Retake: Courtroom dramas and the journey from modern myths to mythical modernity

In a scene from B R Chopra ’s Kanoon (1960), three judges discuss the death penalty. “Maut ki sazaa band hogyi toh aadmi bastiyon ko jungle banaa dega. Aapko ye pataa hona chahiye ki insaan buniyaadi taur pe ek janwar hai aur sirf maut se darta hai”, one of them says. The other two, come from a different side of the argument that though romantic is far less rarefied as a crystal interpretation of law as read for humans. Chopra’s Kanoon was iconic for many reasons, foremost of which was an early evaluation of India’s many institutional hazards. Though it debated the death penalty as a sentimental item, Kanoon also set the tone for the court to gradually become the site of our biggest life-affirming victories, even if virtual.

In a scene from Shankar Mukherjee’s Baat Ek Raat Ki (1962), a lawyer, played by Keshto Mukherjee, alludes to a blind witness by saying “Agar ye gawah andha hai toh main aisa gawah pesh kar sakta hun jo dekh sakta hai par uski zubaan samjhna mushkil hogi.” Mukherjee is holding a dog who was present at the scene of the crime. In what is a comical scene in the midst of a rifling, tense trial there is also a sense of metaphorical conceit. The dog also represents the context, that courts are bound to miss out in translation. Trials evaluate motive, but they do not try circumstances. Context is the victim of swift justice, something early films like Kanoon and Baat Ek Raat Ki effectively portrayed. This anthropological view of justice that wanted to first question the source of our judgment would soon, unintentionally transform the courts into a place of worship.

In Yash Chopra’s Waqt, for example, a court trial climaxes with the barely believable reunion of a family that had been torn apart by tragedy. It’s a moment of rare poetic specification that wants to elevate the courts to a position of divinity. The law is made by men for men, but in this case it also echoes a certain invulnerability, by playing host, not necessarily to fair justice, but a fair life. The idea that the world eventually comes together under the roof of a court is the closest post-Independence India came, to venerating institutional power. The same institutional power becomes radioactive in films that came out after the Emergency. The opinion of systems, of their abusive capacity had changed by then and both Andha Kanoon and Daminiecho that disillusionment. Give anything enough time and it loses the urgency of spirit. The soul, you could argue, still remains because you can at least tell yourself it will be found.

It’s probably escapist, in a country with an overdrawn, lumbering, justice system to seek in its exaggerated powers the rewards of imagination. In satirical films like Kyunki Main Jhuth Nahi Bolta or the more recent Jolly LLB, the courts are cordial, warm places that can be tackled as social allies. They are difficult but they do eventually yield to the righteousness of the protagonist. In Anubhav Sinha’s Mulk , the court again represents the balanced kernel of truth that has far outgrown the prejudices India’s socio-political reservations and conflicts continue to inherit. But is that really the case, Chaitanya Tamhane ’s minimalist Court , asks for a change.

Courtroom dramas are fertile ground for thrillers or moral messaging because they are perceived, at least in this country’s cinema as affirmative of some difficult truths and some compliant mistruths that are rarely spoken of. As a cultural reference the courtroom also signifies a certain amount of prestige that Indians bow to. For a young country, institutional wisdom has to earned, the same way a rag-drag society must eventually yield to its control. The fact that India continues to besotted by problems related to crime and corruption implies that cinema must also query the pillars beyond erecting rudimentary catharsis on its shoulders. Life, reality at least, is rarely as simple.

In the early, especially post-Independence years of Hindi cinema you can sense there is a sense of curiosity about the nature of both, crime and punishment. Fast forward to a few decades later and the disillusionment has already made people wary of the ability, or lack thereof of systems that they are by design asked to trust. Recent films like Pink and Mulk suggest that the courtroom drama is back to being the moniker for a conveniently wrapped social message. A social message that relies on the law, its interpretation to be the last word on humanity and its instincts. An instinct that Kanoon, was brave and possibly aspirational enough to debate. Something that has been clouded by our distancing from the state’s many arms. The fact that we’d rather avoid state machinery at all cost exemplifies just how suspect this haloed position of the justice system has become. It’s probably why Rohit Shetty’s cops readily deliver, fatal, and rather popular justice. It’s also why the courtroom is no longer a rescue, or even a sight for philosophical debates, but serves as the place we’re taken as a form of succinct, but ultimately dubious relief.

Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.

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