The tenth Chobi Mela brings forth a volume of work that spans different geographies but unifies them all under the theme of ‘place.’
To be able to better understand the several exhibitions on display at this festival, one needs to distance oneself from a physical definition of ‘place’ and realize how it manifests within our psyche. The emotions and the many identities that we share, when we say that we belong to a place.
Amongst the many identities that we assume, our relationship to the place of our birth, or rather our nationality, is very central to the lives we lead. Here, the idea of a homeland is vast and all encompassing, one which houses great diversity in terms of language, gender, religion, and sexuality, amongst other things. But in this understanding of one’s nation as one’s home, there comes an important relationship that lies between the state and its people. This relationship is one which also dictates how the people perceive their own nation.
Anand Patwardhan’s, “Prisoners of Conscience” (1978) which is being shown as part of Chobi Mela this year is a film which attempts to highlight this relationship in the troubled times of the Emergency era, in a fairly young India.
On the night of June 25, 1975, the President of India, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, declared a state of emergency which lasted nearly two years. Under the direction of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, this period in Indian history became synonymous with the suspension of elections, censorship of civil liberties, and gross human rights violations.
“Prisoners of Conscience” is the visual record of a time which saw a newly independent country face its first considerable threat to democracy. Drawing from the lived experiences of political prisoners of this period, the film turns an unflinching eye on descriptions of brutality and intolerance. These harrowing accounts leave a vivid impact on the viewer as the film analyses the fraught relationship between an increasingly autocratic state and its people.
Shot on 16mm film, the gritty black and white print gives the film a quality of belonging to an era long gone, but what it communicates remains relevant, even today.
The film is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the courage of all who were martyred for having questioned the narrative of the state. As we follow the horrors these prisoners of conscience are subjected to, the incapacity of the state to accommodate an alternate point of view becomes the central subject of the film.
A political activist, himself, Anand Patwardhan, has played a crucial role in providing a visual language to the changing geography of Indian politics. His films deal with the socio-political fabric of contemporary India, raising questions around civil liberties, democratic rights, rise of nationalism, and the state of the marginalized.
In his latest documentary, “Reason/Vivek” (2018), the filmmaker revisits such intolerance again, as it takes the shape of communal violence based on caste and religion, but only in a newer and more economically robust India.
In the wake of rising nationalistic tendencies in global politics, films like “Prisoners of Conscience” give us an opportunity to sit back and observe from a distance, an event from recent history, and to gain insight that can bring us closer to understanding contemporary issues.
Anand Patwardhan’s “Prisoners of Conscience,” will be screened at the Drik-Pathshala-Under Construction Building, between 11:00am and 8:00pm everyday.
