Nakul Singh Sawhney/2013/India/60mins+15mins/Hindi with English subtitles
On the 7th of September, 2013, Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts in Western U.P saw their worst riots since independence. According to official figures, over 60 people were killed and over 40,000 were displaced. According to independent reports, over 200 have been killed and over 80,000 have been displaced. In this special event, filmmaker Nakul Singh Sawhney takes us through his recent footage from the refugee camps.
Sawhney, along with Neha Dixit from Newsclick, visited several camps in Loni and areas bordering Delhi where well over 10,000 riot survivors from Muzaffarnagar had fled. Their accounts ask pertinent and uncomfortable questions and expose what has been carefully hidden by political parties, government and mainstream media.
Initial reports claimed that the riots were sparked off by an incident of eve-teasing which ultimately acquired a communal colour. But is that really the case? Was the incident, where the element of molestation is also contested, only an excuse that right wing Hindutva forces were looking for to spark off such large violence and destruction? Was this in fact the polarisation that BJP needed to create the much needed presence in Uttar Pradesh in the wake of Narendra Modi’s run for Prime Ministership? Why was the supposedly secular Samajwadi Party-led state government inefficient in controlling the violence? Almost every victim talks about how the police refused to help them.
Most importantly, was it even a two-sided riot at all like the media is portraying it to be? Considering, more than 95% of the victims, of those who were killed and those who were displaced, Muslims? Or, was it, a pre-planned anti-Muslim pogrom?”
A discussion follows the presentation.
Nakul Singh Sawhney
Nakul Singh Sawhney directed his first film in 2005, With a little help from my friends, which won the award for the 2nd best film at the 60 Seconds to Fame film festival in Chennai. He then completed a course in TV direction at the FTII, Pune, during 2005-06. At the Film Institute, he directed Agaurav and Undecided that won awards for the 2nd Best Film and Best Director respectively at the Hyderabad International Film Festival. After completing his course, he made a feature length documentary Once upon a time in Chheharta on the history of the working class movement of Chheharta, Amritsar. In 2012, he finished directing the highly acclaimed film Izzatnagari Ki Asabhya Betiyaan on “honour” crimes in Haryana.
Kolkata People's Film Festival 