Kesari 2: Meet CS Nair, the powerful lawyer Akshay Kumar is portraying

The teaser of Kesari 2 dropped yesterday. Starring Akshay Kumar, Ananya Panday and R Madhavan the movie is based on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, a dark chapter in Indian freedom struggle. This particular incident led to the rise of revolution with revolutionary freedom fighters gearing up for revengeful action against the British Empire.

Akshay Kumar plays C Sankaran Nair in Kesari 2

The teaser of Kesari 2 shows Akshay Kumar portraying the character of C Sankaran Nair who fought with the British Empire in London’s courtroom. Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair was a Keralite belonging to a wealthy family living in Pallakad district of Malabar Coast. He was known during the British Empire as a highly distinguished nationalist, statesman and lawyer.

When the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre took place in 1919 CS Nair was the Education Minister and the only Indian representative included in the Executive Council of Viceroy. He was so deeply affected by the massacre that he could not stop himself from expressing his anguish against the actions taken by the British government and immediately submitted his resignation from his post.

Sankaran Nair’s criticism provoked O’Dwyer to file a suit against him

After his resignation, Nair in his book Gandhi and Anarchy, almost three years later criticised the then lieutenant Governor of Punjab, Michael O’Dwyer for the massacre accusing him of committing atrocities on the people at the Jallianwala Bagh leading to the massacre. He called O’Dwyer’s administration repressive which led to the Governor of Punjab filing a libel suit against CS Nair.

The drama shown in the teaser of Kesari Chapter 2 shows this particular part where Nair fights with the representative of O’Dwyer in London’s High Court. While in the end after a hearing of more than 5 weeks (one of the longest ever in legal history), Nair was asked to either apologise or pay the damage, the documentation says that the jury members were openly prejudiced and the judge was biased and hence the verdict was not at all unanimous.

Adapted from Pushpa Palat and Raghu Palat’s well researched book – The Case That Shook The Empire, Kesari Chapter 2 will showcase Akshay Kumar once again donning the coat of a lawyer. The teaser has already generated a great interest among the audience. It would be interesting to see how Akshay Kumar plays the part of CS Nair.