Ek Maut: Kuch Sawal (One Death: A few Arguments)

About the film

This film comprises of a discussion of three former doctors of Shaheed Hospital of Dalli-Rajhara that links the various aspects of Chhattisgarh Workers Movements led by Shankar Guha Niyogi. During the late fifties, there was a drive to industrialize the whole country and this resulted in the inception of Bhilai Steel plant (BSP). Way back in 1977, the workers of the captive mines of BSP at Dalli-Rajhara, ninety kilometers away from Bhilai, got together under the red-green flag, symbolizing worker-peasant alliance, of a new trade union, Chattishgarh Mines Shramik Sangh (CMSS) to realize their immediate economy demands. It undertook several socio-political programmes under the leadership of Shankar Guha Niyogi. This new trend in the trade union movement has attracted thousands of workers in the Bhilai Industrial Belt. The murder of Guha Niyogi was an act of retaliation on part of the industrialists of Bhilai..

Director’s Note

The newspaper headline in the morning of 29 September 1991— like our fellow urban counterparts all over India— shocked us with the news that Shankar Guha Niyogi of Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha was murdered brutally. This aroused deep hatred in the people of India in general. We were intrigued, and so decided to go to Chattisgarh. Once we reached there, talked to the people, listened to their plight, a definite image of their life – what it came to be – started to take shape.

Director Biography

Asim Chaudhuri is the Director of the documentary Pakhira, a film on free theatre movement led by Badal Sircar and Memories in the Mist, a film on heritage building of Kolkata produced by Films Division. Sivananda Mukherjee’s first film Pakhira, is a documentary film on free theatre movement led by Badal Sircar and his second film Achin Manush was made in celluloid medium and received much critical acclaim. At present he is doing script writing for a feature film.