copyright 2025, Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media,
Jump Cut, No. 63, summer 2025

Underdogs in uniform: downplaying power hierarchy in a police state —
a realistic take on Visaranai and Nayattu

by Rakshit Kweera and Tushara Melepattu

Police-centric dramas are one of the most popular genres in Indian cinema. However, realistic depictions of lower-ranked police officers are hard to find. Looking to find such films, we found the contemporary Nayattu and Visaranai. Nayattu portrays three low-ranked police officers on the run whom the police framed for murder (which they didn’t commit) because of political pressure. Visaranai shows problems faced by migrant workers from two states, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, and by low-ranked officers forced to frame the migrants for crimes they didn’t commit. Both movies depict multiple perspectives on how sub-ordinate police officers/staff carry out the oppressive apparatus of the state, including their higher officials. Even though the scripts play out in different circumstances, both movies place emphasis on a callous system that unflinchingly gobbles up the same people who try to sustain it.

We attempt to understand how the cinematic representation of police officers legitimizes the role of the police as a state apparatus in the governance of people. We know that police specifically target those vulnerable sections of the population that the state deems “deviant or marginalized”, including racial, religious, and caste minorities. In the films we examine, we ask, “What happens when these categories come to represent the 'men/women in uniform’”? Textual analysis of the two films will chart out the social context and some coherent themes in each. We are also interested in understanding the semiotics about police at play in Indian cinema, especially in those films with a focus on the lower classes.

Policing in India

The tasks of policing have expanded with the increase in crimes and complexities that arise with the growth of mega-cities. In India, issues of security and governance have been paramount, and the police forces have not only used traditional power moves such as custodial tortures and preventive detentions but have also used new techniques such as surveillance technologies and crime-mapping software to secure their hegemonic power position among the citizens. The police thus legitimize the use of this kind of physical and hidden power for maintaining law and order and also for political and economic purposes, such as a neoliberal branding of the mega-cities as “investible” cities with secured gender spaces. Added to this is local political influence, where in day-to-day policing, we observe the bonding of local politicians and police officers, as they bypass procedures and resort to unjust mechanisms to favor close associates and unjustly frame innocents. For most people, the police state is visible, and police officers at various levels are seen as the primary agents of the state. In India, people’s political, social, and economic lives are affected by this police state.

The structures of the present Indian police can be traced historically to a peculiar combination of an already existing rural police system and a colonial model set up in the mid-nineteenth century, based on the Royal Irish Constabulary (Bayley, 2015). In 1861, the British instituted English-style policing in India with the passage of the Indian Police Act. The major roles of the Indian police then were to keep order, prevent crime, engage in surveillance of citizens, and control citizens (Shah, 1999). The same system survived even after India attained Independence in 1947. Under the Constitution of India, the subject of policing comes under the State List (Entry 2, List II, Schedule 7, Constitution of India, 1950), which allows for variation to exist across provinces. The primary role of police forces has been to uphold and enforce laws, investigate crimes and ensure security for people in the country. 

Indian cinema has captured the different layers of this police state. The representation has not only been vivid but also microscopic, where minute details of the day-to-day functioning of the police system are depicted. Police representation can be divided into two large categories. The first is the flamboyant hero cop wearing khaki, with a larger-than-life image, who becomes a saviour and eliminates social evils. In the last few decades in Bollywood (Hindi Regional Film Industry) and other regional-language cinemas, this genre has seen an upsurge. Thus, a study of 4000 Hindi films from 1970 to 2017 found that ‘honest police officer’ is one of the most common roles in Bollywood (Madaan et al., 2018). As a result, the police’s arbitrary exercise of power is glamorized as maintaining safety and security for citizens and city spaces. Also, extrajudicial mechanisms also enter the scripts, in which the cop is the harbinger of justice in a corrupt, political, and delayed judicial system. Some movies popular in this category are Commissioner (1994), Gangaajal (2003), Singham (2010), and Dabaang (2010).

The other category depicted across film industries in India is the brutal and corrupt face of the police state. Indian police carry a colonial burden of violence, unlawful detention, and overall unjust policing of the citizens. Every day in India, a police officer interacts with and sometimes confronts the community, and there is not often an amicable relationship between them. People see the police as serving the interests of the elite. Police suffer from this lack of trust but they also lack accountability to the citizens they serve (Verma & Subramanian, 2013). Discriminatory practices of the police often are in the news, acting against the lower castes, minority religious communities, women and sexual minorities. Subramanian says that the police regularly disrespect those in lower castes, who are largely poor, and at times engage in brutality against lower castes suspects but also against crime victims. Especially in minority communities, in cases of riots and conflicts, many people are falsely implicated (Subramanian, 2007).

Women suffer doubly: they not only have to deal with crime and social abuse but also harassment in police stations when they file complaints. Patriarchal beliefs about and perceptions of women among male police officers stand as a hindrance to justice being served in a timely and apt way. Indian police officers often fail to investigate rape and domestic violence cases and are hostile in their responses to women victims, thereby re-traumatizing survivors of abuse seeking help (Human Rights Watch, 2009). These instances of police corruption, violence, and injustice have been represented in movies such as Piravi (1989), Mouna Guru (2011), and Jai Bhim (2021), among others.

Agents of the police state as film characters

Not only do the common people suffer these injustices, but also low-ranked police officers. Because of power differentials in the hierarchical police system, some agents of the police state also become subject to oppression, mainly the low-ranked police. According to the Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D) reports, 86 per cent of the total police force consists of constabulary positions, 13 per cent includes upper subordinates like inspector, sub-inspector and assistant sub-inspector positions, and only 1 per cent includes officer rank positions that range from assistant/ deputy superintendent to director general of police.

