Today’s take on No One Killed Jessica

Mainstream filmmakers as a rule do not deal seriously with serious issues. Pretentious very often, their skill sets are challenged where authenticity is a measure.They invariably come out losers. Either they lack the commitment or simply the required skill sets. Also, their western ‘inspiration’ may not have dealt with a theme that has Indian implications.

Our filmmakers have often taken too many liberties with reality and simply do not believe in doing a reality check with professions. Be it the doctor or the lawyer, the teacher or the policemen, every professional takes a beating from our filmmakers that match the beating the villain’s sidekicks take from the hero in the climax. Why else would  Amar Akbar Antony have three guys give blood directly to the patient! Films like Aakrosh(old), Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho apart, our films tend to needlessly dramatize the scenario when it comes to dealing with law courts.  The `Order Order’ face of Bollywood jurisprudence is a typecast we easily associate with.

In this familiar back drop, No One Killed Jessica makes interesting viewing. The film comes at a time when courts are seriously viewing Subramanian Swamy’s petition. Thanks to the pro-active stance of the apex court, the sordid A Raja story is out. Yet a disillusioned country has no special place of regard for the judiciary. To take a potshot at any institution is easy and surely the judiciary is a soft target, the law of contempt notwithstanding. The filmmaker, Raj Kumar Gupta may have had an easier task. There is no constituency waiting to shout out at his take.

Nonetheless, credit must go to Raj Kumar Gupta for telling a true story without too many factual indulgences, save to build up the characters. To the uninitiated, Jessica Lall, an upcoming model was shot dead by the son of a politician. Socialites who were witness to the killing, refused to stick their stylized necks out. Result, the prosecution failed to establish its case. Consequently, the accused were acquitted. Shaken out of its slumber, the nation decided to demand a proper trial. A trial by the media and as a product of what has come to be known as ‘sting operation’, the crime was revisited and the guilty was punished.

Today the prime convict has been given a life sentence. There is no gain saying that in any civil society the guilty must be punished. This after all is the primary insurance against anarchy. However, the story needs to be dealt with at two levels: the factual and the fictional.

Dealing with the factual aspect perhaps in the entire Jessica Lall case, we lost sight of two important aspects. The trial by the media is a dangerous precedent. We may well be carried away momentarily by the immediate. It is dangerous to permit media and other sections of society to get involved in the act of judging crime. The midwife may bring in a certain degree of raw wisdom and timed experience but it would be futile where the need for forensic skill sets is the call. Criminal jurisprudence is not for the laity. Print platforms and studio sets are not the best theatres to deal with the nuances of crime, evidence and punishment.

Another sleazy aspect is the increasing and growing connect between the representative of the victim and the accused. Criminal law is not about ‘an eye for an eye’. To quote a cliché that would only leave us all blind! Punitive therapeutics is only and a comparatively minor part of administration of criminal justice. The State steps in as the prosecutor to ensure against personal revenge and tear-filled demands for severe punishment. Criminal justice must investigate accurately, prosecute minutely and sentence dispassionately. This is at peril when the shrill voice of the victim replaces the central balance of a prosecuting state.

I believe the appearance of any seeming pressure on the justice administration process dilutes the credibility of the end result. Thus while there may be enough justifying the punishment handed over to the guilty in this case, on principle the process raises important  issues. I am uncomfortable with the attending circumstances. To quote the traditional jurisprudential litmus: justice must not only be done but must appear to be done. The media and the self-appointed avatars of Providence must not tinker with the process. It affects the fundamental guarantee of  Due Process.

At the fictional level, the screenplay by Gupta is crisp. Vidya Balan as the gritty sob sister delivers. Rani Mukherjee as the super bitch fails. It is perhaps difficult to play superb. Even Vidya wasn’t perfect in Ishqiya. Rani is too well imaged to translate the challenge like a la Sharmila Tagore inMausam. Unfortunately, a few profanities, a hot scene and self-proclamations are a poor alternative to getting into the skin of the character. With Rani, without getting excessively aggressive, it is also perhaps a case of being out of touch!

I believe that it was not the prosecution, or the judiciary that failed Jessica. It is the set of people who chickened out for a variety of reasons. In short, it is We the people who failed Jessica in round one. To use a more contemporary usage, Aam Aadmi.

We live in the luxurious belief that in the second round, we did not fail her. Was it, as the Bard suggested, a case of `to do a great right, do a little wrong’ !

L. Ravichander