Jyoti Nisha’s documentary rages against Bahujan underrepresentation in popular culture, shining light on how caste system functions within the societal framework
B.R Ambedkar: Now and Then is like a Caste 101 for the uninitiated, curious soul. It is informative, educational and agitative. Written, directed and co-produced by Bahujan feminist filmmaker Jyoti Nisha, the documentary delves into two key aspects. Firstly, it sheds light on the underrepresentation of the Bahujan population in mainstream popular culture. Secondly, it offers a comprehensive understanding of how the caste system functions within the societal framework. The film opens with the credit ‘A Jyoti Nisha Production.’ A powerful moment it was, seeing a Bahujan’s name adorning the production in a primarily upper-caste media industry, perhaps comparable to Ambedkar embracing the suit over the dhoti; the suit being a statement and a rejection of the Hindu garment.
Comparing events from the present and the past — between contemporary events and historical occurrences — the film asserts that not much has changed since the time Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s newspaper Kesari refused to publish a paid advertisement about Mooknayak, a paper started by Ambedkar himself. Or when Ambekar had to take a fake Parsi name in order to find accommodation in Baroda, when he was serving Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III in exchange for the scholarship support he received for Columbia. Or when Eklavya had to cut his finger off to ensure Arjun’s recognition as the greatest archer in the history books.
The appropriation of Ambedkar
The example of Eklavya-Dronacharya from The Mahabharata, although popular and trite, could not be a better example of the invisibilisation of Bahujan history or the hegemony of Brahmanism. Not to mention, the story reeks of the most unethical and hilarious interpretation of the concept of Gurudakshina, teachers soliciting body parts from students they have or haven’t taught is just questionable in general, but what makes the story relevant is Eklavya’s submission to Dronacharya, and thereby the perpetuation of the Brahmanical ideals.
In an interactive session after the screening of the film in Mumbai recently, Nisha underlined that if things had changed for Bahujans in the country, she wouldn’t feel the need to make the movie. In a segment from the documentary with Christopher Jaffrelot, the French social scientist and Indologist explains that Ambedkar is one of the most difficult people to appropriate and that is because his views against Hinduism are so staunch that he has left very little room for alternate interpretation. This, however, has not deterred the BJP.
Ambedkar had said, “Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.” It was to synthesize these two ideologies into one that Ambedkar had adopted Buddhism. He realised that the only way to assert the Dalit identity as an equal was to reject the religion that didn’t see him as an equal and adopt the religion that did.
A tragic commentary on our system
The BJP, ever since its rise to power in 2014, has tried to consolidate the Bahujan vote which makes for 85 percent of the population, by appropriating the legacy of Ambedkar. Despite Ambedkar’s clear allegiance to Buddhism, he has often been used as an anti-Islam Dalit icon by the current government. In 2022, senior Goa BJP leader Satish Dhond had said, “He (Ambedkar) suffered a lot as a Dalit but despite that he did not become a Christian, he did not become a Muslim … Ambedkar said he will be a Buddhist. Why? Buddhism was founded in this country… All the things he wrote in the Constitution (equality, brotherhood) were all there in Buddhism and that is why he accepted Buddhism. Now you think about it. If he had become Muslim, if five lakh Dalits in this country would have become Muslims, what would have happened? There would be another Pakistan in this country.”
Another glaring example of the trivialisation of the Bahujan identity was evident in the then HRD minister Smriti Irani’s interpretation of Rohith Vemula’s suicide. The Dalit scholar’s suicide was triggered by his suspension for an alleged assault on ABVP leader N. Susheel Kumar. The suspension was pressured by BJP MP and Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya to curb “anti-national” activities. Smriti Irani refused to call the incident a caste issue. “This is not a Dalit versus non-Dalit issue as being projected by some to ignite passion,” she had said, while refuting charges that her ministry had put pressure on Hyderabad Central University to suspend Vemula.” Instead, Irani called the incident a case of campus politics, her argument being that since the suicide note did not mention any political party or minister, his suicide could not be attributed to a caste issue.
Vemula’s poignant suicide letter remains a powerful and haunting piece of writing, “The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of stardust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.” The loss of a talent to an unreasonable set of beliefs is a tragic commentary on our system.
Personal narrative, overshadowed
During an interview with John Oliver on July 21, 2023 at the IFC Center in New York — following the screening of Ravish Kumar’s documentary While We Watched — Kumar commented on the state of Indian media in the country which is very pertinent to Vemula’s case. He said, “Media is gone in India. You can have ice-cream in India. We produce top class cake, better than Britain but we do not have a kind of media, which should be called media. The media is to kill opposition in any form, be it a political party, Arundhati Roy or any student leader. This is not a routine story of media decline. This media is something else. We have to be very careful. You cannot allow this media to survive in our democracy; it is a very hard-earned democracy.”
B.R Ambedkar: Now and Then also features talking head segments with Nisha herself. This personalised approach to the documentary is very endearing. However, it has not been leveraged to the full extent. The argument Nisha makes is that the stories of Bahujans have not been told from the perspective of a hero. She has even coined the term Bahujan Spectatorship, which “relates to an oppositional gaze and a political strategy of Bahujans to reject the Brahminical representation of caste and marginalized communities in Indian cinema. It is also an inverted methodology to document a different socio-political Bahujan experience of consuming popular cinema.”
And while Nisha is the hero of this film — she looks straight into the camera while narrating her story — her conversations are restricted to general statements about her frustration with the issue, which the interviews and animations already establish. And so her personal narrative falls victim to her biggest problem with the media i.e. the lack of Bahujan Spectatorship because reiterating the need for Bahujan perspective is not equivalent to asserting the Bahujan Spectatorship. It would have been interesting to see her talk about her Dalit identity in those personal segments, as the hero, as someone who has her own unique interests, dreams, hopes, favourite foods or books that may or may not have been influenced by her Bahujan identity.
And that remains the biggest issue with the documentary, the fact that it reiterates the problem rather than offer concrete solutions. The documentary fails to explore ways of establishing the oppositional gaze and instead focuses too much on the current gaze. Despite this, the documentary is educational, engaging, interesting, and worth every second.
