By Amisha Mittal

Abstract

This article explores the role of music and poetry as mediums for dissent against caste-based injustices in India, focusing on Kabir Kala Manch’s activism. It also analyzes the film ‘Court,’ highlighting how it critiques the Indian legal system and caste hierarchy through the trial of a Dalit poet-activist. This dual examination underscores the power of artistic expression in challenging and exposing institutionalized casteism.

Introduction 

Music and Poetry have invariably been associated as instruments of expressing dissent and opinions in the discourse of societal issues and politics. When it comes to expressing opinions through poetry and music, Kabir Kala Manch, created in 1992, in Maharashtra, as a result of the Gujarat riots, is one such cultural organization that is proactively engaged in creating poetry as an expression of conflicting opinions against the social inequalities such as caste atrocities, female oppression, class oppression, child labor, corruption, farmer suicides among several other issues. Very often, such activists (often Dalits), are charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 (UAPA) of India. The state of Maharashtra has time and again thrown light on the authoritarian nature of the UAPA through their recurrent attempts at silencing the activists of Kabir Kala Manch and accusing them of association with Naxalites while violating their fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression under the Right to freedom (Article 19) of the Indian Constitution. In the Indian Constitution, Article 19 holds paramount significance as it confers upon citizens the indispensable right to critique their government. This cherished provision forms the very foundation of India’s democratic principles, fostering a culture of open dialogue and constructive dissent, which is vital for the flourishing of a robust democratic society. Kabir Kala Manch through songs and poems exercise their fundamental right under Article 19 to critique the government’s policies. This resonates with the people to come together and fight for justice. However, the State often resorts to malicious prosecution of these artists under legislations like the UAPA and other unreasonable allegations as it feels threatened by the backlash and the possibility of losing its authority and influence.

The award-winning film ‘Court’ – A spectacular representation of Indian Courtrooms

Along similar lines, Court, a spectacular film directed by Chaitanya Tamhane offers a critique of the Indian legal system and caste hierarchy in Indian society. The film evokes and portrays an absurd but real nightmare of administrative and judicial incompetence and social inequalities in India as it follows the case of Narayan Kamble performed by Vira Sathidar, a 65-year-old folk musician and social activist who expresses his emotions through his poetry and is accused to have instigated the suicide of a sewage worker in Mumbai through the same. The film offers a very profoundly devastating critique of the legal system, especially the judiciary as it highlights the inherent caste and class prejudices that exist in the society among ordinary people in the most subtle, invisible, and quiet manner. What is more, the film is based on real-life observations! While this film is not based on a specific real-life incident or person, it is inspired by real events and social issues prevalent in Indian society, particularly the Indian legal system and caste hierarchy. The film offers a critique of the legal system and explores themes of social inequality, discrimination, and the complexities of the Indian judiciary. While the story and characters are fictional, they are representative of the systemic issues faced by marginalized communities in India.

In the plot of the film, Narayan, a Dalit – poet activist, is arrested while he sings a strong and impactful piece of poetry encouraging people to raise their voices against religious, racist, and casteist inequalities in the wake of nationalism. He is arrested for allegedly abetting the suicide of a manual scavenger/manhole worker through his poetry. The rest of the film progresses as we witness the trial of Narayan Kamble in a courtroom in Mumbai. The film slowly builds on the courtroom drama while piercing the bubble of a stereotypical representation of a court in popular cinema and profoundly compels the audience to look into the harsh societal realities.

The Mumbai courtroom where the trial progresses offers a typical example of caste prejudice and corruption wavering themselves into a life-long prison sentence for a politically active Dalit man acting as an advocate of social change. The film revolves around six main characters, namely, Narayan Kamble (The Dalit Activist), Vinay Vora (The defense lawyer), Nutan (The Public prosecutor), Judge Sadavarte, the manhole worker who is said to have committed suicide, and his wife. The film’s three central characters (the pillars of the courtroom, the judge, the defense lawyer, and the public prosecutor) offer varied character diversity and analysis of the issues inherent within the film subtly and profoundly.

The film characters – Blending into real representations of the law handlers.

One of the main characters, the judge himself offers a classic critique of the legal system. The high court judge is a superstitious judge who is seen refusing to proceed with another trial when a witness appears in a sleeveless top in the court. He is seen giving impractical advice to his friends, following absurd traditions, and arguing over outdated 19th-century laws in the court. The scenario highlights whether such a person could continue and provide judgments with his biases for the largest democracy in the world. The film also highlights instances of Narayan being treated as a public nuisance in the court owing to him being a Dalit with no one except for his defense lawyer interested in the actual matter of the case while the court presumes his guilt resulting from his being vocal against inequalities through his poetry. His defense lawyer, who belongs to the upper strata of the society is portrayed to be empathetic and interested in social work and justice simply out of his privilege and because he can afford to do so. The film does not portray him to be a hero but rather as an ordinary man who is more privileged than others to raise his voice and do social work.

