Jolly LL.B., Overview: Bikaner to Boston, in racing cars, and two advocates riding camels
Land acquisition, for building roads, bridges, residential and commercial buildings, factories and airports, are burning issues that have been making headlines in developing India for several decades now. These acquisitions are either by the government in power, or by companies that are owned by billionaires. In many cases, the government acquires the land, at a nominal price, only to hand it over to corporates, allegedly at peanut prices. In other cases, the corporates themselves manipulate the acquisitions, in cahoots with local government officials. Settlers and farmers, a majority of who are poor ‘adivasis’ (indigenous people or aboriginals), uneducated or semi-literate, who have been living and farming on that land for several hundred years, are suddenly uprooted, and their land grabbed. This deprives them of their only real wealth, causes erosion of forest and green cover, due to building activity, and mass migration of the hapless victims to strange places. Unable to face the take-over behemoth, some of them commit suicide. Sounds like an NGO’s rant, doesn’t it? Well, there is an NGO in the film, taking-up this cause, in Rajasthan’s Bikaner, and vowing to prevent it are two cranky, quirky, advocates, both called ‘Jolly’ who are at loggerheads with each other. Now, let us get into the cross examination.
A ruthless tycoon, Haribhai Khaitan, planning to expand his business empire, decides to acquire land in Bikaner, Rajasthan, under the guise of converting Bikaner into Boston, USA. With the help of corrupt government officials and an equally corrupt legislator, he manages to hoodwink and grab land owned by the indigenous people, living in the countryside, however, a group of 40 farmers and a woman with true grit, Janki Rajaram Solanki, resists take over. Distraught at the prospect of losing their land, and deeply shocked at being accused of having incestuous relations, members of her family commit suicide. In spite of such a huge tragedy, Janki is determined to hold on to her land, which was passed on by her husband’s ancestors to him. There is an NGO (Non-Government Organisation, known as Non-Profit Organisation, NPO, in the West), which is strengthening the cause of the farmers unwilling to part with their only real wealth and possession. But it has no impact on the machination of the corporation. This brings Janki to Delhi and she seeks out Advocate Mishra, also known as Jolly LL.B., a man known to have espoused the cause of poor litigants.
Janki tells Mishra that she is coming to him on a reference from a lady called Lakshmi. Mishra makes a joke of it, saying that he is always in need of ‘Lakshmi’ (the Hindu Goddess of wealth). He asks each of them for a fee of Rs.500 each which they say they cannot afford. Although he offers to reduce the fee to as low as Rs.200, they merely stare at him. He then asks them whether they have any money at all, and they say they have nothing. So he asks them how did they travel from Bikaner to Delhi and is told that they walked all the way. Unwilling to invest his own money in the case, he turns them away suggesting that they have probably come to the wrong Jolly LL.B. and that they should approach the other Jolly LL.B., No.1. Jolly LL.B. No.1, Advocate Tyagi, is equally unwilling to offer his services. Jolly 1 and Jolly 2 are always bickering about something or the other and accusing each other of stealing their clients, among other things. But, in an unimaginable scenario, the two Jollys join hands, to put-up a determined fight for the wronged and aggrieved farmers, and take on the might of the corporation.
There are three different elements at play he