Movie Review: Maachis

Maachis is a movie about terrorism in Punjab after the riots and killing of innocent Sikhs following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, probably before Operation Black Thunder in 88 (so my guess is 86). It was made in 1996 by Gulzar, who is known to be a maker of movies with a social cause. The movie raises the issue of what circumstances create extremists, who see themselves as fighting injustice in the society, which comes from having a democracy where ones voice is not heard. Living in a free country and yet not having the basic rights of such a freedom. The term Maachis means matches, which are struck to make a fire of revolution.

The main part of this movie is in two parts, the first part is a flashback to an earlier time. We see the story of Pali aka Kripal Singh (Chandrachur Singh) and Jassi aka Jaswant Singh (Raj Zutshi) two childhood friends living in a village in Punjab. Veera (Tabu) is the sister of Jassi and is the fiance of Pali. The police comes to their house one day searching for a terrorist, Jimmy , who was involved in the attempted assassination of a MP(member of parliament) . While there are no terrorists in that house, they do have a dog named Jimmy. The police officers, Khurana and Vohra take in Jassi for questioning to the 'police station' for 1/2 hr, while he protests his innocence. He just disappears after that. Nobody in any of the local police stations know of him and he has possibly been detained in one of the main city Headquarters. He comes home one day battered and bruised from long periods of torture. Seeing this injustice to his friend and feeling frustrated and helpless, Pali disappears. He does not even tell his fiance anything. He travels aimlessly in search his cousin, who is involved with the terrorists possibly.

While he is traveling one day he sees Sanaatan (Om Puri) getting off a bus at the same stop as him without the camera which he had on the bus. He tells him that he forgot his camera, to which he just looks blankly and gets into an ambassador which comes there and speeds away. The bus he was traveling in explodes from the camera bomb. On yet another day he comes across Sanaatan in a road side dhabha. He approaches him to ask him if he can help locate his cousin and then gets sucked into the terrorist organization, which trains him and he sets his life as a terrorist by killing the inspector, Khurana who had detained his friend. He goes back to his village after that to tell his friend and say good bye to his fiance. They are obviously shocked seeing him after more than a year and by his act of terrorism. His fiance wants to run away with him and join his organization so that she can be with him but he manages to leave her behind and run away.

Cut to the present time, in himachal pradesh, where he is hiding after having killed the inspector in Punjab. His friend from his village has been detained yet again by the police and they extract the information from him that Pali is responsible for the killing of the inspector. In Himachal he and a bunch of people from his terrorist organization are on a mission to kill a minister using a missile. A missile launcher joins their group, who is somewhat unsurprisingly Veera. Pali finds out from Veera that Jassi tired of all the torture for 6 months killed himself in police custody and she had nothing more to live for hence she joined a terrorist organization which after training had sent her there. She had no idea he was there. One day Pali sees Vohra who was also involved in the first arrest of his friend as well as the second arrest and his ultimate death. He tries to kill him and is unsuccessful and is caught. The police come to their hideout (when the terrorists all are out) leading Sanataan to suspect the two of them and makes her a captive and implies how Pali will be killed before he goes to jail. Then it is just a pointless story of love, which leads Veera to eliminate the terrorists and go to the jail cell to see Pali to give him cyanide and they both die peacefully. In the end a newsreel indicates, almost as a needed happy ending that 27 Punjab police officers are sentenced to be prosecuted(whatever that means) for the death of 4 suspected terrorists .

There are a number of songs in the movie, all of which are beautifully picturized and it is worth watching the movie for the countryside and hills of India. Chandrachur Singh and Om Puri excel in their role. Some of the dialogues (penned by Gulzar) of Om Puri are really the main point of the whole movie. Tabu is sort of in an ancillary role, which she does well. Kulbushan Kharbandha also appears in the movie as the chief of the terrorists.

The story in itself fails in many a ways, however some of the points raised in the movie about the impact of the bloody partition of Punjab for the creation of the two-nation plan suited only the politicians involved and had a devastating impact on the people who were partitioned, the impact of the riots killing the Sikhs in the days following the killing of Indira Gandhi with none of the elected goverment officials or the police doing anything to prevent it, the denial of basic rights and a flagrant abuse of human rights of innocent people taken in for 'questioning' raises question about the kind of democracy and secularity which exists in India.