Constables, who form the majority of Indian police officers, have a non-unionized, entry-level rank with low pay, often long hours, and difficult work (Lambert et al. 2015). The constabulary of the Indian police is understaffed and overburdened, which not only reduces the effectiveness and efficiency of the personnel but also leads to their psychological distress, which may contribute to various crimes the police commit (Chaturvedi, 2017; Verma, 2010). A career in the police is one of the most stressful professions in India. Officers are likely to encounter violent and disturbing situations, and they have to deal with confrontational citizens and unwilling suspects. Burnout among police officers happens often (Dowler, 2005). A study by Lambert et al. (2018) indicates that the factors that contribute to this burnout include job stress, lack of satisfaction or commitment. Long working hours, police station culture, politically shaped decision-making, and unexpected schedules adversely affect work-life balance and lead to work-family conflict and its positive correlation with job stress (Lambert et al., 2017). 

Films and, more recently, web series often depict the ordeals of low-ranked police officers. Some of the Hindi films that do so are Ardh Satya (1983), Shool (1999), and also web series such as Paatal Lok (2020) and Kohraa (2023) on OTT platforms. Ones that examine a constable or sub-inspector's ordeals and day-to-day interactions with the political system are smaller in Hindi cinema but a larger category in Mollywood (Malayalam Film Industry) and Kollywood (Tamil Film Industry). These regional productions present a realistic take on low-ranked police officers. Sometimes, the scripts develop a Constable/Inspector as the protagonist; then, the movie revolves around him, and as a minor theme, his real-life ordeals involve him with others. These regional productions represent a less-represented side of the police state, which remains hidden in the commercialized depiction of hyper-masculine, larger-than-life cops in Bollywood.

These regional productions take up many systemic themes:

• police torture and violence,
  
• caste-based discrimination within the police system,
  
• a corrupt criminal justice system,
  
• political influences in crime investigations,
  
• the power hierarchy and unjust supervision within the force,
  
• systemic stress,
  
• embedded local political pressure and influence,
  
• institutional corruption and influence in crime investigation,
  
• patriarchal and chauvinistic policing system,
  
• ordeals of women policemen,
  
• discriminatory work culture in stations, etc.

Our focus in this article will be specifically on the power hierarchy within the police system; caste, class, and gender-based discrimination; and unjust supervision. These issues are explicit and openly portrayed in two movies in particular: Visaranai (2015) and Nayattu (2021). Although based in different industries, both movies are our primary investigative texts. Media texts give us a possible insight into reality precisely because there is no simple, clear, and correct understanding of that reality. Here, we offer a textual analysis to put the text about the police into a context where we can make guesses about some likely interpretations of the elements within it.

Scapegoats in the hands of power:
Visaranai in the context of contemporary Tamil cinema

The rise of Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu during the 1960s and 1970s had a uniquely close connection to the cinematic space as well. In fact, the rise of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party was built on a symbiotic relationship between political leaders and film as a medium and industry. Dravidian parties took cinema seriously and used it as a tool of political mobilisation (Hardgrave, 1979). Sivathamby (1981) argues that in DMK-oriented films, actor and politician M. G. Ramachandran (MGR) was the chief star and film scripts were woven around his story. The film’s world of conflict exists as a world centred around the hero, and his personal emancipation symbolizes emancipation from the social evil depicted. MGR’s screen image as a saviour and origin in the subaltern classes then aided his political success.

In these decades, Dravidian cinema, with regional sentiments, ran high on intermediate and low-caste characters pitted against the upper-caste elites. Adding to this, the Dravidian cinema also focused on themes of social justice, highlighting various social issues such as caste dominance, class inequalities, and gender oppression. Tamil cinema, in general, has regularly focused on stories of the underprivileged and marginalized; nevertheless, Dalit-centric films have found relevance only in the last two decades or so.[1][open notes in new page]

“Dalits have historically been absent in Tamil cinema. In recent years, up-and-coming directors have been breaking new ground through their Dalit-centric films. These boundary-pushing directors have been making powerful political statements about marginality, atrocities and injuries endured by Dalits and Dalit liberation through film” (Velayutham & Devadas, 2022: 107).

In all the Tamil police-centered films, the character of a policeman is represented as a protector of ordinary citizens and a force against evil. Velayutham & Devadas (2022) argue that in Tamil CinemaScope (an anamorphic lens used for shooting widescreen films in the 1960s and 1970s), police-driven scripts re-establish the symbolic power of the police as a social institution to vent out corruption and restore trust in the system.  The moral crusader hero is often a police officer using strong violence to restore social order. In the late 1970s in Tamil Nadu, such police-centric dramas attempted to depict and restore the honour of the policing profession, which was tainted by widespread corruption. In the process, several films reinstated the image of a superhero cop, glorifying his lawless actions for rendering social justice.

This kind of depiction was followed by a contrasting type of script, called an “authentic social.” (David, 1983); in such a film, dysfunctional, despotic, and corrupt policemen are shown in plots based on real-life events. This has continued in Kollywood, with directors bringing in stories that portray the ordeals of low-ranked police officers and also state-citizen conflict. Director V. Chitravel Vetrimaaran has dealt with this subject in a lot of his films, where narrative realism prevails; these include Aadukalam (2011), Visaranai (2015), Asuran (2019), and Viduthalai (2023).

