Gangaajal

A new superintendent of police is posted to the Tezpur district of Bihar: Amit Kumar. There the police work at the disposal of politicians, the records are falsified, and nobody believes anything will change. Amit starts applying the law. But when the population loses patience something else happens: crowds seize suspects and pour acid into their eyes. Prakash Jha writes and directs. Ajay Devgn plays Amit Kumar. The event behind it is real. Between 1979 and 1980, police in Bhagalpur in Bihar blinded a large number of people in custody by pouring acid into their eyes. When it came out it produced a national argument in India and went to court. The title comes from that: Gangaajal means water of the Ganges, and the acid used in the case was known by that name locally. Jha builds his question on it. When justice does not function, is a population administering its own punishment comprehensible, or is it another collapse. The film shows both and does not side with the crowd. Prakash Jha was born in Bihar and most of his films are set there. Gangaajal is treated as the start of his return to political cinema. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian political cinema and hard drama drawn from real events. Who it is not for: the violence is shown directly and some scenes are staged to pull you toward the lynching. The film does not fully resolve that tension.