IC814 – Gripping
ALL CLICKABLE LINKS IN RED
Genre – Drama (true story)
Time: 6 episodes x 45 minutes
Platform: Netflix
Language: Hindi
Director: Abhinav Sinha
On a monday morning in 2003, one of my colleagues came back after watching a movie and joyfully said “I saw a great movie.” Zameen”. I went goggle eyed and said “but that’s fiction and not what really happened”. He says “I don’t care. Those Pakistanis got their butts kicked”. I went more goggle eyed and said again, “it’s a movie and not the truth. Truth is, we spared those terrorists, and they came back in 2001”. “Is it ? Oh, I didn’t know that”.
I remembered this unbelievable conversation while I was watching the TV Serial IC814. It seems that fantasy is better than any real world view of our history, which has triggered many unnecessary controversies, with director Anubhav Sinha being called a “Pakistan lover”, being sympathetic to the terrorists and what not.. Starting with “this is not the reality” to “how dare the director give them Hindu names”, TV channels and other media went ballistic.Maybe the intention is to divert attention from the harsh reality of life, as one character states that “history will not be forgiving to us.
Any way one looks at it, the historical background is an example of total disconnect in bureaucracy with the left hand not talking to the right, which is hinted in one scene where a RAW “Joint Secretary” (Kumud Mishra) tells a visiting journalist “Raw and IB always work together” while history has proved otherwise with each intelligence agency being secretive about its sources and multiple agencies having the same intelligence targets.
The history is pretty much straightforward. IC814 was hijacked from Kathmandu and the hijackers flew it around before eventually landing at Kandahar, which was under Taliban control. Negotiations dragged and ended in the eventual release of the hostages , once the three main high-level terrorists were released by the Indian government in exchange. One hostage , newly wed Rupin Katyal, was killed. Those three terrorists went on to cause more outrages.
An onscreen presentation of this event is fraught with difficulties as any approach the scriptwriters and director will take, is subject to peril and harsh comments. And that is precisely what has happened. So let us check ….
What works:
- The consistent behavior of the flight crew , especially the Captain Sharan (Vijay Varma) who is coolness personified.
- The consistent behavior of the hijackers who are only concerned with their aim of freeing Maulana Masood Azhar.
- The internal wrangling between the various agencies trying to arrive at a solution.
- The missed opportunity at Amritsar to storm the aircraft (attributed to political wrangling).
- The grouping of the ISI and Taliban as “ek hee thali ke chattey battey”which is absolutely true since the Taliban is supported totally by the ISI and the Pakistani government was the only one to recognize the Taliban government.
- The killing of one hostage returning from his honeymoon .
- The overall issues in the plane such as the toilet clogging, lack of food, etc.
- Real life clips of the incidents edited in to the overall drama.
- Excellent VFX recreation of the Indian Airlines A300 (long since discontinued in Indian service) and its “steam gauge” mechanical controls in the A300 cockpit and its three-man crew station (later models Airbus A310 and A320 had digital cockpit and a two-man crew)
- The hijackers and the passengers played “antakshari” – Testimony by survivor Pooja Kataria – unbelievable as it sounds
- Recreation of Kandahar. Jordan substitutes well for Kandahar, though the airport facilities look too modern to pass off for war ravaged Kandahar. (For that matter, Jordan and the Jordanian Armed Force have substituted for “Iraq” and “Afghanistan” in many “Iraq-Afghan” post 9/11 American War movies).
What didn’t work:
- Why did the serial conclude with a statement rejecting connection between the Taliban and the ISI? It is almost apologetic on this point and not the truth. Pakistan’s ISI is always proud of its creation as it gives them “strategic depth” against India. Taliban’s roots go back to the anti-Soviet war 1979-1989 where the CIA, ISI helped create the Mujahedeen who later became the Taliban.
- The “newspaper woman angle” added nothing to the proceedings and was a clear distraction.
- The crisis management team has the perfect responses. Its almost as if to whitewash all the inter departmental bickering.
- The Kathmandu RAW operative engaged in secretive activities that supposedly saved RAW, despite having advance information that went unnoticed. The theory is debunked because no one knew the hijackers’ identities.
- The IB official (Manoj Pahwa) being shown as reckless in negotiations.
- Terrorist leader Doctor preaching the virtues of Islam and asking passengers to convert (also same testimony by survivor Pooja Kataria (see above link)
The performances by everyone is excellent.
The TV Series is primarily based on the book Flight into Fear by the Captain of IC814. Anil Jaggia, the flight engineer , also wrote his experiences in IC 814 Hijacked. The Inside Story, in 2014. In sum , it can be said that this is a filmi dramatization of a painful event that tries to please everyone but ends up pleasing none.
Real History/ Historical Background – 3 out of 5
Script – 4 out of 5
Story – 4 out of 5
Direction – 4 out of 5
Photography – 4 out of 5
Total – 3.8 out of 5
PPS : It only seems fair that I should end this post with yet another film that showed fantasy over reality – the hijackers being shot dead and all the passengers being brought back safely. Malayalam film Kandahar (2010) , like its 2003 Hindi cousin Zameen, also has a happy outcome with all the hijackers being killed and all passengers being saved.
