Visualise this: a dozen cops storm the home of a working-class Muslim family. The top cop is barking orders, asking his subordinates to search every corner for any possible weapons, armed accomplices, or explosives. The family members can only look on with disbelief as they’re told their husbands, fathers, and brothers are ‘terrorists’. The cops accuse them of pretending. How does it play in India in 2024?In the world of the show – where the suspected characters are indeed terrorists, justifying the cops rudeness – does it make you uncomfortable? Even with the knowledge I was watching a web series by Rohit Shetty – known for his broad strokes because he makes ‘entertainers’ – I found myself shifting uneasily a bit. Especially at a time when political prisoners (many of whom happen to be Muslims) are awaiting trial, and their pleas for bail being rejected over several weeks, months, and years. Shetty doesn’t believe in films with social relevance. He wants to pander. And if that means intensifying problematic stereotypes, then so be it.But then Shetty isn’t merely satisfied with making money-churners, he also wants to appear as a conscientious man. So, in the midst of his casual Islamophobia – he’ll throw in an upper-class Muslim cop called Kabir Malik (Sidharth Malhotra). His middle name could very well be Greater Kailash – such is the sophistication dripping from his Burberry shirts, aviators and hair that rarely looks out of place. With a Muslim cop dismissing ‘jihad’ as ch*tiyapa, and lines like “Islam tere baap ka hai?” (Do you own Islam?) – Shetty wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to showcase he’s aware that it’s a case of a few rotten apples, but also wants to do it while casting aspersions that most Muslims in India have to live with every day.In Shetty’s seven-part Indian Police Force, a seemingly ordinary Muslim family living in a locality called Ferozanagar, has a guest living with them called Haider (Mayankk Taandon). His real name is Zaraar (we’re later told) and he’s the mastermind of serial blasts that took place in Delhi recently. Shetty could’ve left it at just this – after all a stranger living in the house could be anyone. But Shetty also plants an elder in this seemingly ordinary Muslim family, the patriarch, Saeed (Lalit Parimoo), who is apparently a ‘sleeper agent’, helping Zaraar in his mission. We don’t have to dig deep to get to what Shetty is implying: most Muslim ghettos are embedded with terrorists and terrorist-sympathisers – a stance emphatically endorsed by we know who.Rohit Shetty has rarely been known for his nifty wit or nuanced observations. Like in Simmba (2018), his solution for rapes in society was to get muscular men to kill the alleged perpetrators. Due process be damned. Shetty is a huge supporter of the Indian police – considering his most lucrative projects have been woven around them (Singham, Simmba, Sooryavanshi). Therefore, he takes the convenient route of putting the department on a pedestal, implying: the department is not corrupt, it’s just a few cops. Just like the Muslims in his films/show – Shetty tries a balancing act, like it’s a chemistry equation. For every five ‘bad Muslim’ characters in the Indian Police Force, there’s a sincere, skull cap-wearing ‘saccha musalmaan’. For every radical, there’s a parent who won’t accept the body of a slain terrorist. The parent will also deliver a melodramatic monologue about how there’s no bigger betrayal than betraying one’s nation. The upper-class Muslim will slap a suspected terrorist in jail, saying how a few like them give a bad name to a whole qaum.It often makes me wonder, the role such films/shows play in contributing to and even escalating paranoia on a national scale. Or is it the other way round, such shows are watched on a national scale because of pre-existing paranoia. What it surely does is feed off each other. For filmmakers like Rohit Shetty, who are watched by crores of people, how responsible is that? Especially at a time when public discourse is plummeting fiercely and pop culture seems to be emulating widespread sentiments. On some level, Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (of Kashmir Files fame) and Sudipto Sen (of The Kerala Story fame) seem more honest, compared to Shetty. At least, they don’t try to obfuscate their derision for Muslims. It’s out there. Shetty on his part thinks because he’s planting a few decent Muslims, he’s somehow better than Agnihotri and Sen. A case could be made for why he’s not.There are plenty of other problems in the Indian Police Force too. I’m not even getting into the thinly-plotted missions, the garbage VFX to showcase terror attacks, the persistent slo-mo or the pedestrian acting (a constant in most of Shetty’s films), where volume means everything. As the cops go about their ‘covert operations’, Shetty spends literally zero minutes showing the planning stages of any of these operations. In a show with a runtime of nearly four hours, we don’t ever hear any character raising any eyebrow about the collateral damage or the death of the lower-ranked cops. But it’s only when a main character dies that Shetty summons the violins and tears. Almost as if these cops operate on Virender Sehwag’s “see ball, hit ball” strategy.During a climax, where the cops are trying to arrest someone on foreign soil (where they don’t have jurisdiction), Shetty makes the most indiscreet choice possible. He announces his star in a slow-motion shot, bracing himself for an easily avoidable public shoot-out. Like he usually does, Shetty chooses style over logic. There are a couple of songs (shot by Sneha Shetty Kohli) that are in the show, which makes me wonder if this was conceived as a film and later repurposed as a show? It’s more than clear that Shetty has no understanding of the rhythm of a web series. I’d like to venture a guess that Shetty thinks of web series as merely films with a longer duration.For better or worse, Indian Police Force plays out like a ‘mindless’ Rohit Shetty film. Not one extra grey cell seems to have been spent adjusting one’s style around a new format. There’s a good chance that such a show – which might sound like music to the champions of WhatsApp – might go on to do well. And if that happens, we might have to ask him about his social responsibility as a filmmaker. Shetty probably realises the consequences of his deliberate choices, and yet, chooses to be blinded by success and accolades. Or he’s comfortable instigating the enmity towards a group, his fellow citizens, to keep the fire in his kitchen burning. Either way, it’s a terrible look.This film ensures that he will be known as yet another filmmaker who profited from helping build an atmosphere of fear. Especially in an election year. We see you, Mr Shetty.
