Since the arrival of OTT platforms and binge-watching, Indian series have shown a marked improvement in craft and skill at telling fictional stories.
But when it comes to mounting real-life stories for OTT, most have floundered, sometimes because they follow Netflix’s formulaic template, and sometimes because of who is telling the story. Delhi Crime, for example, the riveting show on the Nirbhaya rape case, was made with the help of Delhi’s former commissioner of police, Neeraj Kumar, and it naturally made heroes out of cops when it should have interrogated them.
Director Anubhav Sinha’s 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' is different.
Based on the 2000 book, 'Flight Into Fear: The Captain's Story', by Captain Devi Sharan and journalist Srinjoy Chowdhury, and also aided by its own team of researchers and writers, Sinha’s series tells the story of the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines’ Kathmandu-Delhi flight with as much honesty as is permissible these days.
Over six episodes, beginning with five terrorists wresting control of the plane on Christmas eve, the series meticulously pieces together the eight-day national crisis with facts, and historical and geopolitical context and makes us view the hijacking from the perspective of all those involved.
The series' foundation — its story, screenplay, and dialogue — is strong, intelligent, sharp, and rich with interesting, relevant details.
We get the personal stories of passengers and a peek into the mindset of the hijackers. We get frustrated with the indecision of politicians and watch how the egos and biases of bureaucrats can trip the best intentions. In between all the worrying and tension, we get some light moments that add layers to characters and enhance our understanding of how the world and India's bureaucracy work.
The series, shot partly in Jordan, packs in a lot, has no flab, and is like a stunning symphony — of writers, camerawork (by Ewan Mulligan and Ravi Kiran Ayyagari), a stellar ensemble of actors and editor Amarjit Singh — conducted by Sinha.
The show is scripted, plotted, and directed like a thriller. The opening scene itself gets your heart racing and each episode ends on a hair-raising cliffhanger with a freeze frame. But the show’s tone and pace are several notches below the chest-thumping, flag-waving rescue missions we have been subjected to by Bollywood in the recent past.
'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' has many reasons to be enraged—at Pakistan, at Islamic terrorism, at the Indian government — but it is neither angry, nor hyper or sensational.
The series does not turn the hijackers into filmy villains, nor does it pin the blame for the hijacking on any one person, institution, or organisation. It doesn’t cast anyone as the hero either, except the crew of IC 814.
Its focus stays on telling us what happened—lapses, screw-ups, warts and all—without getting too sentimental or jingoistic.
Its brilliance lies in its cinematic craft, elegant storytelling, and humanist politics. And that’s why 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' is one of the best “based on real life” series to date, and not just from India.
'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' opens in Kathmandu where a RAW operative is keeping an eye on an ISI operative. Something is brewing and a report suggests this was dispatched to Delhi earlier. But no one took note.
It’s Christmas eve, and at around 4.05 pm, Indian Airlines’ flight takes off from Kathmandu airport with 178 passengers and 11 crew on board, including Captain Sharan Dev (Vijay Verma). A few minutes later, five men, brandishing guns and grenades, barge into the cockpit and hijack the plane. They were referred to as Chief (Rajiv Thakur), Doctor (Harminder Singh), Burger (Diljohn), Shankar and Bhola.
As news reaches Delhi, the country’s top intelligence officers and bureaucrats get into a huddle to monitor and manage the crisis. There's external affairs minister Vijaybhan Singh (Pankaj Kapur), MEA secretary DRS (Arvind Swami), Cabinet secretary Vinay Kaul (Naseeruddin Shah), IB associate director Mukul Mohan (Manoj Pahwa), RAW chief V.K. Agarwal (Aditya Srivastava) and his senior officer Ranjan Mishra (Kumud Mishra), among others.
There are no demands yet, but the hijackers want to take the plane to Kabul. Since there isn’t enough fuel, almost three hours after taking off from Kathmandu, the plane lands at Amritsar airport for refuelling. What transpires here is, perhaps, the most tragic display of India's political stasis.
As the pilot, with a gun to his head, begs for fuel, he is repeatedly told that the bowser is on its way. Passengers and crew pray, waiting to be rescued, and Punjab Police commandos have a plan and are waiting for a go-ahead to launch the rescue operation. But for 49 minutes, the only instruction that comes from Delhi is not to refuel the plane. Inside the plane, with rising tension and no fuel, hijackers stab two passengers and the plane takes off.
To give us simultaneous, live dispatches, the series flits between several places. We are with the crisis management group in Delhi which is trying to figure out who is to blame and who can help. We watch the foreign minister lean on Islamabad, Dubai and America to intervene, and the foreign secretary as he tries to establish contact with Afghanistan’s Taliban government. The IB additional director, however, is repeatedly talking of shooting and not arresting terrorists.
