Mumbai: 'Article 15' shows the harsh reality of the society which includes caste discrimination to spread awareness and motivate to raise questions in the viewer's mind which will surely help in creating awareness.
Director Anubhav Sinha said, "Even in newspapers, such incidents are published in the inside pages and projected in a less prominent manner. I hope people read them and take action – if not anything, just by changing (their) behaviour towards the people who work for them. That is precisely the reason why I depicted the manhole scavenging scene so elaborately, with a slow motion shot."
"We have conditioned them (people from the lower castes) not to demand respect and, for ages, they never asked for it. Since they do not ask for it, we do not bother about our behaviour towards them, which is disrespectful," explained Anubhav.
"They are not well dressed because they have to do the dirty job for us. If they stop working for a day or two, you will feel miserable with all the stink and dirt!," he added.
'Article 15' features Ayushmann Khurrana along with Isha Talwar, Sayani Gupta, Kumud Mishra and Manoj Pahwa. Mohhamed Zeeshaan Ayyub plays a Dalit leader named Nishad in the film.
The character of Nishad is killed in the end, because he was protesting against discrimination.
When asked why Nishad's character was killed, the director replied, "I wanted the audience to miss him, to cry for him and to ask why did he have to die? People like Nishad are killed in our society."
"We, as a society, are killing voices like Nishad that ask the right questions and try to represent people of the backward castes. We are killing them so that such people can remain backwards," Anubhav added.
From IANS reports.
