2019 will be witnessed as land mark year for Indian Content writing for espionage, from Tigers we moved towards Robert Akbar Walter, and then came, Family Man and Bard of Blood (BB).
This year we also had "Badla", and the emotion that explains BB is from the same movie, "In you story, based on the convenience, a character can either become invisible and disappear or a photographers becomes bank hacker".... In BB, writer-director takes us through the route of convenience and assumes everyone knows everything.
Intelligentsia of intelligence:
Nation usually has two set of agents, one who gathers intelligence and others who investigates, former is associated broadly with terrorist threats, and latter is with criminals.
In Indian context, we have RAW, IB, DIA, CBI, NIA, CID, ED..... Where RAW is for international activities, IB deals more with domestic threats and seldom we see them go hand in hand.
DIA, is Defense Intelligence, the one which Murgodose ripped apart in Thupaki and Holiday, and it mostly deals within Military and rest are mostly engaged in criminal investigation.
When it comes to Pakistan, there is only one unit, ISI, and that is core reason why both nation has two different political setup, also that is why ISI is considered more deadlier than CIA and MOSSAD, ideally this could be worth a plot but for now let us focus on other aspects.
Social Service of Jihad:
First rule of the game, any one who picks guns and runs around and calls jihad doesn't becomes Bin-Ladin figure for Pentagon. Equating every man with black turban as next Laden is intellectual bankruptcy, its like equating, a RSS or Muslim League with JeM/LeT/LTTE.
LeT and JeM are not same as Daish (IsIs) and West does not treat them same unlike Sub-Continent, in-fact, LeT is alternate unit of Army which micro manages social messaging and presents the face to civilians.
Pakistan:
Like in India we have states, in Pak, they have province, biggest being Punjab, which has Military, ISI headquarter, followed by Sindh (Karachi), KPA & Balochistan. In last 70 plus years, the threee provinces of Pakistan has felt that they are being forced to undergo Punjabisation of pakistan, and this has resulted in many form of protests in Sindh, insurgency like situation in KPA and three insurgencies in Balochisthan.
BLA vs TTP:
Since 47, Baloch had issue with Pakistan over management of their land resources, and this resulted in three insurgencies, which resulted in the creation of Balochistan Liberation Army. Allegedly, Post 26/11, PC started a fund in BLA, which was India's response to engage PAK in their own proxy game, sufficient enough to keep them busy but not enough to break them into four. Allegedly this was stopped post May-2014, and this made BLA angry and started trust issues.
Where as TTP was more of rebel group which was formed out of Pak Army based Military action against extremist group, and that resulted in the greatest idea of century, Good Taliban vs Bad Taliban, Haqqani Group became the Good Talibs and TTP was the Bad one.
Latest, Brahumdagh Bugti, the leader of Balochistan insurgency, recently seek political Asylum from India and GOI respectfully denied it.
US, China and Gwadhar
US always needed access from Pak. to provide supplies to its NATO Alliance, post US made it difficult to get the aid without much scrutiny, Pakistan decided to switch their masters, and make formal alliance with China.
China on the other hand had a 2 decade old plan to build silk route, which starts from Gwadhar, Baluchistan and passes through Afghanistan and finally ends in Europe. US exit created void and Chinese filled it with CPEC. This has always been bone of contention for US as OBR (One Belt Road) is second most significant event post United Nation, which is hosted by US in Washington, where worlds strongest leaders appear.
US seeks failure of Gwadar as failure of CPEC, which fails OBR.
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In Film Making, director uses a core societal issue as a reference in their main narrative and call them Passing Reference. The way Anurag Kashyap uses Lynching as a passing reference in his writing, Dasgupta has used the entire political background of subcontinent as passing reference to the miserable life of ex Raw Agent who is simple bored of his life and packaged it as BART of BLOOD
So why i ended up writing five paragraphs ?
Because this is how i visualize this plot ....
A known terrorist "Mulla", of the likes of Al Bakr baghdadi, is supposedly hiding in Pakistan. He has formed the alliance of Daish (IsIs), Taliban, Al Qaeda and declared war against US in Afghanistan. This Alliance has derailed the peace process for US, and jeopardize their Exit plan from Afghanistan, which POTUS had promised in his last election manifesto.
Elections are around the corner, and POTUS is feeling the heat, he puts bounty on Mulla and insists Pakistan to help eliminate Mulla and gave them face saving exit from Afghanistan.
Where CIA fails, RAW comes into picture, their agents infiltrate and get their hands on the sensitive information that "Mulla is hiding in Pak and ISI is helping him", if this information is leaked, "World will change" (as per director), US will declare Pak as terrorist state and it is India's win, as juvenile as it may sound, this is what Indian Diplomacy has been doing for last 30 years.
Cut to India:
RAW operations head, receives intelligence and dies in mysterious circumstance, and this triggers emotional connect of estranged Desi-Bond whose male Madam M, Sadiq Sahab, has been eliminated. Although Indian Bond looks cool, relaxed and composed, may be he was doing yoga-vipasana or meditation, and game of avenging of Madam M begins.
Being ex-Agent, he has limited access, so he gets an accomplice, which his Madam M has given as a hint in crossword, Rani Lakhmi Bhai, and thank fully the Indian Bond does not get confused with Kangana as Manikarnika, after all its about getting "Gangsters"
Cut to Balochisthan:
Desi Bond starts his mission of saving agents but as soon he lands into Balochisthan, he realizes its bigger than that. He uncovers the truth behind the intelligence and reason of Indian Agents hostage situation. Now he knows that Mulla is hiding in Pakistan and Agents are his hostages.
Desi Bond comes up with a Grand Plan- restarting the ""insurgency"" , but its difficult even theoretically its hard to write, with no money, no motivation, riling up people who spend most of their days playing cricket or smoking weed, its a very difficult. Bond comes up with a mega plan, he decides to blast the Oil Pipe at Gwadhar, a blast that will create panic in Bejing and they will question Islamabad on security lapse, this will create blockage for CPEC, and India will WIN once again. But the question, who should be held responsible? .... BLA
So to convince BLA, that this is their best interest to sabotage 100 Billion Dollar Project, Bond decides to rekindles his old love, heir of BLA leader and incite nationalism with-in Baluchis, since they do not trust India (Passing Reference) he has to prove his worth by doing it all alone.
Desi-Bond, who is well versed with MO of ISI, understands that ISI is playing against its own Army and Govts interests, as ISI is only Intelligence agency and acts like eyes and nose for them. Bond decides to expose Mullas presence and build differences between ISI and Army, a well thought plan which can turn Armys heart for India the way it happened when RAW shared details of Mussharaffs' assassination.
Overall, Bond re-starts insurgency in Balochisthan by sabotaging Gwadhar, he breaks China's plan of OBR , show them power of an Indian Spy, captures Mulla for US without taking credit, helps india build US-India ties. Helps POTUS to win election, and avenges his Madam M, he also helps Paksitan to save its image by exposing its ISI rougue agent and finally get India Pakistan talking .....
You guys would have noticed all these invisible plots had Emran Hashmi shown slight interest, or writers had paid iota of attention to the subject in first place and Director would have not assumed that Everyone knows Everything
or they could have replaced EH with Akki, then surely this would been tagged as Hyper Nationalism on Steroids.