Whack-A-Terrorist:
When Fauda (2015) was produced by Israel, the West Bank was marred by hostility between Israel and Palestine. The situation is explosive now, which could not have been anticipated by the creators Lior Raz (who also plays the lead) and Avi Issacharoff (with an inside track having served with the Israel Defence Forces). For the rest of the Netflix viewing world, with no real involvement in the daily brutalities of this conflict zone, the slick show was about brave Israeli intelligence forces whipping evil Hamas militants. That it was anti-Palestine propaganda was not lost on anyone.
The plot of the first season was transferred to Tanaav, set in Kashmir, with an anti-terrorist group battling separatist militants. It was an uneasy fit, but worked as an action and emotion-packed thriller. The politics of this region are quite different—because Kashmir is part of India, and Pakistan has been fomenting terrorism there for years– so it is difficult to take sides. There is always the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits at the back of the mind; the suppression of dissent, as well as the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 cannot be ignored.
Tanaav 2 picks its plot from Fauda 2, but conditions in the valley have changed, so without the political undercurrent, the series is just a catch-a-terrorist mission, without any extra layers of on-ground reality.
The glum Kabir Farooqui (Manav Vij), pulled out of jam-making retirement in Season One, is still glowering, when the show, written by Sudhir Mishra and Adhir Bhat, directed by Mishra and E. Niwas, acquires a new villain. Fareed aka Al Damishk (Gaurav Arora) is the son of Mir (MK Raina), who was killed in the last season. Fareed has come back with Islamic State training from Syria, and sets the waning embers of the fire in Kashmir raging again with an explosion right at the start of the series. He ignored the warnings of Season One’s hothead Junaid (Shashank Arora).
There is mention of forthcoming peace talks between the Indian government and the separatist group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen; that out of the way, Kabir’s team and the lone ranger Fareed can proceed to pull out all stops and pick their targets. In spite of instructions to hold his horses by Harkat old guard Idris Lone (Mir Sarwar), Fareed’s aim is to kill Kabir and his family, then destroy Kashmir and the rest of India. For this, he starts recruiting students willing to do his bidding.
Intelligence officer Jagjit Malik (Rajat Kapoor) is still around, scheming and plotting, and having friendly chats with his counterpart across the border, also called Malik (Danish Husain), and actually exchanging information. If relations between the top brass of India and Pakistan were so cordial, there would have been no problem in Kashmir at all.
Unlike the much more detailed first season of Tanaav, the second seems lightweight. The action sequences (Abbas Ali Moghul) are as terrific as before—and as always innocents suffer when hate poisons the air. The most sympathetic character is Dr Farah (Ekta Kaul), the woman Junaid forced into marriage in the earlier season, taking advantage of her heartbreak over Kabir’s deception.
To crush the serpent head of the Fareed, Kabir goes after Junaid without caring who is hit by the tornado. Unfortunately, the season is divided into two parts of six episodes each, and when the plot reaches an exciting point, the viewer has to wait for the next installment scheduled after a month. There is no ambiguity about Fareed’s evil in this season; the cause is left by the wayside as he follows a path of vendetta and power-grabbing. Men like him, the show seems to say, will not allow peace, because it would rob them of their purpose.
The deceptively placid landscape as well as the fight sequences are expertly shot (Quais Wasiq), and the pace seldom lags. Manav Vij, Rajat Kapoor and Ekta Kaul hold the show with their performances—Kapoor’s calm is deadlier than Vij’s constant fury.
(This piece first appeared in scroll.in)