Visaranai (2015) emerges as a crucial movie of this type; the script dwells on caste and class discrimination among migrant labourers, and, at the same time, it presents honest, lower-ranking police officers as pawns. They climb the social order motivated by political goals. Visaranai (2015) is adapted from a biographical true-life account—Lock-Up: Jottings of an Ordinary Man—by a daily wage Dalit auto-rickshaw driver, M. Chandrakumar (2017). Visaranai’s plot mirrors Chandrakumar’s chronicle of his arrest on false charges. He was confined and tortured in a prison cell in Guntur for 15 days, after which he was jailed for five and a half months. The film also charts the precarious existence of four migrant Tamil workers—Pandi (Dinesh Ravi), Murugan (Aadukalam Murugadoss), Kumar (Pradeesh Raj) and Afsal(Silambarasan Rathnasamy). Apart from getting ad hoc menial day jobs, the men are largely homeless; they usually seek sleeping space in the local Gandhi Park in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur town.  There, the men fall easy prey to prowling police, who round up the migrants and lock them up in a local station jail cell. Easy targets, the beleaguered migrants are accused falsely of perpetrating burglary in a wealthy and high-profile individual’s home. They undergo a protracted ordeal of brutal torture at the station as the police go to great lengths to extricate forced confessions from them. However, when taken to court, they describe the actual occurrences to the judge.

Muthuvel (Samuthirakani), a Tamil Nadu police inspector, helps them go free by translating for them in court and vouching for them. Before the men can leave, Muthuvel enlists their help to kidnap a high-profile attendee named KK, appearing in the same court. In fact, Muthuvel's police team had come there unofficially to nab KK before he surrendered.

The kidnapping was masterminded by the Deputy Police Commissioner (DCP), under directions from the top brass of the ruling political party of the state, to use KK in court and take down the President of the opposition party since general elections are merely 5 months away. However, KK's lawyers inside the court closely watch Muthuvel's team. So, Muthuvel gives the four migrant workers the task of bringing KK out of the courthouse. Muthuvel's seniors use their influence to make the court police aid them, and KK is kidnapped by the four youths.
-----p. 2--------
 
The men are brought back to Coimbatore, and Kumar is dropped on the way to Chennai. Muthuvel asks the remaining three men to clean the police station before leaving, giving them a job as a helping hand to let them sustain themselves for a few days. KK is interrogated at the police station, and he dies; as a result, the Deputy Commissioner of Police and Muthuvel have a discussion to cover up the death as a suicide.

After the meeting, the DCP saw the workers Pandi and Afzal cleaning in an adjoining bathroom and suspected that they might have overheard the plan. To cover up, the police authorities decide to frame Pandi and his friends as convicts in a pending ATM robbery case and eliminate them under the cover of an encounter. Muthuvel, who feels responsible for the three men, is fed up with the corruption and immorality of the events that have transpired and initially refuses to cooperate, but he is coerced because of his deep involvement. During the staged encounter of the arrest of the migrant workers, Afzal is killed, causing Pandi and Murugan to run away. In the ensuing pursuit, Murugan is shot and killed.

Meanwhile, orders arrive from the DCP to tie up loose ends and eliminate Muthuvel as well. In the end, both Muthuvel and Pandi are dead.

Questions of survival:
the curious case of Nayattu in cop-centered Malayalam cinema

Malayalam films in the 1950s were the first among their counterparts in the southern industries to be critically described as socially realist films. Such films were hailed as “aesthetically superior” for “nationalist” realism, which focuses on the regions, their people and landscape, rather than on narrative realism, where the plot development takes over all the elements of the film. Such an approach also influenced political life, where, for example, E M S Namboodiripadon, the first Chief Minister of Kerala from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in his essays, endorsed a kind of art that would reflect ordinary people’s day-to-day life. The ideology Left progressive art in this period strove to

“valorise the working-class life and a simultaneous imagining of the toiling masses- the primary target audience [is] susceptible to 'false consciousness' which prevents them from realising their class interest, and which thus necessitates their 'awakening' through progressive art”.

Left-affiliated artists then, through the new popular cinema in the coming decades, targeted a mass audience, also known as the ‘rational subaltern’ audience in Kerala’s political landscape (Joseph, 2012: 29-32). 

In the 1980s, Malayalam cinema, known for its progressive content, was also hit by a wave of ‘hetero-patriarchal’ heroes donning khaki, speaking harshly, bashing the underworld mafia, lecturing strayed politicians and playing the role of ultimate saviour of the corrupt Malayali society. Getting roles as police officers became a must for the leading actors of the industry to achieve superstardom status. Koickakudy (2023), in his study of Malayalam cop movies in the last three decades, brings out some characteristics of the cops. He argues that there is a certain formula for creating a hero cop.

“A good cop has to have certain traits, including a fair complexion, upper class and well-dressed appearance with a built body and thick yet maintained moustache. In contrast, a bad cop is portrayed as a dark man with a crooked demeanour and unbuttoned uniform. On similar lines, a lower caste cop who is generally dark is shown as assisting the upper caste main hero (the senior cop). This is also true of the police characters from religious minorities, who are shown as dark and subordinate to upper-caste officers. Similarly, female police characters were objectified as they were being used to represent sexual connotations and purposely for the male gaze in the police station.  Female police officers as constables were represented as voluptuous and dark, speaking local dialects. In contrast, senior-ranked female police officers are shown to be English-speaking, lean, and fair, drawing a stark differentiation in the class and community they hailed from.”

