Anek movie review: A Kashmiri Muslim symbolising the ruthless Indian establishment in the North-East? C’mon!

Language: Hindi with snatches of other languages  

Two men embody the manipulative Indian establishment in Anek (Many), which is set in an unspecified, strife-torn state in the country’s North-East. Aman (Ayushmann Khurrana), whose name means “peace”, is an undercover policeman going by the alias Joshua on this assignment. He is cruelly apathetic towards the local populace and maintains a blinkered focus on his mission to facilitate the Central government’s plans for the place. Abrar (Manoj Pahwa) is a stone-hearted bureaucrat negotiating a peace deal with insurgent groups on behalf of the Centre. From his name, speech and a conversation in the film, one assumes that Aman is a Hindu with roots in some part of the Hindi belt. No assumptions need to be made about Abrar: multiple indicators are served to leave us in no doubt that he is a Kashmiri Muslim. 

Abrar’s identity is one of the few fronts on which the film is lucid. By the time he enters the scene early in Anek, the storytelling is already beset by a vagueness that it is unable to shake off till the end. Considering the blatant Islamophobia raging across today’s India and the reality of politics in Kashmir, the decision to show a Kashmiri Muslim symbolising politicking by the Indian establishment in the troubled North-East is ironic, inexplicable and mindless. 

A still from Anek

Producer-writer-director Anubhav Sinha’s newest venture should have been a landmark for Hindi cinema. It is, after all, that rare Hindi film to be set in India’s North-East, and is clearly well-intentioned. For that, it must get points. Representation, however, is not merely about setting a story in a marginalised community. How effectively that community’s story is told is as important. Anek begins with in-your-face messaging on racism towards North-Easterners and concludes by rubbing in our faces a lesson on ekta mein anekta (unity in diversity) through a peppy song. Between these ends lie a scattered plotline, poor characterisation and stuffy dialogues that paint a hazy portrait of North-Eastern India.

Aido (Andrea Kevichusa) in Anek wishes to represent India in the boxing ring but is battling discrimination in the selection process and racism. Meanwhile, the Central government is trying to win over an influential insurgent leader. With familiar buzzwords such as “vikas” tossed around, and keeping in mind the nuts and bolts of the depicted situation, the real-life backdrop appears to be the Nagaland Peace Accord. 

Aido is in a relationship with Aman who she knows only as Joshua. Her father views India as an enemy and does not want her to play for the country. She believes that grabbing the spotlight as a sportsperson will help her direct attention to the plight of her people.

Also in the picture are a Central Minister (Kumud Mishra) who keeps referring to an unseen “Saheb” (evidently our present PM), a verbose IPS officer (J.D. Chekravarthy) from Telangana, a child militant, and an oddly acted, tackily written episode that appears to be spoofing Uri: The Surgical Strike, though with what goal is unclear since the film’s politics is as ambiguous as everything else about it.

Andrea Kevichusa, Mipham Otsal in a still from Anek

Anek is in Hindi, which does not sit well with the location. A smattering of mother tongues and English can be heard floating around, but the blend just does not fit. After the first half-hour though, this issue recedes into the background in the face of so much else that does not work. 

For one, characters in Anek do not have real conversations like real people – they philosophise, sermonise or debate. Not a single individual is well-rounded in the script and not a single local is given emotional resonance. 

Aido is so sketchily written and Kevichusa’s performance so uninspired that it is difficult to care for her cause. The pretty model from Nagaland is debuting as an actor in Anek, so it might be unfair to expect her to rise above the curiously detached writing, but the usually reliable Khurrana’s frigid acting here is mystifying. The chemistry between Khurrana and Kevichusa is the coldest shared by any two artistes on this side of the Arctic Circle.  

Anek has a docu-feature-like feel, but is neither as educational as a substantial documentary could be nor as affecting as a fiction feature should be when situated in a neglected land wracked by violence. The film reveals nothing more about the region beyond the basics: that it is politically volatile and sidelined by the rest of India. Ethnic diversity and other complex reasons for internecine battles are not broached. 

The only memorable member of the cast is Mipham Otsal playing a teacher, social worker and rebel. “It is easier to maintain war than peace,” he says at one point, explaining the hopelessness of the circumstances in the North-East. Why is there not more where that came from? 

The element that consistently stands out in Anek is Ewan Mulligan’s exquisite cinematography. Mulligan shoots the magnificent landscape at hand with imagination, giving us frames that go beyond just capturing great natural beauty. A recurring motif of human blood staining waters is disturbing and heartbreaking. The image of rows of bamboo cages from which we see human hands sticking out while screams emanating from within indicate torture reveals more about the Indian state’s callousness and failure to win local hearts than the rest of Anek in its entirety. These visuals could not have happened without Sinha. It’s hard to fathom why he has not injected the same poignance and richness into his writing here. (Note: Sinha wrote the story and dialogues, he shares the credit for the screenplay with Sima Agarwal and Yash Keswani.)  

Since 2018’s Mulk, Sinha has come to be associated with cinema that raises its voice for communities often ignored by the Hindi film industry. Mulk featured a Hindu lawyer defending a member of her Muslim husband’s family in court in a terror case. In Article 15, an upper-caste policeman is schooled in the practice of caste during a rural posting while a brave underground Dalit leader fights against caste persecution. In Thappad, a wife decides that one slap from her husband is one slap too many. Sinha’s courage and clarity of vision on his chosen themes has been beyond debate even if you disagree with that vision.

With Anek though, it is tough to decipher what he is trying to say considering that the only establishment figure who is ultimately shown developing some feelings for the people of the North-East is the one that would be deemed the normative Indian by narrow minds. What was Sinha thinking when he opted to write a Kashmiri Muslim as an establishment figure? And was he not struck by the condescension in the words of a north Indian boxer who loses to an opponent from the North-East and encourages her with these words: “Bahut badiya. Ja khel India. Haq hai tera.” (Great work! Go play for India. It’s your right)?

While it is a relief that Anek is not characterised by the ugly jingoism of recent Hindi films, the answer to divisive cinema cannot be an unimmersive narrative. Visually spectacular, politically blurred, well-meaning, preachy yet impassive – if only there was more to say than this about a Hindi film that has cared, and dared, to go into a part of India towards which most of the rest of India is indifferent.

Rating: 2 (out of 5 stars) 

Anek is currently in theatres

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