Browsing through a bookstore in Mumbai recently, I asked the convivial proprietor whether he could recommend a title on the history of Pakistan. He hadn't any, and instead recommended a book on the history of Indian Muslims, then a book on international terrorism, followed by a new title on the recent Mumbai bombings, and finally The Kite Runner. It was a bemusing episode, almost comical, if it weren't so telling about the strange and troubling constellation of related images the Indian Muslim is identified with in India: foreign, dangerous, untrustworthy and un-Indian.

With Firaaq, taking the aftermath of Gujarat riots of 2002 as its starting point - riots being a wholly inadequate word for the systematic violence that claimed 3,000 Muslim lives with the apparent support of the state apparatus - Nandita Das, in her directorial debut, highlights another designation that the Indian public may not readily acknowledge - that of the 'victim'.

Firaaq is primarily a project of witness, an insistence of remembering both one particular event and the violence that seems to recur only to quickly recede from memory. Yet, by shifting our attention post-violence, Das explores the climate that chokes the victimised, the lingering effects on the psyche and the simmering suffering, rage, guilt and frustration on one hand, and the nonchalance or even approval on the other. The opening scene depicting a mass burial provides a sickening punch suggesting a level of aggressive confrontation Firaaq simply cannot maintain. Instead it is a prologue that contextualises the one day a month later where Firaaq's characters navigate the tinderbox of their homes, city, relationships and their own psyche.

Reminiscent of Crash in its structure, subject, and approach, Firaaq follows multiple and intersecting storylines cutting across class and community. One Hindu household has its men disparage the news of the carnage even as it becomes clear they participated in the violence, while the wife played by Deepti Naval is wrought with guilt and empathetic remorse that frays at her very sanity. Elsewhere, an elderly and respected Muslim musician is shielded from the events of the riots by his protective caretaker. An upper-class Hindu-Muslim couple agonise over their decision to relocate to Delhi. A group of young angry Muslim men are keen on meting out vengeance for the loss of life and home. Munira, a young Muslim woman and mother suspects her friend, who comes to her aid, knows something about the destruction of her home. And a lost and possibly orphaned young boy wanders the streets. In that dense list of characters, it is to Das and her co-script writer Shuchi Kothari's credit that Firaaq doesn't feel crowded or the plot convoluted, but it would be overly generous to say that each segments works equally well.

Firaaq is capably photographed with the aid of cinematographer Ravi Chandran, but it is the performances of its large ensemble cast that Das seems to have most skillfully managed with a particularly insightful and elevating performance by Naval. There's a touching tenderness between Naeeruddin Shah playing the musician and his loyal servant played by Raghbir Yadav. And Shahana Goswami (Rock On's Debby) is excellent as Munira. Yet, the theatrical styling also has some pitfalls. The exchanges, particularly with the upper class characters, have an overly scripted feel, and statements that might have been poignant if delivered from a stage have an awkward and sometimes unauthentic twang on screen.

Some critics will undoubtedly dismiss Firaaq as narrow and unbalanced, (as if a Hindu audience cannot identify with the characters who don't apologize for or perpetrate the violence) but through its subtext, Das appreciates the oft-quoted 'banality of evil,' which uncomfortably situates the responsibility in the mainstream and the ordinary. It cannot pass without comment that the release of the film coincides with the peak of India's election season. It is an important reminder in the recent jingoistic expressions of pride in Indian democracy, how dangerously frayed is India's secularism, its foundational and constitutional tenet.

Director: Nanadita Das
Cast: Deepti Naval, Shahana Goswami, Naseeruddin Shah, Raghbir Yadav, Paresh Rawal, Tisca Chopra, Sanjay Suri
2009, 101 min