Screening of Jai Bhim Comrade
by Anand Patwardhan,
Visiting Humphrey Professor
Macalester College
Date: Monday, November 12, 2012
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the campus center at Macalester College
Open to the public.
Synopsis: For thousands of years India's Dalits were abhorred as "untouchables" denied education and treated as bonded labour. By 1923 Bhimrao Ambedkar broke the taboo, won doctorates abroad and fought for the emancipation of his people. He drafted India's Constitution, 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 footwear. As angry residents gathered, police opened fire killing 10. Vilas Ghogre, a leftist poet, hung himself in protest. 'Jai Bhim Comrade' shot over 14 years, follows the poetry and music of people like Vilas and marks a subaltern tradition of reason that from the days of the Buddha, has fought superstition and religious bigotry.
Review: http://kafila.org/2012/03/21/jai-bhim-comrade-patwardhan/
n.b.: The U of MN has a copy of the DVD in the Walter Library Smart Commons video collection. It and it circulates for 3 days and can be reserved for classroom use.
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