Several aspects of Vedaa, a violent caste oppression thriller directed by Nikkhil Advani from a screenplay by Aseem Arrora, sets it apart from run-of-the-mill Bollywood action movies. That is not to say it does not have its share of cliches. But it does by and large also have its heart in the right place. Vedaa puts a persecuted young Dalit woman at the heart of the narrative and follows her all the way to the bitter end. That is an undeniably big deal for a mainstream Bollywood film that has lead actor John Abraham on board as one of the producers. It is noteworthy that he not only grants a generous amount of screen space to his female co-star, Sharvari, but also concedes the film's title to the character essayed by her.
Also somewhat unusual is the fact that the pugnacious eponymous figure, even when she has to rely on a tough-as-nails soldier-turned-boxing coach for cover fire, does not shy away from jumping into combat.
She fights to demand her fundamental right - equality and dignity. She is a student of law and swears by the Constitution of India but not everything that she does is strictly by the book.
In the light of the heinous crimes that are committed against her and her family, her survival strategy might not look as hard to digest as it does at first flush. The girl has her back to the wall and is, therefore, compelled to play by the rules laid down by the men who hound her out of her village.
That apart, its commendable principal purpose notwithstanding, Vedaa falls into the trap of kicking off, no matter how fleetingly, with Kashmir, POK and terrorism to establish the bravery and heroism of an army officer who goes beyond his brief on an extraction mission.
The seeds of this construct can be sourced from two other Nikkhil Advani films, D-Day (2013) and Batla House (2019), both of which were inspired by true events or by real characters. The former had a suspended army officer as a key character while the latter addressed the enormous pressures that city police officers have to deal with in the course and in the aftermath, of an anti-terror operation.
Vedaa, too, is based on actual events - killings of inter-caste couples ordered by kangaroo courts in the boondocks of north India. But the realities that the film seeks to bring to the big screen is considerably diluted by its over-dependence on the tropes of the genre that it adopts in order to tell its essential and urgent story of caste oppression.
The out-of-work soldier and the grievously wronged Dalit girl who knows her rights but is thwarted and victimised at every step make common cause against the village head, his henchmen and the police. They respond to the violence that they are subjected to with more violence.
The terror in Vedaa originates from across, and on, the border as well as from within a shockingly lopsided power structure in a lawless village where the police force does the bidding of a man who follows no rules although he pretends to be progressive when it suits him.
The male protagonist, Major Abhimanyu Kanwar (John Abraham), is a man with a tragic past. He takes down a wanted terrorist in Kashmir in violation of his commanding officer's order. It turns out that there is a personal angle to the hatred that he harbours for the militant he is told to capture alive. Abhimanyu pays a heavy price for his impulsive act: he is dismissed from the army.
As silent as the pictures on the wall, the soldier heads back to his wife's village in Rajasthan's Barmer district, where his father-in-law finds him a job as an assistant boxing coach in the local college. Abhimanyu does not fit in. He watches from close quarters the horrors of the caste divide at play.
When Vedaa Bairwa (Sharvari), a girl from a lower caste family, expresses the desire to be a boxer, she is handed a bucket and a mop to clean the arena. But she refuses to give up. Her persistence upsets the mighty, especially Suyog (Kshitij Chauhan), younger brother of the village head Jitendra Pratap Singh (Abhishek Banerjee).
Abhimanyu sees the fire in her belly and takes Vedaa not just under his tutelage but also his protection. Another act of courage for which he has hell to pay. He does not flinch. He is determined to ensure that Vedaa reaches the high court to appeal for justice.
There is more trouble in store for Vedaa because her elder brother is in love with an upper-caste girl. When matters go out of hand, she is left with no option but to flee the village with her tormentors in pursuit and Abhimanyu by her side.
Earlier in the film, the sceptical Abhimanyu asks Vedaa: Court jaakar kya milega (What purpose will appealing to the court serve)? You expect her to assert that legal aid would spell the end of her misery. But she is obviously acutely aware that she has an uphill battle up ahead. All she is looking for, she says, is ummeed (hope).
Using boxing as a metaphor for the heroine's struggles, the film repeatedly refers to the five key punches of the sport - jab, cross, hook, uppercut and body shot. It demonstrates the entire range as the harried girl doubles down to the task of emerging from the ring in one piece.
The film, on its part, goes all out and throws a few punches in the right direction. Some parts of the battle that it wages go overboard and last way too long.
But with John Abraham making a fair fist of the brooding and brawling ex-soldier who finds a new purpose in life and a consistently convincing act from Sharvari, who plunges headlong into a physically demanding role that requires her to traverse a wide gamut of emotions, Vedaa manages occasionally to tide over its troughs.
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