1992 Scam The Harshad Mehta Story
director: Hansal Mehta
To emit: Pratik Gandhi, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Sharib Hashmi, Ananth Mahadevan
At the height of Harshad Mehta’s career as the king of the Bombay Stock Exchange, a magazine had featured him on its cover with ‘The Raging Bull’ as the headline. However, that wasn’t the only title he was given by the sycophantic media and the subservient market: they also called him ‘Big Bull’ and ‘Einstein’, ‘Cobra Killer’ and ‘Cheetah’. But nothing puts the life of Harshad and Hansal Mehta’s web series, Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, in a context like the one the stockbroker held closest to his heart: Amitabh Bachchan of Dalal Street.
Watch the trailer for Scam 1992 The Harshad Mehta Story
Those who have lived through the neoliberalized India of the early 1990s and years before would understand how a runner can enjoy popularity that rivals that of a screen icon. Nineteen years after his death, he is the subject of multiple web series and one movie, coincidentally starring the son of man he loved to be compared to so much. He was the ‘common man hero’ who died in custody with 70 criminal cases and 600 civil cases against him. In a country mired in outdated laws and red tape, a chawl boy from Kandivali made his way to a Marine Drive penthouse, with ‘risk hai to ishk hai’ as his mantra.
There is nothing more attractive than a cocktail of money, ambition and power, and the Harshad story has it all. Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story brings us a modern antihero story and puts it on the bench. Harshad is never portrayed as a criminal on the web show, instead he is a corrupt man who used loopholes in an archaic system to his advantage. Nor did he create the loopholes, nor was he the only one who used them, but ultimately the system won.
He is the outsider, the chawl boy, who not only wants to play with the greats, but also beats them at their own game. They, of course, do not accept any of that. “We do it with class,” says a man with contempt to his snotty friends, “and Harshad has no class.” Another describes him as a “bloody paanwallah.” The series hints that he was shot down by a cartel, a group of ‘insiders’ if you will. Even the first puff of the 1992 securities scam reaches journalist Sucheta Dalal (Shreya Dhanwantry) through a contact sent by the ‘cartel’.
Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story is based on a book by Dalal and Debashis Basu, The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away, and Sucheta gets a lead role. Focusing on how Harshad rigged the system in collusion with public sector banks and private financial institutions, resulting in losses of billions of rupees, it shows the story from poverty to wealth.
Perhaps the most important part of this 10-episode series is Harshad’s rise to power. Starting as a middle man, the lowest echelon of the food chain, he sees great growth with his head for business and his willingness to rip off the system. Together with his brother Ashwin (Hemant Kher) and his trusted aide Bhushan (Chirag Vohra), he takes on the established system and the swearing bear trader (Satish Kaushik). Harshad, a street vendor, will soon rule the stock market and now has his eye on the biggest prize: the stock markets. This is where he meets his real naysayers with a chip on their shoulders, led by the head of Citibank in India, Thiagarajan (Nikhil Dwivedi). Refusing to let this burly stranger make his way into their territory, a complex war breaks out between the two sides.
Having amassed a great fortune and with a direct line to Delhi via a self-styled man-god (Chandraswami, google it), Harshad is already buying into his own myth. A penthouse overlooking the Arabian Sea, a fleet of luxury cars and an army of acolytes who want his autographs, the stockbroker is the new demigod of a country that quietly but surely embraces capitalism and conspicuous consumption. Harshad sold the tug-of-war of the stock market as a get-rich-quick scheme to the middle class; greed was getting good.
Like the millions who bought this dream, Harshad begins to take too many risks, giving his detractors the opportunity they were looking for. Sucheta’s investigation report leads to an investigation by the Reserve Bank of India and soon the Central Bureau of Investigation. An aggressive CBI investigative officer, Madhavan (Rajat Kapoor), tightens the screws on Harshad and his cohorts, especially officials from the Mumbai branch of the State Bank of India and former Unit Trust of India director MK Pherwani (KK Raina ). Something rotten is also displayed in the seat of power, Delhi. Scam 1992 is a series that is not afraid to take names and point the finger. It offers a window into the tumultuous years of Indian history, making the setting and nods to major events perfect.
The biggest win of Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story is how it simplifies the complex. A securities scam involving subsidiary ledgers and bank receipts breaks down in common man’s parlance and, at times, turns into edge-of-seat drama. The last time it happened, I was watching The Big Short and we needed Margot Robbie in a bathtub to explain complicated details to us.
A fantastic performance by Pratik Gandhi certainly helps. While he hardly resembles Harshad Mehta physically, he channels charm and conviction, and is never more captivating than when he lets arrogance take over. “My biggest crime is that I am Harshad Mehta,” he says even when things are low and central agencies are in his scent.
A skillful cast adds depth to Scam 1992 and it was a pleasure to see so many faces populating the screen in the ’90s once again. It is the strong writing and direction that make this show such a fascinating watch, despite its length and complex subject matter. Hansal Mehta, credited as co-director by Jai Mehta, depicts Harshad as a product of his time, a man driven by ambition who will stop at nothing. While his crimes are hinted at, he is always portrayed as the victim of a system that is rigged for those at the top.
The Big Bull is controlled at the end, the series says, by predators higher up the chain. Don’t be fooled by the beautiful images of the Maximum City, it is a jungle out there.
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