Avantika- Week 11

Week-11 

Anand Patwardhan’s ‘Reason’ and Nicolas Jaouls ‘Sangharsh’ are documentaries that shed light on the current political scenario and how Dalits are being affected.

‘Reason’ depicts how Muslims and Dalits are being attacked by right-wing nationalists under the guise of nationalism. The part of the documentary discusses the 2015 lynching of Akhlaq in Uttar Pradesh. On the mere grounds of suspicion that he had eaten a slaughtered a calf and that the family ate beef. On further investigation it was found that the meat found in their household fridge was not beef but mutton. Akhlaq was killed due to mere suspicion of eating an animal that the Hindus deem “sacred”.  People are free to eat bats, that cause Global Pandemics, markets selling these animals are opened even after spreading a disease worldwide. After seeing the interviews of the victims family and accused family, it is clear to any prudent person that Akhlaq death was a planned murder and the accused had no other reason to murder him expect for the fact that he was a Muslim. The father of the accused thinks that it is okay to kill a human being, if he consumes meat that a Hindu is not supposed to. This ideology is being used to create Hindu terror groups, instigate the ill-literate under the garb of Hinduism and create vote banks for politicians. The documentary also discusses the death of Rohith Vemula and how students from JNU are flagged as “anti-national” by the Saffron clad community. The interviews conducted on extreme right-wing organisations are eye-opening as they do nothing but breed hatred and communalism among the volunteers by keeping them under the façade of feeling powerful and righteous. Whereas in reality the only one’s benefitting are the manuwadi leaders on top. When people who openly commit atrocities on Dalits and Muslims and go ahead and respond to interviewers that they aren’t afraid to go to any extreme lengths to supress these minorities is nothing less than a terrorist organisation. It appalled me to hear a man saying he beat up Dalits in the street, as they revolted against picking up a cow carcass, he continued to say that it is their “paramparik business” – family business to clean up the upper castes dirt.

Nicolas Jaouls film discusses the atrocities committed in the interiors of a village in Uttar Pradesh, his film focuses more on the struggles of villagers and how they are still forced into labour with no pay. His film shows us snippets of Dalit panther speeches, how the community is trying to revolutionise against this exploitation. While Patwardhan’s film discusses political parties, this documentary shows us how the system itself fails Dalits. It documents how the police and government departments irrespective of which government is in power does not listen to them or solve their problems. They discuss B.R Ambedkar’s words to help unite the community and fight against the atrocities they face on a daily basis.