An FIR filed against Tamil Nadu-based documentary filmmaker Divya Bharathi, was quashed on Wednesday by the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court. The complaint, lodged in August 2017, had alleged that the director had wrongly portrayed the Devendra Kula Vellalar community in her documentary on manual scavenging titled Kakkoos.
Released in February 2017, Kakkoos is about the lives of those employed in manual scavenging in Tamil Nadu, and how they are forced to continue with the practice because of their caste. The film also exposes the reluctance of the political class to end the practice, and speaks of the hollowness of schemes like Swachh Bharat. Further, Kakkoos studies the issue from the gender perspective and addresses how women in the job bear the brunt of it.
However, from the time the film was released, Divya has faced stiff opposition. Screenings of the film too have been cancelled. The Devendra Kulla Vellar community is among those who’ve opposed the film.
On Wednesday, Justice Anand Venkatesh of the Madras High Court directed the FIR against Divya to be quashed. The filmmaker had sought directions for the same, stating that her film had sought to raise awareness regarding the practice of manual scavenging that continues to take place, despite it being outlawed. In her petition before the court, Divya Bharathi reasoned that the complaint against her was false since her two-year field research on the subject had revealed that Scheduled Castes were still forced into the illegal practice of cleaning septic tanks and sewers.
The complaint had been filed by Bhaskar Madhuram, an advocate and leader of the Puthiya Tamilagam party, which advocates for the welfare of the Devendra Kula Vellalar community. He had approached the Othakadai police station in Madurai in 2017, stating that the documentary showed members of the Devendra Kula Vellalar community involved in manual scavenging when they were, in fact, primarily engaged in agricultural labour.
Devendra Kula Vellalar, or Pallar, are part of the Scheduled Caste List in Tamil Nadu. However, many people in the community, led by Puthiya Tamilagam chief K Krishnasamy, have demanded that Devendra Kula Vellalars be removed from the SC list, claiming that this is an ‘imposed identity.’
Divya Bharathi had been booked under Section 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and Section 505 (1)(b) (Statements conducting to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code, and under the Information Technology Act (2006) Section 66F (Computer related offences).
Speaking to TNM previously, Divya had alleged that she’d been facing continuous harassment ever since she released Kakkoos. A few months after the film came out, Divya had posted a video about the alleged harassment of sanitary workers by Chitra Selvi, who’s the Dean of Anna University in Dindigul. Chitra Selvi is also from the Pallar or Devendra Kula Vellalar community and at the time, Divya had told TNM that the threats against her and her documentary became worse. “I posted the video (about Chitra Selvi) on July 21. After this, a poster which had Puthiya Tamilagam Krishnasamy’s quote saying that my Kakkoos film showed the Pallar community in bad light went viral. The threat calls started from then on. They say that they have been given money to kill me, sexually abuse me, and make these abusive calls,” she had said.
Source: The News Minute