''Mission 11 July'' is a 2010 Indian

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

-language film directed by Manoj B Jangid. The film stars

Vikram Gokhale Vikram Gokhale (14 November 1945 – 26 November 2022) was an Indian film, television and stage actor, noted for his roles in Marathi theatre, Hindi films and television. He was the son of the Veteran Marathi theater and film actor, Chandrakant ...

Mukesh Tiwari Mukesh Tiwari (born 24 August 1969) is an Indian actor, who has worked predominantly in Bollywood. and few Tamil films. He is known for playing negative and comic side roles. He entered the film industry in the year 1998 with the movie '' China ...

, Tarun Khanna and Nattasha Singh. It deals with the sensitive subject of

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

. The movie suggests that people are not born

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

s, yet the wrong influences and circumstances may make them so. ''Mission 11 July'' preaches that just how the wrong influences can make a terrorist, the perfect influencers may be able to change people as they end terrorism and killing in the name of the

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

Plot

Mission 11 July is a story set in the

slum A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...

area of Mumbai's 'Bhandup', India. The story revolves around a simple lower middle class

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

boy called Shahid ( Tarun Khanna), who is very poor but is living a happy existence with his mother (Joyshree Arora) and his beloved girlfriend Raavi ( Nattasha Singh) who is a

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

but the difference in religion does not matter to their love. His life is simple and full of love and laughter till he meets a professor (Pramod Moutho) who starts brainwashing him into believing that Muslims are treated badly and given second hand and low treatment in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. Due to his respect and love for the professor and his own past where his father had been killed in the

riot A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...

s when he was a child, Shahid starts getting disturbed by the professor's talk and actually starts believing in them, and finally one day, when he sees his dear professor being taken away by the Anti Terrorist Squad, he remembers his own father's death in the

communal riots Religious violence covers phenomena in which religion is either the subject or the object of Violence, violent behavior. All the religions of the world contain narratives, symbols, and metaphors of violence and war. Religious violence is viol ...

and gets fully convinced that his community is being ill-treated in the country where he lives. Not realizing that the Professor was a wrong influence and has affected his entire thinking process, he is convinced that the professor has unnecessarily been arrested! He now makes up his mind that the professor was right! He has to become a terrorist to help his kind, the Muslim. He decides to leave his home and his mother and his beloved girlfriend Raavi who try their best to stop him and when they can't, they refuse to stand by his decision to join a group of

Jihad Jihad (; ar, جهاد, jihād ) is an Arabic word which literally means "striving" or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with Go ...

is. Shahid's life changes fully and he becomes as hard as nails thinking that he is doing good for

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

, and saving his people by killing the Hindus. 5 years pass. Killing becomes something he feels he is doing for the good of his people as that's the only way to help them. That's how well the professor had brainwashed him. He never questions the path he's on until the day when everything changes. Shahid and his partner Aftab (

) have been given the Mission to bomb the

Parliament of India The Parliament of India (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameralism, bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the R ...

in Delhi for which they have to kidnap the Police commissioner's (

) family, hence blackmailing and coercing him into driving them to their destination, the Parliament House to which he has free access, in his own car! They have to spend one night at the Police Commissioners house as their Mission to blow up the Parliament House is planned for the next day, 11 July. And in that one night things turn around once again. Their souls which had fallen asleep are forced to wake up. The police commissioner Abbas Ali who is also a Muslim has never felt ill-treated in his country, the talks he has with Shahid and Aftab shake their souls up and make them doubt the validity of their Mission. The Commissioner Abbas Ali Baig takes the decision that he won't betray the country he lives in no matter what. As a true

Patriot A patriot is a person with the quality of patriotism. Patriot may also refer to: Political and military groups United States * Patriot (American Revolution), those who supported the cause of independence in the American Revolution * Patriot m ...

, he decides he'd rather let his family die than help the terrorists to blow up the Parliament house just to save his family. On 11 July as they are preparing to leave they hear of another group of terrorists who have bombed the trains in Mumbai

11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings The 2006 Mumbai train bombings were a series of seven bomb blasts on 11 July. They took place over a period of 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai, the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the nation's financial capit ...

and the people who have died in the bombings are not from any particular caste; they are just Indians. Shahid and Aftab are shaken up and realize that even though the Commissioner is from the same religion of Islam as they are, he is still ready to die for his country and countrymen because he feels he belongs to his country first. Consequently, they have a change of heart and realize that it's not about which

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

or religion or even country one belongs to. Acknowledging that the ones who die in any

terror attack Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

are humans first, they decide to give up their Mission to bomb the Parliament House and surrender themselves to the

Indian Police Service The Indian Police Service ( IPS) is a civil service under the All India Services. It replaced the Indian Imperial Police in 1948, a year after India became independent from the British Raj. Along with the Indian Administrative Service (IAS ...

Cast

as Police Commissioner Abbas Ali Baig *

as Aftab * Tarun Khanna as Shahid * Nattasha Singh as Raavi *

Pramod Moutho Pramod Moutho (born 7 May 1955) is an Indian film and television actor. He has appeared as a villain in number of noted Bollywood films, like ''Khalnayak'' (1993), '' Dilwale'' (1994), ''Raja Hindustani'' (1996), ''Mehndi'' (1998), Gadar'' (2 ...

as The Professor *

Neena Kulkarni Neena Kulkarni (''neena'' Joshi) is an Indian actress. She began her acting career in the 1970s on the Marathi professional stage and Hindi experimental stage, along with fashion shows and modelling simultaneously. She met Pt Satyadev Dubey, h ...

as Police Commissioner's wife * Joyshree Arora as Shahid's mother

Production

This marks the feature film debut of television actress Nattasha Singh.

Reception

A critic from ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split betw ...

'' wrote that "Another film that sets out to tell us how ordinary Muslim youth become disaffected and angry. Another long, hard-to-watch talkathon".

References

{{reflist 2010 films Films shot in India 2010s Hindi-language films