Silence of the Lambs No Longer: ‘Dahaad’ Rages Against Everyday Sexism, Gender and Caste Violence
- Pulling no punches, the web series created by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti unmasks the brutal reality of patriarchy.
Can a web series really do anything substantive to smash the patriarchy? It sure can try! The makers of “Dahaad” (Roar) deserve full credit for trying. They should take a bow (and win awards) for doing it with style, substance and heart. Created by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti (directed by Kagti and Ruchika Oberoi), “Dahaad” pulls no punches.
Twenty-seven women go missing from different districts of Rajasthan over a period of time. They turn up dead—their bodies are found in public toilets in various locations in the state. All of them have died from consuming cyanide. Most of them are dressed in bridal attire. Though it looks like a string of suicides at first, the police force slowly catches on, suspects foul play, and starts to dig deeper.
Sub-inspector Anjali Bhatti (Sonakshi Sinha) and her senior, SHO Devi Lal Singh (a powerful, understated performance by Gulshan Devaiah), posted in small-town Mandawa, are genuinely concerned about the women’s deaths. They will not rest till they get to the bottom of this murky business.
Sonakshi Sinha gives everything she’s got to the role. Her seething rage against gender and caste discrimination sets the screen on fire. The image of Anjali in police uniform, fearlessly riding her motorbike—which, ironically, her mother had bought her with the hope of persuading her to agree to an arranged marriage—through the narrow lanes of Mandawa will definitely linger in the viewer’s memory for long. When her superiors at work ask Anjali to proceed cautiously with the investigation and stick to steps that are ‘allowed’, she questions the failed system that allows women to disappear so easily and be killed.
She asks who the real killers are—a wily serial killer (Vijay Varma in top form) who lured the women with the promise of love and marriage, parents who pressurize their daughters to get married and curse them for being a financial burden, neighbors who eye single women with suspicion, a society which denies women from economically backward families opportunities, a social hierarchy that brazenly privileges upper-caste men and women? She asks why no one cares if these women live or die or vanish from the face of the planet. And when she does, we know she isn’t talking just about Rajasthan, but all of India.
Fathers of different stripes—troubled, toxic, violent, murderous, supportive, nurturing, ultra-conservative, repressed, communicative, progressive—are an important presence in “Dahaad.”
“Dahaad” is a work of fiction but Vijay Varma’s character Anand Swarnakar, who teaches Hindi at a women’s college, is loosely based on a real-life serial killer called Mohan Kumar (Cyanide Mohan). Mohan was accused of murdering 20 women in Karnataka from 2003 to 2009. Though it is not a documentary, “Dahaad”manages to shine a light on plenty of disturbing facts about the status of women in India and the skewed gender balance. Facts are woven into the script as the story unfolds. Anyone with a conscience—or a pulse—would find it hard to ignore the brutal reality lurking at the heart of the story while watching the eight-episode series.
Everyday sexism—at the workplace, on the streets of both big cities and one-horse towns, and within the home—rears its ugly face often. When Anjali is out chasing clues or culprits, she is catcalled by passersby on the street. Men comment on her appearance and her (lower) caste background. When she goes to question the families of the missing women at their homes, she is almost always asked if she is married. One of her superiors keeps hitting on her at the workplace—regularly offering her tea which she shows no interest in drinking. She has to work twice as hard as her male colleagues to be taken seriously.
Most of the families whose daughters have been killed make it clear that they didn’t spend too much time worrying when the women went missing. Some blame their daughters for being too forward and eloping with their lover. Some mouth the ‘she made her bed, no wonder she ended up lying on it’ platitude. Some are furious at their dead daughters for bringing dishonor to the family and destroying their social standing. These responses, ranging from nonchalant to bitter, make you wonder how differently they would have reacted if their sons had gone missing and been murdered by a cyanide-dispensing serial killer.
Fathers of different stripes—troubled, toxic, violent, murderous, supportive, nurturing, ultra-conservative, repressed, communicative, progressive—are an important presence in “Dahaad.” Supportive fathers give daughters wings and let them soar. Anjali’s late father has helped shaped her personality and gifted her the confidence to be her own person. She speaks of him with gratitude and affection. His memory remains a gift in her life as she navigates a sexist small-town milieu and the largely male-dominated domain of policing there. SHO Devi Lal Singh and his daughter too share a good rapport. Singh encourages his young daughter to break free from the confines of Mandawa and explore the world. He considers her to be her brother’s equal and never discriminates between his daughter and his son on the basis of gender. A gentle, supportive father, he is his daughter’s biggest champion.
Toxic fathers saddle their children with a legacy of violence. Their sins come to haunt their sons in grotesque ways. Anand’s hatred for his violent father and his deep-rooted hatred for women are intertwined. His murderous streak hasn’t sprung up from thin air. The shadow of his father stalks him and drives him deeper and deeper into darkness.
There is a Season 2 of “Dahaad” in the pipeline according to entertainment industry reports. The grim reality regarding the status of Indian women will ensure the series never runs out of material. But it is to their credit that the makers have the integrity and creative intelligence to handle it with sensitivity. For this reason, I’m looking forward to watching Season 2 on Amazon Prime.
Vineetha Mokkil is the author of the short story collection, “A Happy Place and Other Stories” (HarperCollins). Her second collection, “Lawrence of Arabia and Other Stories” is forthcoming from Hawakal Publishers. She is currently based in New Delhi.