Assi: Anubhav Sinha reminds us why the Dhurandhar-fication of society is not a real solution

Anubhav Sinha’s Assi is the story of a woman who is sexually assaulted by a group of five men in Delhi. As she tries to recover and is attempting to seek justice, a self-appointed vigilante, ‘Chhatri-man’, makes it his mission to kill the men who have been accused of the crime. Kumud Mishra plays the ‘Chhatri-man’ who is dealing with his own demons, but believes that, perhaps, these murders might absolve him of his old karma. In the film, the vigilante starts the killings by murdering one of the five men accused of the crime. By the time he gets to the second accused, he doesn’t realise that the man had already agreed to become the state’s witness, so when he gets killed, the survivor’s case suffers.

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After the film introduces the idea of vigilante justice, and how it is being lauded by the general masses, Anubhav presents Taapsee Pannu’s character as the voice of reason and questions this idea of violent ‘justice’ that is being celebrated. Kumud Mishra, who is also present in this scene, asks pointedly as to why these rapists should not be killed. It is at this point that she explains succintly, “If you say that murder is valid for the sake of revenge, then someone else might say that raping a person is valid for revenge as well.” By this logic, she says, one can get stuck in the cycle of rape and murder, and there will be no end to it.

Her dialogue, and the film at large, makes you pause and ponder over the fact that if people’s court is all it takes to pronounce someone as guilty, then are we heading towards a world where Twitter trends will become our court of law? And if the society at large gets stuck in a loop of revenge, then where would it finally end? This kind of argument of ‘badla’ can be made by an impulsive individual, but for a functioning society where everyone has fundamental rights, this argument falls flat almost immediately. Like Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the world blind.”

Kani Kusruti and Taapsee Pannu in a still from Anubhav Sinha’s Assi.

After two of the accused men are dead, Parima, played by Kani Kusruti, admits that she can’t even remember the faces of the men who assaulted her, for she’s still in a state of trauma. She then confesses that she’s feeling good about the murders, and immediately questions herself. “I liked it when someone died. I didn’t ask for this,” she says. The idea of vigilante justice can provide her, or those around her, some kind of momentary relief but this won’t solve the social problem that hurt her in the first place.

Even in Dhurandhar, when Ranveer Singh’s spy character is killing Arjun Rampal’s ISI chief, the audience feels that they have reached a victorious end to a 7-hour story where the hero will finally kill the villain. At this point, Rampal’s character screams and says that even if he dies, the network of terrorism won’t end. One can apply a similar logic to the acts of ‘Chhatri-man’ where killing a few rapists won’t make the society a safe place for women.

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A major part of Dhurandhar’s appeal for the masses was the film’s idea of justice, where the protagonist is exacting revenge on Pakistan for years of terrorist activities. The film doesn’t discuss diplomacy, and leaves no room for nuance and goes ahead with the idea that the ‘naya Hindustan’ won’t back down and will attack at every opportunity it gets. But what next?

Anubhav Sinha’s Assi does not answer this question, for they too, have no answer to this question. But they do their best when they push the next generation at the forefront and make them witness the world they have inherited. Assi knows that ‘badla’ is not the answer, and it knows that the harm being caused here has scarred our next generation for life. We can only keep our fingers crossed, and hope that our children learn the right lessons.