Article 15 of the Indian Constitution (1) states that, “The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them; No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to (a) access to shops, public restaurants, hotels, and places of public entertainment or (b) the use of wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads, and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public”.
It has been 69 years since our constitution came into force, and yet we require hard-hitting movies, like Article 15, to remind us of the glaring inequalities in our country. The movie is a story of the rape and murder of two minor Dalit girls and the hunt for a third missing girl, with the ensuing investigation. However, even more so, it is a story of casteism and power play. Everyday scenes in the movie bring home the realities of casteism that are so prevalent in India. The scenes where the police refuse to buy water from a village shop because it is owned by a Dalit, or where the fathers of the murdered young girls drink water using their hands, because their caste does not permit them to drink water from a glass before people from a higher caste, or where some Dalits are lynched for daring to enter a temple, or where a man gets into a manhole naked to clear the night soil blocking it, bring to mind the live customs of a medieval India.
The movie is subtle, even in the hard-hitting scenes. All the actors, from Ayushmann Khurrana as the protagonist to Eza Sumbul Touqeer as the housekeeper/cook, delivered commendable performances. The movie is well-directed and without melodrama and hyperbole. The protagonist, a young police officer, ASP Ayan Ranjan, a Brahmin educated at St Stephen’s, Delhi, is bewildered as he observes casteism at all levels, including in his police station in Lalgaon, where the behaviour of all the police personnel is coloured by the observance of caste. Casteism is so deep-rooted in India that it is accepted as a necessity for social functioning and a justification for discrimination. A dialogue in the movie, “Hum kabhi Harijan ho jaate hain, kabhi bahujan ho jaate hain, bas jan nahi ban pa rahe hain ki jan gan man mein hamari bhi ginati ho jaaye,” which literally translates to, “We are so often referred to as Hari’s people or people in the majority that we are forgotten as simply people and not counted among those referred to in the national anthem,” is heart-wrenching because it is true. We claim to give people from the scheduled castes and tribes (SCs/STs) special status to elevate them, but had we not discriminated against them so far, this special status would not need to be accorded, and they would not need to feel stigmatised as belonging to SCs/STs. The movie revolves round the rape and murder of two Dalit girls. However, is this any worse than the rape and murder of a Brahmin or Kshatriya girl? The difference here lies in the mind-set of the perpetrator who belongs to the same society that we live in. If the girls were raped because they were Dalits, then yes, it makes a difference. Another disturbing aspect depicted in this movie, which we also experience in our daily lives, is how religion and politics are so easily mixed with crime Rapes are often politicised in our country to gain votes, and our elected leaders have been known to repeatedly make insensitive remarks over such issues (2). Further, this movie shows how the fourth estate also fails this vulnerable, oppressed, and stigmatised people with its biased reporting. In the movie, the media shows an act of befriending of the Dalits by the opposition leader without revealing the complete details of an act of discrimination.
Even if the culprits are caught, which rarely happens, it is a long and arduous wait for justice as in the Unnao rape case (3). Often, as in the Badaun case (4) and the innumerable cases of lynching and murder or molestation, justice is denied. The cases often languish for want of meticulous and honest investigation and reporting. Although several positive legislative reforms, such as the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 (5), and the “Guidelines and protocols: Medico-legal care for survivors/victims of sexual violence”(6) issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in March 2014, have come into being after the Nirbhaya case, the implementation gap still remains (7). This travesty of justice is fast becoming an everyday occurrence, and we, as a society, today need to question whether we have become so immune to such incidents that they do not bother us anymore.
Conflicts of Interest: None