Set in the backdrop of a fragile peace negotiation in Nagaland, season 2 of Paatal Lok opens with a high-stakes business summit, where Naga separatist leaders and Indian government officials come together, mediated by a powerful businessman. This is probably the first time Nagaland and its people have appeared in an Indian cinematic endeavour.
The objective is to facilitate an investment worth 20,000 crore in the state for which stability is essential. In this context, peace is pursued not as an inherently desirable state but as a necessary condition for the growth and stability of business interests.
One could argue that we should focus on the end instead of the means, i.e., the ends justify the means, and that is precisely what happens in season two; ultimately, peace is achieved in Nagaland, but it comes at a huge cost for those involved in the process and those who get embroiled in it due to their sheer bad luck (and noble intentions).
Created and written by Sudip Sharma and directed by Avinash Arun, Pataal Lok, a police procedural drama can be called ‘nationalist’ in its orientation. ‘Nationalist’ because of the way it frames the question of separatism in Nagaland. The Naga separatists are shown as drug traffickers, sexual predators, xenophobic murderers and manipulators who brainwash young kids; there is no attempt to contextualise their separatism, no backstory of the separatist leader to humanise them.
But there is a catch in this narrative. By the end, peace returns to the state, and separatist ideology is defeated. However, the entire process leaves you unsatisfied, leaving you to question the moral compromises, systemic injustices, and human suffering it leaves behind.
You get to see the netherworld of the ‘System’, which does not operate on the principles of justice, humanity and empathy — despite the narrative. Pataal Lok exposes the dark underbelly of the power corridors that run the ‘System.’ It reveals a vast, ruthless bureaucratic machinery where individuals are reduced to mere cogs — dispensable and replaceable at the convenience of those in control. It shows a system that survives and thrives on scapegoating, victim blaming, and stealing recognition for others’ work. The “system,” as SHO Virk says, “is like a boat with holes…and no one is concerned about saving the boat but themselves” because every cog in the machinery knows its truth.
Though season 2 lacks the overt social and political commentary that defined its predecessor, you do get to see some glimpses of it on themes in continuation with the first season. For example, a nightclub owner highlights the “problem of democracy” by lamenting that everyone is free to express their opinion; a child underscores the ascendency of WhatsApp as the source of knowledge; a tout delivers a sly jab at the idea of buying plots in Kashmir, and the state of unemployment is subtly conveyed through the background noise of an invisible television set.
However, one prominent social theme that threads through the season is the plight and precariousness of migrant labourers. Traversing between Delhi and Nagaland and moving through railway yards, slums, vegetable markets, and storehouses, Paatal Lok captures their relentless quest for bare minimum survival and how this quest robs them of their dignity, humanity, and empathy.
Pataal Lok is the story of countless Bittu Rehmans (Prateek Pachauri) and Raghu Paswans (Shailesh Kumar) who are forced to leave their homes and journey far away in search of a livelihood. Some of them keep their humanity intact. Raju Paswan, for instance, saves Rose Lizo (Merenla Imsong) from being raped, while others, like Kishore (Altaf Hussain), who once sheltered Raghu during a pandemic, lose their humanity.
There are no Closures in real life!
Pataal Lok takes you through an intense emotional roller coaster ride. Thanks to the brilliance of the actors, you get immersed in the moments of sadness and grief that linger after binge-watching. Raghu Paswan, one of the invisible anchors of the plot, with screen time of less than five minutes, is a migrant labourer from Bihar, constantly shifting between jobs and sharing a cramped room with three other men.
Paswan has been away from home for over a year, and in his absence, his young son Guddu has seemingly forgotten his face and has lost any emotional connection. Paswan’s wife comes to Delhi after he goes missing and, in her quest, loses her life, leaving her child alone. When you see the young Guddu waiting in the hospital as his mother fights for her life, you find yourself crossing your fingers, hoping for her recovery. But instead of offering even a shred of relief, Sudip Sharma delivers a gut-wrenching blow: the mother dies, leaving Guddu all alone.
