Good Cop / Good Cop
Delhi Crime is a breath of fresh air in its realistic portrayal of police investigation and the heroism of intelligent, emphatic cops. But the crime drama leaves a stunning blind spot about the brutalities, corruption, and systematic failures of the Delhi Police itself.
In just twelve Netflix episodes over two seasons of Delhi Crime, Shefali Shah’s role as New Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police Vartika Chaturvedi has become the exemplary portrayal of an Indian police officer. Faced with a series of complex cases under high-stress conditions, Chaturvedi carries on her shoulder a near-perfect balance of toughness and restraint, execution and empathy, all performed behind the same pair of Shah’s determined, tired eyes. She is the ideal cop—the “Madam Sir” for her subordinates—as she leads a small group of other ‘ideal’ cops, in a city where darkness looms brighter than light.
And yet, the most effective moment in Chaturvedi’s character arc arrives in her weakest moment.
As a series of brutal house invasions on the upper-class elderly shake the soul of the megacity, the Delhi Police round up random members of the Denotified Tribes (DNT) community—on the basis on past stereotypes, rather than present proof. In episode 3 of the five-part second season, Sapna, a young DNT woman, breaks out of her detention and barges into Chaturvedi’s office, pleading for justice. Teary-eyed and traumatized, she asks Chaturvedi for help, saying that her innocent, elderly in-laws are being mistreated at the police station.
Chaturvedi has just concluded a stressful phone call with her daughter in Toronto, and the pressure of the personal and the professional finally hits the tipping point for the usually even-keeled DCP. She responds angrily, “Toh kya karein, arti utarein tum logon ki? Insaan ki jaan ka mazaak bana rakha hai! Pehle chori kiya karte thhe, ap murders par utar aye ho. Neend kaise aati hai tum logo ko?” What else should we do, worship you people? You’ve made a joke out of a person’s life. First you used to only rob, now you have descended to committing murders. How do you people sleep at night?
Chaturvedi carries on her shoulder a near-perfect balance of toughness and restraint, execution and empathy, all performed behind the same pair of Shah’s determined, tired eyes. She is the ideal cop—the “Madam Sir” for her subordinates—as she leads a small group of other ‘ideal’ cops, in a city where darkness looms brighter than light.
It’s an outburst where, the most disturbing words aren’t “a person’s life”, “rob”, or “murder”, but the shocking generalization of an entire community with one sweeping phrase: “Tum log”. You people.
In one moment of weakness, Chaturvedi, who had spent much of the earlier episodes resisting sweeping stereotypes about the DNT community from her more prejudiced colleagues, finds herself falling into the trap of the same prejudice. A suppressed rage finally spills out.
With bloodshot eyes, Chaturvedi points an angry finger pointed at Sapna, as if Sapna is to blame for the crimes of every DNT person. She finishes her rant in English. “If you can’t help us, why the fuck should we care about you?”
The devastated Sapna is ushered out of the office, back to detention. Chaturvedi is left alone, head hung low over her desk, perhaps as shocked by her own behaviour as the rest of us are. But, we wonder, she was supposed to be one of the good ones!
No need to worry. Exactly six seconds after Sapna leaves, Chaturvedi’s guilt catches up with her. She picks up a phone, and in a calm voice, asks to see Sapna again. A few more seconds later, the good cop is now seated across the innocent detainee, her eyes and voice kinder than before. She’s a friend and not a figure of authority anymore. “I just lost it,” Chaturvedi says to Sapna in apology. “I’m very sorry.” She gives Sapna an empathetic ear, and soon, gives the order that all innocent DNTs be released.
This short scene—just about halfway in the gripping narrative of Season 2—is one of the highlights of the entire series. The show tells us that even the best among us can have a moment of weakness. Chaturvedi is only human. Fortunately, her redemption was only seconds away.
And now that all is well in the natural order of things, the good cops can be good again, and the audience can trust that, despite small errors of human emotion, the protagonists of this tale—the Delhi Police—will continue to tackle the case in a just, mature fashion.
Huh.
