Pada movie review: Captivating thriller on a real-life fight for Adivasi rights and the fury of the oppressed

Language: Malayalam  

About a quarter of a century back, in October 1996, four men quietly entered the office of the Palakkad district collector, W.R. Reddy, and held him hostage for several hours. Their demand: the withdrawal of a new legislation further eroding the land rights of Kerala’s Adivasis who had/have been given a raw deal by successive governments across ideological divides. They identified themselves as members of the Ayyankali Pada (Ayyankali’s Army), a rights group named after the social reformer Ayyankali who worked for the upliftment of Dalits.

Ayyankali Pada’s success in keeping the state on tenterhooks for a considerable stretch of time defies belief if you know the extraordinary details of their innovative protest. As it happens, a Google search for this incredible real-life incident throws up few references unrelated to the new Malayalam film Pada in India’s English news media outside south India. While this virtual erasure illustrates the marginalisation of southern India by the media in Delhi and Mumbai, Pada throws light on an even more grievous and long-running phenomenon, a heinous crime that both south and north are guilty of: the oppression of Adivasis, India’s indigenous people. 

In a world where news platforms and history texts prioritise certain regions and communities over others, Pada records for posterity an episode from recent times that neither occupies the space it deserves in our collective memory nor has received the memorialisation it merits. 

Kamal K.M. has written and directed Pada as a thriller and a sort of activism-cum-government procedural. Kunchacko Boban, Joju George, Vinayakan and Dileesh Pothan play fictionalised versions of the real-life Rameshan Kanhangad, Ajayan Mannoor, Kallara Babu and Vilayodi Sivankutti whose act of resistance was designed to highlight the plight of Adivasis. 

We see these men going about their preparations in a business-like manner in Pada, we witness them hold the Collector in his room, argue with him and negotiate with various entities. We simultaneously observe bureaucrats and police strategising in consultation with the Chief Minister, while in a third realm, families and associates wait. 

This is such a matter-of-fact retelling of what happened in 1996, that watching Pada is like being a fly on the wall transported to the 1990s when four brave men with more resourcefulness than resources at their disposal risked their lives to spotlight their cause. 

Recognising the innate power of this story, Kamal does not resort to contrivances to artificially elevate it for even a moment. His clear-eyed direction and Shan Mohammed’s clean editing, complemented by Vishnu Vijay’s music and Sameer Thahir’s camerawork, keep the narrative simmering with a potent blend of tension and poignance at all times.

There is anger throughout – the anger of the righteous against oppressive dominant forces – yet Pada steers clear of cinematic loudness. In this, it is far removed from formulaic, machoistic commercial Indian cinema of all languages, which substitutes hollow, violent machismo for valour. These four are certifiable heroes who do not require the crutches of low-angle shots, hyper-ventilating dialogue writers or screaming signature tunes to lionise them in the way characters played by male megastars are faux lionised in mass-targeted men-centric films. 

Apart from the activists, the most interesting player in Pada is the Collector who is called Ajay Shripad Dange here, not W.R. Reddy. Kamal has told The Federal that though the collector was from Andhra Pradesh, he depicted him as Marathi, the chief secretary (Prakash Raj) as Tamilian and the police superintendent as Gujarati “to give the film a pan-India colour”. These changes do lend an added flavour to the film. 

Whether intentionally or unwittingly, Kamal also ends up portraying a scenario that decades of Hindi supremacist politics have not been able to destroy, since the non-southern officials are shown speaking the local language, Malayalam.

Dange is sympathetic to his captors’ cause – though opposed to their means – and frustrated with their distrust, because he considers himself an ally of Adivasis; they, on the other hand, have no reason to believe him since he is a part of the exploitative system they are fighting. This character’s sincerity in Pada is borne out by the consequences that Reddy faced in reality. He was transferred out of Palakkad soon after the events shown in the film, as text on screen informs us, and has told the media that he was viewed with suspicion by the government “for acting according to the abductors instead of opposing them…” 

Still, Kamal does not succumb to the temptation that plagues most commercial filmmakers based on conventional wisdom in many Indian film industries that the public is keen on only upper-caste protagonists: he does not rewrite allyship to transform Dange into a saviour within the establishment nor make him the film’s central character. Despite Reddy/Dange’s allure, agency and centrality remain with the Ayyankali Pada throughout.  

Sadly, Pada’s political sensitivity does not extend to gender diversity. Under-representation of women, Dalits and Adivasis has been a glaring lacuna in the acclaimed new cinema coming from Kerala’s film industry since the 2010s. Women are sidelined even in most caste-themed contemporary Indian cinema across languages. Pada too fails women. 

There can be few greater ironies than the marginalisation of women in films claiming to advocate for the marginalised. In Pada, the irony is made more conspicuous by an activist mentioning that K.R. Gouri Amma, the iconic Communist, was the only netav who dissented against the new anti-Adivasi legislation opposed by the Ayyankali Pada. The team of this film may argue that they cannot be faulted since there was no woman among the primary players in the actual saga it recounts. Is this a fact? I cannot say for sure. But if it is, what explains this sudden fidelity to facts when, elsewhere in the script, they were comfortable manufacturing a Maharashtrian to make a point?  

A fine actor like Unnimaya Prasad plays a character with potential who is never allowed to come into her own in Pada. Sajitha Madathil is cast as a member of the administration, the sort of woman who is sometimes inserted into a screenplay to pre-empt criticism that there are none, but is then left to bumble. Her token presence in Pada reminded me of Unnimaya as a policewoman in Anjaam Pathiraa (2020, Malayalam) – seemingly relevant, actually not. 

This is a frustrating deficiency in a film that has so much else to offer.

There is messaging even in the casting of Pada’s leads. Kunchacko, Joju, Vinayakan and Dileesh are mainstream stars but have willingly taken a backseat to the storyline. Playing the quartet at the heart of this film, they deliver an impeccable mix of fury, commitment and pure-heartedness that is pivotal to Pada’s effectiveness. 

Kunchacko Boban in particular is a significant choice since he built his career as a romantic hero before getting experimental in the past decade as the Malayalam New New Wave rose. His career and his decision to take on Pada exemplify the changing face of Malayalam cinema, which, its flaws notwithstanding, is working hard to redefine what constitutes “mainstream”. 

The good-looking young actor, Arjun Radhakrishnan – who plays A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in the Hindi series Rocket Boys and is making his Malayalam debut with Pada – is first-rate as the Collector who is symbolic of an oppression he insists he does not endorse. 

The cast as a whole, filled with respected senior artistes, is remarkable. 

Like Dr Biju’s Perariyathavar (Names Unknown / 2015, Malayalam), Pada too leaves us with discomfiting examples of India’s all-round societal and political callousness towards Adivasis. 

The truth-telling in Pada is wisely woven into a riveting, pacey narrative. Pada is a lesson for students of cinema on how to keep a true story engaging even for a person who has read the facts, including the sensational climax, available to the public. In the absence of that element of mystery, Kamal still holds viewer attention simply by making you feel you were there.

Rating: 4 (out of 5 stars) 

Pada is streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial 

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