Kaagaz 2 (2024): When Rallies Become Roadblocks to Life – Cinema as Policy Alarm

Cinema is the mirror that reflects the cracks in our society and also the blind spots in our policies. What happens when a political rally, meant to celebrate democracy or elect a leadership, becomes the very thing that blocks the pathway to life? In the film Kaagaz 2 (2024), we watch a father who loses his only daughter because of her ambulance that could not get through a rally-congested road. What seems like fiction is, in fact, a startling echo of the real-world policy failures. This film matters not just as drama but as a case study in public policy from rights to regulation, from protest to emergency access. 

By examining Kaagaz 2 through a policy lens, we gain insight into where laws exist, why enforcement fails, who the key stakeholders are, and how we might forge meaningful alternatives.

In the introduction of the film, we are introduced to Mr. Rastogi (played by the late Satish Kaushik) whose daughter is to become an IAS officer and whose future seems bright. But on the day of a large political rally held on a main road, her ambulance is forced to wait in a jam, a delay that proves fatal for her. The film then tracks Mr Rastogi’s struggle for justice, aided by a lawyer (Anupam Kher) and his son (Darshan Kumaar), pitting the ordinary citizen against entrenched political power. This narrative frames the core link between film and policy: here is a right to life, a right to liberty of movement, a right to emergency medical access the film puts them at risk.

Real-life incidents show to an extent, what we see in the movie - Kaagaz 2 is not just limited to being a fiction but also something that happens again and again in India. In 2018, a newborn baby in Sonipat, Haryana, died because the ambulance carrying him got stuck in traffic caused by a cycle rally. The government report said the delay of “20 to 30 minutes,” even with the siren on, was a key reason for the death. 

In another case, in Darbhanga, Bihar, an ambulance was stopped by protestors during a political rally. The driver said he couldn’t move forward because of the crowd blocking the road. These examples show that what happens in Kaagaz 2 is not rare or exaggerated, it reflects a repeated failure in how we manage emergency mobility during the rallies.

Turning to the policy angle, India’s legal frameworks already recognise fundamental rights of citizens. Under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, every person has the right to life and personal liberty. (The film itself mentions this as part of its inspiration.) There are also statutory laws such as the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, which actually includes the provisions on priority for the emergency vehicles. And the Good Samaritan Guidelines (GSR 594(E), 2020) protect those who help accident victims and emphasise prompt access to treatment. In electoral democracy, there are regulations for protests, rallies, and road usage, though often these frameworks remain weak or uneven.

However, public policy effectiveness does not depend only on the existence of law but on the quality of implementation, institutional coordination, and accountability structures. The problem highlighted in Kaagaz 2 thus becomes a textbook example of policy design versus policy execution gap. 

In policy terms, the failure shown in Kaagaz 2 fits the framework of “implementation deficit” and “street-level bureaucracy,” as described by the scholars like - ‘Michael Lipsky’. Laws merely exist on paper, but their success depends on how frontline officers including - police, traffic officials, and the administrators who interpret and implement them in the real time. The film reminds us that policy breakdowns often occur not in design but also in execution, where human discretion and weak accountability reduce the effectiveness.

Yet in practice, as the film illustrates, gaps proliferate. The first major gap is the weak enforcement that is though laws may exist for clearing emergency corridors or giving the priority to ambulances, on-ground reality often allows a massive rally blockades and the poor coordination with traffic and health services. In Kaagaz 2, the rally simply occupies a key road with scant visible arrangement for emergency movement, actually spotlighting the mismatch between the letter of the law and reality.

The second gap is the inadequate regulation of the political rallies. While the Election Commission of India (ECI) may issue the guidelines during the elections (for example, in February 2022 the ECI banned large vehicle rallies until a cut-off date citing public safety), there is no permanent national protocol for the off-election periods to regulate the large gatherings, rally routes, and their interaction with emergency services. Your draft rightly highlights this.