Great Review Ramesh!
Thanks for the review, Rammesh
I also enjoyed the interaction between Manoj Pahwa and Arvind Swami where they discuss chattey- battey and the tea/ coffee choice. It was also amazing to see so many great actors sharing screen space and choosing to be part of this even though most of these phenomenal actors ended up with very limited screen time. Reminded me of the Satyajit Ray’s brilliant short story- “Patol Babu” (which was made into a short film by Dibakar Banerjee)
Hi Rammesh,
Another perfect review !! You have added layer of information, nuances, and insights which I missed while watching this.
I have to assume that at that point (December 1999) it was indeed only Pakistan that recognized the Taliban.. and the recognition of the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ (essentially a bunch of guys running around in armed Toyotas and harboring OBL) by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates came after that, in 2000/2001.
Yes, it was sickening to see India’s fecklessness during this infamous event.. the sight of no less than nation’s External Affairs Minister Minister handing over top killers over to the enemy, on their own ground, still rankles.
Incidentally, one of them, as you know, Omar Sheikh,, went on to greater international notoriety in the 2002, with the kidnapping and beheading of Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal. That infamous event has been documented in at least one film, in this case ‘A Mighty Heart’, with filming in Pune (substituting for Karachi). A well-meaning film, but flopped commercially.
Again, a truly well-written, precise and incisive review. Keep up the great work!
Lastly, this is worth watching, to supplement your review. The actor meets the pilot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzeyeSH0Nuw&ab_channel=NetflixIndia
Thanks,
Robin
Hi Robin
Thanks for the thumbs up .
yes . It is true that Pakistan was the first government to recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Though no country has recognised the Talibvan 2.0 Government, many countries have informal “diplomats” in contact with Kabul, one of whom is Pakistan. This time Pakistan has played it smart – after all they control all the aid that goes to Kabul ; so why bother about recognition at all . Check out this link :
https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-russia-diplomacy/32972530.html
When the Americans quit in 2021 , it was Vietnam redux with tons of ammunition and equipment left behind. “Mechanics from Friendly countries” . read that as Pakistan, helped to recover half the destroyed helicopters and other equipment.
here’s a list curated by the BBC in 2021
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58356045
In short Pakistan played the game well and was one step ahead of India while maintaining a straight face; we may not like it and may fume about it but as the Naseeruddin Shah character says “history will be unkind to us”
KVR
Very well-written review going into minute detail. Having worked in a newspaper office when this took place, we followed developments closely, as available in the media. A lot came back, albeit lazily. But a visual narration after nearly 25 years gives a fresh perspective and you have described the main events in the review too.
I felt a couple of things were overlooked. One was the captain never got a stubble. Secondly there was a focus on some characters like the newly married woman, the business class foreigner, the old man and the child with a disorder were. But once things everyone returned, their stories were forgotten.
A timely and unbiased review of course.
Hi Narendra
Thanks for the heads up.
1. The captain had a faint stubble in the last episode . The real life clip of Devi Sharan being hosted on shoulders , clearly shows him with a stubble. I agree that this was overlooked. The passengers too are clean shaven !
2. As for the newly wed bride, and the child with disorder, agree that these too should have been pursued. But then it would become 150+ stories in the narrative.
3.Lastly thee are rumors that the Switzerland pressurized India for the exchange as one of the hostages was a Swiss citizen . if the Taliban knew who he was , then things would have turned upside down – like the RAW Kathmandu station head traveling in the same plane. Which brings us to the story about the Kathmandu station getting recordings of the plan; if the station head knew about the plans , would he have even traveled in the same plane?
As for the foreigner, check out this link
https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2024/Sep/06/a-vip-passenger-a-shady-business-little-known-facts-about-the-ic-814-hijack.
4. Given the post 9/11 scenario and the increased security measures, and passengers on “watch list” and so on, I doubt whether a hijack like this will happen. But you never know – after all the weapons were placed in the bins by a third party so that the hijackers were “free”.
KVR
Hi Rammesh,
Just as a follow-up.. since the subject is Afghanistan –
A future review of Tom Hank’s ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ ? (assuming you have not already done this in the past)
Treated as a black comedy, (with Om Puri playing President Zia!), but historically a chain of events that led to deadly consequences.
“However, Charlie Wilson eventually learns that while military victory can be had, there are other consequences and prices to that fight that are ignored to everyone’s sorrow.” – from a review at IMDb
..
Thanks…. Robin
Hi Robin
I have seen it long ago and though it is not in the past reviews, I think it should be in future posts. Thanks for that heads up. Though a film, it is a ra-ra flag waving endorsement of US meddling in Afghanistan and a small slice of generic US post WW2 fishing in troubled waters. One word should suffice – Iran. a popularly elected government was topped in 1953 and replaced by the Pehlavi government. reason ? Oil. Consequence ? You can trace it from there till today (even go back further to WW2 as Iran was under Anglo-American control/ occupation). as always geopolitics is complex.
KVR