Tihar tales and how the system fails
film: Netflix Black Warrant
Director: Vikramaditya Motwane, Satyanshu Singh, Ambiecka Pandit, Arkesh Ajay and Rohin Raveendran Nair
Cast: Zahan Kapoor, Rahul Bhat, Paramvir Cheema, Anurag Thakur, Rajshri Deshpande, Sidhant Gupta, Tota Roy Chowdhury and Rajendra Gupta
Nonika Singh
Jails are a world of their own making and ‘a law unto themselves’. Time and again, we have been reminded that prisons not only house hardened criminals, but are hubs of crime too. We have often seen the murky life inside prisons through the eyes of the prisoners. But a jailer’s unflinching point of view, listing systemic lapses, is not an everyday insight.
Trust filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane to not only tread a new path each time, but also come out trumps. After wowing us with his period series ‘Jubilee’, now in association with Applause Entertainment and co-creator Satyanshu Singh, he turns his attention to Tihar jail. It’s certainly not a happy place, neither for the inmates, nor for those who try to run it. Since the source material is the book ‘Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer’, written by Sunetra Choudhury and the former superintendent of Tihar Jail Sunil Gupta, for most parts the intense narrative rings true.
Eerie, provocative and compelling, the jail drama has your attention from the word go. It opens with the lead part of Sunil Gupta — played by Zahan Kapoor, yet another kid of the Kapoor block (grandson of Shashi Kapoor and Kunal Kapoor’s son) — being interviewed for the job of Assistant Superintendent of Prisons.
Clearly, acting is in Zahan’s DNA. Sans starry airs, he becomes this young jailer to the T. Misfit in the jail environment and diffident to begin with, he can’t bear the sight of blood and baulks when cuss words, the ‘official’ language of jail, are spoken. But slowly, he gains command and control, learning to compromise with his value system too. And abuse as well. Of course, since the series is based on the book by this very character, he is this righteous man whose heart bleeds for the wronged.
Keeping him company in the jail, if not in intent, are DSP Rajesh Tomar (the stellar Rahul Bhat) and jail officers Shiv Raj Singh Mangat (Paramvir Cheema) and Vipin Dahiya (Anurag Thakur.) Both Cheema and Thakur are incredibly competent. The Haryanvi portrayal might be a bit stereotypical with an unwanted love/adultery angle thrown in, but Thakur nails his bravado with aplomb.
Since the period is the Eighties, in the final episode, Motwane doesn’t hesitate to refer to the dark chapter of Punjab and the glaring biases which surfaced. Soon after Indira Gandhi’s assassination, many innocents are picked up and Sikh officials are relegated to insignificant duties in the jail. However, except for a few lines like ‘India is Indira and Indira is India’ uttered earlier in the series, it refrains from making any volatile political statement. Or wade into the choppy waters of politics.
The part dealing with Kashmiri separatist Maqbool Bhat is treated more like a footnote. But that does not mean the makers are not sticking their neck out. Corruption in the jail, gang wars and more are very much a thread where rules change depending upon who you are. So the ‘VIP accused’, the flamboyant Charles Sobhraj, struts around like a sovereign. Dressed in swashbuckling fashion, the smooth-talking ‘bikini killer’ befriends Sunil, first to the officer’s advantage and later to his own. Sidhant Gupta may not bear much resemblance to Sobhraj, but he gets the body language spot-on.
The title ‘Black Warrant’, meaning death warrant, suggests there is a stronger focus on convicts on death row. But the Netflix series is not just about capital punishment. Indeed, more than one episode brings out the horror of it, especially death by hanging. Take the second episode; it revisits the case of the infamous Billa and Ranga who brutally murdered the innocent Chopra children back in 1978 and changed Delhi’s safe city status forever. As they await the gallows, what we see is a distraught Billa and poetry spewing Ranga. While there is no overt attempt to humanise them, the episode directed by Motwane himself manages to show us the inhumane aspect of the archaic practice of hanging in no uncertain terms.
Original in spirit and the milieu to which it belongs, attention to detail remains Motwane’s USP. Not for a moment do we feel we are anywhere but in those dark dingy barracks where inmates are further pushed into the abyss of darkness. The series spares more than a thought for undertrials. Even the guilty like contract killers hired by a surgeon to kill his wife have their compulsions. Murderers have a face and feelings. The corrupt in-charge of the jail, Tomar, with many vile traits, is not an outright villain too. A jailer’s life is not easy, more like a ‘double umar quaid’. Challenges lurk at every corner. Yet, it points at the possibility of reform. The repeated reference to a peacock in the jail is a metaphor. There is a ray of hope if not sunshine and as the series tells us, the cycle perpetuated by those born in darkness needs to be broken.
Propelled by a haunting background score by Ajay Jayanthi, poetic lines by Anvita Dutt and remarkable editing by Tanya Chabra, the series deftly throws light on the innards of Tihar jail. Occasionally, it lightens the mood by showing us a couple of interesting jail escapes. However, the seven-episode series remains a sombre reflection of our prison system and invariably makes us contemplate if punishment is in sync with the crime.