Santosh (Shahana Goswami) is a young Indian widow cast adrift by the death of her policeman husband. Her in-laws hate her so her best option, as a woman, is to take a compassionate position as a police woman, symbolically replacing her husband.

Yes, there is a female police team in rural northern India, charged mainly with dealing with complaints and answering questions in India’s fiercely patriarchal (and culturally corrupt) police force. At first Santosh is the silent observer, as a woman, used to being the one that stands by and has no voice perhaps, but she gradually becomes more confident and aware of the perks of the position – bribes to look the other way. 

When a 15 year old Dalit girl is murdered, it’s the female police who deal with it so the men don’t ‘dirty their hands’. Dalit are the lowest caste who are not allowed to touch anyone of a higher caste. The girl is the lowest of the low – female and Dalit. Santosh is the only one who will take her body to the morgue and is co-opted by the charismatic female inspector Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) – called Sharma Madamesir in Santosh’s phone – to help investigate the case.

If this was set in many other countries, it might be about finding the evidence but in this particular part of India (and perhaps with a Dalit) it’s about pursuing the most convenientsuspect and then beating a confession out of him. Santosh is inexorably pulled into a culture and professional culpability that challenges her morality.

Director Sandhya Suri packs the story full of the nuances of class and gender, without losing sight of the dramatic tension of its crime thriller premise. Sharma is a nicely complex character as an example of what women can attain, but is it a win if the culture is irredeemably corrupt? You can’t help feeling that acting on your morals is a luxury of choice.

The overall feeling is of how hard it must be to maintain moral integrity where your only way of succeeding is to participate in corruption. The film doesn’t give any easy answers but the ending is subtle and uplifting, as far as it can be.