Article 15

 Kon jaat ho amma?

Not too long ago, students in an Uttarakhand school denied eating the food cooked by a Dalit woman. The parents of the students opined that since they belonged to the upper caste their children will not eat food cooked by a woman belonging to 'lower' caste. It is very sad to know that such incidents take place even today in our country.Things appear so simple in textbooks when they say all are equal before law. Since 1950s things do have changed in terms of caste based discrimination. However these days political parties have merely focussed on improving their number game , instead of promoting larger social justice.

Article 15 starring Ayushman khurana is a movie that highlights this issue. The journey of a young IPS officer Ayan Ranjan who hardly had any idea of how things used to work in Laal gaon, a countryside village of Uttar Pradesh.His understanding of rural india was limited to the bookish knowledge like many of us. The harsh system if casteist discrimination is not the only problem but the normalisation of casteism is the real problem. inn logo ka yehi hisab hota, ye log ese hi hote- the catchphrase of most of the people.

In the movie Gaura (sayani gupta), a woman belonging to paasi community also met with a similar incident when children refused to eat the mid day meal made by her. Similar to what happened with Sunita devi in uttarakhand.

Ayaan ranjan's efforts to unveil the truth reveals a selfish society where the caste identity and discrimination is shown as an occasional thing done for personal petty benefits. At the end of the day everything is governed by the political and monetary gains which shows how we as society lag behind in ethics.Again it depends on those who are in governance- they have the power to change but political interference in the working of bureaucracy is not a new thing.So together we can just shout-

REFORM! REFORM! REFORM!

ASMITA