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The first posters of Dhokha went up on hoardings by end July if I remember correctly. They declared, “Some Betrayals are never forgotten.” I thought that was rather provocative, considering that the story dealt with an extremely sensitive issue like the involvement of a certain community in the bomb blasts.

Thereafter, I followed the pre-release interviews of Mahesh Bhatt. Mr. Bhatt, invariably spoke about ‘certain promises that were made to Muslims at the time of Independence and which have not been met; he spoke about the strong sense of resentment that is building up in communally sensitive pockets and which needs to be addressed immediately.

Well, I’m sure we all agree with that. We all do realize that a volcano is about to erupt; one which will probably be much more decimating than the twin blasts that rocked Hyderabad last month. To that extent, as a concerned citizen, I did see the movie serving a purpose and landed up at the cinema hall on the day of release.

What I saw however, was sadly, a naïve and amateurish effort. Agreed the movie is path-breaking. It seeks to answer what goes behind making an ordinary person take to terrorism. On a secondary level, it seeks to take up various issues that have led to a sense of outrage in the Muslim community. Some of the questions, thus raised in the movie are:
Why are Muslims always viewed suspiciously when there is a bomb blast? Why are police forces so communal and one-tracked in their investigations? Why are Muslim youths picked up in the name of interrogations and then never heard of again? Why does no one talk about State terrorism in police lockups?

The movie does depict some grim realities of our times in a stark, no-holds-barred fashion. The execution mode is simple- on the one hand, there are a good number of incidents and characters that make you believe that Muslims have been wronged and on the other is the voice of the educated, secular Muslim, (the Cop, Zayed Ahmed) that tells you that jehad is wrong.

Now, the problem with a film like this lies this in positioning it for the right audience. On one level it is meant to be an eye opener for authorities. It is meant to bring about a change in attitudes towards minorities. At the same time, given our intellectual audience’s apathy towards religion-centric or politics- centric issues, the film-maker realizes that the only way the film can be made commercially viable is by playing to the gallery. It is this ‘playing to the gallery’ bit in Dhokha, which is done in an extremely irresponsible manner.

For instance, the scene where Sara(the human bomber’s) past is revealed and we see her being stripped, photographed and subsequently raped by the police in front of her grandfather and brother, I’m sure would rank among the most appalling and provocative scenes in Hindi cinema. It shakes you completely so much so that it instantly justifies her becoming the human bomb. The film-maker’s own subsequent attempts at redemption by making the hero the voice of reason and send a clear message that ‘terrorism is not the solution to the injustice done to you’ is enfeebled totally by the strong rhetoric of characters espousing terrorism.

There are at least two other scenes in the first half that I’m afraid will only deepen this sense of outrage among the less educated sections of the audience. At the end of it, you come out wondering if such loud reinforcement was called for. You end up wondering if wounds have been deepened, instead of being healed.

A few years ago, TV news channels had discovered a new property to amass viewer ship- the crime shows. Apparently, the shows were meant to be a deterrent to crime, but research soon revealed that they actually precipitated crime my making people easily aware of means. Now Dhokha is a similar double-edged sword. It would be interesting in fact to study the impact of the film in the same pockets that the filmmaker claims to have visited for his research. For all the claims of the filmmaker’s concern for the social issue, you can’t help worrying if the eruption of this volcano has been brought any closer. Well, only time will tell…

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