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Flaring Tension:

Israel has steadily been making web shows that have appealed to international audiences, with remakes produced in the US (Homeland) and India (Hostages, Your Honour);  Fauda has been the most successful over its four seasons for its gritty action, but has also been accused of being propagandist. The show was created by Lior Raz (who also plays the lead) and Avi Issacharoff, with their personal experience of having served with the Israel Defence Forces.

Pitting Israeli intelligence agents against Palestinian militants in the historical conflict zone of the West Bank, makers of the show claim that they have humanized both sides, but it is clear which one is getting better representation. Palestinian writers have accused the series of anti-Arab racism, and justifying human rights violations. The lay audience, however, couldn’t care less about the political undercurrents.

The Indian remake, Tanaav (meaning tension), directed and co-written by Sudhir Mishra (with Ishan Trivedi) and DOP Sachin Mamta Krishn is set in Kashmir, an obvious location, because of the continuing challenges of dealing with Pakistan-supported terrorism. It is just as tone-deaf to actual ground realities as the original, flattening any political or moral ambiguity in the process of making an undoubtedly gripping thriller. The major problem here is that informed Indian viewers cannot watch a series about Kashmir without images flashing in their minds of the tragedy of the Pandit exodus, a community trying to survive with constant army presence on the streets, young men taking out their anger by pelting stones at soldiers, kids with pellet injuries. Mercifully, the flower girls in shikaras kind of touristy Kashmir is not shown either, in a series made with the support of the J&K administration. Frequent aerial shots of the pretty border village (as opposed to the largely colourless vistas of Fauda) are rendered even more tragic by the fact that there is so much violence and villainy simmering under the placid scenery.

The other problem is that before and since Fauda, so many films and serials have been made on good defence men fighting bad terrorists (The Family Man, Special Ops) that Tanaav might cause some amount of déjà vu. (The wedding shootout sequence from Fauda was lifted in the recent film Code Name: Tiranga).

Kabir Farooqui (Manav Vij) has retired from the special forces and runs a jam-making enterprise, living a peaceful life with his wife Nusrat (Sukhmani Sadana) and two kids. Then his commander, Vikrant Rathore (Arbaaz Khan) visits to drop the bombshell that the dreaded terrorist Umar Riaz (Sumit Kaul), believed dead by Kabir’s bullet, is alive. For this intel, the reptilian bureaucrat Malik (Rajat Kapoor) kidnaps a professor and offers to pay for his daughter’s treatment. Malik is later seen to fraternize with his counterpart across the border, also called Malik (Danish Hussain), which just hints at the hidden whirlpool that only the gang of spies and spooks are aware of, and manage to control. These grey men don’t carry guns and bombs, but are more lethal.

Once Kabir is drawn back to his unit of hotheads, there is no returning till Umer Riaz is found. It is not quite clear why Riaz has such power, but he commands the unquestioning loyalty of his men, most of all, an impressionable Junaid (Shashank Arora). Like so many indoctrinated young people, they are dazzled by the idea of shahadat for the cause.

In Tanaav, the complexities of Kashmiri life are simplified even further, when they are seen as referring to Indians as “Woh log” or “Hindustani,” speak of fighting for “Azad Kashmir” and call anyone friendly with Indians as “Gaddaar.”  A shot of spray painted graffiti on a random wall about the duty of fighting “oppression” is hardly enough to explain anything. Then, when a scene has kids throwing stones at government jeeps or using signals to warn a terrorist of a raid, the audience has already been convinced that it is acceptable for innocents being killed as collateral damage. To balance this, even a terrorist leader talks of innocents killed by his attacks as paying their dues to the cause. Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Gulf money, moderate separatists all pop up, but the overwhelming tenor is that of testosterone fuelled machismo, on both sides.

There is not much space for women in this landscape, but the few that are seen are ferocious—whether it is the mother (Zarina Wahab) or wife (Waluscha De Sousa) of Umer Riaz, the sole field operative with the Indian task force (Sahiba Bali) or a Dr Farah (Ekta Kaul) caught in the crossfire.

The casting is remarkable in a way–Kashmiri Pandits like Sumit Kaul and M.K. Raina play separatists. There are several Kashmiri actors in the show to lend the dialogue the right lilt and authenticity. Manav Vij has the stoic look and hooded eyes that are right for the unreadble character of Kabir. The other actor who stands out amidst the line-up of competent actors, is Shashank Arora (with Shah Rukh Khan’s twitchy body language and Naseeruddin Shah’s intensity), who lacks the fresh-faced innocence of the boy who played this part in the original, but his style works too– Junaid will play an important part if there is a Season 2. In the end, the relentless pace and striking visuals carry Tanaav over its pitfalls.

(This is a slightly modified version of the piece that first appeared in scroll.in)