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Delhi Crime has been lauded for its close attention to realism, with a number of complex characters and vivid attention to detail about the investigation and judicial process. But the bright spotlight on the Police procedure leaves a stunning blind spot about the brutalities, corruption, and systematic failures of the Delhi Police itself.
The breakthrough Season 1 of Delhi Crime—created and directed by Canadian director Richie Mehta—was inspired by the ‘Nirbhaya’ case, one of the most infamously heinous crimes in recent Indian history: the brutal 2012 gang rape and fatal assault of a young woman in South West Delhi. When the series was released on Netflix in 2019, Shah was cast as Chaturvedi—a fictionalized version of Chhaya Sharma, the first woman DCP of South Delhi whose team went on to solve the case and who later became the first Indian police officer to receive the McCain Award for Courage and Leadership for ‘solving humanitarian and societal issues’ from Arizona State University.
As the story goes, Mehta conceived the idea for Delhi Crime after a conversation with the former Commissioner of the Delhi Police Neeraj Kumar, which helped Mehta to learn the specifics of the Nirbhaya case directly from the investigative team and other police personnel who worked on it, as well as gain access to legal documents that were prepared as part of the investigation. The thorough research played no small role in the show’s brilliance, as the support of the authorities helped provide a deeper level of nuance and attention to detail that made this case come alive in such a vivid, dramatic fashion.
The seven-part series was a critical success, winning the International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series, the Asian Academy Award for Best Drama Series, and the latter’s Best Direction award. Here, Mehta’s Delhi is a city without any enhanced frivolousness; and yet, it remains beautifully-depicted in its night-time grittiness, its observant eye for detail, its close-up look at the city’s rotten core. The storytelling in Season 1 was tight, suspenseful, and featured stellar acting performances: led by Shah as Vartika Chaturvedi, and supported by other police roles, including Rajesh Tailang as Bhupendra Singh, Rasika Dugal as Neeti Singh, and Adil Hussain as Kumar Vijay.
The thorough research played no small role in the show’s brilliance, as the support of the authorities helped provide a deeper level of nuance and attention to detail that made this case come alive in such a vivid, dramatic fashion.
The main cast of characters return for the second season, where American director Tanuj Chopra—Mehta’s replacement in the director’s chair—brings viewers back to the same dangerous, enthralling by-lanes of the capital city. Written by Mayank Tewari, Shubha Swarup, Ensia Mirza, and Vidit Tripathi, and released on Netflix in August 2022, there’s a new menace in New Delhi to keep Chaturvedi and her team on their toes. This time, the series deviates: instead of following a true-to-life investigation, Season 2 of Delhi Crime borrows from a pastiche of a number of contemporary cases to create a fictionalized and haunting new narrative.
A run of brutal murders signals the return of the ‘Kachcha Baniyan Gang’ to the capital. The real gang were a group of criminals who operated famously in the 90s around Delhi and North India, dressed only in their undergarments, and smeared with oil or grease all over their bodies to be literally too slippery for capture. Many of these crimes were alleged to have been committed of members of the Denotified Tribe (DNT) community. Now, decades later, as the crime scenes resemble the home invasions of the past, the police once again assume that the DNTs are responsible.
The inclusion of the DNT community in the plot—who are presumed guilty until proved otherwise—allows the showrunners to introduce a fascinating new complexity to Season 2. Chaturvedi’s team are forced to reach out to an ‘expert’ on the DNT community and tribal gangs, retired SHO Viren Chaddha (Kuldeep Sareen). Chaddha presents the archetype of the typical old-school policeman, whose methods is to arrest first, thrash second, ask questions later, and add a few more thrashings in the process.
In the largely rosy picture of the police in-charge of the cases so far, Chaddha is the first straightforwardly ‘bad cop’, whose interests are primarily self-preservation. He operates the heavy hand of the law to close the case as quickly as efficiently as possible: even if this ‘efficiency’ leads to inaccuracies. It is under Chaddha’s direction that the Delhi Police target innocent DNT members and detain them without reasonable suspicion. Chaturvedi’s balanced, softer approach is replaced with Chaddha’s brash rush to get the job done, no matter how many innocents suffer in the process.
