The Hunt for Veerappan makers on their new Netflix docuseries: ‘He was a politician who lived in the jungles’

The Hunt for Veerappan, a new four-part docuseries on the dreaded bandit of the 1990s and early 2000s, has been receiving a lot of acclaim. In an exclusive interview, director Selvamani Selvaraj and producers Apoorva Bakshi and Monisha Thyagarajan, also a force behind the International Emmy Award-winning fiction series Delhi Crime, talk about their attempt to investigate into Veerappan's past, politics and philosophies.

Edited excerpts below:

All I knew about Veerappan before I watched this docu-series was a faint visual of him from the newspaper, the unforgettable moustache and the fact that everyone was struggling to nab him. What was your hook while researching that saw you through the creative process?

Selvamani: The reason to tell the story was pretty straightforward, where you were before you watched it, that we only knew so much. Personally, I wanted to know what made the man, why he's a dreaded criminal on one side and how he can be loved on the other side. I grew up on the story of Veerappan and the residue of that story was there was a section of society who loved him. To them, he was a hero, despite knowing that he killed so many people and smuggled so many animals. This polarising view on him is what made me want to know more about how could somebody be both. To know Veerappan, you have to know all the people in his life. So it was a simple search that led us down this journey.

Apoorva: There's a lot of material out there on Veerappan. But none of the myriad versions felt authentic. It didn't present a complete picture of the man. So we wanted to explore the truth ourselves.

My favourite part of the docuseries is his wife Muthulakshmi. To me, she feels turned on by Veerappan. Why were her inputs crucial?

Monisha: What the wife offers is an access no one else could. While we had the gang members across different phases of his life, she came in at a point in his life when she saw him up close and personal. She's spent so much time in the forest. Even when she was away from him, she was still somehow connected to him. She held on to that feeling for so long. I think she was looking for the right medium to share something so close to her heart. There's also a female presence in the story, otherwise there are mostly men talking.

Apoorva: Also, there was deep love. It was not just fascination or attraction. There was something beyond that. She got married at 15 so her coming-of-age is with the story.

You also met a lot of forest officials and reporters who lived to tell the tale. How did you trace and gain access to them?

Selvamani: Going to his hometown Gopinathan was the starting point. We got to know his early life. Then one person led to another…

But even in the docuseries, we see everyone in his hometown is scared to talk about Veerappan. How did you crack that?

Selvamani: With just honesty. We don't have any agenda here. We just want to tell your story. You witnessed it, what do you feel? When they realised that's what we want, they started talking.

Apoorva: At that time, we were undeterred on the fact that this is not our story. We don't have a lens or a point of view. As filmmakers, we were just the medium of a story they wanted to tell for a long time. That's what storytellers do.

By now, we've seen a lot of docuseries on modern, urban criminals, like hackers. But Veerappan was a highly learned man who lived in the jungles. How do you think that set him apart?

Monisha: I think his weapon of choice was survival. Just the terrain and the circumstances that he had to endure. And the fact that he also had to be very aware of what was happening outside. He built that wealth of knowledge over the course of time. It was his way of making sure he and his gang were self-sufficient.

Selvamani: Everything about the story is very primal. To live in the jungles, but still expose the systems and structures that we built, that was always fascinating.

Veerappan also took advantage of the geopolitics by almost pitting Tamil Nadu against Karnataka through his war policy. Do you see him as a politician, even though he never contested an election?

Selvamani: Everybody is political. You don't have to read and learn, sometimes life teaches you politics. I find Muthulakshmi extremely political in her views. Just survival teaches you so much about politics: what power is, and where you are in the power structure. The way he felt for the Tamil language, he wanted to build an image and he was quite successful at it. He'll always be talked about in power circles. If it's an arrest, a court orders it and a constable executes. His arrest became an election manifesto point. So what was supposed to be the role of a constable, rose to the level of chief ministers. So you cannot separate that from his story. He was inherently political.

Monisha: Also, the fact that anything happening in the power corridors is bound to affect everyone everywhere. I guess it's a fact they realised over the course of time that anything happening there would drastically impact their lives. So he made sure he was politically aware.

What do you think was the commonality between Veerappan and Dr. Rajkumar? One is a bandit in the forest, the other a Kannada superstar. Was there something more to their bond than the Stockholm Syndrome?

Monisha: Somewhere, we get to know that he had deep respect for Dr. Rajkumar. He was making sure he was sleeping with them, feeding them well. That came from a place of respect. There was a point they wanted to put across. The intention was never to harm. Veerappan was a big fan of cinema. So I guess they had a lot to discuss there as well.

Selvamani: Veerappan had this animosity built in towards Karnataka and he wanted to be able to explain that in a story. He did that in Tamil Nadu. But he felt he was misunderstood in Karnataka. He's a great storyteller from what we know. So he shared his entire life story with Dr. Rajkumar. He wanted empathy from a revered figure in the state. Dr. Rajkumar was a superstar, he got some time to spend in the forest. He did feel extremely concerned that so much was happening because of his abduction, but personally, he liked the time off from the city. He really liked being in the nature.

What do you think led to the downfall of Veerappan? Was it his urge to be known, that led to his photographs surfacing. Or was it him turning emotional after meeting his grown-up daughter, that tempted him to exchange his elusive life for a normal one?

Selvamani: He wanted his story to be told. He got to say it, and at least in the two states, everybody listened. Even though he was hiding, people got to know his story from his mouth. And him wanting a normal life is what makes him unique. He's an extremely emotional bandit. The only way you can appeal to him is through his emotions. That's something we can take away from his story: Yes, he's done everything, but what did he want at the end of it? A normal life.

But do you think that also diluted his strength? Because he got caught immediately after that realisation.

He was looking for a way out. That's also the name of the last episode.

At the end, the interviewer tells Muthulakshmi that he doesn't like to celebrate anyone who kills. But that applies to both Veerappan and the state who killed him. How do you want Veerappan to be remembered as?

This is our attempt. That there was a perception, and we wanted to offer a perspective. It's upto you, how you see it. Our intent was never to change the perception, but offer a fresh perspective.

The Hunt for Veerappan is streaming on Netflix.