dir. Anand Patwardhan,
2011, India, 199 mins
For thousands of years India’s Dalits were abhorred as “untouchables”, denied an education and treated as bonded labor. By 1923 Bhimrao Ambedkar broke the taboo, won doctorates abroad and returned to India to fight for the emancipation of his people. He drafted the Indian Constitution. He led his followers to discard Hinduism for Buddhism. His legend still spreads through poetry and song.
In 1997 a statue of Dr. Ambedkar in a Dalit colony in Mumbai was desecrated with a garland of footwear. As angry residents gathered, police opened fire killing 10. Vilas Ghogre, a leftist poet, hung himself in protest.
Jai Bhim Comrade, shot over 14 years, follows the music and tradition of reason that Vilas had been a part of.
dir. Anand Patwardhan will be attending
