Somnath Waghmare’s new documentary Chaityabhumi begins its journey at Rajgruha, the home in Mumbai’s Dadar neighbourhood the place Bhim Rao Ambedkar lived, earlier than winding its approach to Chaityabhumi not so distant. The white-domed seaside memorial on the positioning at which Ambedkar was cremated in 1956 looms giant within the Dalit creativeness.
Waghmare’s essayistic movie focuses on the annual pilgrimage of remembrance that takes place round Ambedkar’s loss of life anniversary on December 6. The movie reveals crowds making their approach from throughout India to Chaityabhumi, makeshift stalls on the streets round promoting Ambedkar’s books, calendars and statuettes of the good chief and the Buddha.
The crowds embrace members of political teams, folks performers and Buddhist monks. As one in all Waghmare’s interview topics factors out, there are additionally stalls guiding Dalit college students on faculty admissions, in step with Ambedkar’s dictum to “Educate, Agitate, Organise”.
The 106-minute documentary was just lately premiered on the London Faculty of Economics, the place Ambedkar earned his second doctorate within the 1910s. The movie will probably be screened later at Columbia College in New York Metropolis, the place Ambedkar picked up his first PhD.
Waghmare himself is a PhD Scholar at Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences. His earlier documentaries embrace The Battle of Bhima Koregaon and There may be No Caste Discrimination in IITs?.
Born right into a Neo-Buddhist household in Malewadi village in Maharashtra’s Sangli district, Waghmare famous that he emerged out of a “caste ghetto”. For Ambedkarite households in Maharashtra, visiting commemorative websites comparable to Chaityabhumi, Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur and Bhima Koregaon close to Pune, in addition to displaying memorabilia linked to Ambedkar, comparable to pictures or calendars of Chaityabhumi, are a “a part of your cultural life”, Waghmare mentioned.
But, few movies have captured this mass gathering in Mumbai in any significant approach or have analysed the emotive nature of the pilgrimage, Waghmare mentioned.
“Our Indian cinema, even the documentary subject, is managed by traditionally privileged individuals who ignore the problems of marginal communities,” Waghmare added. “Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar stayed a lot of his life in Mumbai, however by no means ever turned part of Bollywood’s cinematic creativeness. That is additionally the case with the Dalit motion and even with the Dalit Panthers. Via this movie, I wished to indicate the world that Dalit life doesn’t simply revolve round caste atrocities or reservations – they’ve their very own unbiased tradition, music, artwork and assertion in opposition to the caste system.”
Waghmare first visited Chaityabhumi as a toddler, together with a bunch from his village. “I’ve at all times felt that the Chaityabhumi monument offers you power and inspiration,” he mentioned.
His documentary arose not solely from the necessity to doc the annual trek to Mumbai, however to additionally talk about the symbolic worth of Chaityabhumi, the deep-seated casteism in Indian society and the methods through which Ambedkar’s achievements have been appropriated by politicians. Within the movie, one of many students interviewed by Waghmare factors out that Dalits on the fringes had been venerating Ambedkar’s concepts lengthy earlier than the political mainstream received concerned.
Waghmare initially got down to create a documentation challenge on Chaityabhumi in December 2019. “After seven days of video documentation, once I watched the entire footage, I assumed that there was no sense in simply releasing the footage,” Waghmare added. “I began recording once more, and continued until Could 2023. “ The movie was accomplished in September.
Chaityabhumi is within the observational mode, with out both a voiceover or commentary to accompany its scenes. “I don’t observe any elite or Western concepts of movie aesthetics – our life wrestle is aesthetics,” Waghmare mentioned. The movie consists of protest songs being carried out at Chaityabhumi by younger Dalits. “Dalit music and songs play a vital position in Dalit motion,” Waghmare mentioned. “That’s the reason I wished the movie to be extra musical and observational.”
The documentary is being introduced by Neelam Productions, the movie firm arrange by Pa Ranjith. The firebrand Dalit director from Chennai has made a number of polemical Tamil movies concerning the intersection of Dalit thought and society, together with Kabali, Kaala and Natchathiram Nagargiradhu.
“There are just a few Dalit group artists within the business, however they by no means assist us,” Waghmare mentioned. “They’re having fun with their Savarna [upper-caste] networks and preserve distance with us. Pa Ranjith is the one Indian widespread filmmaker who has a social imaginative and prescient. His Neelam Productions crew can also be very supportive.”
Waghmare is a part of a rising Dalit assertion within the arts, through which Dalits inform their very own tales fairly than wait to be represented – or misrepresented – by the higher castes. He’s engaged on a biopic of Gail Omvedt, the American-born sociologist and Ambedkarite scholar who wrote extensively on Dalit actions.
“There are only a few movies and documentaries on Dalit life tales, and they’re made out of an outsider perspective,” Waghmare noticed. “Savarna filmmakers have to cease making movies on Dalit lives or cease utilizing Dalit lives as information for his or her fellowships and grants as a result of they make very problematic movies. They solely present Dalits as helpless victims, such because the Kachra character from Lagaan or the movie Article 15. Dalit tales needs to be instructed solely by Dalits solely, not even Different Backward Castes.”
