In a research paper in the Economic and Political Weekly in May 2020, filmmaker Jyoti Nisha advanced an idea she referred to as “Bahujan Spectatorship” to describe how people from marginalised groups view popular films, which strip underprivileged “characters of their dignity and agency” and replicate “hierarchical structures of caste on screen”.
Since Bahujans have “never fit into the popular imagination of India”, Nisha contends that they have adopted “an oppositional gaze and a political strategy” that rejects “the Brahminical representation of caste and marginalised communities in Indian cinema”.
Bahujan Spectatorship is among the ideas in Nisha’s film Dr. BR Ambedkar: Now & Then (2023), which examines caste inequality down the ages through the lens of her personal experience.
It is one of the two documentaries that has been released on the streaming platform MUBI to mark Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s 134th birth anniversary on April 14. The other is Somnath Waghmare’s Chaityabhumi (2023), which focuses on the memorial at the site of Ambedkar’s cremation in Mumbai to highlight the centrality of the revolutionary anti-caste activist in the Dalit imagination.
Tamil director Pa Ranjith, who has dramatically altered the representation of Dalits in mainstream cinema, has presented both documentaries. Ranjith’s films are among the examples cited by Nisha as she explores the manner in which Dalits have been depicted in popular culture.
Dr. BR Ambedkar: Now & Then looks at the history of caste in India, recent incidents of caste violence in Una in Gujarat and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh and the protests over the death of Dalit student Rohith Vemula. The film also explores how the notion of Brahminical patriarchy has clouded the reaction to instances of violence against women, including in the MeToo movement.
Nisha herself appears as the film’s narrator, speaking directly to the camera about her own consciousness of caste.
In edited excerpts from an interview, Nisha told Scroll about what motivated her to make Dr. BR Ambedkar: Now & Then and why her presence in the documentary matters.
Dr. BR Ambedkar: Now & Then comes from a deeply personal space. What inspired you to make the film through a first-person narrative?
The film was like a reaction to what was happening in our country since 2014, the protests, artists returning awards. There was lot of censorship and control on scholarship and freedom of speech. A lot was happening within the Dalit leadership too.
I felt that this needed to be documented. I also felt that probably nobody else would do it the way I would.
My being in the film was a later choice, after two edits of the film. Since I am talking about representation, I thought about having that agency, showing the vulnerability of sharing the experience.
When I was documenting, I had conversations with a lot of people who didn’t know about caste, who didn’t really understand how it works. Why didn’t they know, and what were they watching in terms of consuming popular cinema?
Film is a very powerful medium. When I was negotiating the idea of making the film, I came across Jabbar Patel’s Dr Ambedkar and Anand Patwardhan’s Jai Bhim Comrade. These films at least assured me that a film like mine could exist, but from a different experience – as a woman from a Bahujan family. It’s a different gaze and different way of living.
The documentary has been shown to diverse audiences around the world. What has the response been like?
Really warm. Lots of people have been stunned. There have been lots of silences and sometimes, it takes a while to have a conversation.
When I showed the film at non-governmental organisations, people could relate to the experience of caste and untouchability at least, if not the political conversations. I have also shown the film at art galleries and to people in the Bombay film industry.
Segregation, racism and sexism are universal. It has been good to address these in the context of a real lived experience.
What was it like to grow up in a Bahujan family?
I grew up in Lucknow. I was born in Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh and my father later moved to Lucknow. I am from a middle-class family. My father was in the Railways. I went to an English-medium private school.
I understood [about caste identity] in retrospect – there were some teachers who were exceptionally mean to me, they would punish me. One teacher hit me on my knuckles when I was six years old. The teachers happened to be upper caste.
My father was very assertive and conscious about education. We would celebrate Dr Ambedkar’s birthday, Buddha Purnima. These are very different cultural rituals. Outside, there was a very Hindu imagination.
When I was around 35 years old, I had the awareness of how caste works. When I went to study at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, I understood that this is my history, this is what Dr Ambedkar is all about. He’s not only the chairperson of the committee that drafted the Indian Constitution, but he is also a reformer. He’s done much, much more, and there is a great history behind that. When I understood all of this, I felt that English-speaking people who have a sense of ownership of art need to know this too.
Your film came out in 2023. Has the situation changed since then, in terms of awareness about and sensitivity towards caste injustice?
Things will not change so quickly, obviously. The system is 3,000 years old, how can it?
But universities are teaching my paper on Bahujan Spectatorship, and there are students who are writing about it. They are using the scientific framework to say that this is not our experience.
The larger connection has been in terms of looking at cinema as an ideological state apparatus. People, at least scholars, have started talking about the gaze consciously. They are engaging with the question.
The connection between the lived experience and the gaze, representation, ideology, aesthetics – this has worked with a lot of people. These are universal experiences too. If you are a Black person or a Mexican watching this film, you will be able to understand this kind of systemic exclusion or discrimination.
Will the resistance come from the mainstream or from alternative spaces – or do they have to work together?
The mainstream and alternatives spaces have to work together. Like bell hooks says, popular culture is the site of transgression and literacy. It’s exactly that.
What really hit home for me was Pa Ranjith’s Kaala. There’s a scene where Kaala [played by Rajinikanth] goes into his kitchen in his house in in Dharavi. I could relate to that completely – there’s a joint family living together, and he’s an Ambedkarite. There are different layers happening here.
The pushback is because the ownership of art is by privileged communities in our country. The community and filmmakers have to work together, but ultimately popular culture is a site of ideological production. It comes under the control of the Ministry and Information and Broadcasting. Does powerful people in authority relate to these experience?
Are there films that perhaps complement your documentary, which you would recommend?
If anything complements what I have done, it’s a work by a whistle blower, perhaps.
I love Ranjith’s films. Natchathiram Nagargiradhu is one of my favourites because I felt that the character Renee is me.
Mari Selvaraj’s Karnan is an excellent piece of cinema – the storytelling, each frame, every character and nuance. Also his film Maamannan, about the seat of power.
The Hindi film ‘Phule’ has run into problems with the censor board. Why is Hindi cinema struggling in its exploration of caste?
The collaboration [in Hindi cinema] is not happening. You will not be able to make authentic stories unless you collaborate or engage with people who have had authentic experiences. You need collaborations in which you pay artists what they deserve.
There is also a lack of connection between what exists and what they want to show. Also, the ability to accept that you do not know is palpable with the kind of stories we are seeing.
But they are trying to make an effort. Let’s see. It’s not as intense as it is in other cinemas, where there is some kind of consciousness for a better world, or at least an authentic reflection where ostentatious craft is not required.
Also read:
Documentary ‘Chaityabhumi’ reveals Ambedkar memorial’s centrality in the Dalit imagination
