Hurdang trailer out: love, caste and casualties

The trailer of Hurdang is out. Set in UP, the film is backdropped on the infamous anti-Mandal agitations in the 1990s. It stars Sunny Kaushal, Nushrratt Bharuccha and Vijay Verma. 

Daddu Thakur (Sunny) is a domineering upper-caste college student in Allahabad. He aspires to be an IAS officer, and hopefully marry Jhulan (Nushrratt). Their love story dominates the trailer until Loha Singh (Vijay Verma) enters. 

Angered by the implementation of the Mandal commission report, which provided 27% reservation to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in government jobs, thus raising overall reservations in India to 49%, the students start an agitation. The film states their rationale out front. "A Brahmin's son can be poor, and a Yadav's (OBCs) son too," says a character. "So opportunity should go to the poor." The problem, he adds, is "caste-based reservation."

Daddu, in the later half of the trailer, emerges as a hero leading the students. We see arrests, clashes, and beatings. The imagery of fire is repeatedly stressed—fittingly so, since several students in Delhi and parts of India had set themselves on fire in the protests. 

Hurdang is written and directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat. It is produced by T-Series, Karma Media and Entertainment and Gothic Entertainment. The film releases in theatres on April 8.