BJP disappointed by 'IC814' on Netflix, Emergency, The Diary of West Bengal

The ill-advised and ill-timed move to troll the Netflix web series IC184: The Kandahar Hijack by right-wing influencers appears to have boomeranged, despite the information and broadcasting ministry summoning the platform’s content head to voice its displeasure on ‘facts’ and background research, which actually turned out to match the version provided by the NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The poorly made The Diary of West Bengal, which released last week, seems to have failed to draw any attention despite the perfectly timed release, when the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress is facing popular outrage over the alleged rape and murder of a junior doctor in Kolkata.

Yet another well-timed release, Emergency, with Kangana Ranaut playing late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, has been postponed as the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) withheld its go ahead after Sikhs declared their outrage about the trailer.

Political films do not seem to be working for the BJP any longer. Partisan propaganda films demonising Muslims and highlighting Hindus as patriots, many of them released just ahead of crucial elections, have sought to polarise people.

Some of them, like Kashmir Files in 2022 and Kerala Files in 2023, were endorsed by the BJP and its leaders and did well at the box office, even granted tax exemptions by BJP governments. The prime minister himself exhorted people to go and watch the films and in some places, the party distributed free tickets to draw viewers to theatres.

It was a rare occasion in 2019 when the Election Commission put its foot down when it stopped the release of the film PM Narendra Modi before the general election. Some films like JNU (demonising the central university in New Delhi known for left-wing student activism) and Article 370 — endorsed by PM Modi and based on the government’s controversial decision to withdraw the special status and autonomy enjoyed by Jammu and Kashmir — did less well or ended as disasters.

Swatantra Veer Savarkar, a biopic of an ardent advocate of India as a purely Hindu nation, was released weeks before polling began for the 2024 general elections.

The Diary of West Bengal, a film released last week, follows on the footsteps of films like Pathan, Border, Uri: The Surgical Strike, New York and Kurbaan, all of which sought to portray Muslims as radicals, villains, terrorists and anti-Indian. The alleged rape and murder of a junior doctor in a Kolkata medical college on 9 August, four days after the monsoon revolution in Bangladesh forced PM Sheikh Hasina to flee, unleashed similar public fury against the state government.

The Diary, producers would have believed, would be a hit because although it is set in 1971, it portrays Muslims as infiltrators and religious zealots out to convert West Bengal into a Muslim-majority state. Leaving nothing to imagination, it shows the state’s chief minister to be a woman with an uncanny resemblance to Mamata Banerjee.

To make the release even more dramatic, the producers claimed that the film’s director Sanoj Mishra had travelled to the state in the third week of August to appear in court but was missing since then. BJP MP Kangana Ranaut claimed she was receiving calls from the distraught wife of the director and sought information about Mishra’s whereabouts.

The insinuations were that Mishra had been kidnapped either by the police or by TMC supporters. The director himself is said to have shared a video clip from the film on Instagram while wailing, "I'm broken down by government pressure and suppressive policy over this movie, anything can happen anytime... I couldn't reply to your congratulatory messages… I'm under pressure from all sides."

Though sensational, such claims remained unnoticed and unverified. Poor reviews and the pathetic response to the film seemed to vindicate the stand of the Calcutta High Court, which refused to stop the release of the film, dismissing petitions to ban it on the plea that it was blatantly communal. “Watch it if you want, don’t watch it if you don’t,” the chief justice told the petitioners.

In sharp contrast, trolling on social media does not seem to have had any impact on IC184, which has drawn acclaim from both filmmakers and ordinary viewers.

"Just finished watching #IC184- Terrific! The way Anubhav handles the office scenes of the government officials and their weak-kneed approach to the crisis is almost a subversive act. Brilliant!”, gushed film-maker Sudhir Mishra.

Viewers seem to be equally thrilled, showering praise and hailing the series as outstanding, marked by stellar performances and as a gripping web series. One of the best series in recent times, said a viewer while another praised the impactful dialogues and chilling moments.

Right-wing influencers were indignant over the past two days, raging over the film identifying the hijackers as Bhola, Shankar, Doctor, Burger and Chief. The film had deliberately avoided naming them, all of them Muslims and Pakistanis engaged by the ISI. The pressure was such that the I&B ministry felt compelled to summon the content head of Netflix for an explanation.

It quickly became apparent, though, that the research for the film was impeccable and the code names were indeed used by the hijackers to address each other inside the plane. The hijacking lasted a week before the BJP-led government of India succumbed to pressure and released several dreaded terrorists as demanded by the hijackers. Then Union minister Jaswant Singh of the BJP and the present national security advisor Ajit Doval had flown to Kandahar to hand over the terrorists and secure the release of the passengers.