00:00Hello and welcome to this India Today special.
00:03Every now and then, Indian cinema and Hindi cinema in particular
00:07trains its lens on subjects that explore areas of darkness.
00:13Areas that are complex, that reflect nuance and require empathy.
00:20One such film is Daira that has turned its lens on inconvenient questions
00:27about policing, about crimes against women and extrajudicial killings.
00:34Joining me now, two very special guests, joined by the director Meghna Gulzar
00:39and the lead actor, Prithviraj.
00:41Good to have both of you on the show.
00:43Both of you wearing a bit of darkness out there because the film really trains its lens
00:49on a subject that Hindi cinema, Indian cinema has sometimes been reluctant to explore.
00:54Certainly, even the news world is reluctant to explore the fact that police can take law
01:01into their own hands with extrajudicial killings when there are crimes against women.
01:05Was there a conscious decision that you took that you wanted to explore this rather dark subject?
01:12Yes, because it's not just a subject, Rajdeep.
01:18We know what's happening every day.
01:21What's happened today?
01:23We just had four gang rape stories coming out in the national capital in just the last four nights.
01:32That's right.
01:33Major cases.
01:34That's right.
01:34And I think that's darker than Daira can or will ever be.
01:39You know.
01:41So, it's not only about talking about a case or questioning something.
01:45What we tried to do was look at it through a wider lens because we believe that everything is linked.
01:55Why do crimes happen?
01:56Because the fear of punishment is almost not there.
02:00Why is the fear of punishment not there?
02:03Because the judiciary is restricted by its own workings, which is why justice or punishment seems to take long or
02:12seems to be delayed,
02:14which is why public wants instant results.
02:19And then the police are pressured to do things that they are doing.
02:25Let me just push you for a moment.
02:282011, the Nirbhaya case, as it came to be known, brought people onto the streets, resulted in growing outrage against
02:37crimes against women.
02:38New laws were sought to be put in place.
02:41Your film seems to mirror what happened in 2019 in Hyderabad, where four people who had allegedly committed a gang
02:53rape were mysteriously shot dead in the early hours of the morning by the police who claimed that they were
02:58trying to escape.
02:59So, it seemed at that moment a classic case of an extrajudicial encounter killing.
03:04And yet the police were cheered almost by the public out there because they wanted instant justice.
03:11Is that what sort of this dilemma between instant justice and the rule of law that pushed you into setting
03:20the boundary or the daira in a way?
03:22Absolutely, because you can't train blame on any one part.
03:28You cannot blame the public for glorifying the police who commit encounters.
03:33You can't entirely blame the family for wanting quicker justice or at least their sense of satisfaction with perceived justice.
03:45It's all linked.
03:46And so, that is why it becomes even more pressing to be talking about these things.
03:51Yes, they are uncomfortable, but hesitating to talk about it is not going to make it go away.
03:57Were you entirely comfortable with doing an uncomfortable film in a way, you know, because the police officer in you
04:05is shown in the film to be at one level of, you know, conscious of his family responsibilities,
04:13but also someone who is, in a way, angry with the system and therefore wants to set his own rules,
04:22doesn't believe in that sense in the rule of law, believes in the rule of Raman in a way.
04:26Raman is the police officer is going to set his rule.
04:29Were you comfortable with doing that?
04:31Someone who short circuits the law in such an obvious manner?
04:35Was I comfortable with the subject matter of the film?
04:38I was, because it is a reality we live in today.
04:40In fact, I thought it was a privilege as an artist to have an opportunity to make a piece of
04:44cinema that addresses this issue.
04:46Do I agree with Raman in his entirety?
04:48I do not.
04:49But the problem is that I do not disagree with Raman in his entirety as well.
04:53And that dichotomy is where the film exists.
04:56Now, in an ideal scenario, in a society, in a system where everything works perfectly, there should not have been
05:04a question raised at all.
05:06An extrajudicial killing is illegal.
05:08The public as a whole should have been against it.
05:11Why were there not?
05:12Why is there so much public sentiment for an extrajudicial killing, if at all there is one, especially for crimes
05:20against women?
05:20Why does that happen?
05:22Now, that is a question that needs to be addressed.
05:24And Raman, within this narrative of Daira, is an instrument to address that.
05:28And I was very comfortable with that.
05:30And I was very aware of the fact that more than playing a character, I am playing an argument in
05:37the film.
05:37I am playing a perspective in the film.
05:39Much like Kareena is playing Ajuni.
05:42And my job as an actor was to lend weight, lend credibility, lend validity to that side of the argument.
05:49And, yeah, I was comfortable doing that because I knew in the larger picture, I played one very important part
05:56of a whole argument.
05:57No, but why do you think the public is out there cheering, whether it, you know, whenever there is, particularly,
06:04of course, in an open and shut gang rape case, and the law is seemingly taking a very long time,
06:12why do you think the public out there is cheering a police officer who, as you say, is clearly committing
06:17an illegal, unconstitutional, extrajudicial killing?
