Kushal

In 1942, under British rule, the Congress group at Sarupathar in Golaghat district misreads Gandhi's call of Do or Die and, breaking the principle of non-violence, decides to derail a train carrying British soldiers and supplies. Kushal Konwar, president of the local Congress group (played by Sanjib Sabhapandit), opposes the plan but fails to stop it, and the derailment takes place.

Afterwards Kushal accepts full moral responsibility for the accident out of love for his country. C. A. Humphrey (Gary Richardson), the district's senior British officer, wants a prominent person to blame, and Kushal fits well: he is known as an honest man and is also heir to a powerful royal line. Kushal is hanged in 1943.

The film was produced by the Directorate of Cultural Affairs of the Government of Assam. In 1984 the then chief minister Hiteswar Saikia took up the project and assigned Barua to direct it, when Barua had made only his first feature, Aparoopa. The Congress government then lost power and the project stalled. It was revived in the early 1990s with a budget of 6 million rupees.

Barua has said he spent six years on the film, five on research and one on shooting. Because of the small budget, the scene of the rail track being sabotaged does not appear in the film. Gary Richardson, Binita Patangia, Dinesh Das, Prithviraj Rabha, Anup Hazarika, Victor David Sassoon, Zakir Hazarika, Paul Carlin and Philips Basu appear in the cast.

Kushal received the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Assamese in 1998. It was selected for the Indian Panorama, shown at the 4th International Film Festival of Kerala in 1999, and screened at the 40th Paris winter festival in 2011. It was also shown at the Nehru Centre in London on India's 64th Independence Day.

In Jahnu Barua's filmography, Kushal came after Xagoroloi Bohudoor (1995) and Pokhi (1998) and was followed by Konikar Ramdhenu (2002) and Tora (2004).