Rich in thoughts, excessive in drama, refined in aesthetics, and impeccable in manufacturing values, this film is an ought-to-watch. Biopics are of two types – one tries to concoct records, and the other attempts to live up to records. While the former is an image-building exercise, the latter attempts to document the activities of a personality whose story deserves to be advised. The eponymous biopic of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar falls inside the latter class. While the modern-day narrative reduces Dr. Ambedkar to Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly, the biopic offers him the due fame of a social iconoclast. The biopic, directed by Jabbar Patel, tries to capture within its 180-minute walking time the different layers of his multi-faceted personality consisting of being a pupil, an innovative thinker, a firm believer of human equality and justice, a fierce opponent of orthodoxy, and a fearless crusader of social justice.
The national award-winning film begins by displaying Ambedkar’s student days at Columbia University, where he studied on a scholarship from the King of Baroda. The king noticed Ambedkar’s prodigious intelligence, and he was chosen as a social test to deliver slow social reform inside society.
In Columbia, we see Ambedkar (performed by using veteran Malayalam actor Mammootty) deeply engrossed in his studies, keeping aloof from the developments in the freedom conflict movement lower back home, a great deal to the wonder many. He is proven to be skeptical about improving the country of low castes, even supposing higher caste Hindus replace British rule.
His doctoral thesis on casteism brought to Western academia the horrors of this unique Indian phenomenon of graded social hierarchy, which treats millions of ‘untouchables’ worse than animals. After studying, His return to India threw him into a cauldron of caste hostilities. He discovered that erudition and brilliance would no longer efface the “untouchable” stigma. He observed that it was difficult to locate a place to live in Mumbai; his colleagues objected to him sharing their jug of water, and his students at Law College refused to accept him. This merciless social ostracism is poignantly portrayed in the movie.
The Mahad Satyagraha (1927) is powerfully depicted in the movie, doing whole justice to the significance of this ancient event. The Bombay Legislative Council Council had passed a law permitting low caste persons to apply public tanks. However, fearing backlash from the top caste, the low caste men and women did not exercise their prison proper. Ambedkar prepared a mass movement to break the caste limitations. Hundreds of humans under his management openly drank water from the tanks, inflicting resentment on the top caste individuals of the vicinity. They accomplished a purification rite of the tanks to dispose of the impact of “defilement.” Also, the low-caste folks who dared to apply the tanks were violently attacked. These incidents shown in the movie remind one of the violent events that came about in Kerala after the access of ladies in the Sabarimala temple to exercise their rights declared by using the Supreme Court. More the matters trade, extra they continue to be equal!
