Lal Salaam - 2002

Story

Kanna (Sharad Kapoor) and Rupi (Nandita Das) form the preliminary portions of the film to lead us into the drama that will enfold. A romantic couple, the two are the most strong and intelligent living in the tribe. A studious and well fortuned tribe member, Kanna is on his way to earning his degree and travels to the city of Nagpur to do so, leaving behind his brother Ghishu (Vijay Raaz). Unfortunately, his brother, the only tie to his family, becomes involved in the ongoing Lal Salaam movement with the Naxalites. Drastically different, Ghishu?s ignorance and bad attitude leads him straight to the wrong tracks much to his brother?s dismay.

Ghishu is tortured and beaten by the police of his village. Torn and distraught he is found by the Naxalites, healed and out of insecurity joins their movement.

The villager commanders learn of Ghishu?s transformation into Naxalite and with the help of Inspector Deshpande (Sayaji Shinde) go crazy trying to find him. Unfortunately, the inspector and his help go about doing this in a negative way, taunting and torturing other villagers. The trouble increases when Inspector Deshpande encounters Rupi, the closest friend of Ghishu. Rupi is raped and in turn, hurt, runs away from the village.

Upon his return, Kanna is now alone, confused and unsure of what step to take. Believing that his two loved ones, Ghishu and Rupi have been killed Kanna goes crazy in search for the next turn in life. But Rupi has not died; she too has joined the Naxalite movement, and has no hopes of informing Kanna of her turnabouts.

The Naxalites continue to gain more and more popularity amongst the villagers who come to understand that they need to be free from those that wrongly dish out injustice to their village. With more furor the Naxalite movement enhances to a full-blown battle between good and bad. But what is good and what is bad is left to the viewer to decide.