Somnath Waghmare interview: How ‘Chaityabhumi’ celebrates the memory of BR Ambedkar

“Our difficulty is how to convince the heterogenous mass that we have to take a decision today in common and march in a co-operative way on that road which is bound to lead us to unity.”

This is the heritage museum on the ground floor of Ambedkar’s bungalow in Dadar. It is called Rajgruha. Ambedkar’s descendants stay on the upper floors. Visitors come from all over India and the world. Entry is free.

The film soon tracks the lakhs of people as they came, on December 6, to celebrate the death anniversary of their beloved leader. The cremation location, the Chaityabhumi, a Buddhist chaitya or temple, is next to the Dadar Chowpatty beach.

Many people wear the colour blue, which signifies the Dalit movement. One theory is that the blue represents the sky. Under the sky, everybody is equal. Ambedkar’s trademark suit was in blue.

In the documentary, Rahul Telgote, a blind musician, sitting cross-legged on the ground, hits a drum with both hands and sings:

“Oh Bhima, be born again for the oppressed, troubled and tired
Their hearts are longing for your arrival.
Oh Bhima, behold your 90 million people
The ones who are ready to die at a word from you
You are their guiding light.”

A little distance away, a young man shouts, “Emancipator of women.” A group of young men in white shirts and pointed caps shout in unison: “Babasaheb” (this is the nickname for Ambedkar, which means respected father). The young man enumerates the achievements of Ambedkar: “Equality/Fraternity/Economist/The only ruler/Your ruler, our ruler/Constitution maker/The lawgiver/Bodhisattva/Crown of the world.” The action continues.

The Samata Sainik Dal (The Equality Squad), in khaki trousers, does a march past, with beating drums and flutes. One can see bald-headed Buddhist monks in yellow robes. One holds a placard stating they are from the Bhikkhu Sangh of North-East Mumbai. “They are mostly Dalits who converted to Buddhism,” says Waghmare. “For the Chaityabhumi, monks had also come from Myanmar and other South-East Asian countries.” Amidst the chanting of Buddhist prayers, people place garlands on the statue of Ambedkar.

The conversion: ‘A political act’

In 1956, to get away from the oppression of the caste system, Ambedkar had adopted Buddhism, along with five lakh compatriots. “This was more a political act, and less to do with spirituality,” says Waghmare. Today, the Dalits continue to follow Buddhism.

Charan Jadhav, a singer and actor, with a blue bandana tied across his forehead, sings a song in praise of two kings: Chhatrapati Shivaji (1630-80) and Ambedkar. On the skin of Charan’s drum, the words ‘Jai Bhim’, the Dalit greeting, has been painted in blue. “King Shivaji’s courts brought justice to the people,” sang Charan.

Waghmare adds, “The Dalits hold Shivaji in high esteem. He was a progressive ruler. He treated all classes and castes of people equally. There was no discrimination. This has been elaborated in [rationalist] Govind Pansare’s best-selling book, Who was Shivaji? (1988).”

There are Dalit intellectual voices in the documentary. One of them is Dr. Rahul Sonpimple, scholar, and President, All India Independent Schedule Caste Association. “Ambedkar is part of my emotional and spiritual life,” he says. “When I visited Chaityabhumi, I cried. But the Indian state is the replica of the society that practises untouchability. Ambedkar was never part of public memory. Most of the monuments or the memories we have about Ambedkar are community-created.”

Commonwealth Scholar Pranjal Kureel says, “Academia and media have erased or appropriated the ideas of Babasaheb, but when you go to Chaityabhumi, you realise his ideas are still being taken forward. The fire is still burning, and the wheel is moving. The emancipation from the framework of caste is necessary for everybody, not just Dalit people. There is an assertion through art, culture and music. That is very overwhelming. Freedom of mind is the biggest thing.”

The scene then moves to the sprawling Shivaji Park grounds where hundreds of vendors have set up stalls selling many books on Ambedkar and his movement. You can find these in English, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, and other languages. The other items on sale include photo frames, magazines, booklets, calendars, and paintings. There is Dalit literature and anti-caste treatises. “Apparently, sales of Rs 10 crore were achieved on that day,” says Waghmare. That comes as no surprise because lakhs of people were present.

At night, the family of Babasaheb pay their tributes inside the stupa. They place garlands on the shining bronze statue. The members include Babasaheb’s great grandchildren, Sujat and Ritika, and grandson Bhimrao Ambedkar and his wife. Visitors sing hymns in praise of Lord Buddha. At a public meeting, Prakash Ambedkar, grandson of Babasaheb, and president of the Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi, says, “I do not want to lose again the battle that we have long since won.”

A story from the Dalit viewpoint

Waghmare decided to make a film on the Chaityabhumi because he felt that there were few stories about Dalits in the mainstream. “Whenever people from non-Dalit backgrounds make a film on us, it is incomplete,” he says. “The Dalit cultural assertion is missing. Most stories in industries like Bollywood are only about the dominant castes. I wanted to tell the story from the Dalit viewpoint.”

Waghmare shot for four years before he made the film. Asked about the state of the Dalits in India, he says, “We know who owns the resources in India. We know who owns all the land, and the cultural capital. We know who has power. We know who controls the media. In the Indian Institute of Technology, the directors are upper-caste. In the official records, the upper-castes continue to dominate in all aspects of life. This is not what I am saying. It is all there in the data.”

Since Ambedkar had done his doctoral thesis at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1916, Waghmare had a screening at the LSE on October 24. “The audience liked the film,” he says. Shakuntala Banaji, a professor of social change at LSE, told The Guardian that she was deeply moved after viewing the film. “After generations of misrepresentation in, or exclusion from, mainstream Indian cinemas and media, Dalit directors and producers have started to tell the stories of their communities in original and exciting ways,” she says.

Waghmare says he wanted to show the real Indian society. “For most outsiders, when they watch Bollywood films, they think it is the accurate picture of Indian society,” he says. “Many people are not aware of the caste system. But with films like [Marathi director] Nagraj Manjule’s Fandry (2013) and mine, they are slowly becoming aware.”

Fandry was screened at Columbia University on April 18, 2014. After nine years, Chaityabhumi became the next Dalit film to be screened (on December 3) here; Ambedkar had also studied at Columbia University. Asked whether the caste system would ever be eradicated, Waghmare says that it depends on the privileged castes. “Only they can dismantle it,” he says. “Maybe some powerful revolutionary might arise and do it.” But the good news, he says, is that a lot of Dalits are in higher education. Waghmare is doing his doctoral thesis in the social sciences at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. “Until my graduation, I studied in a Marathi-medium school,” he says. As to whether he faced discrimination in his college life, he says, “Discrimination is part of a Dalit’s life. But nowadays, it is subtle. They insult me indirectly.”

Waghmare got interested in a film career when he began learning media studies while doing his masters at Pune University. As for the directors who inspired him, he mentions the name of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016), Nagraj and Tamil director Pa. Ranjith. Some of Somnath’s earlier films include I am Not a Witch (2015) and The Battle of Bhima Koregaon: An Unending Journey (2017). He is now working on Gail and Bharat. This is a documentary biopic of the activist couple Dr. Gail Omvedt and Dr. Bharat Patankar, who have worked for long on behalf of the Dalits. “I want to make films from the Dalit viewpoint,” he says. “This is my life’s mission.”