The third gap is poor inter-agency coordination and accountability. Even when first responders exist, the chain of command between administration, police, health systems, and political organisers fractures. There is often no Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) defining who must act when a medical emergency collides with a protest event.

And finally, there is a lack of victim support and redress, where the father in the film is left to fight alone in the courtroom, signifying the absence of a structured institutional support or a fast recourse mechanism when rights are breached. This reveals a justice accessibility problem where there is procedural complexity and a bureaucratic indifference that amplifies the trauma.

While Kaagaz 2 powerfully highlights the citizen’s suffering, a balanced policy analysis must also consider both the structural and political realities that shape such incidents. From the political parties’ perspective, rallies remain one of the few tools of visible mass mobilisation in a country where the electoral competition depends on the public presence and media optics.

Administratively, managing the public order during large gatherings is a complex coordination task that must reconcile the democratic freedoms under Article 19(1)(b) with safety imperatives under Article 21. The Police authorities often face these problems of resource shortages, competing instructions, and local pressures that complicate on-ground execution. 

Moreover, the citizens themselves sometimes participate in or tolerate traffic disruptions as part of political culture, revealing a societal normalisation of inconvenience for the symbolic expression. Therefore, the issue is not of villainy but of the systemic imbalance between the freedom and responsibility, symbolism and safety underscoring the need for the policy frameworks that respect the political participation while ensuring that essential services are actually never compromised.

To bring these analytic points closer to real life, we may invoke a few case studies from 2020–2025. In Punjab’s Khanna Highway incident (2022), an infant who died during a protest-related highway blockade; then in Uttar Pradesh (2023), a political rally delayed an ambulance; in Kerala (2025), an Adivasi man lost his life during a protest obstruction. These tragic events actually mirror the film’s premise and offer evidence of recurring policy failure respectively. The law may talk about life and emergency access, but the system often allows large road blockades without the full mitigation.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs’ 2023 report on both crowd and event management, India records over 4,000 incidents annually of traffic blockages or the accidents linked to the public gatherings. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) also lists “delay in medical assistance” as an indirect factor in the hundreds of accidental deaths every and each year. Despite this, India actually still lacks a unified “Public Safety and Crowd Management Policy,” which makes Kaagaz 2’s message highly relevant to today’s governance challenges.

From a policy-studies lens, such incidents represent implementation deficit, governance fragmentation, and collective action failure where multiple actors fail to act collectively and to uphold an individual right.

Comparative policy solutions help paint a way forward that includes -

1. Emergency Corridor Policy: In the global cities like Berlin or Dubai, “Blue Lane” systems are operational where the dedicated lanes are permanently reserved for the ambulances and fire services. This is enforced with automated fines and CCTV-based tracking. A similar model could be also adapted parallely for the Indian metros through the Smart Cities Mission, integrating it into the urban mobility policy.

2. Integrated Real-Time Command Systems: A real-time coordination mechanism linking the rally permissions, traffic control, ambulance dispatch, and crowd sensors could help in anticipating and decongesting the routes effectively. The Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCC) developed under India’s Smart City Mission can be repurposed to act as a “Emergency Mobility Coordinators” during large gatherings.

3. Regulating Political Gatherings: The absence of a centralised “Public Assembly Regulation Code” creates the inconsistency. Thereby a national standard requiring rally organisers to file the route plans, emergency contingency measures, and then the coordination with traffic & health authorities could actually reduce the risks. Non-compliance could result in penalties, suspension of permissions, or political accountability.

4. Accountability and Redress Mechanisms: Introducing a Public Safety Ombudsman or Citizen Redress Cell could help in ensuring swift investigation of the incidents where emergency movement is blocked. Compensation mechanisms should be automatically triggered in proven negligence cases. It should also be Direct Benefits Transfer to the concerned person.

5. Awareness and Behavioural Change: Laws alone cannot ensure the change; social awareness is key. Cinema like Kaagaz 2 becomes a part of public pedagogy educating the citizens that blocking someone’s passage may cost a life. Integrating the road ethics and civic responsibility into school curricula could absolutely also create long-term change.

