Twenty-five years after an avertable Indian aviation tragedy, a Netflix series that plays it safe, lands in trouble still!
A still from the Netflix series IC-814: The Kandahar Hijack. Pic/X
Director Vishal Bharadwaj told me (in an interview), not long ago, that he’d spent “seven to eight years, working on IC 814, for Amazon Prime Video.”
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Only, that after Taandav (2021) got into needless controversy, Prime Video pulled the plug on the project.
Vishal recalled, “They didn’t wanna touch anything political. Though there was nothing political [about the 1999 hijacking episode]. The whole country got humiliated—it had nothing to do with a political party.”
During his research, Vishal said he met with the negotiators, Ajit Doval, with IB (in 1999); RAW chief, AS Dulat, CD Sahay (also with RAW); Vivek Katju, joint secretary, MEA…
Interactions with a CBI officer, then, Arun Kumar, led to another, unrelated film, Talvar (2015), on the Aarushi Murder Case, instead!
Anubhav Sinha’s IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, on Netflix, is based on the book, Flight Into Fear, by Captain Devi Sharan (brilliantly played by Vijay Varma), who was piloting the said plane, when it got taken over by five terrorists, between Kathmandu and Delhi, on December 24, 1999.
What shocks you, in hindsight, is how easy it was to smuggle in grenades, guns, even RDX, into a plane, through Nepal’s Tribhuvan International Airport. Security scene, I suspect, dramatically changed, after 9/11.
Now, imagine a film/series on 9/11, for all its global impact—but making it about those inside the plane, that hit the target, instead. That was Peter Markle’s Flight 93 (2006).
Anubhav’s IC 814 is way superior. Given world-class means of production; cleverly filmed, indoors, and in Jordan; shot like a dream, or nightmare, as it were; edited tightly enough, that you can sharply piece together visuals, all through the six, short episodes.
What about the politics of it? As Anubhav jokes in a group chat with the cast, for the most political line, he’s ever written—it’s the exchange on warm beverages, between the ‘Vivek Katju’ character (Arvind Swami), and the Doval-double, i.e. Manoj Pahwa!
Arvind says, “If there’s choice between bad tea, and bad coffee, I’d prefer bad tea. Coffee is like religion. No place for misinterpretation.” Pahwa responds, “Tea is like blind faith. Good or bad. Tea is tea!”
As tea gets passed around the hallowed halls of presumably New Delhi’s North/South Block, full of the state’s stressed-out stake-holders.
Played by what can only be described as a legends’ roundtable, in that order: Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapoor, Kanwaljit Singh, Kumud Mishra, Aditya Shrivastav, Sushant Singh…
They’re there to add heft to the proceedings, with their presence alone. There’s nothing, by way of backstory, even expressions beyond the obvious, for these parts to merit such top talent.
They probably signed up for Anubhav (Mulk, Article 15), if not the subject itself.
Unlike what happened on a public plane, is it possible to accurately report the inside workings of a secretive, Crisis Management Group, of the govt? You can dramatise it.
Can you critique it? Well, this is a fairly soft show, that way.
The state’s sluggish inaction, during the hijacking, is pretty much attributed to “all-party meetings,” and “compulsions of a coalition government.”
RAW agent in Kathmandu had almost got to IC 814, before it took off. Commandoes were completely ready, before the flight left Amritsar, thereafter, too.
Where was Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, during the episode—interestingly, four minutes behind KTM-DEL, IC 814, returning from Bihar! I learnt this from a podcast, not this series.
Real, rare criticism of the govt here only comes from a 1999, stock footage, of an aggrieved man, accusing the state for making “pompous statements”, to hide an “absolute security lapse.”
The thing about discussing politics (or religion) in pop-culture, though, is there are enough people with their knives out, to mete out punishment, already. They look for what crime has been committed, later!
Which is why I watched IC 814 twice over, to see what could anybody find objectionable, this time on. Apparently, that the terrorists used aliases Burger, Bhola, Shankar, etc, on the plane!
Which is a fact. Real names of at least two masterminds, Amjad Farooqui (‘Doctor’), including Ibrahim (‘Chief’) on the plane, are outed in the series itself. Are they all, anyway, shown to be Pakistani, ISI-backed, jehadi terrorists? Hell, yeah.
The point where the series takes a stand is to suggest the hijacking was primarily the work of Osama bin Laden. With ISI simply as helping hand—not even invited to the party, to celebrate terrorists getting away, in Kandahar!
Does this amount to ‘whitewashing’—or actually downplaying the role of RAW’s rival, ISI, in pulling off a devilishly successful, global operation? Sounds like the latter to me!
The other bone to pick is that the show “humanises” terrorists.
Among others, ‘IC 814’ led to the release of British-born terrorist, Omar Saeed Sheikh, convicted for killing journalist Daniel Pearl, in 2002.
Rajkummar Rao ably played the Islamic fundamentalist, Omar, in Hansal Mehta’s Omerta (2015)—waging war/jehad, firstly moved by the plight of Muslims in Bosnia.
However ghastly/beastly these folks are, they are human—how else does one show them!
Likewise, with Rajkummar, as the rabid AF Omar, who you hate, but he exists. Director Vivek Agnihotri, presiding over the Censor Board panel for Omerta, rightly passed it for public viewing.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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