Actor Jack Nicholson’s masterly performance as Colonel Nathan R. Jessep in the movie A Few Good Men (1992), is among the most popular roles in his long career, one that has since attained legendary status.

Nicholson portrayed the character of a military man who scoffs at civilians (or fellow officers of the armed forces deployed in non-combatant roles) with barely-disguised pity and has no qualms in assigning to himself a higher purpose in the name of national security, even if it means sanctioning extrajudicial punishments or committing excesses.

Sixteen years later, when the Hindi movie Shaurya – loosely based on A Few Good Men – released in April 2008, India still used 2G internet, Instagram was yet to be launched, and future cricketer Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who recently scored a flamboyant century in the Indian Premier League (IPL), was not yet born.

At a time when Orkut was one of the most visited websites in India and actors didn’t embark on the whirlwind promotional tours across different cities – a regular fixture nowadays –Shaurya, a small budget movie, did manage to leave its mark, courtesy the cast’s stellar acting.

Actors Rahul Bose and Jaaved Jaaferi received rave reviews for their performance as two friends standing at different sides of a trial as military lawyers.

But it was Kay Kay Menon who stole the show with his portrayal of Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh – the Hindi version of Nicholson’s Colonel Jessep.

While Nicholson brought with him a puritan, hawk-like aura to the character with a superiority complex, Menon is brilliant in essaying the role of a man holding a position of power, possessed with visceral hatred for a community (in this case, Muslims).

Shaurya depicted the deep-rooted Islamophobia within the society

His defiant demeanour, unhesitant tone while holding the entire community responsible for the crime of one person – in the movie, Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh’s family is killed and tortured by an accused who is a Muslim – and zero remorse for the killing of innocent Muslim civilians, make Menon’s power-packed performance memorable and arguably one of his best.

Long before we witnessed the vilification of Muslims under the false bogey of “land jihad”, “love jihad” and “Corona jihad”, Shaurya explored the issue of Islamophobia and how deep it runs within the society, especially in institutions.

But what the audience and makers of the movie perhaps didn’t realise is that while Shaurya makes a case in favour of institutional accountability and talks about alleged atrocities committed on Kashmiris – a subject that not many filmmakers were willing to address then or now –, a decade and a half later, the negative character Menon played would come to be hailed and glorified as that of a hero.

Upon scrolling down the comments to a video clip of Shaurya posted on YouTube one can see hundreds of users saying that Menon’s character was right about Muslims. The users invoke references to incidents such as the Pahalgam terror attack to prove their point.

A comment below the YouTube video hailing Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh and associating the movie character’s hate speech against Muslims with the Pahalgam terror attack. Photo: YouTube

The video clip pertains to that part of the movie wherein Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh delivers a long monologue in a military courtroom – a virulent diatribe against Muslims where he justifies the killing of innocent men, women and children that ends with the exasperated proclamation of “bloody democracy.”

Menon’s performance shows the range and depth of the actor’s ingenuity as he brings out the Islamophobic psyche of the character.

In modern-day India, scenes from reel life play out in real life

But unlike Menon, who reads from the movie’s script, the comments are by real people and reflect their thoughts and mindset.

“Isiliye maine Rathore se kaha, goli maar do inko…Jo budhe bacche saamne aaye khatam kar do unko (That’s why I told Rathore, shoot them…The elderly, kids, whoever comes in front of you, finish them),” Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh had said in the movie scene during the diatribe, while admitting that he gave the order to one of his subordinates to kill innocent Kashmiri Muslim civilians.

After the Pahalgam terror attack, it was pointed out on X by a journalist from Alt News, that at least for some time, Pen Multiplex – the YouTube Channel that routinely uploads clips of numerous movies – had shared the scene of Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh’s anti-Muslim hate speech with the title “Maturity is Realising Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh Was Right.”

While the clip with this specific title is no longer available on the YouTube channel of Pen Multiplex, multiple other channels now run YouTube shorts of the same scene, with similar titles, supporting the words of Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh, garnering likes and views.

Going by the video titles, what qualifies as maturity is the arbitrary killing of Muslims.

What sort of people would justify and call for the killings of innocent men, women and children?

Probably the same individuals who would not hesitate to troll Himanshi Narwal, the wife of naval officer Lt. Vinay Narwal, who was among those killed by terrorists in the Pahalgam attack. Himanshi Narwal has been subject to vicious trolling and online abuse after she denounced the hate campaign against Muslims and Kashmiris following the Pahalgam attack.

The rhetoric of the movie’s character, who compares Muslims to termites is also not uncommon in modern-day India and is often used by the political class in different contexts.

A chilling and ominous picture emerges when one finds parallels between the reel life statement of Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh that all Muslims are ticking time bombs who must be exterminated, and similar real life statements made with impunity in modern-day India.

We see Islamophobia pervade our everyday lives when open calls for genocide are met with applause, appeals are made to boycott businesses run by Muslims and those accused of perpetrating lynchings are garlanded by public representatives.

A strange dichotomy exists in the country today. On one hand, the government accuses Pakistan of trying to trigger communal discord in India and the public lauds the valour of the military, as Col. Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, brief the media about Operation Sindoor.

At the same time, we see the divisive ideology propagated by the character of Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh in Shaurya play out on the streets, trains or residential societies as a testimony of the times we live in, when the othering and dehumanisation of an entire community is no longer restricted to movie storylines.

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