Stakeholder (actor) mapping in this context matters. The key actors include:

• Citizen/ambulance patient (right-holder) – the one whose rights are at the risk.

• Rally/political event organiser (political actor) – exercises both the power and mobility influence.

• Traffic/transport authority (regulator) – responsible for ensuring flow and the priority routes.

• Police/administration (enforcer) – implements the permissions and also the emergency coordination.

• Health services/EMS (service provider) – dependent on clearance and speed.

• Judiciary (adjudicator) – provides a delayed but ultimate justice.

• Media and Cinema (agenda-setter) – amplifies the policy issue and sensitises the public simultaneously.

Beyond storytelling, media representation itself becomes an important policy tool. When films like - Kaagaz 2 go viral or it sparks discussion on news channels and social media, they create public pressure that can influence lawmakers to review the existing protocols. The concept of the “policy feedback” explains how the cultural products reshape the citizen expectations and also the government responses. Thus, cinema not only mirrors society, but then also actively participates in the policymaking by reframing the public discourse around both, safety and rights.

In Kaagaz 2, we see how the citizen is powerless, the political actor dominates space, the police and traffic management fail to respond, EMS is delayed, the lawyer and judiciary come in late, and the media/film raise the story. This visual map reveals power asymmetry, where political rights (to rally) overshadow the citizen’s right (to life). Policy interventions are thus required at three stages:

• Prevention (before rally: permissions, route planning),

• Protection (during rally: real-time clearance, communication),

• Redress (after incident: investigation and compensation).

From a governance lens, this also represents a failure of intersectoral policy coherence where the health, transport, and home affairs operate in silos. Strengthening coordination through horizontal governance and a shared accountability mechanisms is vital.

Singapore’s “Zero Delay Emergency Response” ensures ambulance arrival within just eight minutes across the city through a predictive dispatch algorithm.

The “UK’s Highway Code and Emergency Vehicle Act” impose strict penalties for blocking the emergency responders.

In Japan, civic obedience to emergency sirens is culturally ingrained through properly designed education campaigns.

By comparing India’s framework (which has many laws but the weaker enforcement) with these models, we see that India’s challenge is not legislative vacuum but operational discipline and public value orientation.

From an ethical standpoint, Kaagaz 2 actually raises the debate of collective responsibility when exercising one’s democratic freedom (to assemble) directly endangers another’s basic right (to life), where should the moral boundary be drawn? Public policy must therefore strike a balance between both democratic expression and life protection, a nuanced equilibrium between Article 19 (freedom of assembly) and Article 21 (right to life).

Kaagaz 2 is more than a film; it is a caution-tale and conversation-starter for policy students and practitioners. It reminds us that the rights enshrined on a paper life, movement, access are only as meaningful as the systems that protect and operationalise them. It shows how socio-political dynamics (rallies, protests, power) can actually undermine the basic rights unless regulated with the foresight.

For policy students, the film offers a very rich case to examine the enforcement gaps, stakeholder failures, governance ethics, and institutional redesign. For practitioners, it signals the urgency of integrating emergency access into crowd-management protocols and the rally regulation.

Finally, from an ethical and also a civic point of view, Kaagaz 2 makes us actually think about the moral side of public actions. The right to protest or also to hold a rally is important in a democracy, but that right actually should not harm someone else’s right to life or medical help. Citizens and organisers both have a duty to make sure their actions don’t put others in danger. The film is not blaming our politics alone it is questioning how we use public spaces, whose needs come first, and how power decides movement. By adding this moral lens, Kaagaz 2 pushes policy students and leaders to think not just about new rules, but also about public behaviour and shared responsibility.

Cinema, in this sense, becomes a policy catalyst, urging society to revisit the relationship between the state power, citizen safety, and public accountability. As we move forward, let us remember while one blocks someone else’s corridor today, and you might block their path to life tomorrow.

“Kaagaz 2 reminds us that the policy is not just about law; it’s also about aligning power, practice, and protection.”