Janaawar review: A murder investigation that examines into the dark alleys of caste!

Janaawar: The Beast Within is a crime thriller exposing the deep embedded beast of caste, where societal rot sparks the making of a serial killer! 

We’ve all heard the saying that no one is born a criminal. It’s a truth often acknowledged, yet rarely believed. As how often do we really pause to understand a criminal’s story? Because if we did, it might reveal something far more unsettling that criminals are not isolated anomalies but products of a society that pushes some into the margins, stereotypes others, and shoves many into oblivion until the wrong turn feels right. In that sense, crime thrillers serve as more than just tales of catching culprits; they become mirrors, exposing the darker truths of the world around us. A murder mystery can end with a criminal behind bars, but along the way, it often unravels the crimes committed by society itself. That’s exactly what Janaawar: The Beast Within attempts. Set in the fictional Chhand district of Chhattisgarh, the series doesn’t just track a killer, it traces the caste lines and systemic burdens that continue to weigh heavily on people, branding them with an identity they cannot escape.

The story follows SI Hemant Kumar (Bhuvan Arora), a police officer whose paternity leave is abruptly cut short when a charred corpse is discovered deep in the jungle. But there’s a grotesque twist that comes along as the police start to investigate; the head seems to have vanished leaving a headless body behind, leaving the small-town police force shocked and scrambling. As Hemant and his team dig deeper, more threads begin to surface - a bride’s stolen gold jewellery, a missing MLA’s brother and even the mysterious disappearance of a foreigner from another police station’s jurisdiction. What at first seem like isolated cases begin to entwine others from the station, pointing towards one chilling possibility - could a single figure connect them all through a trail of violence?

Also Read: Homebound review: A tale of friendship, hope, prejudice and so much more!

Even though Shachindra Vats' Janaawaremploys many of the clichés that make crime thrillers such a popular genre, its seven episodes are built less like a whodunit and more like an atmospheric drama. The police station itself becomes a microcosm of society, almost a home where a variety of personalities co-exist. From the paan-chewing constable, the heavyset officer whose specialty is third-degree torture, the empathetic inspector-boss, a supportive female colleague, and the upper-caste, hardliner officer whose biases seep into every interaction. Among them is SI Hemant Kumar, the supposed hero of the story, often referred to as “Chhand ka Milkha” and a loving husband. He is far from being a savior hero; he is a lower-caste officer in uniform, who commands salutes from juniors but cannot share a plate with his peers. The daily humiliation he endures, even from his DSP who constantly belittles him, proves that while a uniform can command respect, it cannot erase caste. And yet, this very marginalization becomes Hemant’s quiet strength. He knows how to look in the right places, how to notice the needle in the haystack because invisibility has taught him to observe, to endure, and to keep going even when dismissed. His resilience doesn’t come from his caste identity alone but from the lived experience of being constantly othered, of knowing how society’s ugliest truths lurk beneath its polished surfaces.

This layered exploration becomes the series’ USP written by Sonali Gupta and Shreyes Anil Lowlekar. Rather than racing through plot points, the show draws in to the rhythms of a district police station, revealing the caste-laden dynamics of rural India. Each twist in the murder investigation uncovers as much about the land as it does about the killer. It shows us a world where a lower-caste police officer offering help is unacceptable, yet sleeping with a lower-caste woman is easily excused. The messaging never turns into spoon feeding, instead, it emerges organically through the investigation. By the time the unexpected culprit confesses, the show has already laid bare a darker truth that the beast isn’t just the individual who killed seven people but the society that pushed him to the margins, treating him as less than human while demanding he clean up its filth.

Bhuvan Arora’s performance anchors this tension. He lends Hemant a vulnerability and quiet intelligence that gives the series its emotional weight. Through him, the show doesn’t just tell a crime story, it asks unsettling questions about the hypocrisy of caste and human nature itself. What makes Janaawar even more striking is how coincidentally it arrives alongside other works engaging with caste. With Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound running in theatres and Shazia Iqbal’s Dhadak 2 streaming on Netflix, the series joins a wave of storytelling that resists the convenient narrative that caste-based discrimination is a thing of the past. Instead, all three remind us that for the marginalized, caste is not history but a daily reality whether you are two friends trying to survive, two lovers daring to be together, or a police officer striving to rise through education, only to be pulled back by the chains of identity.

In the end, Janaawar leaves us with a piercing question - who is the real beast? The man who lashes out after being treated as invisible his entire life or the society that systematically dehumanized him until he became one?

Janaawar is currently streaming on ZEE5!

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