2025-04-18 00:30:00

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In Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, a young childless widow realises that the death of her husband (a police constable) in a religious riot takes away her independence, the government quarters that were allotted to them and the world she had built with him. Neither that adept in living with her in-laws nor used to the constant bickering at her maternal house, she takes up her husband’s designation (Aashrit quota where a family member of the deceased gets employment in their department) in the Uttar Pradesh Police and in doing so, she comes face to face with an institution so deeply entrenched in violence, brutality and prejudice that it changes the way she looks at things and life. Also not helping her case is the fact that all of this happens in the hinterland, where cobblers write FIRs before the police does and malpractices are rampant. Santosh struggles to find her space in her new job as one of the approximately 12% representation that her gender finds in the Indian Police Force. This changes when her superior (a man who suggests Santosh to help his wife in household chores) is replaced by a woman called Geeta (a brilliant Sunita Rajwar playing a role that is a rarity for popular Hindi cinema). While it is interesting and liberating that there is a no-nonsense powerful girlboss (notorious for extrajudicial killings) who takes Santosh under her wing, the film takes it upon itself to show how institutionalised power corrupts everyone, regardless of gender. Queer character or shared womanhood? Underlying all of this is the queer character of the film, which stems from Geeta towards Santosh. In taking Santosh under her wing, she tries making Santosh more like herself and in succeeding to do so, she brings Santosh so close to the realities of the Police force that Santosh decides to leave her job. In one scene, Geeta sees Santosh’s bare nose piercing and adorns it with a stud. In another scene, she tells her, ‘Tere saath wale tujhe policewala maante hi nahin (Your colleagues do not think of you as a cop)‘, almost as if she takes it upon herself to get Santosh to the point of being taken more seriously. When she sees that Santosh does not have proper jogging gear, she gifts her a tracksuit. In other films and shows about two female cops, like Netflix’s Delhi Crime and Soni, there is a shared womanhood in a very masculine space–in the latter, the poised, more experienced superior gives the robust junior Amrita Pritam’s autobiography Raseedi Ticket. She tells her the story behind the name of the book–how another celebrated author Khushwant Singh from Punjab told Pritam that her life was so insignificant that it could be written on the back of a revenue stamp ticket. And how Pritam took that as a challenge. ‘Sab nahin toh kuch sawaalo ke jawaab mil jaayein shayad (If not all, this will answer some of your questions)‘, she says to Soni, who has issues dealing with her anger and disdain towards toxic masculinity and the society. In the acclaimed Delhi Crime, which became the first Indian series to receive the award for Best Drama Series at the 2020 International Emmy Awards, DCP Vartika Chaturvedi gets Neeti Singh on board to help her catch the culprits of the 2012 Delhi Rape Case. A lot like Santosh, she takes her under her wing, but maintains strict professional boundaries. In a scene where Vartika is overwhelmed with the gravitas of the case, Neeti puts her hand on Vartika’s back to comfort her. Vartika shrugs her off, as if to show that even while looking for one another in sisterhood and humanity, the code of conduct of her profession cannot be compromised. In Santosh, on the other hand, the focus is on the follies of the system, on police brutality and dingy abandoned houses where Muslim ‘culprits’ are inflicted to violence and prejudice until they give in or give up. It’s also important to note that the queerness is limited to Geeta, Santosh is just the channel where she sees an opportunity to exercise her sexuality in the rural hinterland, even if the power dynamics and workplace ethics are grey areas. What is remarkable is that Santosh does not give in to the power imbalance—she takes a step back when Geeta tries kissing her, even if it might mean losing Geeta’s mentorship. Queer cops on screen: Aarya and Paatal Lok Queerness in the police department is explored in Aarya and Paatal Lok as well. In the former, Aarya’s archnemesis, ACP Khan is Muslim gay man. Khan is in a relationship with a Hindu man named Ajay and every time his mother comes to stay with him, his boyfriend has to leave. ‘Is baar bhi ammi se nahin milwaoge (I won’t get your mother this time around as well)?’, his boyfriend asks him, as if he doesn’t already know the answer. Throughout the show, he struggles to take out time for his relationship and his relationship is always one missed date or birthday away from crumbling. His sombre colleague also seems to have an understanding of the nature of his relationship when Ajay brings him dinner to the Police station. In the second season of Paatal Lok, the audience is shocked by a plot twist that involves another Muslim IPS, Imran Ansari coming out as a gay man. His former boss and current subordinate Hathiram Chaudhary, even as he does not really understand his sexuality tells him to not care what he or anyone else thinks. Both Ansari and Khan are conventionally masculine men (even as the former is more tender a person) who happen to be gay in an occupation that is not very accepting of divergence of any kind. Geeta on the other hand is a strange beast–as grey as the titular Santosh and reminds one of the fact that oppressive institutions, at the end of the day, are made of people we know. That a lot of queer people make part of the Police forces–and they need nuanced representation in films and shows even if it makes the audiences uncomfortable. In Payal Kapadia’s documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, a policewoman about to inflict violence on protesting students is humanised by the protagonist L. Her life outside of her occupation is taken into account and the viewers are forced to see beyond binaries, into the grey area that most things occupy. And how institutions mingle with one another to create complex situations that are tough to navigate for human brains with beating, sympathetic hearts. The question remains–how do oppressive forces go back to their mundane families at the end of the day? The nuances of queer representation in Santosh The film ends as Geeta and her team are held responsible for the extrajudicial killing of a Muslim man. Geeta takes up the blame on herself, even at the cost of her job. She tells Santosh, ‘Iss desh mein do tarah ki chooa-chhoot hoti hai, ek woh jise koi chhoona nahin chahata aur ek woh jise koi choo nahin sakta‘. All of this happens in a dingy bar with Geeta wearing a saree, sipping beer and even as Santosh decides to leave her job, she leaves it with a lesson for a lifetime. That some people are voluntarily untouched while some cannot be touched. We never know if Geeta is married, or has kids. She smokes, blasts retro music in the jeep and is queer, even if she is part of a system that hates her very kind among many others.