Indian 2

Chitra Aravindhan (Siddharth), along with his three friends, Aarthi (Priya Bhavani Shankar), Thambesh (Jagan), and Harish (Rishikanth), runs a YouTube channel called "Barking Dogs" in Chennai. They focus on creating parodies and political satires, which garner them Lakhs of views. Chitra investigates issues like garbage collection in the city. 6500 tons of garbage is collected daily, and the government pays Rs 1860 per ton to the private agency in charge of collection. But 60% of the payment goes to the sanitation minister and various officers as bribe. Aarthi lives next door to Health Secretary Krishna Mohan (Delhi Ganesh), who is raided by tax officials and is found to have property worth Rs 1000 Crores. Meanwhile, loan collectors take away the certificates of a student for not paying the student loan on time. A young lady dies by suicide, and the team discovers that corrupt officials caused her death. In response, they protest, demanding justice. The police allege that the girl Sunitha wanted to get a teacher's job with fake certificates, and when she was caught, she jumped off the Government building and committed suicide. Sunitha's brother says that the official demanded Rs 8 Lakhs bribe for the posting, and when she complained, she was charged with having fake certificates. The police arrest them, but they eventually get bailed out by Chitra's girlfriend, Disha (Rakul Preet Singh). She lectures them that they cannot change the country all by themselves. Disha makes Chitra realize that his agitation has had the opposite effect. The innocent die and the corrupt are never even touched. Soon, they launch a campaign titled "Come Back Indian," believing that only Senapathy (Kamal Haasan), alias "Indian Thatha," can put an end to the corruption once and for all. Nilesh (Kalidas Jayaram), one of Chitra's friends, spots Senapathy in Taipei and discovers that he is running a martial arts school there, teaching Varma Kalai. Senapathy confronts billionaire Amit Agarwal (Gulshan Grover) on his super luxury yacht by defeating his security and admonishes him for stealing the nation's wealth. Amit launches businesses where Government gives generous subsidies. Amit siphons off the money, shows the business to be running at a loss and then abandons the factories and the people working in them. He took big loans from banks and then declared bankruptcy and left the country to lead a lavish lifestyle abroad. One of his companies was which bought educations loans from banks and recovered them through forceful means, which led to the death of several students. Senapthay stabs and kills Amit for his crimes. Nilesh persuades him to return to Chennai, which he eventually does, by using his senior mentor's passport. CBI officers Pramod (Bobby Simha) and Elango (Vivek) attempt to capture Senapathy upon his arrival in India but fail. Pramod's father Retired CBI officer Krishnaswamy (Nedumudi Venu) had also failed to arrest Senapathy 26 years ago, so this is personal for Pramod. Senapathy initially starts targeting corrupt individuals in Gujarat and Odisha. He warns all corrupt people to return their ill-gotten gains to the Government. Then, he urges his followers and the public to expose corrupt individuals in their respective states through peaceful means, inspired by Gandhi's principles, while he will uphold the ideals of Subhas Chandra Bose. He emphasizes that people should prioritize addressing corruption at home before tackling external issues. Senapathy also tearfully mentions that he had killed his own son, Chandrabose "Chandru" (Kamal Haasan), in 1996 as he too was a part of the corruption in the country back then and was directly responsible for the deaths of 40 school children due to a brake fault in their school bus. This results in everyone getting motivated; Chitra and his friends then start monitoring their parents' activities to uncover any wrongdoing. Senapathy goes after Dharshan Bhai (Zakir Hussain), who had acquire lease contracts on 40 granite quarries by eliminating his competition. Dharshan had a lease for extracting a certain amount of granite, but he goes 1000 times over, by paying bribes to politicians. Dharshan caused losses of Rs 1 Lakh Crore to the Government in mining