from 88 countries and a parade of corporate announcements that, taken together, resembled an investment avalanche. Reliance Industries promised Rs. 10 lakh crore (about $110bn) for AI infrastructure, data centres and networks. Adani Group pledged $100bn by 2035 for data centres and AI-ready infrastructure. Google unveiled plans for a $15 billion full-stack AI hub, while Microsoft spoke of investments of up to $50 billion across AI, cloud and skilling, with India as a launchpad for the global south.


There were partnerships too. OpenAI tied up with the Tata Group on AI compute infrastructure starting at 100 megawatts and scaling to a gigawatt. Anthropic and Infosys announced centres of excellence. Blackstone revealed a $600m bet on Neysa, an Indian AI start-up. Domestic players showcased indigenous models such as Sarvam AI, signalling that India wants not merely to host foreign platforms but to build its own.


Yet, for all the chest-thumping, India remains a challenger rather than a leader. It ranks around tenth among AI nations, well behind America and China. In global AI investment it is third, trailing the United States (with roughly 56 percent of global investment) and China (17 percent), but ahead of most of Europe. The harder constraint lies in high-performance computing. America accounts for about 35 percent of the world’s top systems and nearly half of total computing capacity; China has fewer systems but remains formidable. India’s share is just around one percent, but rising.


India’s recent accession to the US-led Pact for Integrity and Transparency in Semiconductors (dubbed the ‘Pax Silica’ alliance) was announced at the summit, in the presence of Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and America’s ambassador. The pact aims to secure supply chains for chips, AI and critical minerals across the Indo-Pacific. With India on board, the group now numbers ten countries. Beijing, already wary of India’s data scale and talent pool, is unlikely to be comforted.


Countries that threaten to rearrange technological hierarchies tend to acquire not just admirers but spoilers.


Disconcerting Protest

The most visually arresting disruption came on the summit’s opening day. Eight to ten workers of the Indian Youth Congress, having apparently gained entry through QR-code registration, shed their shirts inside the venue and shouted slogans against Mr Modi. They claimed to be protesting farm policies and an India–US trade deal; the Youth Congress president described the stunt as ‘Gandhian’ and ‘Bhagat Singh-style.’


The ruling BJP accused the opposition of shaming India before the world. What made the episode more damaging was not its nudity but its choreography. Pre-registration and coordinated action inside a tightly secured venue suggested planning rather than impulse. Even sceptics conceded that it landed as an image problem at precisely the wrong moment.


The same week saw communal flare-ups in three places: Sihora in Madhya Pradesh, Amberpet in Hyderabad and Bagalkot in Karnataka. In Sihora, alleged vandalism at a Durga temple during simultaneous aarti and nearby namaz triggered stone-pelting.


In Hyderabad, a Shivaji Jayanti procession intersected awkwardly with Ramadan prayers; tensions escalated, and a YouTuber was attacked. In Bagalkot, stones were thrown at another Shivaji procession. While the police swiftly restored order, the timing was unsettling as all three incidents clustered around February 19, precisely during the summit’s centrepiece.


India has no shortage of religious processions or flashpoints. Yet investors and diplomats notice patterns, not explanations.


More unsettling were intelligence alerts warning of possible terror attacks on Delhi temples during the summit. For many, this revived memories of February 2020, when riots had erupted in north-east Delhi during the visit of American president Donald Trump (serving his first term), that left over 50 dead. Several accused like Tahir Hussain, Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam were later arrested under anti-terror laws; cases remain before the courts. At the time, allegations of foreign links had surfaced, though proof remains elusive.


The recurrence of alerts at moments of diplomatic or symbolic importance has encouraged darker readings.


Foreign Shadows

Fuel has been added by the rhetoric of external actors and the statements of domestic opposition figures. The Hungarian-American financier George Soros, long cast as a villain in nationalist narratives, has spoken openly of funding efforts to defend democracy worldwide, including in India - remarks his critics interpret as hostility to the Modi government. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, during recent foreign visits, has praised China’s manufacturing prowess and warned that India’s neglect of production risks unemployment and social fracture.


Set against India’s push to present itself as a stable, trustworthy AI partner for the global south, such comments grate.


There is a precedent here. During the pandemic, India’s production of Covaxin and Covishield, and its willingness to supply vaccines to over 100 countries, won praise but also resentment from established pharmaceutical powers and competitors. A similar dynamic may be emerging in AI. The summit’s emphasis on open, inclusive models; on training programmes across 500 universities; and on building hundreds of indigenous models positions India as a potential norm-setter for the global south. That threatens existing centres of data power.


None of this requires a grand conspiracy. Progress itself creates losers. Political opposition seeks visibility. Foreign rivals probe for weakness. Fringe groups exploit moments of attention.


The danger for India lies less in sabotage than in self-distraction. If every disruption is framed as an existential plot, the country risks confusing noise for signal. Its AI ambitions will be tested not by protestors but by electricity grids, chip supply, research depth and regulatory clarity. Closing the high-performance computing gap with China will take years of disciplined investment, not weeks of outrage.


Yet complacency would be equally foolish. As $250bn of promised capital waits to be deployed, and as India edges closer to strategic technologies, the premium on internal stability will rise. Investors are patient about politics, but not about unpredictability.


Whether the disturbances were coincidence or calculation may never be proved. What is clear is that success now carries a new responsibility.


To lead in artificial intelligence, India must master not only algorithms and data centres, but also the harder task of governing attention, dissent and disorder. For in the age of AI, power lies as much in perception as in code.

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