Kudos to ‘Delhi Crime’ for being awarded an Emmy but its treatment raises questions

India rejoiced at 'Delhi Crime', a seven-part web series by Netflix in 2019 becoming the first Indian web series to win an Emmy Award in the 'Drama' category.

It was also possibly the first desi film which did not portray police as caricatures, arriving late and botching up the investigation due to corruption, incompetence and political pressure.

The film, which deals with the investigation into the brutal Nirbhaya 'rape and murder case' in Delhi that rocked the world in 2012, also duly records that all six criminals were arrested within a week of the crime.

The creator of the series Richie Mehta took six years to make the film, because he spoke to all the officers involved in tackling the case to get the details right.

So far so good. But what is disconcerting is that the film claims to be the official version of what Delhi Police stands for. Richie Mehta acknowledges that he was inspired to make the film by Neeraj Kumar, a family friend who was Delhi's Police Commissioner at that time.

It was the former IPS officer who personally introduced him to the members of the Special Investigation Team led by Chaaya Sharma, a DCP at that time, Mehta acknowledges.

But though the film deals with the sensitive issue of gender violence, it unfortunately perpetuates male stereotypes.

The series shows that there is no difference between the thinking of the main investigating officer Sudhir Tailang and the main culprit Ram Singh, the bus driver who later committed suicide in Tihar jail.

The culprits remained unrepentant till the end and said they would repeat what they did if they found another couple getting too cozy in public.

From what we have learned of the gory crime after so many years, it all started after the bus Ram Singh was driving picked up the deceased woman and her companion in the bus. Within five minutes, Ram Singh went up to the couple and berated them for being out so late in the evening. The 23-year-old woman retorted that it was none of his business, at which Ram Singh and his cronies pounced on her to show what a macho 'Mard' could do.

What is shocking is that even Sudhir Tailang, the Investigating Officer in the film, is shown to agree with the culprits and telling the DCP that the couple had invited attention and trouble by cuddling and kissing after boarding the private bus.

The woman's companion, who survived and who was not consulted by the film makers, is grumbling. He claims he was badly beaten by iron rods and had a fractured leg, due to which he failed to go to the rescue of the woman while she was being gang-raped.

The film also turned the character of the SHO, who first registered the case into a lazy, uninterested cop, even though the real cop was by all accounts very active and has retained his contact with the deceased woman's family. Mehta is believed to have apologised to him for making a caricature of him by saying that that the story needed some colour.

But what about mocking the spontaneous demonstrations and protests that marked the days after the brutal event of December 16, 2012? Were the protests at India Gate lawns where students demonstrated demanding justice and braved water cannons and lathi charge, all fake?

One would not have bothered had it been a routine commercial film.

But for a film that is believed to be based on briefings by the police and is believed to be a PR exercise for the Police, the script apparently cleared by a former Police Commissioner, it raises both eyebrows and questions about the treatment.