Sharma, who knows how to engage his audience emotionally, goes even further. The grandparents of the boy refuse to come as one of them is undergoing treatment, while his uncle refuses to take him in. Since, as an audience, we have been exposed to the disturbing reality of child abuse in orphanages, we hold our breath, hoping that Hathiram Chowdary (Jaideep Ahlawat) will take the boy in and, in a moment of un [expected] relief, he does, offering a glimmer of hope.
Hathiram’s wife, Renu Chaudhary (Gul Panag), is initially reluctant to take care of the child but eventually develops an emotional bond with him. You expect to see Hathiram, Renu, and Guddu going to see snowfall when suddenly, Sudip Sharma drops another bombshell. Guddu’s grandparents are there to take him back; you feel sad, but the next moment, the audience is told that they are here to go to AIIMS, and you start hating the old couple and wish Guddu would refuse to go with them.
Similarly, when ACP Imran Ansari’s (Ishwak Singh) body is transported from Kohima to Delhi and Hathiram, waiting at the airport, is informed that the packers failed to apply preservatives properly, causing the body to smell, you expect him to cry, for tears to stream down his face, but that moment never arrives. The sudden death of Meghna Barua (Tilottama Sen) leaves you in shock. Through many such situations, Pataal Lok refuses to offer closure to the audience, leaving the rawness of grief and loss lingering. This is somewhat of a realistic portrayal of our society, where people seldom get closures; they are left at the mercy of time.
Collateral Damage & Bare Lives
Guddu Paswan is not the only unfortunate child in Pataal Lok. Six-year-old Nemmo, the son of Meghna Barua, will keep waiting for his mother forever, as her mother meets an abrupt end. Every Christmas will bring him the memories of an unanswered phone call and the pain of an unfulfilled promise.
Rose Lizo, the link that connects Inspector Hathiram’s investigation and that of ACP Imran Ansari, is a childhood rape survivor. Daniel (Prashant Tamang), the assassin, is an orphan, a victim of insurgency.
All these people are collateral damage in the grand design for the greater good, whose meaning keeps shifting with the changing personal circumstances of the actors involved. So, at one time fighting for independence is the greater good for the Naga leader Rangthong Ken (Jahnu Barua); at another, when he is old, reconciliation is the greater good, while for others like Jonathan Thom (Kaguirong Gonmei), whose murder jumps starts the story, and Kapil Reddy (Nagesh Kukunoor), a businessman with significant investment in Nagaland, ‘greater good’ is nothing but just an excuse for amassing fortune.
Pataal Lok shows us that the terms “greater good” and “collateral damage” are intertwined. To borrow a concept from quantum physics, “collateral damage” and “greater good” are quantumly entangled; pursuing the greater good is bound to cause collateral damage, and if there is any “collateral damage” anywhere, it is bound to be justified by the logic of “greater good” by those in power. At the end of the day, IPS officers Imran Ansari and Meghna Barua, the three orphaned Naga, Rose Lizo, Guddu Paswan, Raghu Paswan, Nemmo, the unnamed dead protestor, and Gita Paswan are all collateral damage.
The concept of ‘collateral damage’ stands very close to the idea of ‘homo sacer’ and ‘bare life’ discussed by Italian philosopher Grigio Agamben. Homo Sacer, as Agamben explains, refers to figures in ancient Roman law who can be killed without the act being considered murder.
Uncle Ken achieves fragile peace, and Kapil Reddy gets his business deal in Nagaland at the expense of homo sacer figures like Meghna Barua, Imran Ansari, Rose Lizo and countless others, whose death is not murder; they are just victims of impersonal forces, while the likes of Raghu Paswan, Kishore, Bittu Rehman and all other migrants are just bare lives; i.e. life stripped to its biological essence, devoid of political and social recognition. They are just struggling to survive—somehow, to survive for one more day! Neither their life nor their death matters to the ‘System’. In the machinery of the ‘System’, they are just a bunch of files, waiting to be closed and destined to eat dust.
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