'Raid': A powerful film on combating corruption (Film Review)
By Subhash K Jha
Film: "Raid"; Starring: Ajay Devgan, Saurabh Shukla; Director: Raj Kumar Gupta; Rating: **** (4 stars)
Just when you think the Bollywood thriller is running out of steam there comes "Raid", a film so taut and clenched, so caustic and brimming with political sarcasm that you wonder where was director Raj Kumar Gupta hiding himself for so many years?
So yes he made "Ghanchakkar". We all make mistakes, okay? Not that I minded Gupta's unexpected swing into zany comedy. But smartly-spun, tautly-narrated political thrillers are his forte. "Aamir" and "No One Killed Jessica" had proved it. "Raid" proves it again.
So welcome back, Mr Gupta. Here's your deal. An honest-to-goodness income tax officer, played with incorruptible smoothness by Ajay Devgn, who gives away nothing (at least, nothing that we can see on his face) is pitched against a burly swarmy corrupt seedy politician in the hotbed of Lucknow's politics.
What happens when Amay Patnaik (Devgn) takes on Rameshwar Singh (Saurabh Shukla) on the latter's home turf? Strongly imbued in the spirit of social reform, the Idealistic Bureaucrat as revisited in this film, is a bit of an anomaly. Devgn's Amay fights that very system which has created him. Idealistic heroes tend to come across as single-minded implacable determined bullies. Devgan is all of this. It is remarkable how willingly he lets Saurabh Shukla chew up every scene in which they're together.
Editor Bodhaditya Banerjee slicesA across the large canvas of characters to capture people in their most anxious moments. It's a narrative of tremendous tension and nervous anxieties but never surrendering to a frenzied cutting-away of the material to play on the urgency of the moment.
It's done in the spirit of a pre-determined moral battle, a raider's Ramayan so to speak, that the plot so doggedly takes on in the pursuit of a Good versus Bad morality tale where the winner often appears to be a loser because he is so one-note in his determined idealism.
Saurabh Shukla has all the fun. And Devgan lets him. It is this spirit of passive resistance that the narrative so virilely assumes that makes "Raid" a riveting watch. The more Devgan's goodness shines down on the plot, the more Shukla's decadent corruption showers its reeking beneficence down on the plot that ironically gets its sustenance not from Devgan's Rama-like heroism but Shukla's Ravan-esqe rhetorics.
While Devgan and his raiders of the lost assets pool their talents to create a moribund army of wealth retrievers, the film's fuel surcharge comes from the heated exchanges between the bureaucratic hero and the political renegade. The two actors play against one other with brilliant brio.
The supporting cast is largely credible and sometimes remarkably engaging (Shukla's antiquated yet alert mother is a howl). But Ileana D'Cruz brought in for the sake of romantic glamour sticks out like a sore thumb with her patently Lakhnavi chikan-attired performance. Not her fault, though. What can she do when the plot is almost uniformly focused on its frenetic fight against wealth stealth with loads of savage humour and unexpected pauses to consider what makes corruption such a thriving industry in our country.
By the time the raid on Rajaji's ill-gotten wealth is over, the director has made a darkly humorous telling point on what it takes to call a dishonest politician dishonest.
Your job, perhaps. But hell, someone has to do the dirty job before another Jessica is killed randomly by a wealthy wayward reveler in a bar. Don't miss "Raid". One of its many pleasures is to watch the two principal actors in full control of their characters, even as the director guiding their exchanges, stands back to let the plot grow hot without burning itself out.
It takes a lot of will-power to stand back and let the corrupt steal the thunder from the incorruptible. "Raid" tells us virtuosity may be boring. But it is still a rare bird worth capturing in the palm of your hand.
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Trouble ‘Miyas’ everywhere only then they will leave Assam: Himanta Biswa Sarma
Says “Himanta Biswa Sarma, BJP are openly against them, we are saying it openly
New Delhi: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said that four to five lakh “Miya voters” would be removed from the electoral rolls in the state once the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists is carried out. He also made a series of controversial remarks openly targeting the Miya community, a term commonly used in Assam in a derogatory sense to refer to Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an official programme in Digboi in Tinsukia district, Sarma said it was his responsibility to create difficulties for the Miya community and claimed that both he and the BJP were “directly against Miyas”.
“Four to five lakh Miya votes will have to be deleted in Assam when the SIR happens,” Sarma said, adding that such voters “should ideally not be allowed to vote in Assam, but in Bangladesh”. He asserted that the government was ensuring that they would not be able to vote in the state.
The chief minister was responding to questions about notices issued to thousands of Bengali-speaking Muslims during the claims and objections phase of the ongoing Special Revision (SR) of electoral rolls in Assam. While the Election Commission is conducting SIR exercises in 12 states and Union Territories, Assam is currently undergoing an SR, which is usually meant for routine updates.
Calling the current SR “preliminary”, Sarma said that a full-fledged SIR in Assam would lead to large-scale deletion of Miya voters. He said he was unconcerned about criticism from opposition parties over the issue.
“Let the Congress abuse me as much as they want. My job is to make the Miya people suffer,” Sarma said. He claimed that complaints filed against members of the community were done on his instructions and that he had encouraged BJP workers to keep filing complaints.
“I have told people wherever possible they should fill Form 7 so that they have to run around a little and are troubled,” he said, adding that such actions were meant to send a message that “the Assamese people are still living”.
In remarks that drew further outrage, Sarma urged people to trouble members of the Miya community in everyday life, claiming that “only if they face troubles will they leave Assam”. He also accused the media of sympathising with the community and warned journalists against such coverage.
“So you all should also trouble, and you should not do news that sympathise with them. There will be love jihad in your own house.” He said.
The comments triggered reactions from opposition leaders. Raijor Dal president and MLA Akhil Gogoi said the people of Assam had not elected Sarma to keep one community under constant pressure. Congress leader Aman Wadud accused the chief minister of rendering the Constitution meaningless in the state, saying his remarks showed a complete disregard for constitutional values.
According to the draft electoral rolls published on December 27, Assam currently has 2.51 crore voters. Election officials said 4.78 lakh names were marked as deceased, 5.23 lakh as having shifted, and 53,619 duplicate entries were removed during the revision process. Authorities also claimed that verification had been completed for over 61 lakh households.
On January 25, six opposition parties the Congress, Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad, CPI, CPI(M) and CPI(M-L) submitted a memorandum to the state’s chief electoral officer. They alleged widespread legal violations, political interference and selective targeting of genuine voters during the SR exercise, describing it as arbitrary, unlawful and unconstitutional.
