State of Siege – Temple Attack movie review: How to let ham-handed politics ruin a thriller

Language: Hindi State of Siege: Temple Attack does everything in its power to indicate that it is based on the 24 September, 2002 terror attack on Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. It then twists itself in knots to distance itself from that real-life story. The initial testament on screen, “inspired by true events”, is followed by the disclaimer, “All  characters in this film are work of fiction and resemblance to any character(s) to person living or dead is coincidental” (sic). Akshardham becomes Krishna Dham attacked on 24 September, 2002 in the film, and the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi becomes Manish Choksi (Samir Soni). This almost laughably transparent disguising of a known place and person are in keeping with Bollywood’s perennially gingerly approach to history near and far. It goes beyond that though. It appears that the creators of State of Siege: Temple Attack did not think the actual violence at Akshardham was sufficiently spicy for viewers. Seriously, a 14-hour takeover by armed men of a place of worship filled with unarmed civilians was not exciting enough in their view?! Having apparently arrived at a conclusion so insulting to the survivors and victims of that terrible tragedy, the writing team has piled embellishment upon embellishment on the truth – including a long-drawn-out hostage scenario within Krishna Dham and a negotiation with Pakistan-based terrorists – such that it does become more fiction than fact to the extent that facts have been released to the public. Media reports from the time, for instance, say that Modi himself denied there were any hostages taken at Akshardham. But wait, it gets worse. The grammatical errors in the text preceding the narrative should have been sufficient warning of the tackiness to come. Temple Attack kicks off with the promise of a thrilling defence procedural revolving around a terror strike, but ends up all mixed up about whether it should solely cater to the anti-Muslim attitudes dominating the current majoritarian public discourse in India or it should do so while simultaneously trying ham-handedly to pre-empt potential criticism from liberals. How strange that it didn’t occur to the team of Temple Attack to just deliver a purely factual account of Akshardham. State of Siege: Temple Attack is directed by Ken Ghosh whose portfolio includes Ishq Vishk (2003), Fida (2004) and the web series Abhay (2019). This new film is “created by” – to quote the credits – Abhimanyu Singh, “written by” the US-based William Borthwick and Simon Fantauzzo who is from the UK, with dialogues by Farhan Salaruddin. The film is Season 2 of the State of Siege franchise on Zee5, Season 1 of which was an eight-part mini-series about 26/11. The two are unrelated. [caption id=“attachment_9791111” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Akshaye Khanna in a still from State Of Siege: Temple Attack. Image from Twitter[/caption] Temple Attack starts with a tension-ridden army raid on a terrorist hideout in Kupwara in 2001. The narration of that episode is somewhat marred by an overt attempt to shock, with the repeated focus on the face of an Indian soldier whose eye has been blown out by an enemy firearm. The first shot of the shooting is on point, but when the camera goes back to the dead man’s hollowed-out skull, and then again, the gratuitousness of the camerawork becomes jarring. This apart, the opening incident is tautly handled, sharply edited and the visual effects well done. The smoothness continues into the subsequent revelation that Major Hanut Singh (Akshaye Khanna) who led that team is still grappling with the trauma of guilt when we meet him again the following year. Circumstances lead to Singh heading the commando squad despatched to handle the Krishna Dham crisis in September 2002. Temple Attack manages to sustain suspense whenever it fixes its gaze on Singh and his associates’ strategising and actions, the tactics employed by the terrorists, the confrontations between these two sets of people and the unravelling of plans when human impetuousness rears its head. It also contains an occasional poignant passage involving the general public in the temple. The actors playing commandos, Khanna included, are convincing on the job. The film’s political confusion is its undoing. First, it becomes clear early on that Temple Attack wants to ‘balance out’ the presence of Muslim terrorists in the storyline by dotting the narrative with individuals who fit into a ‘good Muslim’ slot. This is truly silly, because the facts of the case are that the terrorists who were killed by NSG commandos at Akshardham were indeed Muslim and the attack was reportedly orchestrated as revenge for 2002’s anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. The awkward attempt to be ‘balanced’, therefore, is terribly patronising to the minority community, made worse by the fact that none of these supporting Muslim characters are given depth or breadth. In retrospect, I realise that even a moving moment of female solidarity in the prologue was a part of this balancing act. The ones that follow get increasingly cringe-worthy and contrived. (Spoilers ahead in this paragraph) They include a friendly Indian Muslim family on a train who are snubbed by the terrorists. A commando with the surname Khan and little else to remember him by. And – visualise an eye-roll emoji here, please – a Muslim sweeper at Krishna Dham who gives a speech about Allah, “hum log” (we people, that is, Muslims) and “yeh log” (these people, that is, Hindus) to the terrorists. (Spoiler alert ends) This condescension adds insult to the injury inflicted by the cursoriness of a reference to the Gujarat pogrom towards the beginning of Temple Attack and (Spoiler ahead in this paragraph) the way  Juhapura, a Muslim ghetto in  Ahmedabad, is dragged into the closing minute. It’s a tiny scene and I don’t want to give out the details, but it is cruel to do this to a community that is currently beleaguered in most of India, more so in Gujarat, and to a locality to which most of the city’s Muslims have, according to multiple reliable accounts, largely been forced to confine themselves for fear of communal violence elsewhere, despite the area being deprived of basic infrastructure. (Spoiler alert ends) As if its portrayal of Muslims is not confused enough, Temple Attack features a really stupid Hindu civilian who is both a fool and a traitor. For good measure, to supplement the good Muslim and bad Muslim tropes, Temple Attack finds space for another long-standing Bollywood cliché: a hot-headed, patriotic Sikh. With so many stereotypes being rolled out, I almost expected the script to revive Hindi cinema’s old Christian formula of the gangster Raaabert and his moll Lily dancing to the closing credits while an oily-haired ‘Madrasi’ yelled out “aiyyaiyyo” . In reality, on the evening of 24 September, 2002, terrorists entered Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, and remained there for about 14 hours, killing over 30 people before they themselves were felled by NSG (National Security Guard) commandos. Does Akshardham merit a film? Absolutely yes. It deserves better though than State of Siege: Temple Attack, which somehow manages to dishonour the Hindus impacted by that horror even while doing a disservice to India’s Muslim community in the present socio-political context. As balancing acts go, this is the oddest one I have ever seen. State of Siege: Temple Attack is streaming on Zee5 Rating: 1.75 (out of 5 stars)