What's common in some of the most admired Hindi web series of the year, be it Dahaad, Scoop, or Trial By Fire? They are all headlined by female characters. While others, like Farzi and Jubilee, aren't led by female protagonists, they portray powerful women characters who epitomise the struggle of women to claim their place in the men's world.
Anjali Bhati (Sonakshi Sinha) of Dahaad not only wears her femininity with pride but also asserts her lower-caste identity. She invokes the Constitution to the feudal lord when he refuses her entry into his mansion. She might appear as an anomaly riding a police bike while boys tease and taunt her, but she convincingly proves by the end of the season that it's not her but the world around her that's an anomaly in twenty-first-century India.
Jagruti Pathak (Karishma Tanna) of Scoop isn't apologetic about her gender while making inroads into the male bastion of crime reporting. Much of the character's crisis is triggered by her gender identity. Her incarceration is presented as a punishment for her choice of profession.
Neelam Krishnamoorthy (Rajshri Deshpande) of Trial By Fire refuses to give up in the face of coercion and threats from the powerful perpetrators and the indifference of the system. Even though she is a mother, her quest is about justice and closure. She shows remarkable strength in the face of adversity and pursues elusive justice even when her husband gives up hope.
Megha Vyas (Raashii Khanna) in Farzi isn't just eye candy or a love interest but a professional with dogged perseverance. However, she has to fight to find a place in her dream team.
Sumitra Kumari (Aditi Rao Hydari) of Jubilee, a period drama set during the time of independence and partition of India, is a fascinating character. A female star who seeks an identity independent of her powerful husband and is prepared to break her marriage to unite with her lover in colonial India is undoubtedly ahead of her times.
In contrast to Hindi web shows, Hindi cinema has only offered two notable films with female protagonists this year: The Kerala Story and Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway. However, The Kerala Story revolves around the victimisation of its female protagonist, while Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway steadfastly portrays the titular character as a mother and a wife.
Even though the most successful films of the year feature female characters in prominent roles, with the exception of Pathaan, they tend to portray women either as victims or as susceptible to succumbing to the pressures of patriarchy.
Shalini Unnikrishnan (Adah Sharma) of The Kerala Story is a gullible girl. Her sense of personal freedom in the matters of choice of her friends, clothes, and lover is portrayed as fraught with risks of ending up in captivity. Her only triumph is her escape from ISIS confinement and survival. But she is destined to spend the rest of her years in an Afghan prison. The film ends on a tragic note when she expresses her desire to return home to her mother.
Tinni (Shraddha Kapoor) of Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, is introduced as a fiercely independent woman, but ultimately, she is coerced by the hero and his family into accepting his demand. The film subtly puts the message across that independence isn't a state of existence for girls but only a phase of life until they get married.
In Shalini's case, her assertion to make her own choices deprives her of fundamental liberty. As for Tinni, she reluctantly relinquishes her freedom to be with her lover. Both films subtly allude to the perils and futility of women making their own choices.
The female characters of the web series shine in comparison to the films of the same period. For Anjali Bhati of Dahaad, her career matters more than her mother's wish to get her married. That doesn't mean she is asexual, but she also doesn't believe that a physical relationship has to lead to marriage necessarily. Even though the story is set in a small town in predominantly patriarchal Rajasthan, Anjali Bhati is more modern in her outlook than the superficially flamboyant big city girl Tinni of Tu Jhoothi,Main Makkaar.
Why are Hindi web series bringing forth powerful female characters while Hindi cinema is shying away from them? If producing films featuring strong female characters is deemed an unviable venture, how did Gangubai Kathiawadi become one of the most successful films of the previous year? Or, how did films like Queen (2013), Piku (2016), Pink (2016), Neerja (2016), Raazi (2018), and many more films get celebrated as successes?
Is this phenomenon an outcome of the post-pandemic reality where only big films are considered worthy of theatrical release and female-driven films aren't considered big unless they align with the messaging of the ruling dispensation?
(Bikas Mishra is an award-winning writer-director based in Mumbai)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.