Tango Charlie is a movie that should never have been made and shown in theatres. It is not even a movie. It is a propaganda machine aimed at spreading the deep seated prejudices, lies and all those distorted images associated with the Northeast. The movie trivializes the grave political situation in the region, and portrays it as a mediaeval place caught in a time warp.

The Bollywood movie starring Bobby Deol, Kelly Dorjee, Ajay Devgan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty and Tanisha is the latest proof – if one needed any - of the patronizing Indian mindset that looks upon the Northeast as a lawless war zone at best and a vassal state at worst.

In the movie, “Tango Charlie” is the code name given to the BSF jawan, Tarun Chauhan (Bobby Deol), the protagonist whose mission is fighting the supposed enemies of the nation at war fronts across the country’s landscape. Ajay Devgan (Mohammad Ali) is Tango Charlie’s boss and mentor. Other actors play marginal roles.

It is a cold comfort that even as I write this, the Assam government has banned screening of the movie in theatres in the state. It is a cold comfort because the damage has already been done to the frayed image of the Northeast. Many in the mainland India who have already watched and are going to watch the movie might never know -- in their lifetime -- that Tango Charlie is a mockery of the Northeast frozen forever in celluloid. This assault on the prestige and culture of the Northeast will be hard to compensate for unless Mani Shankar or some other Bollywood filmmakers, by some miracle, decide to make a film that shows the truthful side of the Northeast: bright, sunny, picturesque and polite. The last point is especially apt: ours is one of the most polite societies in India that represent everything that the North Indians lack, such as our sense of hospitality, gracefulness and mercy.

That’s why I can’t imagine living in a world in which the Bodo militants live in the jungles of Manipur, howling, hooting, slitting people’s throats and dismembering human parts and gifting them to their girlfriend. I wonder from where the director gets this idea of force-feeding barbaric rituals into the movie as our battlehood culture. It’s abominable and irresponsible filmmaking.

It is not surprising that the Bodos are seething with anger. IANS reported that students and legislators of the Bodo community were unanimous in condemning the movie.

"The fact that the film shows Bodo militants in Manipur reflects how poorly it was researched," said Pramilla Rani Brahma, a Bodo woman legislator. "It makes Bodo militants look like some sort of barbarians. The film is not only slanderous but shows the entire community in very bad taste, as if we are all bloodthirsty monsters," Rabiram Narzary, a senior leader of the All Bodo Students' Union, told a news agency.

My own views mirror those of the Bodos. I am not so much angry at the errors of geographical attribution as to the portrayal of the Bodos as the blood guzzling monsters. To an outsider, the Bodo militant is just another militant in the Northeast, and therefore, the implications of the movie go well beyond Manipur and Bodos. The movie assassinates the character of the entire peoples of the Northeast.

In an interview, director Mani Shankar says "Tango Charlie" is a strong statement against war. Yet his movie advocates suppressing the insurgency with military aggression. Hasn’t his research found out that insurgency demands a political solution, not just fighting fictitious savages in Manipur’s jungles?

On second thought, Mani Shankar deserves pity, not our bellicosity. He was only following the Bollywood way of making films, or rather making up stories. Bollywood churns out more than 1000 films a year, majority of which has little touch with the reality – like Tango Charlie - and exhibit very poor production values. More than anything else, Bollywood lacks professionalism and creativity. It faces a drought of ideas, which shows itself in various Hindi copycats of the English movies. So much so that if some Hollywood studio were to claim damages under Intellectual Property law, half the number of the Hindi movies will not see the light of the day. This crisis even extends to the Indian music industry.

Other than the intrinsic maladies of Bollywood, Mani Shankar’s error has its roots in Indians’ fascination with the army. A typical Indian sees joining army as the loftiest service to the nation and gives them respect and honour. In the battle zones of Kashmir and the Northeast, army is synonymous with human rights violations and more or less seen as perpetrators of the same brutalities that the movie Tango Charlie depicts the Bodos as committing.

Such ill researched movies serve little purpose – the movie has neither entertainment value nor educational message. It also fails in arousing the spirit of national integration, the movie’s objective. Its only success is in further reinforcing the universal sense of alienation we in the Northeast feel.

Mani Shankar is also the editor of the film, and as editor he should put his cut and delete skills to prune the objectionable portions out of the film. The best service he can render to the nation is by showing to the countrymen the true picture of the nation, not some map defying jungles with some imaginary cannibals thrown in.

Dear Mani Shankar, you owe us an apology.