That being said, in the last two decades, realistic police dramas and crime thrillers based on real-life incidents have been the most popular genre in the Malayalam film industry. Various new filmmakers are picking up real stories from the hinterlands in Kerala about sensational crimes, police investigation procedures, daily life struggles of cops, the relations between policing and politics, etc.[2] In an interesting development, real-life cops have turned into actors, directors, and screenwriters, also making this genre cinematically more realistic. Thus, Nayattu (2021) emerges as a movie which tries to break heroic stereotypes and gives a realistic understanding of things in the context of the police station and its daily affairs. This film was Martin Prakkat’s (Director of Nayattu) first stint in the cop genre. He has then ventured further by being the producer of Iratta (2023) and Officer on Duty (2025). In addition, the screenwriter of Nayattu, Shahi Kabir, has served as a police officer. He also wrote the scripts for Joseph (2018) and Officer on Duty (2025) and donned the hat of the director for Ela Veezha Poonchira (2022). All these movies are thrillers centred around the low-ranked police officers in Kerala.

Nayattu (2021) tells the struggles which Maniyan (Joju Goerge), Sunitha (Nimisha Sajayan), and Praveen (Kunchako Boban)—three police officers of lower rank—had to go through. Maniyan and Praveen confront Sunitha’s cousin, Biju, who was summoned to the police station for troubling Sunitha and her mother. They end up in a scuffle, and Biju is placed in the cell but released because of his Dalit identity, and he has political influence as well.

While the trio was returning from a wedding party, their vehicle collided with a motorcycle, killing the rider, who was later identified as Jayan, a close friend of Biju. Rahul, Maniyan’s nephew who was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident, goes into hiding, leaving the three responsible for the death of Jayan. The three flee to Munnar to seek asylum when they realise that they have been framed because of political pressure. The police find them, and during the chase, they find the young policeman Maniyan (who himself is a Dalit) hanging from a tree, leaving a video recording to his daughter saying that he is not a murderer. The police arrest the two and try to make Maniyan responsible for the accident and for the death of the Dalit youth Jayan.

Nayattu and Visaranai: textual analysis

The textual analysis is divided into two strands. First traces the style, including the distinct visual and aural choices that create a unique aesthetic, revealing the artistic intent beyond just the story itself. The other considers narrative, where the actual story unfolds, and through characters and stories, a picture of society is drawn. Vetrimaaran and Prakkat expertly use many stylistic elements. For our analysis of the police state and the ordeals of low-ranked police officers and the marginalized, we specifically focus on four stylistic elements which we found common to both films.

First is the use of realistic aesthetics of the night scene. Many old Malayalam films have shown night as a backdrop for fateful and tragic events. Here, in Nayattu, the accident where Jayan is killed also happens on the night after Praveen and Maniyan have been drinking alcohol at the wedding reception, which again connotes moral transgressions and portrays darkness in a negative light. In that vein, James and Pillai (2023) note that contemporary Malayalam cinema has (re)imagined darkness/night as mediated spaces that foster conviviality, which became clearly visible after Kumbalangi Nights (2019). In that context, Prakkat also uses night as a medium of conflict and bonding in his films; for example, the film Charlie (2015) portrays the protagonist’s fascinating friendship with Suni (Soubin Shahir), Kani (Aparna Gopinath), and Mary (Kalpana) against the backdrop of Kochi’s winter nights. In this case, in Nayattu, the night is chosen as a stylistic element; here, the accident occurs, and conflict and then bonding develops between the three. Night, as a temporal and spatial realm, serves as a refuge for the three policemen.

In Visaranai as well, the night is a stylistic element. In the initial part of the movie, the three migrants are caught and brought to the police station in the early hours of the day when there is still darkness and the streets are empty; the institutional murder of KK and the staging of his suicide are also carried out in the late-night hours. Then, the long climax scene takes place at night when the three are brought to a home to frame them in a robbery case; we see the clock show 2:30 am. Outside, Afsal is shot dead by Ramesh, and the other two men hide in a weedy marshland. Finally, in the closing scene, the screen fades to black, and we hear the non-diegetic sound of two gunshots fired by policemen Chandran from a distance at a staged encounter of Muthevel and Pandi.

Another stylistic aesthetic comes into play in the realistic depiction of the police station, which is different in Nayattu and Visaranai.

In Visaranai, we see the Ramakrishna police station in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, when the three migrants are brought to the station for the first time. They are beaten with a pink stick by the police officer in an open space just after entering the police station. The power implication of the space is stylistically highlighted since the officer doesn’t ask any questions or take them to a different room inside the police station for flogging. We see the inside areas, such as cells, torture rooms, inspectors’ rooms, etc. and the outside spaces, such as toilets, compounds, roofs, etc. These shots not only give a spatial understanding of the police station but also the interaction between the police officers and the citizens in these spaces. The stylized depiction of the jail gives us a social picture of low-ranked police officers and their day-to-day functioning in the background. All that is presented, while the foreground action is the torture of the migrants.  The Ramnagar police station in Chennai, with air-conditioned chambers, is shown in the second section of Visaranai. KK is tortured, and discussions take place in various rooms of the police station, which Vetrimaaran once more uses as an artistic element.

Third, in Nayattu and the movies of Prakkat/Kabir, the emphasis is on the background story and the psychological state of the main characters. Here, Maniyan and his ordeals are emphasized through close shots, body posture and facial expressions as the film traces his background and family story. This is also visible in another film, Charlie, directed by Prakkat, which develops a theme of the cop’s male anxiety, uncommon in hero cop movies. Here, close-ups of CI Maniyan show different levels of anxiety and fear as the narrative develops.

