Round Table India
Name of the Film – Enlighten
Direction – Omey M Anand
Camera – Shardul
Editing – Jameer Attar
‘Enlighten’, is a short film based on three basic issues faced by the current generation. And the basic origin of conflict between dalit castes. When the leadership of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar emerged in India, every dalit felt that it was about her, but in Maharashtra, the situation was different than in other parts of India.
Maharashtra has two major scheduled castes, Mahar and Mang. In the last few years, there developed an internal dispute on ideology, icons and other misunderstandings between them. They started mocking each other with special names: Mahars tease Mangs as ‘Ambooj’, which has a somewhat derisory connotation. This film also focuses on that. In one village in Maharashtra, a dispute between the Mahar and Mang communities arises over the inauguration of a statue of Ambedkar on the border of the Maharwada and the Mangwada (Wada means stellement or neighbourhood).
Kabir and Sathe, who are activists, go to the village and make efforts to erase the dispute with the help of a local community leader. Kabir speaks about awakening and getting together and waging a struggle against Casteism and Caste Atrocities. But one villager asks Sathe about whether he’s an Ambooj? Sathe is also treated differently, and they serve food to him separately. Kabir becomes upset with this incident, he has no options in that situation. Kabir and Sathe are in the Dalit movement which thinks of annihilation of caste, but how do they overcome this kind of mental casteism? The question can be resolved only through awakening the people with a strong cultural mass movement.
This film focuses on members of the new generation who are involved in social struggles and movements. They realise, Caste not an issue it is reality, Caste is not only in our consciousness but also in our subconscious and it is a conflict between the conscious and the subconscious. Caste would be annihilated via social revolution, but what is the mental revolution? Babasaheb is not an icon of one particular caste; he is an icon of everybody who believe in abolition of caste. So, we have a way of Enlightenment for our people for a long, Anti-Caste movement.
About the Filmmaker
Omey M Anand did his bachelor’s in Social Work from YCSSW, Satara. He is working as a founder of the Nijaat Collective, which is a cultural group working for Dalit working class, people living in slum areas of Satara, Maharashtra. He is also pursuing M.A in Media and Cultural Studies from TISS Mumbai.
Please watch the film on YouTube here:
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[Via Somnath Waghamare]