In one scene from episode 2, Chaddha tells Chaturvedi that he has good reason to suspect all DNTs, explaining that their tribes were branded as ‘criminals’ during the British times, and he believes that their ‘true nature’ hasn’t changed. They are “born criminals,” he says.
Chaturvedi responds with shock and refutes Chaddha’s generalizations. She asserts that there is no such thing as a “born criminal”. And when Chaddha leaves the scene, she turns to her other colleagues, bewildered, “What the fuck?” she says, in English. “What a bigot. I can’t believe we have to work with this guy?”
Really? Is the audience—many of whom have experienced or at least some knowledge of the disturbing history of the Delhi Police—supposed to believe Chaturvedi’s bewilderment at one bigoted cop? Are we supposed to agree that this isn’t a common modus operandi of the police, especially when dealing with our community’s most powerless. How could one of the most well-respected, senior policewomen get to her standing without understanding that bigotry is hardly the exception in this world—rather, it’s a daily actuality, deeply embedded across much of Indian society, but particularly used as a form of oppression by our various armed forces?
The writers have good intentions here. The audience will go wherever our beloved heroine—Chaturvedi—will lead us, and she leads away from bigotry. But in this moment—and many others throughout the two seasons of Delhi Crime—I felt that these emotions would’ve been more impactful if tackled from the perspective of those who actually fall victim to this bigotry. It’s one thing to see the perspective of cops who are already part of a broken system; it’s another to hear from the lived experience of the city’s most disenfranchised about what bigotry really feels like. In this specific case, the DNT community were first mistreated and then robbed of the voice to express the mistreatment from their perspective. The privilege, too, is only given to the people in power—like Chaturvedi.
Chaddha is what police institutions around the world call the ‘one bad apple’, as in, the lone rogue cop who, they hope, shouldn’t be the measuring stick for the otherwise competent police force, i.e.: all the other fresh, firm, good apples. He is as much a villain in his series as the violent perpetrators that the police are chasing. The rest of Chaturvedi’s team are generally portrayed as do-gooders, filled with good-intentions and heart, working competently within the system against the cruel, cruel world.
And how could this not be? After all, it is with the assistance of this same police force that Delhi Crime came into existence. The knowledge they shared with Mehta, the access they provided. They are the protagonists. It is the faces of these good cops that beckon out of every poster and promotional photograph for the show: all of them looking sternly at the dangers lurking in the horizon ahead. Even their mistakes are shown mostly from the prism of personal distractions (like Chaturvedi’s daughter or Neeti Singh’s marriage) or a struggle for resources and manpower. The cops are rightly humanized, presented as complex, three-dimensional characters, and the audience is invited to empathize with their struggles as they would ideally empathize with ours.
This approach is indeed commendable; alas, even in its hyperrealism, Delhi Crime fails to come to terms with the reality that, much of that ‘cruel world’ is a result of the police’s own cruelty. By pitting it all on one ‘bad apple’ the show flinches from commenting on the police’s larger institutionalized bigotry, brutality, systematic biases, and a fetish for violence. The ‘Chaddha’ archetype isn’t just a rotten apple; the entire apple cart is reeking, festering with the rot.
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In one scene, Chaturvedi gets a frantic order from the Commissioner to resolve the case quickly (without due diligence). She asks him, “Who am I getting this order from? The Commissioner, or…”
Delhi Crime fails to come to terms with the reality that, much of that ‘cruel world’ is a result of the police’s own cruelty. By pitting it all on one ‘bad apple’ the show flinches from commenting on the police’s larger institutionalized bigotry, brutality, systematic biases, and a fetish for violence.
She’s immediately interrupted. “Let’s not go there, Vartika,” the Commissioner says. It’s the closest that Delhi Crime ‘goes there’, to signal that higher power—they-who-shall-not-be-named—manipulating the police in Delhi
Unlike the other state police forces in India, the Delhi Police answers not to Delhi, but to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Even as their mission is to be the purveyors of ‘peace, service, justice’ (as per the motto: Shanti Seva Nyaya), they have also been weaponized by those seated at the Centre. These powers were most famously abused during by the Congress government in the Centre during the riots of 1984, after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. In the past decade, the police force has been often deployed as the extended arm of justice by the right-leaning BJP central government.
