Recently watched the much talked about movie 'Article 15'. For the uninitiated, Article 15 of the constitution of India says 'Article 15 (1) and (2) prohibit the state from discriminating any citizen on ground of any religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them'.
The movie discusses the important topic of caste discrimination, which is rampant and is a major social evil in India. The plot is 'based' on a true incident but has been tweaked to suit the views of the maker. The movie has great actors and they have delivered powerful performances. Overall, the movie is interesting and I did not feel bored at any point of time.
However, such movies make you think. That per se is not an issue. Every movie on a real issue should make you think. But this one also makes you think about the intentions and motives. There is a background to it as well. I have watched the previous movie ('Mulk') of the director and have also watched several interviews. He seems to have certain views against the major religion in India and takes a consulting-like approach to narrate or weave the story. He develops hypotheses and then creates a narrative to prove that hypotheses.
I really liked his previous film - Mulk. It talks about targeting Muslims and thinking that every Muslim is a terrorist. That is incorrect and it must be said. The film did show an Islamic terrorist but the director spent only few minutes on that. The rest of the movie showed how the family of the terrorist was targeted, asked to move to Pakistan etc. I would not say that it does not happen. I also agree (and firmly believe) that every Muslim is not a terrorist and that it should not even be discussed. However, the fact also is that >90% of the terrorists follow or claim to follow Islam (the reason I say "claim to follow" is because I firmly believe that most Islamic terrorists (and their handlers and religious leaders) do not even understand Islam). But it is a fact that over 90% terrorists are Muslims. Will the film-maker make a movie on that? No. Because then he would be scared of his life.
These days when the critics appreciate a movie, I start doubting the movie and the intentions. These days it has become fashionable to talk against Hindu religion. Any movie which shows Hinduism or a certain political party in bad-light gets good reviews from critics. Take for example the movie 'Mukkabaaz'. It is a good movie about a boxer of lower caste fighting against the system for his career and love. However, there are two scenes in the movie that I found questionable. In one scene, the goons target the boxer and his coach by falsely accusing them for consuming beef. While I agree that there is an actual case which got a lot of attention from media, pseudo-seculars, so-called liberals and of course political parties. However, there is no case where someone from Hindu religion was targeted in such a manner. The goons could have targeted the boxer and coach in many different ways but the maker (another guy who seems to hate Hindu religion and was quite vocal about the case) chose this as it could have given the movie free publicity. There is another scene in which the protagonist unnecessarily and repeatedly says "Bharat Maata ki Jai" while bashing the villain - who is a prominent local politician - in front of the cops. While the intentions were not absolutely clear but may be the film-maker tried to show that you can get away with anything by saying that. This in my opinion was a cheap tactic to garner free publicity for an otherwise good movie.
Article 15 also primarily bashes the Hindu religion or upper caste Hindus. I am not at all denying that in several parts of India, such caste-based discrimination is rampant. However, caste based discrimination is not specific to a religion. Have you not heard about the term 'Dalit-Muslims'? Although Islam does not recognize any castes, Muslim communities in South Asia (especially India) apply a system of social stratification. It is developed as a result of ethnic segregation between the foreign conquerors and the local converts. Why was that not correctly portrayed in the movie? Because it would not fit the hypotheses?
It is important to make socially-relevant movies but it is equally (if not more) important to ensure that it is portrayed in a non-biased way. Else it would only stem (or rather further escalate) communal tensions. Such movies also suggest (or at least fails to suggest otherwise) that majority of upper-caste Hindus think like this. It is as wrong as thinking that majority of Muslim are terrorists. That goes against the very intention behind Article 15.
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