ABSTRACT
This chapter would like to enquire the objectives for representing medieval warfare on Indian celluloid, especially during the nationalist and communal hours, when the medieval past was often invoked to trace the pre-modern idea of political communities that defended or exerted their identity (ies) by force. This chapter would also like to focus on the portrayals of brutality and shrewdness involved in military operations which lead to another fundamental question about war ethics. It will also take up the issues involved in representations of the ethnic and communal stereotypes in the attires of the warring groups to highlight the strategic as well as moral differences between the sides. These discussions, I hope, would be helpful for understanding the representation politics of the medieval past, which remained more than monolithic to attract a huge variety of audiences but could hardly avert huge debates about the issues such as representations of violence, masculinity, or communalism in the public sphere.