Also, in Vetrimaaran's use of stylistic devices in Visaranai, close-ups of Inspector Nageswar Rao and Muthuvel convey apprehension and fear. After receiving a reprimand from his superior to end the case, Nageshwar Rao nervously considers the hardships he should face if he fails to do well. Similarly, Muthuvel sees KK die in his custody; his close-ups of smoking cigarettes and weak body language show his reactions.

Fourth is the use of sequence shots in crucial movements of the films as a stylistic technique to give a sense of the lived realities of all the characters. Gopalan (2002) stresses that the Indian film industry, “despite its laments about state control, has been preoccupied with the withdrawal-of-the-camera technique as a crucial source of surplus pleasure.” Perhaps not for viewing pleasure, Visaranai and Nayattu utilize persistent views of the police stations to capture the entire event in totality within the normal day-to-day functioning. For instance, in Visaranai, the scene where Nageshwar Rao lies to the migrants that he is releasing them, and when they get food in the hotel outside, he catches them again and starts his torture with higher intensity. This a prolonged event to give a realist narrative about police brutality at work. The same style—a lengthy sequence without breaks—is used for the climax, which continues to give a realistic portrayal of how the various police officers behave when forced to frame innocent people and fabricate interactions.

In Nayattu, Biju and his pals arriving at the police station, Biju and Maniyan fighting, and Biju’s subsequent lock-up are shown all in one sequence, in which the various characters' reactions and the spaces' are artistically depicted through a variety of camera angles. Additionally, the climax does the same. Here, Officer Anuradha learns of the three's hiding place and follows them until they discover Maniyan hanged. In this scene, the camera continuously switches between Maniyan, Praveen, and Anuradha as their rage and frustration with the system become more apparent.

Following this quick examination of visual style, we want to return our focus to the implicit narratives embedded in both the movies. Using textual analysis of Visaranai and Nayattu, we examine and evaluate the narrative framing of concepts. Here, we use Erving  Goffman's framing theory (1974) to analyze the film’s depiction of criminal investigation processes and their potential relation to the validity of evidence. Goffman's frame analysis leads us to look at how members of a criminal investigative team (re)construct crimes, how they search in certain directions, how they handle contradicting material, and how they sustain belief in their (re)construction (Salet, 2017). The plots of both films discussed in this article deal with the system’s construction of evidence to frame the innocent, especially by using coercion, power, and social status; the films thus dissect the political and cultural hegemony shaping the police system.

At the beginning of Nayattu, higher authorities assign Maniyan the duty of framing a youngster for a non-bailable offence. The night before, the lad had gone to his girlfriend's house to offer her a present. Since the girl is the minister's daughter, the boy must be framed to protect the minister's family and reputation. “Even thugs are free to accept or reject such orders, but we don't,” Maniyan tells Praveen as they head to the minister's house to frame the youngster. Maniyan goes to the minister’s house, puts petrol in the window and then makes him sign the statement: “‘the boy broke into our house last night and tried to kill all of us by putting fire in the house. He did this due to a property dispute.” This way he frames the innocent in a non-bailable offence.

The four migrant Tamil workers in Visaranai are charged with breaking into the home of a senior official and stealing ten million rupees. The inspector and the station's constables torture the migrant laborers until they agree to the crime. After that, each of them is brought to the crime site to make up their role in how the heist was carried out. After escorting them to the house, inspector-in-charge Narayan Rao and his staff explain each person's involvement in the heist. Presumably, they broke in, choked the owner, stole the safe's keys, and then fled with the money. This fake reenactment would ensure they don’t mess up things when in court, and the magistrate cross-questions them for minute details of the crime.
-------p. 3------

These film plots show how hierarchy plays a vital role in the police system in India. Following orders from the seniors is not only a duty but sometimes compulsory for the lower constabulary. Harassment by the seniors using abusive slurs is common. For example, Praveen, a Civil Police Officer (CPO)[3] in Nayattu, requests a leave of absence from his senior inspector-in-charge because he needs to take his sick mother to an urgent medical examination. His senior denies him the leave, citing impending elections, but abuses him, too. Praveen baffled, tells his senior, ‘If you can’t grant me leave, say that you don’t have to abuse me’. They then have a short argument about it.

Similar to this, Inspector Nageshwar Rao in Visaranai is persistently pressured by his higher officer to wrap up this well-known case. When he has to explain the case's status and the reasons behind his inability to close it, the senior officer publicly humiliates and chastises him, requesting that he frame the migrants and end the matter right away. Such behavior is common, as discussed in a 2018 report on the Status of Policing in India observes harassment by seniors, dissatisfaction with the job and lack of professional growth in the Indian Police (Common Cause & Lokniti, 2018). Such harassment happens not only to lower ranks such as constables and SI, but also to senior police officials like DSPs (Deputy Superintendent of Police), SPs (Superintendent of Police), and others, who are subjected to daily harassment by their superiors, such as DIGs (Deputy Inspector General) and DGPs (Director General of Police).

In this way, Superintendent Anuradha, the Crime Branch Lead in Nayattu, is responsible for apprehending the fugitive police officers implicated in killing a young Dalit person. After much searching, the squad eventually finds the three of them in the border village of Idukki, which is under Anuradha's leadership. She guarantees the DGP that all three will be captured by her squad that same day. But when her crew went after them, they discovered Maniyan hanged in an abandoned structure. When DGP learns of this, he chastises Anuradha, declares that he will not accept blame for the rogue cop’s passing and holds her accountable. Additionally, he advises the other local officers not to assist her in this hunt. The abuse makes her irate and disgusted with the system for which she works. A junior officer to Anuradha even says that that dead man's fate is not far from ours.

