LONGEN FOLK TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE

About the film

This documentary is about the Kanwar Yatra, an annual pilgrimage dedicated to Shiva, in which devotees, who're known as kanwariyas, fill water from the river Ganga and carry it back to their hometowns for libations. The film looks at not just the religious and cultural aspects of the Yatra but also its socio-economic impact, the environmental issues attached to it (including the state of the Ganga, whose water is integral to the pilgrimage), and the sheer maleness of the event, etc. The film also examines the politics that drives the event and the showcase it has become for majoritarianism.

Filmmaker's Statement

Chimamanda Adichie warns against the danger of the single-story but it's impossible to think of kanwariyas as anything more than the immediate image their name conjures up: not as the devout pilgrims they’re meant to be but as a cantankerous, aggressive and volatile lot that embodies an undeserving sense of exceptionalism. It’s impossible to ignore how the event is being used as a tool to push Hindutva, the political ideology of the right-wing that conflates the Hindu identity with Indianness. But, as this film attempts to show, the Kanwar Yatra is also, and equally, about faith and devotion. It’s as much an escape from the Sisyphean struggle of the kanwariyas’ humble, everyday lives as it is about the validation that attaches to the successful completion of this journey, which they see as a metaphor for life and the challenges it holds.

About the director

I’m an independent filmmaker and I’ve made films about issues like the environment, climate change, e-waste, human trafficking, AIDS, animal rights, pediatric cancer, TB, smoking, etc. My 2012 documentary, The Plastic Cow, was part of a PIL in the Supreme Court, seeking a complete ban on plastic bags as an environmental and animal rights issue.