Fringe benefit

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IN 2001, while making a documentary on Bengali author Mahasweta Devi, I filmed a Budhan performance by a group of young Chharas from Ahmedabad. The Chharas are a 8216;8216;denotified8217;8217; tribe based in Chharanagar, Ahmedabad, that was imprisoned by the British because they were considered 8216;8216;born criminals8217;8217;. Since then, the stigma has stayed with them. The Budhan Theatre has been performing street plays to draw attention to the plight of these tribals, who still suffer police brutality because they are viewed as outlaws.

It was a dramatisation of the custodial death of Budhan Sabar in Purulia, West Bengal. Many years earlier, on behalf of Budhan8217;s family, Mahasweta Devi sued the government and won the case. Budhan8217;s case became a celebrated one. For once, justice had been done.

Kalpana, the young actress who played the role of Shamli, Budhan8217;s widow in the play, told me, 8216;8216;I8217;ve never met Shamli, but I feel connected to her.8217;8217; Dakxin Bajrange, the playwright and director, said, 8216;8216;We don8217;t want Budhan8217;s death to be meaningless.8217;8217; I was struck by their vision and ability to understand the importance of an event that happened so long ago.

A couple of years ago, I heard that Dakxin had been arrested. He was accused of assaulting somebody, supposedly at a time when he was away in Gandhinagar. Roxy Gagdekar, a founding member of Budhan, ran from pillar to post trying to secure Dakxin8217;s release. The news of the arrest became a motivating factor for me and my partner, Kerim Friedman, to go to Chharanagar.

It was our first visit to Chharanagar. One Dr Ganesh Devy of the Bhasha Research Centre in Vadodara was our guide. We arrived at dusk and began chatting with members of the Budhan community, when a mustachioed, important-looking man walked past us to speak to a person in the crowd surrounding us. It was a quick and discreet exchange. A few minutes later, an argument ensued. It hadn8217;t quite escalated into a full-blown fight when Dr Devy urgently herded us into our van and insisted we leave immediately. It was explained to us later that the local police had sent in goondas to create a furore so that the police would have an excuse to harass us and confiscate our passports. At that time, we thought it was unnecessary paranoia, but after having realised what it meant to be a Chhara, it didn8217;t seem so.

The British notified the Chharas as a criminal tribe in 1871. Entire families were put in prison settlements, where cheap labour was extracted out of them. They were denotified in 1952, but even now it8217;s impossible for a Chhara to get any kind of employment. Some of them are highly educated, but 60 per cent of the community brews liquor, which is illegal in the dry state of Gujarat, and 20 per cent engages in petty thievery.

The Chharas face discrimination in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. If, say, a child loses a book at school, a Chhara child is the immediate suspect. If a Chhara is spotted at the train station, the railway police roughs him up without a warrant.

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Praveen Indrekar, a photographer from the community, told us, 8216;8216;I carry the receipts for my equipment when I go out on shoots so that the police can8217;t stop me.8217;8217; Roxy Gagrekar, a journalist with Gujarat Samachar, is unable to get a bank loan because of where he lives. Every child in this community has seen their parents being beaten and abused by the police.

The fact that Budhan Theatre has sustained itself under these circumstances amazed us, and Acting Like a Thief, the film, became our tribute to the Chharas8217; spirit.

Shashwati Talukdar is a New York-based film-maker whose film, Acting Like a Thief, will be screened at the Tri Continental Film Festival in Kolkata till February 6