Based on a novel ‘Black Warrant : Confessions Of A Tihar Jailer, one of the key ingredients of Black Warrant remains the setting of the jail which is a house to many ‘colourful’ and ‘not-so-colourful’ characters. There are definite power-centers in play namely the Tyagis, Haddis and Sardars who rule the roosts, even as the police remain terribly short-staffed. As a result, you are witness to a micro-political landscape within the four walls of the prison – even as you see the inmates exchanging drugs, or nonchalantly slice each other in the face, or even collectively participate in a non-coorporation movement against the authorities, even as the authorities look on while using them as mere pawns in the whole setup. In fact, the jail here represents a corporate office with the inmates being its employees, often resorting to their daily chores while being supervised by the ‘project-managers’ who are mere-onlookers and at times the torch-bearers of violence in the setup.

Amidst the chaos, Sunil does come across as a newbie who doesn’t look the part of the setup with his naive presence, wiry ‘short’ figure and innocent eyes. The pulp in his character stems from films that he may have watched as a child, and much like the rest of us, had an imagery of jail to be a glamourized like on celluloid – which is why he always intended to be a cop despite ‘not fitting the bill’. In a scene, you see him interacting with a girl (who incidently connected via a cross-connection) wherein he says that as a child he was never allowed to play a cop until he was witness to the 1981 film Ankhein which had Dharmendra playing the cop, only for him to convince his friends that the cop equates to Dharmendra (and vice versa). A further probe into his love life is also – his ‘friend’ replies that Dharmendra played the character of a cop in the 1961 film ‘Boy Friend’ (hint, hint).

In a way, Sunil’s arc is directly related to the arc of the Tihar jail – it is coming of age but not in a polished manner. In fact, in an early conflict you see the inmates fighting over the killing of a snake which would allow them freedom for 15 days, to which Sunil exclaims that he heard of peacocks in the vicinity but he hasn’t spotted any yet. Well, he eventually does, symbolizing ‘hope’ by the end of things but he has to manoeuvre himself in a game of comformity with his inmates and peers, both which offer a diabolically opposite picture and possess an equally opposite approach to the proceedings. The drama is edgy even while dealing with some of the other characters – Tomar (Rahul Bhat), Sunil’s superior is someone who enjoys his power while playing the divide and rule game and indulging in a few scams with respect to food and blanket, much to the helpless eyes of Sunil. Sunil’s peers Dahiya (Anurag Thakur) and Mangat (Paramvir Singh Cheema) are meddling characters in their own capacities – the former has a casual yet discreet affair with his superior’s wife only to be later ratted out by Sunil, while the latter is an epitome of helplessness and often resorting to alcoholism while being punctured with the disappearance of his brother during the 1984 Sikh riots. In a way, the drama manouevres itself through some true incidents, one dedicated for every episode yet deeply political with the fabric of the country back in the day.

The drama treads a fine line between conformity and victimhood while presenting a searing commentary on the state of the inmates, most of them undertrials being stricken by poverty to the extent of not being able to afford a lawyer. And because the same unfolds through the lens of Sunil, you are equally empathetic but not to a point of romanticizing the same, and ignoring their crimes. The power dynamics is as varied as ever – some inmates even after serving their sentence remain unaware of the same, continuing to rot in their cells while others like Charles Sobhraj (Sidhant Gupta) enjoying the perks of an A class treatment. The chronicles of the jail also paint an edgy picture – a doctor tensely examining the pulse of an inmate after the execution takes place, even as the staff patiently wait until ordering a lesser ranked officer to ‘do the needful’ in tweaking death. Even the ongoing scams involving the higher personnel was firmly guarded to the point of subjecting the blame to the lowest ranked accountant, who is powerless in every way.

If the JNU students angle seemed starkly similar to reality today, and the supposed murder transpiring even as the jail staff celebrate India’s cricketing victory of 1983 (the same “may” have been true given India has won 3 more World Cups since), the commentary presented is in many ways of a new-age India where the presence of democracy isn’t enough – capitalism is deeply embedded and transferred from one generation to another. Black Warrant, the term is used for the death penalty even while breaking the nib of the pen after penning the sentence. This thought is wonderfully explained by Sunil in a scene wherein he equates the ‘breaking of the nib’ to breaking the chain (that explains his overtly conformist attitude in setting up a legal structure in the jail much to the dismay of his superiors). The catch then was the issues with the higher authorities, and the catch today seems to be the same even as the nib of the pen continues to write many a chapters without ‘breaking the chain’ where ‘hope’ is as short-lived as seen in the dying minutes of the show, and set to break, just like the ‘jail-break’ at the end. The screenplay is wonderfully penned and it makes for a solid watch overall.