Muthuvel, too, turns into a pawn in the conflict between the opposition party and the ruling government in Visaranai. The Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) pursues him as he attempts to apprehend KK, force the rebel to confess to the crime and identify that man’s accomplices. To do this, Muthuvel and his group must travel from Chennai to Guntur and work nonstop. His superiors repeatedly reprimand and abuse him despite his attempts. This narrative draws on social reality, since many Indian police officers work more than 10 hours on their scheduled days and can be called into work if and when the need arises (Selokar et al. 2011).

Fundamentally, Visaranai and Nayattu address the extent of injustice and ordinary verbal and physical abuse that the oppressed endure at the hands of the dominant, who wield hierarchy as a deadly weapon. Despite narrating crime and policing in two distinct social, linguistic, and cultural contexts, both films address the paradigm in how the characters' caste is portrayed. The narratives developed in both plots illuminate the process by which the hunters turn into the hunted. In that way, these crime films illustrate a paradigm change. That is, even though many films have been made in southern India to address Dalit socioeconomic issues, most of them were quite subdued and quiet. Even in the recent depiction of lower-order police officials, especially in current Malayalam cinema, these cop characters are timid, subservient and submissive.

In contrast, in Nayattu, Maniyan is characterized as having charm and respect for his uniform. He finally falls prey to the brutal reality of caste and social order, sacrificing his life out of embarrassment and self-agony. In his depiction, for the past 20 years, Maniyan, a Dalit, has been employed by the Kerala Police as an ASI (Assistant Sub Inspector). Maniyan even brags to his coworkers about his daughters’ creative accomplishments because he is proud of them. We see that he cares about his family and aspires to always be a well-respected and proud father. He is conscious of his Dalit identity as well as the problem of Dalit identity in Kerala politics and the need for police to handle Dalit suspects with extreme caution. In this way, Maniyan, Praveen, and Sunitha consider the Dalit issue when they discuss their options after Maniyan's nephew hits Jayan, and the three of them are on the run. Maniyan, who has the experience, advises them that they shouldn’t obey their seniors or surrender since "now they will be framed as the person who died in the hospital is a Dalit like me." His Dalit identity and the sensitivity of Dalits toward Kerala electoral politics, where neither their police force nor the ruling government can defend them, give this cop’s comment a deeper resonance.

Later, when the three are hiding in Idukki, Maniyan’s agony increases when he reads a newspaper headline: “Dalit Youngster’s Death: Students Youth Festival Dream Shattered.” Finally, he cannot handle the pressure of being framed as a murderer in the eyes of his daughter and ends his life by hanging himself. He records a dying declaration video on his phone:

“That car was mine, but I wasn’t driving it that day; my sister’s son was driving it. Those innocents were just travelling with me; my daughter shouldn’t live as a murderer’s daughter, and the court should consider this declaration and investigate this case truthfully. Those innocents should be acquitted. I am ending this.” Such an ending is not a fantasy. Indian police officers have one of the highest casualty rates of police in the world (Verma, 2010).

Similarly, despite Muthuvel's empathy and respect for human life, he was influenced by the corrupt nature of the system and had to support his superiors' wrongdoings. On multiple occasions, his senior officers target Muthuvel as a Dalit officer, reminding him of his identity. He even collaborates with his superiors in acts of framing. Muthuvel, the ACP, the DCP, and other police personnel in the station talked about how to approach the problem of KK's murder. According to the DCP, he himself was given 30 million for implicating KK in the investigation, and they also needed to apprehend KK’s foreign associates. Meanwhile, the DCP finds out that the migrants, Pandi and Afsal, might have overheard them while cleaning the washroom next to the discussion room. Since they would be a menace to the police in the future, all of the other cops made the decision to kill them.

Since he brought them here and used them as pawns in KK's fictitious out-of-court arrest, Muthuvel disagrees with them and believes he bears moral responsibility for them. The ACP becomes enraged, mistreats Muthuvel, and accuses the low-caste quota candidates of being incompetent. Because he is from a lower caste, the ACP makes fun of both his caste identity and his qualifications as a capable police officer. Muthuvel, unlike Maniyan, sinks in the climax, realizing that he was a part of the game plan made for the innocent laborers.

Police engage in discriminatory practices against both men and women of lower castes (Lambert et al. 2014), but what happens to the women in uniform? In Nayattu, Sunitha Krishnan works at the police station as a Women’s Civil Police Officer or WCPO. She breaks a stereotype of women officers in cinema and is portrayed as independent and assertive of her rights without being just an assistant to the male officer. She must overcome many obstacles to get to work and dispel the myths about a female police officer.

Biju, Sunitha's relative, has long been causing problems for Sunitha and her mother. He was summoned to the police station since she had filed a complaint there. Biju, the leader of the local youth party, is a boisterous criminal who has no fear of the law. He gets into a small argument with Maniyan and Praveen at the police station and is imprisoned as a result. His supporters and friends from the party’s youth wing make it an issue to try to threaten the police. The SP orders Biju to be released from the cell, stating that it is a caste vote issue. Sunitha then faces more issues when she is on the run with Praveen and Maniyan, as Biju is directly related to their predicament, and he will create lots of trouble for her family.

