Deepa Dhanraj

This Grant was amicably cancelled based on reasons mutually agreed upon by the Grantee and IFA due to unavoidable circumstances.

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA under Productions, will create a documentary film that will explore the outburst of artistic responses to the unfortunate death of Rohith Vemula and his suicide note. Deepa Dhanraj is the Coordinator for this project. 

Bangalore-based Deepa Dhanraj is a filmmaker and has been involved with the women's movements since 1980. Over the years, she has participated in workshops, seminars and discussion groups on various issues related to women's political participation, health and education. She has also taught video making to women activists from south-east Asia. She was one of the lead researchers in a study titled Minority Women Negotiating Citizenship. She has authored several publications and presented papers in several national and international forums on topics around gender and development. Her vast filmography includes works on gender, human and civil rights, sustainable agriculture and education. Given her experience she is best placed to be the Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA. 

On January 18, 2016, Rohith Vemula, a student of the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) hung himself in a friend’s hostel room, leaving behind a letter. Rohith's close friend who entered the room with the police photographed the letter at once and uploaded it online which instantly went viral on social media. There were movements across the country protesting his institutional murder and the circumstances that led to his death. The outpouring online across castes and generations acknowledged this as a singular and unique historic moment where Rohith's words in his letter had punctured the veil of silence and made visible the societal discrimination that marks caste relations as well as the continual violence faced by Dalits. 

At this juncture, Deepa felt compelled to go to the HCU campus. She read Rohith's letter which "carried his pain, his indomitable courage and his dream of a future not for himself but for all of us", she mentions in her proposal. Deepa started filming the student movement in Hyderabad and nationally that followed Rohith’s death and this later led to a feature-length documentary titled We Have Not Come Here To Die.

Between 2016 and 2018, there was an explosion of responses from student and artists to Rohith and his suicide note. For students from the Dalit community, in campus after campus across the country, Rohith was the critical organic intellectual whose letter had turned into a primal text - a liberatory manifesto to unlock tongues, to enter into an exciting new world of Dalit assertion. Social media was inundated with posts by Dalit students who wrote moving personal letters to Rohith - some grateful for their ‘release from the dark’, some confessional testimonies, and other texts that were deeply grieving their loss. There was also, at the same time, a burst of artistic responses from established artists, writers, poets, music groups and playwrights. Either they would respond conceptually to the questions raised by the letter or inscribe his words into their art work, songs and poetry. These responses were in multiple languages across the country. 

Against this backdrop, the present project seeks to create a film that returns to Rohith and his letter. The film intends to start anew a conversation on caste with selected filmmakers, writers, poets and musicians who engaged seriously with his text. The project will explore not only what inspired them at that time but what has shifted and evolved in their understanding of caste since. Some of the questions that the project will ask include the reasons for them being drawn to the letter, its provocations, the process that shaped their work and the reasons for this engagement being personal to them. 

While Deepa will solicit the participation of a host of artists in this project, there are a few she has already identified. The film will interview the following: a) Yashica Dutt, the author of the book Coming Out As A Dalit, announced her real caste on Facebook empowered by Rohith’s letter after pretending for years to be a brahmin. The book is a powerful text of her journey into what she describes as 'dalitness'; b) Kotiganahalli Ramaiah, who wrote a play where he has Rohith in conversation with an older Ambedkar, just before his death. The play has many registers that are ironic, moving, combative and affectionate. While the text of the letter is not part of the play, the conceptual questions regarding identity are from it; and c) Thrissur-based music group Oorali wrote and composed a song and created a powerful music video called An art tribute to Rohith Vemula. In the second half of the video one character reads out Rohith’s letter as part of the performance.

For this project, Deepa will experiment with a form different from her earlier work - that can be more reflective and lyrical with a structure where there are multiple conversations between the various people who have responded to the letter. For this, Deepa will work with multiple visual and audio materials, including found footage, documentary footage, still photographs, and social media posts. A 60-minute film tentatively titled Speaking to Rohith will be the outcome of the project. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the film.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Practice programme in the manner in which it seeks to experiment with a new language of film that can capture the many registers of the anti-caste cultural resistance anchored in a particular historical moment in India. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees. 

This project is made possible with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.