In more recent years, the Delhi Police have been accused of targeting and stigmatizing minority communities, raiding homes of journalists, and for their unjust treatment towards opposition parties. They have been accused of being silent enablers (at best) as protesting students got violently attacked at educational institutions, or (at worst) being perpetrators of the violence themselves. During the 2020 Delhi riots on the heels of the Anti CAA/NRC protests—a week of violence leading to bloodshed, property destruction, and rioting caused chiefly by Hindu mobs attacking Muslims in the city’s North Eastern neighbourhoods—the Delhi Police themselves were implicated for inciting and aiding the rioters, and failing to help the victims. Muslims were arrested on flimsy charges, while politicians and gun-wielding mobs openly chanted “Goli Maaro Saalon Ko” (Shoot the traitors) without fear of retribution. In one of the most damning images of this time, a suspected Hindu nationalist shot a student at the Jamia Islamia university, all while openly brandishing a gun as the Police stood in the background, merely waiting for instruction.
As Season 2 of Delhi Crime premiered on Netflix in late 2022, the action on screen seemed to unfold in a vacuum, completely insulated from on-ground realities. When BBC released India: The Modi Question in January 2023—shedding light on the prime minister’s role in the 2002 Gujarat violence—the Delhi Police stormed university campuses to drag and detain students for watching the documentary. In February, a Delhi Court observed that that the police had unlawfully detained activists Sharjeel Imam, Safoora Zargar, Asif Iqbal Tanja, and others in the 2019 Jamia violence case, and added that, “the police was unable to apprehend ‘actual perpetrators’ and ‘surely managed to rope them (accused) as scapegoats’ in the matter.” A few days later, after a Hindu priest made a speech calling for violence against minorities, the Delhi Police sent a notice to the media portal which reported the speech—instead of the priest himself.
The examples above are only the tip of the iceberg. Of course, it’s not the responsibility of a Netflix series—an object of entertainment—to address the whole complex picture. And yet, Delhi Crime is a ‘true-crime’ series at its heart (even if the second season wasn’t based on any single true case), and its brilliance is in its close grasp of reality: the sweat on the policewoman’s brow, the paperwork on the constable’s desk, the bureaucratic roadblocks in every police procedure. With great ambitions of realism comes great responsibility.
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A major component of that realism is how Delhi Crime has resisted the run-of-the-mill ‘copaganda’, which has often been the fodder for India’s mainstream audiences. There is no shortage of cop-heroes in India, each one-upping each other by taking justice in their own hands, while being portrayed in an overwhelmingly positive light that excuses any misgivings. The most popular contemporary example is the ‘Cop Universe’ media franchise, helmed by the director Rohit Shetty—who has mastered the art of creating blockbuster action films and screwball comedies. The ‘universe’ includes a number of loosely-connected films and sequels featuring similar supercops: Singham (featuring Ajay Devgn), Simmba (Ranveer Singh), and Sooryavanshi (Akshay Kumar). There are video games and a related web-series called Indian Police Force in production. There is children’s content, too, like the animated series Little Singham (get your kids to start glorifying the uniform as early as possible), and even Baby Little Singham.
Salman Khan as Chulbul Pandey in Dabangg
Unrelated to the Shetty franchise is the Dabangg film series, featuring Salman Khan as the popular fighting, dancing, romancing inspector Chulbul Pandey, winning hearts, tackling bad guys, and inspiring a generation of children to wear his costume.
The policeman’s uniform is almost like a superhero suit in these films. It’s the very definition of cool, of no-holds-barred badassery. The police are the true Avengers, coming to deliver their version of inarguable justice. Sooryavanshi’s tagline is literally the ominous warning: “Aa Rahi Hai Police”. The police are coming.
On the small screen, the police-procedural drama CID has been one of the most popular shows in the country, running for over 1,500 episodes. Led by Shivaji Satam as ACP Pradyuman, CID provided a different type of positive police portrayal, where the crime-fighters aren’t superheroes, but still the overwhelming protagonists in the eyes of the audience.
