Once upon a time, not so long ago, the National Film Awards were the most coveted honour in Indian cinema; a rare sanctuary where craft mattered more than commerce, and performances stood tall above politics. But the 71st edition that was rolled out this year lays bare the sad truth that even this sacred space is no longer safe from the grubby paws of political puppeteering and populist pandering.

The National Film Awards, once awaited with eager hope by artists and artisans alike, are now a stage where mediocrity, masquerading as nationalism, takes a victory lap. In this year's awards, two decisions stood out -- not because they were outstanding, but because they were outrageously out of line and reeked of such brazen political choreography that the stench is hard to ignore.

The first is the cruel joke disguised as a 'joint' Best Actor award. Shah Rukh Khan's award for Jawan can only be seen as a punch in the gut of merit! Vikrant Massey's performance in 12th Fail was nothing short of phenomenal. It was rooted, it was restrained, and it was deeply human. It was the kind of acting that does not need background music to shout its worth. Vikrant carried the emotional weight of a small-town boy's impossible dream with heartbreaking authenticity. He was not performing; he became Manoj!

And then came the slap, disguised as a certificate, in the form of a joint award to Shah Rukh Khan for Jawan. Let’s be honest, Jawan is a circus; an entertaining one, no doubt, but a circus nonetheless. Shah Rukh's performance was less acting and more stunt work strung together by punchlines and slow-motion struts. That's fine for a mass commercial potboiler, but to elevate it to the same pedestal as Massey's haunting portrayal is like giving a Pulitzer to a street juggler because the crowd clapped louder... sad!

One could almost hear the mocking chuckle of the jury as they handed over the 'joint award'; a patronising pat on Vikrant's back and a political wink to Shah Rukh. After all, Shah Rukh has recently performed the greatest somersault of his career, from being the industry's secular poster boy to the establishment's freshly-minted darling. Pathaan, Jawan, Dunki -- all embraced by the new power corridors, with his public silence turning into quiet compliance.

Make no mistake, this award was less about acting and more about... acting in line.

A National Award for Obedience

If the Best Actor category was a farce, the Best Director award was a full-blown travesty. Sudipto Sen was awarded for The Kerala Story, a film so clumsy in its craft and so crude in its intent that even propaganda should be embarrassed!

Let's not mince words. The Kerala Story is not cinema. It is more like a WhatsApp forward with a budget. A stitched-together tale of lies, half-truths, and lazy stereotypes wrapped in the garb of 'based on true events'. The original promotional claim of 32,000 women from Kerala being converted to Islam and trafficked to ISIS was so absurd that it would be laughable if it weren't so malicious.

Even after quietly withdrawing that figure, the film refused to step away from its moral posturing. It painted every Muslim as a predator and every Hindu girl as a helpless lamb, and Kerala (arguably India's most literate and progressive state) as a festering pit of jihad.

And for this clumsy, bigoted hatchet job, Sudipto Sen gets a National Award? What next, a peace prize for hate speech? The choice reeks of reward for loyalty, not artistry. Sen's direction was patchy, his characters cardboard, his narrative devoid of nuance or cinematic merit. But then, that was never the point. The point was delivery, and he delivered precisely what his political masters wanted: a film that fans fear, manufactures moral panic, and gives muscular nationalism a seductive poster child.

What's most galling is not that The Kerala Story won something, but that it won Best Director! That's not just a nod of approval; it's a desecration of what the award stands for. It's like putting lipstick on a corpse and calling it alive.

Curious Case of Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Omission

Which brings us back to 12th Fail. The film was awarded the Golden Lotus for Best Feature Film, the highest honour; but somehow, its director Vidhu Vinod Chopra was left out of the winners' list. That's like handing the Booker to The Road Not Taken and forgetting Robert Frost.

How does the jury explain this? Did the film direct itself? Or was Chopra's quiet, understated execution too threatening for an establishment that prefers directors who scream from rooftops? The truth is, 12th Fail celebrated resilience, grit, and the transformative power of education, values that the current dispensation pays lip service to but rarely promotes, and perhaps is afraid of! The film didn't preach patriotism; it showed it. And that, perhaps, is its real crime.

In a just world, Chopra would have taken home Best Director. But in this year's theatre of absurdity, subtlety is out and servility is in.

And now about the noise on Kerala’s very own cinematic unicorn, Aadujeevitham (The Goat Life), which has been breathlessly touted as our next Oscar entry, a magnum opus (and a once-in-a-lifetime performance by Prithviraj Sukumaran). Now, let us exhale a bit and assess.

Aadujeevitham is an average film with below-average direction and a painfully long runtime. It is beautifully shot at times, yes, but that's hardly enough. The narrative is disjointed, the emotional arcs underdeveloped, and the direction often seems confused about whether it is shooting a survival drama or a glossy travelogue.

Prithviraj, for all the hype, grunts, glares, and gasps his way through the desert. Yes, he lost weight. Yes, he looks the part. But since when did method acting become a metric of excellence? That's a triumph of the makeup department, not the actor! What was missing was what's called soul, that quiet fire behind the eyes that makes you feel the character's anguish. Instead, what we got was performance art bordering on self-parody.

And the hype machine was (and still is) relentless. Teasers, trailers, paid premieres, whispered 'Oscar buzz', almost hoping that marketing alone could turn mediocrity into masterpiece! It is an ambitious film that couldn't quite find its voice, an Oscar hype that tripped over its own sandals.

This year's National Film Awards should serve as a case study, not in cinema, but in sycophancy. It's a reminder that no institution is sacred anymore. Not when awards are distributed like party favours to keep actors, directors, and ideologues in the good books of those in power. Not when art is judged not by craft, but by compliance. Not when the jury chooses politics over principle and noise over nuance.

We can celebrate Vikrant Massey all we want, and he so richly deserves it, but to make him share the stage with Shah Rukh's pyrotechnics is an insult, not an honour. And to deny Chopra while rewarding Sudipto Sen is not just questionable, it is indefensible. India deserves better cinema. And Indian cinema deserves better recognition. Until then, let the circus continue!

The author is the recipient of the National Award for Best Narration and an independent political analyst. Views expressed are personal. The opinions shared are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views or position of Mathrubhumi