06:20So, there are three things that we need to address here.
06:22One is a crime.
06:23The quantum, second is a quantum of punishment for that crime.
06:26And third is a deliverance of justice.
06:28Now, let's say a crime has been proven beyond doubt.
06:31Next is a quantum of punishment for the crime.
06:34In our present system, the quantum of punishment for a gang rape or murder or something that, that heinous, it's
06:43up to, it's up to debate.
06:44What is the quantum of punishment currently prescribed and are we in agreement that that is what is deserved?
06:51Now, even more dicey is the third facet of this, the deliverance of justice.
06:56Unfortunately, we are a country where the judicial system, as we all know, is really overburdened.
07:02I'm not sure about the numbers, but something in the tune of six crore cases right now in the front
07:07of various benches across the country.
07:09So, we are very, very overburdened in terms of a judicial system.
07:12Now, that feeds into the public's frustration that even if they do get justice, it may be justice very, very
07:20delayed.
07:21That might be one of the reasons.
07:22I'm not going to sit here and claim that I'm an expert on prescribing a solution for this.
07:27But that should be one of the reasons why there is so much public support and goodwill behind something like
07:31this.
07:31Yeah, because, you know, it almost seems at one level mob justice.
07:35That, you know, the policeman is being asked to sort of serve the needs of this anger and fury of
07:41the mob.
07:42Not the rule of law, but the rule of the mob.
07:45And you've got two protagonists in the film.
07:47You've got Pitwiraaj playing Raman who wants to ensure speedy justice in a way, his way, which is possibly the
07:56encounter way.
07:57And you've got Ajuni, as Kareena Kapoor Khan plays, who wants to investigate and follow the rule of law.
08:05And I get the sense by the end that your empathy lies more with Pitwiraaj than with Kareena Kapoor Khan
08:12or with Raman Radha and Ajuni.
08:14And that troubles me because it almost seems as a director, you're also seemingly catering to the frustrations of the
08:21people out there and saying, you know, at the end of the day, he's also in his own way doing
08:27his duty.
08:28And his duty is to ensure that the criminals get justice his way.
08:34No, for me, the fact that...
08:37Where does your empathy lie?
08:40My empathy lies in the fact that there is this dilemma.
08:46There is this dilemma.
08:48I'm not siding with any one side.
08:51I don't believe that we need to become a banana republic and that our police should become trigger happy.
08:57I don't believe in that.
09:00But it's unfortunate that sometimes that is the only satisfaction one gets, that yes, justice has been served.
09:08If you look at the comments, Rajdeep, of the ordinary people who are commenting on the reporting of these two
09:14cases that have happened today and yesterday, what are the words being used?
09:19Shoot, castrate, kill, hang, public lynching, encounter.
09:25Nobody is saying, take them to court.
09:30That is the dilemma, where my empathy lies.
09:35Again, you see, it isn't, as I said, it's not an easy subject to deal with.
09:42And as a director, you're expected to explore the complexity of the subject.
09:47We live in a black and white world.
09:49Increasingly, even cinema is supposed to identify the villain right away and who's the hero.
09:54Here you are leaving people to decide, give the choice to the viewer out there, to decide who's the villain
10:01and who's the hero.
10:01Who do they prefer?
10:03Which way do they prefer?
10:04Is that again conscious that you didn't want as a director to be seen to be taking sides in this
10:09sort of tug of war between a police officer who wants to follow the rule of law and another one
10:18who wants to short circuit?
10:19No, I was not afraid of taking sides.
10:22It's not like I was shirking the responsibility of choosing a side.
10:25But I wanted to present what is our reality.
10:29We think we live in a black and white world.
10:32I believe that there are greys that we live in.
10:35And the sooner we acknowledge them and navigate them, the better it will be for us as a society.
10:43The reason why the character of Chotu is planted in Daira is because he is also another perspective of justice
10:54seemingly have been served.
10:56But again, it is so subjective.
11:00For Chotu, he has been treated justly because he was a juvenile.
11:06What about the family whose child he raped and killed?
11:12Whatever has been meted out to Chotu in terms of punishment, is it justice for the family?
11:18The question is, you see, the law is very clear about a juvenile and what punishment can be given to
11:24a juvenile.
11:24And this also was an issue which came up in the Nirbhaya case.
11:28That's right.
11:29One of the accused was a juvenile.
11:30Should he be allowed to get away?
11:32Is the gravity or the heinousness of the crime going to decide the punishment?
11:36Yes.
11:36Now, you bring in that, obviously, again, to remind the audience almost as to someone who got away during Nirbhaya.
11:44Yeah.
11:44You're comfortable with that?
11:45Absolutely, because that's a reality we live in.
11:48Are juveniles not committing these crimes today?
11:51They are.
11:53And the laws did change after Nirbhaya, where the modification happened that now, just because he's a juvenile, he's not
12:01going to be tried and punished like a juvenile.
12:05But the quantum of punishment will be given looking at the heinousness of the crime.
