What a spy thriller teaches us about patriotism and empathy

Cinema-goers in India and Pakistan, beware! Meghna Gulzar’s espionage thriller Raazi will stir up a rather unsettling emotion in you, something that has not been a subject of mainstream cinema of late, and might even seem out of tune with the mood of the times we are living in.
Wait! If you think I am talking about patriotism, you are only partly correct. I am actually talking about the disconcerting feeling of empathy for your enemy, in the Gandhian sense, rather than making you suffer the conventional triumphalism of India-Pakistan war movies, scripted to loathe, degrade, and dehumanise the other side.I’m talking about an India-Pakistan narrative where everything is being said in too few words, where the slogans are missing and silences have been allowed to speak.
Raazi takes a different road to patriotism and patriotic cinema, deftly negotiating a minefield of emotions rather than getting caught up in the blood-pool of violence and jingoism.
Based on Harinder Sikka’s novel Calling Sehmat, the movie basically latches on to the fascinating debate that has been raging since Sophocles wrote the Theban tragedy Antigone. Where should our loyalty lie — with family or the State — if a choice has to be made? Unlike Antigone, the baby-faced undercover agent Sehmat Khan, played by Alia Bhatt, sides with the country at the cost of her family; she drops out of college, courageously dons her father’s mantle, and sets out on a dreadful journey to Pakistan, a journey made memorable by a brilliant ensemble of supporting actors.
Sehmat is a Kashmiri whose father Hidayat Khan (Rajit Kapoor) is an Indian agent. He has developed a strong friendship with Brig Parvez Syed (Shishir Sharma), a Rawalpindi-based Pakistani intelligence officer. The time is 1971 and India-Pakistan tensions are peaking over the Mukti Bahini mobilisation in East Pakistan. The movie revolves around Sehmat’s chronicles in Pakistan as she reports on the conspiracies being hatched at her in-laws’ home. The double life of a secret agent, the quandaries of conscience, the situational ethics, everything is on full display.
Before 1989, mainstream Hindi cinema usually depicted Kashmiris as docile tour guides whose aspirations were limited to holding the reins of horses for Indian memsahibs. After the onset of militancy, the dominant image of Kashmiris in Hindi movies was either that of a trigger-happy terrorist or a conscience-less renegade-collaborator who had to be given inducements for supporting counter-terrorism operations.
Kashmir is at the intersection of clashing masculinities but the portrayal of that clash has been unimaginative: explosions going off on houseboats in Dal Lake and khaki-clad men with bushy moustaches clashing with gangs of bearded men in olive-green waistcoats deep in the pine forests. Indians were usually victims and Pakistanis the transgressors. The visualisation was often one-sided.
Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider was the first departure from this gruelling cacophony, as it focused on the humanitarian tragedy in insurgency-hit Kashmir.
Now, Raazi turns the war narrative upside down by featuring a powerful female protagonist. It is possibly the first movie where a Kashmiri calls the shots in the game between two neighbours, that too a Kashmiri woman.
Sehmat demonstrates a verve and poise far superior to her Indian handlers. At the same time, she weaves a web around her Pakistani family, demonstrating a level of ruthlessness that even shocks Pakistani army officers. We reluctantly admire her for what she is doing for her country although deep down we wish she wasn’t doing it. As she goes on to destroy her in-laws’ family, there is intense moral tension; the viewer is torn by the sheer necessity of her actions vis-a-vis her methods. We wish to grieve for this damned Pakistani family but find our patriotism holding us back.
But then, there is no virtuous spy. As Alec Leamas remarks in The Spy Who Came From the Cold, “What the hell do you think spies are? Model philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They’re not. They’re just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me…” Raazi takes us through the full horror of a spy’s life and the scale of sacrifice required for the job.
Ultimately, though, there are no villains. We leave the dark theatre heartbroken and the melancholy walks with us home. But we don’t end up hating anyone. We only end up hating war and the destruction it brings along.
As a Kashmiri, I must admit though, it’s not a very inspiring thing for a Kashmiri to be a secret agent these days and I am not sure how many people in Kashmir will relate to Sehmat. In a conflict zone, no one knows who is fighting whose war. Patriotism is a nebulous emotion and nationalism a fiercely contested one. Therefore, while Raazi will be remembered as an epic anti-war movie, and Kashmiris will always be grateful to Shankar Mahadevan and Vibha Saraf for immortalising the folk song ‘Baha chasai khanmoj koor’ (I am a pampered daughter), I am not sure Sehmat will ever get her due in Kashmir.
One can hope though that the movie brings India and Pakistan closer to agreeing on at least one thing — in this war, everyone is a loser.