Paatal Lok’s second season, following a hugely successful first, has arrived at a particularly critical time for Indian filmmaking. Not only is a new breed of agitprop cinema in service of majoritarianism and nationalism on the rise, the ruling government is also seeking greater control over creative content across big screens and OTT platforms. In such a context, not many would take up the arduous task of writing a crime thriller on a region with a decades-long history of armed conflict between the Indian state and ethnic armed groups.
The season, therefore, is an audacious cinematic endeavour. It has received wide acclaim from viewers and reviewers alike. Anas Arif of The Indian Express has called it a “masterclass in longform storytelling“. Shilajit Mitra of The Hindu has rightly called it a “touching meditation on male bonds”. Abhimanya Mathur of Hindustan Times praises the writers for their “freshness and originality.”
However, like many other Indian shows dealing with the Northeast, Paatal Lok’s second iteration ends up regurgitating and reaffirming a set of racial and political tropes about its primary setting: Nagaland (and Naga society). Creative representations of social groups and issues should not evade scrutiny in the name of creative liberty or under the guise of ‘good cinema’ (or a high IMDB rating), especially when they risk legitimising existing stereotypes and biases against an ethnic minority region. It is in that spirit that we write this critical review.
In a fundamental sense, Paatal Lok wedges itself in the awkward grey zone that Nagaland has found itself in since the colonial period and most certainly through the postcolonial years – between itself and New Delhi, and between ‘peace and development’. But these binaries also tend to imprison Naga society and politics in reductive and essentialised portrayals by non-Nagas. We don’t find Paatal Lok’s show writers resisting such portrayals.
There is a lot in the season, but the basic storyline ends up projecting a rather straightforward and lopsided thesis: New Delhi as benign and rational (though flawed), and Naga society as pathologically violent and politically impudent. This, as almost any Naga would tell you, is an outrightly false binary. Yet, it is this outside-in understanding of Nagaland and federal politics that colours the entire story.
Also read: Paatal Lok 2: Jaideep Ahlawat Shines in This Competent – But Too Neat – Cop Procedural
For the keen viewer, the portrait of Nagaland that the show writers attempt to paint comes into clear view in the very first episode – a far-flung border region flushed with guns, drugs and arbitrary rage. It is politically obstinate and most often, hard to reason with. Such racially-loaded characterisations of Nagaland and large parts of Northeast India are commonplace in mainstream Indian conversations across a wide variety of settings – from dinner tables to seminar halls.
The writers, credited with writing other successful works like Kohrra, Udta Punjab and Sonchiriya, do make an attempt to also portray Delhi as a violent, volatile city (especially in the first season). But Delhi’s image in the mainstream gaze isn’t coloured by racialised markers, unlike Nagaland’s. Delhi – as a dominating political force in India’s federal union – also commands greater leverage in the ‘national’ discourse than Nagaland. Creative artists must be aware of this lopsided power dynamic, which continues to shape not just Naga politics, but also the experiences of many from the Northeast in the national capital.
The show begins and runs with a layered premise based on the enduring ‘development versus peace’ debate. But ultimately, the writing does little with it. Uncle Ken’s dramatic character arc centres the debate, but in its conclusion, ends up offering a simplistic argument about ‘hope’. One can’t avoid believing, by the end, that the show writers have chosen their side, which leans firmly towards ‘development’. Such a narrative proposition reduces Naga politics into a one-dimensional pursuit of material progress. It ties ‘hope’ to a Rs 20,000-crore package from New Delhi, rather than a deeply political emotion tied to ideas of autonomy and justice.
A still from ‘Paatal Lok’ season 2.
In fact, Uncle Ken’s story ends in a somewhat disturbing place. He is initially shown as a ‘rational’ militant-turned-moderate among ‘irrational’ Naga nationalists, which in itself is a problematic binary. But, by the end, he seems to relapse into his own violent past. Uncle Ken is revealed as the key perpetrator of a grisly murder of a fellow Naga. While Uncle Ken justifies the murder as a compulsion that follows an exhaustion of other options, the leap is unconvincing and borderline ridiculous. What justifies the murder of a fellow Naga by a seemingly rational ‘moderate’ on the sole basis of the former’s unwillingness to participate in a high-stakes business summit? Are Naga leaders so compulsively violent?
What muddies Uncle Ken’s character even more is the act of decapitation, referred to widely as ‘headhunting’ in the context of Naga society and history. One can’t help but believe that the show writers introduced it as a mere creative prop to provoke the viewer and sustain the storyline on their lingering horror. We are told that Thom’s killers decapitate him to ‘send a political message’. But is that really the practice in modern Nagaland? Hardly so.
In fact, scholars such as Tezenlo Thong have shown that the whole discourse around Naga ‘headhunting’ was based on a wider colonial “civilising trope that conjures up an image of hunting animals”. By opening an entire season with it, that too using uncensored gory visuals, and returning to it committedly in the final episode, the show makers risk portraying the Nagas as savage barbarians. In this regard, we feel that the decapitation adds nothing of value to Uncle Ken’s act of killing, save for needlessly mystifying its violent quality.
The show also weaves in yet another key facet of modern Nagaland, but with critical omissions: the development industry in the state. It largely portrays big businesses from outside the state as a benign force and local political entities as violent, chauvinistic disruptors. There does exist a strong anti-outsider sentiment in Naga society (like in many other ethnic communities in Northeast India). It has often led to mindless violence against those perceived as ‘outsiders’, including marginalised labourers from the Hindi heartland and even Bengali-speaking Muslims from the Northeast.
However, in the show, the writers are more concerned with rich businessmen from outside the state and portraying them as hapless victims of local politics. However, this story remains partial without a parallel commentary on the extractive nature of many of these businesses, which have plundered Northeast India’s ecology and resources without giving back much to the locals. Here, the nuance lies in understanding local anxieties against big businesses, while condemning violence against marginalised communities that are unfairly targeted as ‘outsiders’ or ‘non-Nagas’. The show misses this delicate distinction, painting a monochromatic picture of the ‘local-versus-mainland’ political economy.
The story only tangentially touches the issue of Naga self-determination, which, to be fair, is an extremely delicate matter for mainstream writers to tackle. Even in sensitive portrayals, they run the risk of drawing the ire of at least one party involved in the issue. We hope the show, at the very least, encourages viewers to do their own reading, especially as the Naga peace process takes a new turn in recent months. This is because autonomy remains a core concern for Naga society, with different groups engaging with it differently.
To be fair, the show gets several things right. In particular, it maintains a close eye on New Delhi’s manipulative politics of inducements and federal control in the Northeast, including its practice of exploiting internecine fractures within Naga society. It also tells the tragic story of a corrupt state machinery that has destabilised Naga society in cahoots with the local elite.
However, the metanarrative remains firmly on the side of a benign state that is flawed in so many ways, but wants to do good in Nagaland. The scrutiny of the state, especially New Delhi, remains disjointed and unserious. This half-heartedness is unfortunate given the long and painful history of impunity and violence that the state has inflicted on the Naga people through draconian instruments like the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.
In that sense, Paatal Lok does seem to recognise the enduring state of exception in Nagaland, but with one eye shut. We can only hope that the show encourages viewers to do their own reading on Naga politics.
Angshuman Choudhury is a joint doctoral candidate in Comparative Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore and King’s College London.
Manoranjan Pegu is an Executive Council Member of Tribal Intellectual Collective, India, and writes about tribes, labour and politics.
