What purpose well-intentioned
movies on social issues serve? Does just one movie solves an issue? Do they
only strike a chord with the already converted lot or are they able to engage
the set of audience who may have been indifferent towards such issues? It is not that
Hindi cinema has not been making movies on social issues earlier. The parallel
or art cinema since Seventies has been instrumental in taking up various themes
ranging from class-divide, gender discrimination, violence against women,
communalism, labour issues, etc., but mainstream cinema has mostly been
reluctant to take up hard-hitting issues primarily due to commercial prospects
and unwillingness of audience to accept such movies, especially when it deals
with disturbing content. However, powerful movies on social issues do come up
once in a while in mainstream cinema and ARTICLE 15 is one such movie which
deserves an applaud for being brutally upfront about the issue it aims to
highlight. Anubhav Sinha as the movie’s director has definitely pushed his
boundaries to take up such a powerful cinema after his earlier film Mulk, which
came out last year. Considering that Anubhav Sinha has been director of movies
such as Tum Bin, Dus, Ra-one, Cash, etc., he has definitely ventured into a
unchartered territory and is coming out with flying colours.
The movie is essentially based on
the theme of caste discrimination faced by Dalits in India and the prevalent
caste divides even after 70 years of independence, where even our Constitution
since its inception had made practicing caste discrimination a punishable
offence. The film derives its name from Article 15 of Indian Constitution which
states that the state shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds
only of race, religion, caste, sex and place of birth, along with other
provisions on similar lines. The movie is portrayed through the lens of an
upper caste IPS Officer Ayan Ranjan played brilliantly by the jovial Ayushmann
Khurrana, who has mostly ventured into doing comedy roles earlier. The movie is
set up in a fictional village Lalgaon in Uttar Pradesh, where Ayan is posted
for the first time. It is shown that Ayan has stayed in Europe for some time
and has lived in Delhi, with him being a St. Stephens graduate and
his views on prevalent caste discrimination has primarily been shaped up by
mainstream media. The movie’s plot revolves around a crime incident where two adolescent
girls are found dead hanging from a tree and another girl goes missing from a
Dalit village and how the town’s administration deals with it.
It comes as a rude shock to Ayan
when he witnesses the apathy of police force in dealing with the case because
the affected families belong to “lower caste” and the police staff keeps
insisting that such incidents are a common thing for these communities and
intervening in such matters would upset the delicate existing “social balance”. He gets to closely witness various forms of caste
discrimination such as not sharing a plate with a lower caste person, drinking water
being served separately for lower caste people, youth from Dalit communities
being flogged publicly because of them entering a temple, etc. In his earlier image
of modern India, he thought that caste discrimination had been a thing of the
past. The movie does not really delves into the prevalent tension between
upper-caste and lower-caste communities in the hinterlands, especially when it
leads to several caste-related atrocities. ARTICLE 15 instead shifts the focus
on how the various arms of administration ranging from police force, government
hospitals, bureaucrats, etc. treat the people from Dalit communities as lesser
citizens and how politicians merely try to use them as a vote bank.
ARTICLE 15 scores on several
fronts such as having a taut script, not shying away from portraying disturbing
scenes to make the audience feel unsettled, representing how Dalit communities
have the potential to resist the oppression, the realistic portrayal of
despondency as how things may not change any time soon, raising the larger
socio-political questions without being too preachy, etc. The film’s excellent
cinematography, including some sombre sets, really transports the audience to
the Indian hinterland. The background score keeps the tension palpable
throughout the film. ARTICLE 15 has several backdrops of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s
statue in the movie, as a symbol of Dalit leadership, which has mostly been
non-existent from mainstream cinema and which was a refreshing thing to see on screen.
The film also draws a character from real life Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad
of Bhim Army in a cameo role, played by Mohd. Zeeshan Ayub who leaves
notable impact in the film explaining the challenges of Dalit resistance. Manoj Pahwa and Kumud Mishra also deliver a first
rate performance as an upper-caste police officer and a lower-caste police officer, respectively in the film.
Ayushmann Khurana really excels in a serious role of a police officer who
carries the restlessness of making things right with sincerity. Isha Talwar in a brief role as
Ayushmann’s partner, who plays the role of a writer-activist, fulfils the role
of a moral compass for his partner.
One of the standout scenes of the
movie comes when Ayan Ranjan is surrounded by police officers and constables
and his PA explains to him the caste of each and every one there and where they
stand in social hierarchy. He just gets exasperated to know as how even the
police officers treat the matter so casually and take this for granted. It is to
an extent debatable as whether the movie’s protagonist should have been an
upper-caste person trying to act as the saviour of the Dalits and whether it
does justice with the theme. The director’s assertion has been that his
intention was not to preach to the converted. May be the portrayal of an
upper-caste protagonist helps to reach out better to the intended audience,
which has mostly been indifferent towards the issue of rampant caste
discrimination. The film hits the bullseye in raising the crucial question that
when the people responsible for implementing the Constitution disregard it
blatantly, then what hope the marginalized communities can have for being
treated equally and how will they get justice. After all, who will guard the guards?We need more such movies in
mainstream cinema which can call a spade a spade with the rightful intention of
leaving the audience disturbed and question the wrongdoings.
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