CJI, IPS, IAS & Homebound

Education, reservations, and govt jobs are meant to bring equality and dignity. That we are a long way from it is evident in the shoe thrown at the CJI and the suicide of Haryana IPS officer. The film Homebound too has a lesson

- SHEKHAR GUPTA

Three things have come together to raise a combination of issues related to caste and minorities that India has failed to resolve even 75 years after its Constitution was born. The caste issue, of course, has persisted through centuries.

The three things: The shoe-throwing at the Dalit Chief Justice of India in his court; a senior Dalit IPS officer in Haryana shooting himself and leaving a suicide note about years of discrimination, victimisation, and bottled-up fury; and, third, the somewhat counter-intuitive success among the well-heeled of Homebound, by Neeraj Ghaywan, the most prominent and powerful Dalit filmmaker in Bollywood.

This is no hit to rival Saiyaara, Pathaan, Jawan, Animal, Baahubali or Kantara. It also did not have any of the usual buildup: PR interviews, sponsored (paid) reviews across many publications, social media influencers and definitely no big stars. If Vidya Balan’s Reshma in The Dirty Picture told us the three-word mantra that makes a movie successful — entertainment, entertainment, entertainment — Homebound fails it. It makes no pretence of offering any. It wasn’t designed for a ₹100-crore opening.

Yet, after a very slow start, it picked up through sheer word of mouth, especially among the upper-crust professionals and younger entrepreneurs — say, those with eight-figure annual incomes or in high sevens, the socioeconomic influencer class. Evidence comes from the most expensive, if small, halls in multiplexes running to full capacity in the metros. The social buzz that I pick up in these circles isn’t that the film was a bore, exaggerated, overly political, or the usual line we keep hearing, “it’s obvious that reservations haven't resolved inequality in over 75 years”. So, what else can “we” do? Better to just give “them” good education, facilities, and let “them” compete. That mission fails at the “we” and “them”.

On the contrary, among those watching