IC814: The Kandahar Hijack is streaming on Netflix.
The curse of the “formula” is not limited to Bollywood, as seen in the recent controversy — yet again, and yet more ridiculous — over an OTT series. The makers of IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, which is about the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, found themselves in hot water after some people online accused them of deliberately fudging the religious identity of the five men who seized control of the Kathmandu-Delhi flight and took its 179 passengers and 11 crew members hostage. We’ve seen this script play out before: A much-anticipated show/movie drops on an OTT platform, social media users of a certain persuasion raise the bogey of “hurt religious sentiments” and those involved with the production are made to jump through the hoops of a bizarre public spectacle of apology and recantation that, ultimately, renders the collective culture poorer and dumber. It happened with Maharaj, it happened with Sacred Games, Tandav, A Suitable Boy — the list is long and ignominious.
Here are the facts of the present case: Twenty-five years ago, there was a hijacking. One of the survivors, the pilot of the hijacked flight, wrote a memoir about the eight-day long nightmare, which was adapted into a series by filmmaker Anubhav Sinha for Netflix. It is part of the creative process that converts facts into entertainment, to indulge in some minor sleights of hand — the names of a few supporting characters being changed, two or three different people merging into one for greater narrative coherence, the making up of a scene or two in order to cover gaps that would not be noticeable in real life but would be glaring plot holes in a film or series. IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack is not innocent of these, but one thing that it is not guilty of is changing the religious identity of the hijackers. The manufactured outrage over the series focused on two of the handles used by the men, “Bhola” and “Shankar”, which, according to several people, including BJP leader Amit Malviya, would “make people think that Hindus hijacked IC 814”. A petition was filed by the president of an outfit called the Hindu Sena seeking a ban on the series and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting summoned the content head of Netflix, reportedly demanding an explanation for these “historical distortions”. The episode has finally ended — one hopes — with Netflix reiterating its commitment to “authentic representation” and agreeing to add a disclaimer in the show that includes the hijackers’ real names as well as their aliases.
Unlike the offence taken over them, these aliases — “Bhola”, “Shankar”, “Burger”, “Doctor” and “Chief” — are not products of the fertile imaginations of 2024. They are the code names used by the actual hijackers back in 1999, documented not only in media reports, but also on the website of the Ministry of External Affairs. But those in dogged pursuit of things to be offended about have little truck with facts, no matter how well-established. That the government demanded an explanation over this is certainly troubling, but again, well in keeping with its past record of listening to those who yell with the highest volume and greatest incoherence.
The more vexing question, one that should bother anyone who values the production of art — not just films and series, but also books, music and other forms of creative expression — is this: How much longer before the cultural landscape is completely denuded of anything but the most banal, pandering, safe pablum? One would imagine that a series based on a recent historical event is fairly safe, given that it is still part of the memory of several million living Indians, with eye-witness accounts, periodic revisits and even books dedicated to it. How could you go wrong with that? Turns out, those who view any act of creativity with suspicious eyes are creative in their own way, with a masterful understanding of how to use the smallest of instruments to make the loudest noise.
This episode does not mark the end of the multibillion-dollar Indian entertainment industry. That is too big to fail — at least in terms of money (the current gloom and doom over box office failures notwithstanding). Creative failure, of course, is a whole other matter, because how can any song, any poem, any thought survive in an environment of anxiety, terrified of the rage that can, at any moment, be whipped up over the wrong (or even right) name? Bigger names that have been targeted over the years, such as Anubhav Sinha, Karan Johar and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, have the clout, for now, to stand by their creative visions and continue unimpeded. But what about creators who don’t have the same clout? And, of course, in the face of a raving mob that listens to no reason and is strong in the knowledge of its impunity, even the clout wielded by a Johar or a Bhansali is a puny weapon, a slingshot before an ICBM.
By this time next month, another manufactured row will become the new marker of our collective intellectual and creative decline. This is how an entire culture is hijacked by fear, by minds with the limitless capacity to be “offended”, “insulted” and “hurt” — film by film, song by song, book by book.
