Karvaan India, Okhla, will hold a screening of the documentary, Lynch Nation (2018) today. As the name suggests the film is on the subject of mob lynchings, which are on the rise in India. The film documents seven such harrowing accounts narrated by victims’ family and friends. This independent and crowd-funded documentary was made by Shaheen Ahmed, Ashfaque EJ, Furqan Faridi and Vishu Sejwal.
“We felt there was a dire need to speak about lynching. All of us as citizens are just mute spectators. We just ‘enjoy’ a show on lynching through news videos on our phones that reach us through social media. Films are an important medium to engage with people. So we decided to make this documentary,” says Shaheen Ahmed.
A trigger for the filmmakers was the lynching of Junaid. The 15-year-old was killed in a train on June 22, 2017. He and his friends were returning from Delhi to Ballabgarh in Haryana to their homes after Eid shopping in the capital. It began with an altercation about seat-sharing with a group of men, and allegedly escalated when the men mocked the boys about their identity.
“The news of a young boy brutally murdered in a Delhi-bound train for his identity was really shocking. Here is a young boy who is going about his life and he is killed barbarically for no apparent reason and only for his identity. We were sad, angry and disgusted. It left us very frustrated and determined to tell victims’ stories,” Ashfaque EJ says. These are heart-wrenching narratives. If a crowd stands together, it is usually considered a source of great power and strength. The power is misused for lynchings.
The 43-minute documentary brings out the personality of the victims. Their relatives reminisce the incident and share how they are undergoing trauma after the death of their dear ones. “It was the first time we went to Delhi for Eid shopping,” says Junaid’s brother Hashim in the documentary as the camera zoom in on the selfies the boys took at Delhi’s Sadar Bazaar. In another case, Imtiaz Khan’s 12-year-old son was accompanying 32-year-old Majloom Ansari to a cattle fair. Both were abducted and killed in Jharkhand. Khan’s mother, Nazma Khatun, is visibly emotional on camera. “Even if there is a mention of his name, I fall sick. So I try not to think of him.”
The documentary had been specially screened for the kins of victims, which according to the filmmakers, brought about a sense of solidarity among relatives and friends. According to Sejwal, the film took more time to complete because of a few financial glitches. “We had to stall and delay the shoot for months, due to lack of funds. The main problem was survival because none of us were working professionally during the making of the film.”
Luckily, Faridi adds, no security issues arose while making the film. “We were constantly guided by local activists and journalists. They advised us when to come and shoot. We were careful as to how to shoot and when to shoot and remained low key. In Jharkhand, we delayed the shoot around the time of Ram Navami, as an activist from Ranchi advised to do so. It is a sensitive time in such areas.”