With the growth of OTT platforms and a demand for more nuanced narratives, the true-crime genre (or true-ish) has exploded in India, featuring a number of recent police stories like Indian Predator, Trial by Fire, Mumbai Mafia: Police. Vs. The Underworld, and more. Delhi Crime may still be the cream of the crop. It expects much more from its audience—more patience, more nuance, more attention to detail, more complexity from its leads—and for those willing to stick with the ride, the results are exceptional.
With her fine performance, Shefali Shah presents a character in Chaturvedi that grounds us in many of the real intricacies of being an Indian cop. Reviewers have called her “one of the most realistic on-screen portrayals of a cop”, and said, that Chaturvedi is “a realistic breath of fresh air. She follows the rules, bending them where absolutely necessary, and gets the job done without any need theatrics or violence. She is a woman of a logical mind”.
And yet, even with that logical mind, Chaturvedi fails to reflect on the true flaws of the force. She—and the series—find a scapegoat in Chaddha, the one ‘bad cop’ to represent them all. Delhi Crime doesn’t whitewash the police’s sins the way Chulbul Pandey or Singham do, but the series’ underlying message still promotes the entire police institution for its goodness.
Delhi Crime doesn’t whitewash the police’s sins the way Chulbul Pandey or Singham do, but the series’ underlying message still promotes the entire police institution for its goodness.
In another important moment in Season 2, Chaturvedi vents to her daughter about the police’s mistakes when dealing with the DNT regarding this case. “We are denying them their basic human rights, just because they belong to a certain tribe,” she says. It’s another moment of naivete from this experienced senior cop: for a series aiming for a higher degree of verisimilitude, it should already know that the denial of basic human rights by the police is often a rite of passage.
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If you haven’t guessed it yet, here’s a spoiler that arrives about halfway into Season 2: the focus towards the tribal community as the preparators was all a misdirection. Instead, what we get is further subversion of many tropes of the genre. The house invasions aren’t being committed by the real Kachcha Baniyan Gang, but by a handful of copycat criminals. They are led by ‘Karishma’ (Tillotama Shome), an ambitious, brutal woman, who, in her disregard for societal roles, is perhaps the most captivating character in the show.
A few slip-ups and misadventures later, the Delhi Police learn some (fairly obvious) lessons: It’s never okay to stereotype an entire community based on the actions of a few; and furthermore, it’s never okay to make presumptions about guilt based on past stereotypes. There are no “born criminals”.
Chaturvedi’s instincts are proven correct. Chaddha—who is both bigoted and bad at his job—is removed from the case, making the line between good and evil a little cleaner. The show teaches us that having bad intentions is actually bad for you. The detained DNTs are freed, and Chaturvedi even gets to apologize to the young woman she brandished out at. She and her team of ‘good cops’ recover from their errors to find their redemption.
Meanwhile, the innocent DNTs whom they victimize along the way are left with little agency of their own: they are but mere tools to complete this redemption arc for our protagonists.
And now, there’s finally time for good, old-fashioned police investigation.
Overall, Delhi Crime is a breath of fresh air in a country where much of the mainstream entertainment is obsessed with a macho-heroic portrayal of policemen; it shows strength not in brawn alone but in the decency of cops like Chaturvedi: in her thoughtfulness, her empathy, and her calculated leadership. But the series also has the potential of being so much more. As it shines it light proudly on its close approximation of reality, the unaddressed blind spots loom larger than ever.
Rumours are that there may be a Season 3 in the works. Perhaps, it could finally be an opportunity for Delhi Crime to look inwards, to reflect on the crimes of the police itself, to boldly ask: Who Watches the Watchmen?
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Karan Madhok is a writer, journalist, and editor of The Chakkar. His debut novel A Beautiful Decay (Aleph Book Company) was published in October 2022. His creative work has appeared in Epiphany, Gargoyle, The Literary Review, The Bombay Review, The Lantern Review, and the anthology A Case of Indian Marvels. He is the founder of the Indian basketball blog Hoopistani and has contributed to NBA India, SLAM Magazine, Fifty Two, FirstPost, and more. You can find him on Twitter: @karanmadhok1 and Instagram: @karanmadhok.
