Criminal Justice Behind Closed Doors: My personal view

2020 has been a year of addressing and recognising mental health. I don’t even need to tell you why. This year, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that we paid attention. Some of us opened our hearts and ears to people with troubled experiences or their fight with loneliness. 

However, the D word, aka depression, has also been a male dominant space (for the lack of right expression). 

As funny as the Yashraj Mukhate’s Shehnaaz Gill remix is, it’s true. Women have often asked themselves, “Kya karoon main marjaun? Meri koi feeling nahi hai?” 

Years after years, women and their feelings have been oppressed to a level that they themselves have stopped recognising the problem. Their sense of right and wrong is questioned, repetitively. 

Criminal Justice Behind The Doors throws a light on just that. 

Starring Pankaj Tripathi, Kirti Kulhari, Jisshu Sengupta and Anupria Goenka in pivotal roles, Criminal Justice season 2 wakes you up to realise how women, educated or uneducated, working or homemakers, are unaware or made unaware of everything wrong around them or with them. 

(Photo: DisneyPlusHotstar/YouTube)

Kirti’s character Anu Chandra is made to believe over the years that being sexually punished is okay because she is the one who is wrong. Her husband Bikram Chandra (Jisshu) fed her brain that every problem is a result of her own doing. 

She was alienated and made to believe that something was wrong with her. Her own child believed she is a threat to her life. And joke is, the psychiatrist, who is supposed to be helping, took an advantage of the situation. 

Anu was mentally harassed by her husband. But are we aware that mental torcher or harassment can be caused by relatives/spouses?

Anu’s mental trauma, which also seems to be a result of her brought up, tells her that being raped is a shame, and she should be ashamed of herself. 

When asked in the court that why she wanted to her rid of her night gown after killing her husband, she says, “I didn’t want anyone to know what Bikram was doing to me. I feel ashamed.” 

(Photo: DisneyPlusHotstar/YouTube)

The male police refuses to believe that there’s something called ‘marital rape.’ 

“Wo pati hai” is a justification or an answer given to a woman for everything a husband does to her. 

Ashish Vidyarthi, who plays a lawyer, with an ease, says that judge won’t pay heed to Anu’s statement as IPC has nothing called marital rape, in response to which Mita Vashisht’s character Mandira Mathur says, “Don’t you think Indian law is pro-male?” 

And you, as a viewer, are left with questions. 

Criminal Justice 2 touches a very strong topic. We need more of such content that educates the viewers. Educate women. Inform them about their own laws. It’s a step taken in the right direction but we sure need more steps because they say cinema makes difference, artists make difference. 

And on an ending note, I’ll say that this show belongs to the writer Apurva Asrani. 

And while Pankaj Tripathi is an absolute delight on screen, the series belongs to Kirti Kulhari. She proves and shines as a performer.