The Diplomat : Value for Your Money

Sanjeev Kumar Nath

The Diplomat, released on March 14, 2025, is one of the few Bollywood films making diplomacy and international relations the main backdrop of the story.

It is based on the actual incident of an Indian woman, Uzma Ahmed—who was forcibly detained in Pakistan—being repatriated to India through the efforts of Indian diplomat in Pakistan, J P Singh in 2017.

John Abraham, who plays Deputy High Commissioner of India in Pakistan, J P Singh, does a wonderful job of presenting the character of the diplomat as a clever person skilled in strategy but also as a loving, warm human being.

The tensions between the restrained, calculative behaviour of the diplomat and the indulgent father living away from his family are ably depicted through Abraham’s flawless acting.

Although his muscular, hulky physique is discernible even inside the diplomat’s suits, it is mainly the use of his brains that the film shows throughout, except some action-filled minutes towards the end, when he is behind the wheels with Uzma and other embassy personnel, driving her to Wagah Border.

When a woman in a black burkha runs into the office of the Deputy High Commissioner of India in Pakistan, and frantically seeks shelter, the officials are themselves terror-struck, suspecting her to be an ISI operative or a terrorist of some kind, come to blow up the office.

Thanks to the compassionate gesture of one official at the front desk, however, she is not thrown out immediately, and the Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh is informed of the sudden commotion caused by her arrival. John Abraham’s first entry into the action is when he runs down the stairs to face Uzma.

From that point onwards, his acting is impeccable: suave and dignified as a diplomat, witty in speech, but also quietly compassionate. Uzma’s story doesn’t open up immediately because she is too traumatized to speak of the indignities and cruelties she has suffered.

However, what she says about being tortured and abused is proven to be true when Indian women officials see the marks of torture on her, and confirm that Uzma is not lying. Also, by checking the details of her passport they come to know that her identity as Uzma Ahmed, an Indian woman is true.

Then, in a later scene, she opens up and tells the Deputy High Commissioner all about how she was duped into marriage by a Pakistani national, Tahir, taken to a remote, mountainous location in Pakistan, and kept virtually as a slave.

She meets other women who have also been enduring torture and sexual abuse, and it is through the help rendered by one of these women that she is able to call a friend in Malayasia who advises her to somehow go to the Indian embassy and seek shelter there. After abusing her and even trying to sell her off, Tahir marries her, and it is after the wedding that she is able to invent a reason for visiting the office of the Deputy High Commissioner of India in Pakistan.

She says that she needs to apply for visa to go to India and get the dowry that her parents would provide her husband. Temptation for dowry money makes Tahir take her to the office of the Indian Deputy High Commissioner.

Right in the beginning of the film there is a rather long disclaimer in both Hindi and English which makes it abundantly clear that the film was not made to malign any country or culture, and the sequence of events portrayed are fictional although the film is based on a real incident.

Then right at the end of the film, the real J P Singh, Uzma Ahmed and her little daughter, and SushmaSwaraj, Indian External Affairs Minister appear in the press conference following the repatriation of Uzma from Pakistan.

Thus, while there is a clear statement of the film being fictional, there is also the emphasis on its being based on reality. Clear depictions of and references to the lawlessness of Pakistan, at least in remote regions like the one shown to be the stronghold of Tahir and other terrorists, make it abundantly clear that the film means to expose the horrors of the lawless regions of Pakistan.

The remote region in Buner where Tahir keeps Uzma confined is shown to be a den of terrorists like him, and guns like AK47s are to them what farming implements would be to farmers. Everybody has access to terrible weapons, and even celebrations are incomplete without showers of gun shots. After he marries the captive Uzma, for example, Tahir dances with his friends, many of them shooting into the air with their guns.

The scenes in which Uzma is tortured are painful to watch, and the mere sight of the faces of the women of Buner demonstrates what they are daily going through. Their faces depict fear, helplessness, resignation, and bear physical marks of torture and abuse.

The director Shivam Nair has done a good job because finally the film is quite well received by the audience. One can pick faults with the plot here and there and question certain aspects of the mixing of fact and fiction, but it is not history on screen but a film that seeks to entertain while also delivering a message, and it is entirely successful in that. Ritesh Shah’s screenwriting skills are clearly evident, especially at places where John Abraham delivers the dialogues in his characteristically confident, quiet manner.

Sadia Khateeb, who made her Bollywood debut with Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Shikara in 2020, has done a great job in her role as Uzma, dexterously portraying the innocent, rather gullible woman who is won over by the cunning and cruel Tahir. Fear and desperation are the sentiments she has to express a lot in the film, and she does that quite well, while her love and yearning for her daughter from an earlier marriage also comes through quite clearly.

Tahir’s transformation from a smooth-talking nice guy whom Uzma meets in Malayasia to the terrible terrorist of Buner that he really is,is brought out with consummate skill by Jagjeet Sandhu. Kumud Mishra who plays the role of N M Sayyed, the Pakistani advocate whom the Indian Deputy High Commissioner engages to fight Uzma’s case in court, is refreshing with his jokes even at moments of crisis and tension.

Overall, The Diplomat is a film you can enjoy with your family and friends, especially if you choose to go to a good theatre to watch it. The big screen is the big screen, after all.

(Sanjeev Kumar Nath, sanjeevnath21@gmail.com)

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