Fwd: Jai Bhim Comrade

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shiva Shankar <sshankar@cmi.ac.in>
Date: Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 1:00 PM
Subject: Jai Bhim Comrade
To:



Jai Bhim Comrade - a film by Anand Patwardhan.

For well over 2000 years India's Dalits were abhorred as 'untouchables' denied an education and treated as bonded labor. By 1923 Bhimrao Ambedkar had broken the taboo, won doctorates abroad (New York and London) and returned to India to fight for the emancipation of his people. He drafted the Indian constitution. He led his followers to discard Hinduism for Buddhism. His legend still spreads through poetry and song.

In 1997 a statue of Dr.Ambedkar in a Dalit colony in Mumbai was desecrated with a garland of footwear. As angry residents gathered, police opened fire killing 10. Vilas Ghogre, a leftist poet, hanged himself in protest.

'Jai Bhim Comrade' shot over 14 years, follows the music and tradition that Vilas had been a part of.

Anand Patwardhan has been making investigative documentaries in India over three decades. His films have often faced State censorship as well as the wrath of religious fundamentalists.

www.patwardhan.com