Streaming now on SonyLIV, Jehanabad – Of Love and War is a dramatized retelling of a real-life Naxalite-sponsored prison break that took place in Jehanabad, Bihar, in November 2005. Showrunner Sudhir Mishra and director Rajeev Barnwal’s drama-thriller also touches on various other issues relevant to its small-town setting, including local politics and crime, customs and traditions, and caste equations that plague the quintessential affairs of semi-towns in Bihar. While the core of the plot is based on true events, the majority of this show is a fictional story loosely connected to the actual events themselves. Read on for our spoiler-free review of Jehanabad – Of Love and War.
It’s worth pointing out here Jehanabad – Of Love and War is not a big-budget production and has a cast full of actors you know you’ve seen somewhere but can’t immediately pinpoint exactly where. The sets and filming locations also feel a bit strange and out of place – it feels more like the affluent suburb of a big city in India than the small, semi-urban town that the real Jehanabad in Bihar actually is.
The show starts out pretty strong with a scene of violence and the kidnapping of a groom from his own wedding. However, most of the show from this point on takes place in flashback, which takes some of the edge off the intense opening scene and slows things down considerably.
Still, this story has a certain appeal to many because of its setting and perhaps the intentional embellishment of the locations. It often takes on tones of edginess and intellectualism that sets it apart from many of what you’ll find on Indian OTT platforms, and caters fairly well to its Gen-z and millennial demographic.
These include young and good-looking actors, fairly frequent use of English as a plot device to indicate certain characters’ level of education, and a slightly offbeat synth-pop background music. The dialects used are appropriate to the setting and location of the show, but not overly so; This helps make the language and dialogues a bit more understandable for all Hindi speakers.
Jehanabad – Of Love and War also spends a little time delving into social issues such as caste-based discrimination and conservative values in small-town India, which tend to encourage patriarchy and gender inequality. It tries to follow a fairly progressive line with this, but ends up spending more time focusing on the romantic angle between the two leads and its implications for the larger scheme of things.
I found some of the cast options a bit odd. Arguably the most famous actor in Jehanabad is Rajat Kapoor (recently starring in Drishyam 2), who seems too plush and polite to play his character Shivanand Singh, the local ex-MLA and strongman deeply involved in the region’s dirty politics and caste system.
While Shivanand Singh is undeniably the antagonistic linchpin of the entire timeline, he never comes across as frightening (or even as realistic) as he should, as the role is essentially driven only by the clear and direct dialogue. Rajat Kapoor seems largely wasted in this role, with his greatest strengths – the ability to speak both Hindi and English proficiently and fluently, as well as his elegant looks – being wasted due to the character chosen for him.
The same goes for some of the other characters on the show, including Parambrata Chattopadhyay, who plays the role of Deepak Kumar, a Naxalite leader who was captured and imprisoned for political reasons. His tendencies and suggested level of dangerousness aren’t very believable throughout the series, although he manages to provide some surprises and twists through a well-rehearsed “evil” grin.
Others like Jagmohan Kumar (Suneel Sinha) more convincingly play the role of a ruthless Naxalite commander willing to do anything to achieve his organization’s goals, including ordering the killing of innocent civilians brought on by his own organization’s negligence were drawn into the conspiracy. Dubbed “Guruji” by his comrades, he comes across as the most manipulative and cunning of all antagonists.
This also brings me to the lack of a firm division between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” in Jehanabad. The police are portrayed as corrupt and politically motivated, while the political classes grapple with vote bank politics and the expected level of intrigue. Most of the “innocent” civilians may not be guilty of any actual wrongdoing, but they are certainly indifferent to social issues such as caste discrimination and acceptance of opposing political views.
The most compelling performances in Jehanabad – Of Love and War come from Harshita Gaur and Satyadeep Mishra playing Kasturi Mishra and Durgesh Pratap Singh, the Superintendent of Police of Jehanabad District. The rest of the cast, including lead actor Ritwik Bhowmik as Abhimanyu Singh, just doesn’t deliver a performance to remember and seems overly predictable.
Gaur plays Kasturi, a middle-class college student who is politically well-connected and who controls much of Jehanabad – Of Love and War’s screen time. She also sounds most compelling as a small-town Bihar resident, something the rest of the cast doesn’t pull off as easily. Despite playing the role of a corrupt high-ranking police officer, Satyadeep Mishra manages to come across as by far the smartest character in the series, despite his opponents being a step ahead of him until the very end.
The love story itself is predictable and often boring; Jehanabad – Of Love and War spends far too much time on it and not enough on the much more interesting and engaging political storyline leading to the infamous jailbreak. While the jailbreak’s core storyline tries to stick to real-world events, the series manages to adapt its own story of events reasonably well, with an action-packed finale that helps tie up any loose ends.
The real event In November 2005, hundreds of heavily armed Naxalites attacked a prison and freed prisoners in the prison under cover of a siege and battle in the streets of Jehanabad city.
Overall, Jehanabad – Of Love and War’s short episodes and interesting political and social elements make up for the occasionally slow and somewhat boring main story. It’s worth seeing from an educational and historical perspective, even if the performances don’t tell the story as well as it deserves to be told.
