The Bomb Story:
Around Independence Day, there has to be at least one, if not more, film or show about patriotism. The streaming platforms have found a new way of conveying jingoism, by going into the past. India’s intelligence agency, Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) is getting its place in the sun, and deservedly so—as characters in shows always say, the work of spies gets no recognition and no reward. Maybe web series that show the inner workings of the intelligence bureaus are redressing the years of neglect.
Last week’s Salakaar blew up Pakistan’s secret nuclear facility, this week’s Saare Jahan Se Accha does the same with a lot more flair. Narrating the story is intelligence agent Vishnu Shankar (Pratik Gandhi), the hard-working, unsmiling, risk-taking bureaucrat who joins RN Kao’s (Rajat Kapoor) RAW; when the show opens, he is unable to prevent the death, in an air crash, of nuclear scientist Homi Bhabha (Vivek Tandon), allegedly a murder engineered by the CIA, to prevent India’s nuclear programme from taking off.
In the show, created by Gaurav Shukla (with a team of writers), directed by Sumit Purohit, RAW has to prevent Pakistan from developing an atomic bomb, which Prime Minister Bhutto (Hemant Kher, probably the only actor miscast in the series), is keen on it, to keep India in line after losing two wars.
Vishnu meticulously follows intelligence breadcrumbs—in the days before computers and cell phones, when rotary phones were in use and newspapers were sources of information. The real John Le Carre-style cloak-and dagger espionage operations with dead drops, morse code communication, telephoto lens cameras, notes hidden in fruit and soap. Today’s spies have it easy.
When he suspects Bhutto’s intentions, Vishnu, with no field experience, wrangles a posting in Islamabad, taking along his newly wed bride Mohini (Tillotama Shome), who has no clue what her husband actually does. The ISI knows, however, and their car is vandalized, their home watched. The show gives Pakistanis some credit for brains, as the ISI chief Murtaza Malik (Sunny Hinduja) goes after RAW assets and “traitors” with a bloodhound’s ferocity. On the other hand, Bhutto is trying to raise funds for the nuclear programme, for which he has scientists picked up in the small hours and given instructions to make an atom bomb.
All this has to be done in extreme secrecy, without the CIA and other Western agencies getting wind of it. Even then Pakistan was viewed as a rogue country and the CIA was under the mistaken notion that India did not have “the will to cross the moral line” into nuclear territory.
The work of spies, especially undercover operatives was fraught with danger, as Sukhbir (Suhail Nayyar), pretending to be a Karachi stock broker Rafiq, knows from experience. Always looking over shoulder, constantly anxious that he might say Wahe Guru in public and expose his Sikh roots, unable to contact his mother, and carrying on a romance with a Pakistani girl, Naseem (Diksha Juneja), to get intel from her armyman brother (Karan Maan). While Kao and Vishnu have deadened their emotional responses to tragedy in the line of duty, Sukhbir presents the human face of espionage—the kind of man, who is truly shattered when he is forced to kill a friend. Caught in a no man’s land of darkness he says, “Hum jaise logon ke mulk nahin hote,” he says sadly, “agencyian hoti hai.” And those agencies easily throw their assets under a bus when their operations are compromised.
Vishnu is not above using blackmail to get intel out of a Pakistani military official, Naushad (Anup Soni), ordering the kidnap and torture of a money launderer (Rajesh Khera) in Paris, and allying with the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, to crash Bhutto’s nuclear dreams. Usually dry and business-like, even with his wife, Vishnu is capable of dripping charm when he needs to woo a Pakistani journalist Fatima Khan (Kritika Kamra), who happens to be the niece of a nuclear scientist (Atul Kumar).
Vishnu and Murtaza are equally driven and full of nationalistic fervour, and it is their gloves-off fight that gives Saare Jahan Se Accha its edge. Even though the outcome of the part real-mostly fictional story is known (India did try to derail Pakistan’s nuclear plans, but did not go ahead for fear of international censure), the thrill is in both sides racing to the finish line.
Real spying is not like James Bond, as Vishnu says, no fancy cars, gadgets and suchlike, but mind-numbing tasks like poring over reams of financial documents, sleepless nights and constant tension. Except for the last episode, the show is more about covert operations, not bombast, still, it is a gripping spy thriller, which relies more on mind-games than weapons. To lend that air of realism, Indira Gandhi (Avantika Akerkar) and Henry Kissinger (Scott Alexander) make appearances.
The always dependable Pratik Gandhi finds a match in Sunny Hinduja and they are surrounded by a top notch supporting cast.
A new season in RAW’s spy universe is promised—as Vishnu says, “A spy’s work never ends.”
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