As the film proceeds, it is seen that the allegations made against Kamble turn out to be false as a song urging sewage workers to commit suicide never existed in the first place. In the plot of the film, the public prosecutor is seen being obsessed with rules and is seen trying to apply the law in ‘black letter’ terms. She sees it as an instrument used to silence the presumed lawbreaker who is nothing but a roach. The film shows clips of the prosecutor reading law word-by-word from a book and requesting the judge to detain Kamble, without going into the intrinsic details of the case or thinking reasonably. An interesting piece of work by Jacques Derrida ‘Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice’ can help us understand what is happening in the court in this instance. Derrida in this work emphasizes on the discourse of law being de-constructible. The law being written in various codes, conventions, and treaties is essentially a text which is to be followed as a rule. Every text is deconstructable and can be broken down to understand its meaning and draw inferences and interpretations based on different scenarios. According to Derrida, deconstruction leads to justice because the law is made by those in power and always has some illegality attached to it. Deconstructing it helps understand its meaning for better interpretation and question it because otherwise, the law is always claiming complete authority and is presumed to be just. Applying ‘black letter law’ can be legal, but not always just. Although there existed no evidence to continue the case, the trial was dragged for weeks going over laws as old as the 19^th century, the judge himself portrayed a dumb ear to the opinions of the parties and delayed the case unnecessarily. Embracing the deconstruction of law is exactly what was lacking in the prosecutor’s behavior in the film.

Another important discourse that the film throws light upon is the condition of sewage workers and extreme conditions surrounding manual scavenging which is also another example of the film reflecting upon class and caste prejudice. According to the defense’s testimony – the manhole worker’s wife, the manhole worker that died from inhaling hazardous fumes in the manhole himself did not portray any suicidal tendencies and constantly tried to find the will to continue his job. His widow remembers him being intoxicated with alcohol every morning before leaving home for work because he found his job so unpleasant. Nobody provided him with masks or any other category of protection from the hydrogen sulfide gas to which he succumbed while working underground. It is observed that each morning, he would look for signs of life like cockroaches, crawling out of the pipes to decide where the air was too toxic for him to enter, if a cockroach appeared he found it safe to enter inside without any safety equipment. This itself highlights how caste prejudice plays its role in terms of occupational hierarchy in society. A low-caste man is supposed to perform the kind of work that an upper-caste man is never expected to. To understand this, the author refers to none other than Alan Hunt. Alan Hunt in ‘Law, State and Class Struggle’ emphasizes the biased operation of law and expresses how law functions effectively for the upper class and caste of society and suppresses the lower counterparts. While law is followed and the codes are put into implementation, in practice, law exercises force on the lower caste through its coercive action to maintain societal hierarchy. Law represents class and caste interest through domination and that domination itself is coercive and ideological, connected to the idea of hegemony. In the film itself, voices of the lower caste and caste are seldom heard whether it be a plea for safety equipment by the manhole worker or a plea of not being guilty by Narayan Kamble, the folk singer.

Moving ahead, the film follows the prosecution and defense counsel as they leave the court and enter their private family dynamic. The prosecutor is a busy mother managing her private and professional life and believes Narayan’s case to be unworthy of stern investigation. Contrary to the defense counsel, Narayan’s attorney is from a wealthy family with a taste for luxury and practices law solely for his belief in social justice. The social setting in the film comments on the class and caste hierarchy, accumulation of wealth in a few hands as well as slightly fringing upon the gender hierarchy wherein both the attorneys belonging from different genders have different roles and struggles to attest to with the female counterpart having to juggle between professional as well as familial roles of an ideal housewife and a legal counsel. While the defense lawyer is practical and vocal and fits into the realm of a well-informed individual with opinions, the public prosecutor is stuck with deep-rooted biases and sees Kamble’s activism as a nuisance. In another scene, the prosecutor and her family are seen attending a xenophobic play. Her daily life and experiences have made her blind to the rampant injustices she sees in her daily life. During the play, a man is seen insulting a boy who has migrated from Uttar Pradesh accusing him and his people of having taken up all the space and jobs in the city. The prosecutor is seen chuckling and laughing off the entire scene, providing the viewers a glimpse into her biases and her nature of acting as an enabler of injustice although not actively participating in any sort of discrimination. This scenario itself highlights the atmosphere the prosecutor lives in, which constructed her behavior and biases as compared to the defense lawyer who is comparatively more likely to be outrageous to spot injustice and discrimination. Progressive yet well-informed people find themselves agreeing with the defense lawyer while also understanding the circumstances the prosecutor has to live through. While the defense lawyer offers a more accurate representation of a 21st-century lawyer who is vocal about social inequalities and fights against them, the prosecutor is more relatable from a gender inequality and role point of view.

The next part of this two-part series will deal with the concept of institutionalized casteism and how it takes place in society. It will also trace real-life incidents highlighting this phenomenon and will also trace the inherent institutionalized nature of the same through the film ‘court’.

Author’s Bio

The piece is authored by Amisha Mittal. Amisha is a final-year student at Jindal Global Law School. Her interest areas lie in Intellectual property and Competition law. 

Image Credits – Official Film Poster