Ek Inquilab Aur Aya

About the film

Ek Inquilab Aur Aaya is a documentary, which explores the frustrations, ambitions and struggles of women who lived in an orthodox Islamic household in Lucknow in the first half of the 20th century. The lives of two women, Sughra Fatema and her niece Khadija Ansari, residents of the Firangi Mahal are traced. The film is a documentation of a very important aspect of Indian history, which not many people in the country are aware of. This film is revolutionary for the topic it chooses to indulge in – Muslim women who resisted against both patriarchy and orthodoxy.

Director’s Note

Director Uma Chakravarti tells us why the story needed to be told: ‘Because Muslim women are being flattened into a mass with no variations in their multiple histories which was rich and distinctive as the histories of women in other communities, classes and castes; today the only way to portray a Muslim woman is to put her into a hijab and hide, literally hide, everything else about her. All we now hear is triple talaq and the need to rescue them from their miseries as if Hindu women have got emancipation! We know nothing of their political participation in movements in the past and in the present; their participation in the left movement is particularly unknown. So for me as a historian turned filmmaker this was a story that was waiting to be told.’

Director Biography

Uma Chakravarti is a feminist historian who taught at Miranda House and University College for Women, Delhi from 1966 to 1998. She writes on Buddhism, early Indian history, the 19th century and on contemporary issues. Her films relate to history, memory and the archive. Her first film A Quiet Little Entry explored the unlived lives of women during the national movement and her second film Fragments of a Past dwelt on a political activist who does not now remember her own past.