royalties. Dharshan dies from heart attack after he cannot stop running. Senapathy then goes after Kishan Singh (Piyush Mishra) who ran recruiting exams for several government departments and took bribes ranging from Rs 4 Lakhs to Rs 40 Lakhs to put undeserving candidates in Government posts. By placing 7.5 Lakhs such people, he took bribes worth Rs 1.25 Lakh Crores. Kishan dies from dehydration as all the water is sucked out of his body. Harish visits his uncle's motel and discovers they serve stale food to customers. Thambesh finds out that his brother-in-law, Nanjunda Moorthy (Manobala), accepts bribes from customers (he charges Rs 300 to authorize one Aadhaar card and authorizes 50 such cards daily), as does Aarthi's mother, Kanagalatha (Renuka). Kanagalatha manages the land portfolio of the city, and Aarthi sees her giving permission to builders like "Sakalakala Vallavan" Sarguna Pandiyan (S. J. Suryah) for illegal construction on marsh land in exchange for bribes. They report their findings to the Anti-Corruption Vigilance Team (ACVT), leading to their parents' arrest. Disha finds that her own brother is an inept surgeon and uses google to perform simple surgeries, causing the death of numerous patients. She admonishes her parents for paying Rs 1 Crore for an MBBS seat and Rs 3 Crores for an MS seat, when her brother doesn't even know the full form of MBBS. Meanwhile, Senapathy targets corrupt officials who have embezzled Lakhs of rupees from the government. Chitra follows his father, Varadharajan (Samuthirakani), who works at the Anti-Corruption and Vigilance Commission (ACVC) but finds no evidence of wrongdoing. However, Aarthi's father, Thangavel (Thambi Ramaiah), reveals to Chitra that the young woman who died by suicide was actually a victim of his own father's corruption, not the officer's. He reveals that it was Varadharajan who took a bribe from the officer to let him go free and then falsely implicate Sunitha in a fake certificate charge. Initially skeptical, Chitra investigates and discovers the truth: Varadharajan had accepted bribes from the officer. Chitra reports this to the ACVC, leading to Varadharajan's arrest. Overwhelmed by public shame and ridicule as the wife of a corrupt officer, Chitra's mother Chitra Varadharajan (Kalyani Natarajan) commits suicide by hanging. Chitra gets blamed for this, and he is unable to do even the last rites for his mother, and Varadharajan too beats Chitra with his slippers due to anger, without any mercy. Devastated by the incident, Chitra meets Senapathy in person near the graveyard and blames him for his mother's death and starts a campaign titled "Go Back Indian", which too becomes viral worldwide, leading Senapathy to earn the wrath of the local people. On his way to the Chennai metro railway station, Senapathy gets attacked by rowdies but fights them back with his Varma Kalai. However, after witnessing the fight, people start beating Senapathy with slippers and cricket bats without listening to his pleas, as they still think that Chitra's mother committed suicide only due to his arrival. This is because all the corrupt people targeted by Senapathy unite against him and start a public propaganda to blame Senapathy for Chitra's mother's death. Pramod and Elango eventually arrive and capture Senapathy, but he uses Varma Kalai on Pramod to escape his capture, leaving Pramod paralyzed. Upon admitting him to a hospital, the chief doctor informs Pramod's father, Krishnaswamy (Bobby Simha), a former CBI officer, with whom Senapathy had a conflict 28 years ago, that only Senapathy can save Pramod, as he can reverse the tissue and nerve damage that Varma Kalai inflicts on the victim, otherwise, he would die within three hours. Krishnaswamy then takes the paralyzed Pramod to the court where Senapathy is being judged. Senapathy offers to rescue Pramod in exchange for his release, to which the judge reluctantly agrees. Senapathy then takes Pramod with him and leaves the court in an ambulance, promising that he will come back again. In the end credits scene, Senapathy introduces his parents, Veerasekaran Balram (Kamal Haasan) and Dhakshayini (Kajal Aggarwal), to his followers, who, like him, were also freedom fighters during the British Raj in the 1890s.