In Visaranai, too, the newly joint, low-ranked women police officer Sindhu has to be taught how to be part of the system. She worries about the interrogation of the migrant workers, to which a senior police officer explains she will get used to it. In fact, the status of migrants itself plays an important role in the film. Devasundaram (2018) uses the framework of Agamben’s state of exception while analyzing Visaranai and to discuss the migrant workers and the police station as a spatio-carceral state of exception. He focuses on the brutal police torture and violence inflicted on the migrants, whom he considers the film subalterns, entrapped in a third space:

“the men inhabit a volatile space of undecidability that hangs between the exteriority of the outside world (the civic and political space), and the interiority of the police station precincts. They are implicated not only within the station’s physical contours but in the contravention of the police station’s conceived or imagined spatial purpose—as a sanctuary for justice and a refuge from crimes, injustices and misdemeanours” (Devasundaram, 2018: 262).

In the police station, Pandi, Murugan, Kumar, and Afsal are the easiest targets for the authorities to frame as suspects in a high-profile heist; they are made the guilty party and forced to commit a crime they never did. The violence persists even after they go to Chennai with Muthuvel's assistance. They must clean the police station there, and when they pose a threat, they are shot dead. There are innumerable examples of recorded cases of custodial deaths since the time India attained independence. However, as a political issue, the human rights of prisoners and the protection of lower-ranked officers do not come up much in social discourse involving the state. However, an incident occurred in the same Tamil Nadu when the nation woke up to the news of the death of a son and a father who were beaten to death while allegedly kept under police custody at Sathankulam in Thoothukudi district. The father and the son were arrested for the crime of keeping their mobile accessories shop open during a lockdown period. Among the southern states, Tamil Nadu has the highest incidences of custodial deaths (Deeksha, 2024).

In general, political influence over policing in India is well established, and the higher police officials are at the mercy of the politicians for transfer postings (Bayley, 1983). In the films under question, political power is made clear when Maniyan's nephew's jeep strikes Jayan in Nayattu. Biju's friend Jayan, a Dalit guy, is a member of the party's influential youth section. The ruling party's youth wing head, Mr Joshy Mathew, calls Maniyan and informs him that the CM is putting a lot of pressure on him and has requested the superintendent bring charges against the three cops. They flee after hearing this. In Idukki, they eventually find refuge in a border village where Maniyan knew the individual who had previously worked with him on a case.

In this way, political issues specifically enter the plot. Due to the upcoming by-election and the widespread media coverage of a Dalit person's death, this case gained significant attention. The ruling party has a bad reputation as a result of this. In order to increase their prospects of victory, the CM also consulted his experts, who recommended that the case be resolved the day before the by-election. The DGP is thus under pressure from the CM to resolve this matter. In order to show the media that they have apprehended the criminals and that the party is Dalit-sensitive, the CM and DGP arrange a sham arrest on the promise that Officer Anuradha will apprehend the three of them the day before the by-election. The film thus reflects common social attitudes toward the police, who are often perceived as acting more to protect government interests, high-level officials, and other elite individuals (Nalla & Madan, 2013).

When Maniyan hangs himself and is discovered dead, things take a bad turn. Even after being apprehended and taken to Kerala, Praveen and Sunitha are subsequently compelled to testify that Maniyan hanged himself in prison. They both reject doing that, so the officer interrogating says they would be helping all of the police officers involved in this case. He says since the government is involved, the department cannot help them as it cannot act against the government in power.

Similarly, in Visaranai, the political influence in both cases is evident. In the first part, where the migrants are to be framed in the burglary case, governmental pressure wants to close the case since it involves a senior official. The policemen are also given a free hand to torture them. Violence that benefits politicians in power is often not investigated rigorously afterwards. In return, politicians shield the police for their misdeeds (Verma, 2010). In the later part of the film, when Muthuvel and his team catch KK, who is an auditor for the opposition party, the ruling government wants to frame him, and the opposition wants to keep him from speaking up. The DCP sides with the ruling government and is also considering a heavy bribe to frame KK. Conversely, the ACP thinks that the opposition has a high chance of winning the election and that the police should side with them in KK’s case.

Conclusion

Nayattu and Visaranai have narratives that refer to a dark side of social reality, where the spectators are left with pessimism and guilt and a steadily growing dislike of the political system they live in. These movies are prototype examples that focus on the futility of a system driven by a thirst for power that ideally should protect and preserve the interests of citizens. Both movies, with their focus on social justice and marginalized communities, have provided a platform for the representation of Dalit, migrant, and gender-based experiences, struggles, and aspirations, providing visibility to historically marginalized communities. They also bring to light the issue of custodial violence in the police stations and how the state apparatus augments it.

The functioning of the police system in India is deeply dependent on the vital role played by hierarchy. Within the structured chain of command and order, instances of harassment and abuse within the system have been omnipresent throughout the years, affecting officers’ mental and physical health, as substantiated by the surveys and studies stated in the article. In understanding the actual state of affairs, it is important to view police-community relations not as distinct from the state but as a part of a longer history of hierarchy in the police system in India, which supports the state in normalising harassment and abuse in colonial as well as post-independence times. Lastly, the political influence in policing is shown as coming from highest authority in the state to interferences in small cases that may have larger implications. The realistic representation of caste-based violence, custodial violence, hierarchy in the system, and political influence in policing in Nayattu and Visaranai tells us much about the other side of the police state in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Cinema provides an eye-opener for the socio-political reality of the present times.

Notes

References

Bayley, D. H. (2015). Police and political development in India (Vol. 2307). Princeton University Press.

