Home Truths

“I did not want to make a film on a him as a politician; instead,I focused on the human side of the story,” says Dewan. The 46-minute documentary was screened at IIC on Thursday,followed by a panel discussion on migrants from Punjab to Canada.

Dewan is a veteran of films related to migration and minority communities,like Eternal Love (1996) about women farmers using traditional farm practices,This is Our Home Ehh? (1991) about Indian migrants in Canada,and Highway to Hell (2000) about trafficking of women from Nepal to India. “I usually make films about the voiceless. Dosanjh,however,is the most vocal of my subjects. I was filming another documentary in 1991 when I happened to hear him at a Labour Day rally and was impressed by his personality,his determination to stand up for his principles and speak up against wrongs,” she says.

In 2006,when Dosanjh visited his native village of Dosanjh Kalan in Punjab,Dewan caught up with him and captured the emotional side of the man as he hugged his mother’s photograph and sobbed. “That is every filmmaker’s dream shot,” she says. But it was only in 2008,when she followed him to Vancouver,that Dewan got a ringside view of the kind of controversy an MP could generate — Dosanjh had allegedly made an inflammatory remark in a gurudwara by and the public was up in arms against him. “On the other hand,his involvement with local communities goes down well with everybody. People revere him but are afraid to express their support openly. He enjoys a love-hate relationship among the migrant community of Canada,” says Dewan.

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