Palnati Yuddham (1947)

Ramabrahmam died before he could complete his dream project, a historical foreshadowing India’s independence, and L.V. Prasad finished it. The film tells of warfare and rivalries within the kingdom of Palnadu, causing the kingdom to split and numerous bloody caste and religious conflicts. The minister Brahmanayudu (G.V. Subba Rao), a wily political visionary, opens the doors of the Chenna Keshava temple to people of all castes, leading to a revolt from the military instigated by the royal matriarch Nagamma. The kingdom splits and early contests for dominance give way to full-scale battle among the second generation of the warring clans. The opening title directly alludes to Partition, referring to the fate of a nation ‘whose soil has been converted into a rudrabhoomi [a cremation ground] by the vengeful attitudes of warring brothers’.