We are in the cockpit where the pilot is trying his best to save the passengers, while distraught passengers are being made to sit with their heads down. We watch family members grieving and demanding the return of their loved ones; while in Nepal, we run after the RAW operative who is trying to find out the contents of a mysterious bag that’s on board. We also visit a jail cell where Maulana Masood Azhar is being questioned, and watch a feisty newspaper reporter (played by Amrita Puri) who has all the dope and files sensational stories, but editor Shalini (Dia Mirza) insists on restraint.
After a brief refuelling stop in Lahore, the plane heads for Dubai where 26 hostages — some women and children — are allowed to deplane, and the body of Rupin Katyal is dropped on the tarmac before the plane takes off again.
In Kandahar, soon after the plane is escorted by a biker to a parking spot on the tarmac and is then surrounded by armed gunmen, Indian negotiators arrive and begin talking to the hijackers. Their demands are humiliating even to consider.
As negotiations drag on, passengers and crew learn to live with the unbearable stench rising from the toilets, which are clogged and overflowing with human excreta.
'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' doesn’t satisfactorily answer who planned and funded the hijacking, but it shines light on the circumstantial evidence and throws enough hints that ISI and General Pervez Musharraf were behind it all.
The Kandahar hijacking exposed how the then coalition government, led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, which had just a year ago flexed its muscle with the Pokhran nuclear tests, floundered and was ineffective when it came to making decisions to save lives.
Even the terrorists-for-hostages deal struck marked a deeply embarrassing defeat for India especially because the terrorists who were released from Indian prisons — Maulana Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar—were later, separately, responsible for attacks on India, including the Indian Parliament, for financing one of the hijackers of the 9/11 attacks and the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Despite all this, the series goes easy on the government over its major screw-ups, and unlike the book, casts the exchange as the only choice available to the government.
PM Vajpayee and his home minister L.K. Advani are, in fact, entirely missing from the show. The only mantri we see is Jaswant Singh, the then minister of external affairs.
But the series’ writing, camerawork, acting, and editing make us forget these lapses.
The show’s writing credits are shared by Anubhav Sinha, Trishant Srivastava (who co-wrote Jamtara) and Adrian Levy (who, along with Cathy Scott-Clark, has written 'The Siege', on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks).
To give places, events, and people a context, the series sometimes interjects its narrative with grainy, archival footage to explain who, why, and what.
We get lessons on the two factions in Afghanistan — Taliban led by Mullah Omar and Al Qaeda’s Osama Bin Laden — the geopolitics in the aftermath of India's 1998 nuclear tests at Pokhran, the 1999 Kargil war, Gen Pervez Musharraf’s coup and watch news clips of protests, press conferences in Delhi.
Usually, breaking the narrative is risky. But 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' pulls this off with confidence and these brief explanatory videos, often with a voiceover, add heft to the show and give it a stamp of authenticity.
The series has cleverly framed shots that make us feel as if we are present on the site, but with a partial view of what is going on.
A lot of the show is about slow diplomacy and bureaucracy at work, with stock scenes where officials are talking. The show's cinematographers lift these scenes with cinematic flourishes, as their camera moves around like a dizzy spectator.
The series has an excellent, fresh ensemble of actors. All of them are very good, but a few stand out. The two air-hostesses — Indrani (Patralekhaa Paul) and Chhaya (Additi Gupta Chopra) — two terrorists, Burger played by Diljohn, and Chief played by Rajiv Thakur, as well as Arvind Swami, Manoj Pahwa and Pankaj Kapur. Together they bring the humanity of their characters to the fore.
The series takes a lot from the book, including the nitty-gritty of events, conversations with the hijackers, and what went on in the plane. But it also leaves out a lot.
I suggest that you binge-watch 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack'
and then read the book to soak in heartwarming anecdotes of human perseverance.
On board IC 814 was an air hostess who continued to wear her attractive bindis throughout, as if reassuring herself and others that all will be well. Captain Sharan writes in his book of the quiet dignity of a Japanese passenger who would freshen up and get dressed every day and then look for a place to smoke.
He also shares that as passengers began leaving the plane in Kandahar, he instructed his crew to stand at the gate with folded hands.
Anubhav Sinha's 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' honours the captain, his crew, and the passengers.
Movie: IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack
Cast: Vijay Verma, Manoj Pahwa, Arvind Swami, Kumud Mishra, Pankaj Kapur, Naseeruddin Shah, Aditya Srivastava, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Anupama Tripathi, Dia Mirza, Amrita Puri, Patralekhaa Paul, Additi Gupta Chopra, Rajiv Thakur, Harminder Singh, Diljohn
Directed by: Anubhav Sinha
Rating: 4/5