Bayley, D. H. (1983). The police and political order in India. Asian Survey, 23(4), 484-496.

Chandrakumar, M. (2017). Lock-Up: Jottings of an Ordinary Man. New Delhi: Tranquebar Press.

Chaturvedi, A. (2017). Police reform in India. PRS Legislative Research. https://www.prsindia.org/sites/default/files/parliament_or_policy_pdfs/Police%20Reforms%20in%20India.pdf. Accessed June 10, 2023.

Common Cause and Lokniti. (2018). Status of policing in India report 2018—A study of performance and perceptions. NewDelhi: Common Cause & Lokniti -Centre for the Study Developing Societies (CSDS).

Constitution of India. (1950). Constitution of India, Entry 2, List II, Schedule 7. New Delhi: Government of India.

David C. R. W. (1983). Cinema as Medium of Communication in Tamil Nadu. Chennai: The Christian Literature Society.

Devasundaram, A. I. (2018). The Subaltern Screams: Migrant Workers and the Police Station as Spatio-Carceral State of Exception in the Tamil Film Visaranai. In Indian Cinema Beyond Bollywood (pp. 257-280). Routledge.

Dowler, K. (2005). Job satisfaction, burnout, and perception of unfair treatment: The relationship between race and police work. Police Quarterly, 8(4), 476-489.

Garland, B., Lambert, E. G., Hogan, N. L., Kim, B., & Kelley, T. (2014). The relationship of affective and continuance organisational commitment with correctional staff occupational burnout: A partial replication and expansion study. Criminal justice and behavior, 41(10), 1161-1177.

Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press.

Gopalan, L. (2002). Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema. London: British Film Institute Publishing.

Hardgrave, R. (1979). When Stars Displace the Gods: The Folk Culture of Cinema in Tamil Nadu. In Essays in the Political Sociology of South India,edited by Robert Hardgrave, 92–124. New Delhi: Manohar.

Human Rights Watch (2009) Broken System Dysfunction, Abuse, and Impunity in the Indian Police. Bengaluru, India: Human Rights Watch.

James, R., & Pillai, M. P. (2023). Rethinking Darkness: Night, Malayalam Cinema and Kumbalangi Nights. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 1-20.

Johanna, D. (2024, July 08). The Tamil Nadu police’s brutal violence against the state’s weakest citizens. Scroll. https://scroll.in/article/1068691/the-tamil-nadu-polices-brutal-violence-against-the-states-weakest-citizens. Accessed January 10, 2024.

Joseph, J. (2012). Revisiting Neelakkuyil: On the Left’s Cultural Vision, Malayali Nationalism and the Questions of ‘Regional Cinema. Thapasam: A Bilingual Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies of Kerala.

Koickakudy, M. J. (2023). Khaki on Screen: Understanding the Representation of Cops in Malayalam Cinema. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 1-17.

Lambert, E. G., Qureshi, H., Frank, J., Klahm, C., & Smith, B. (2018). Job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment and their associations with job burnout among Indian police officers: A research note. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 33, 85-99.

Lambert, E. G., Qureshi, H., Frank, J., Keena, L. D., & Hogan, N. L. (2017). The relationship of work-family conflict with job stress among Indian police officers: A research note. Police Practice and Research, 18(1), 37-48.

Lambert, E. G., Qureshi, H., Hogan, N. L., Klahm, C., Smith, B., & Frank, J. (2015). The association of job variables with job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment among Indian police officers. International Criminal Justice Review, 25(2), 194-213.

Madaan, N., Mehta, S., Agrawaal, T., Malhotra, V., Aggarwal, A., Gupta, Y., & Saxena, M. (2018, January). Analyze, detect and remove gender stereotyping from bollywood movies. In Conference on fairness, accountability and transparency (pp. 92-105). PMLR.

McKee, A. (2001). A beginner's guide to textual analysis. Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine, (127/128), 138-149.

Nalla, M. K., & Madan, M. (2013). Citizens’ perceptions of police integrity in India: An empirical exploration. Crime and justice in India, 129-154.

Natarajan, M. (2014). Police culture and the integration of women officers in India. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 16(2), 124-139.

Prakatt, M. (Director). (2021). Nayattu [Film]. Gold Coin Motion Picture Company; Martin Prakkat Films.

Sahgal, P. (2007). Gender discrimination: Beliefs and experiences: A comparative perspective of women and men in the Delhi police. Journal of international women's studies, 9(1), 135-152.

Salet, R. (2017). Framing in criminal investigation: How police officers (re)construct a crime. The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles. 90 (2), 128-142.

Selokar, D., Nimbarte, S., Ahana, S., Gaidhane, A., & Wagh, V. (2011). Occupational stress among police personnel of Wardha city, India. The Australasian medical journal, 4(3), 114.

Shah, G. (1999). History of organization of Indian police. Anmol Publications, New Delhi.

Sivathamby, K. 1981. The Tamil Film as a Medium of Political Communication. Madras: New Century Book House Pvt. Ltd.

Subramanian, K. S. (2007). Political violence and the police in India. SAGE Publications India.

Velayutham, S., & Devadas, V. (2022). Tamil Nadu Politics and Tamil Cinema: A Symbiotic Relationship?. Society and Culture in South Asia, 8(1), 96-117.

Verma, A. (2010). The new khaki: The evolving nature of policing in India. CRC press.

Verma A, Subramanian K. (2013). Understanding the police in India. LexisNexis, Haryana

Vetrimaaran. (Director). (2016). Visaranai [Film]. Wunderbar Films; Grass Root Film Company.