A documentary with a dadting heart, Kirit Khurrana’s latest project seeks to secure hope for the homeless
Begging is an everyday reality of urban life but we rarely think about where the people we meet every morning at traffic signals spend the rest of the day. Do they have the same rights as the citizens of the country that we have and where do they disappear when a VIP visits the city?
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National Award winning director Kirit Khurana’s latest documentary, invisible visible, To build support through a nationwide campaign to repeal the controversial Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, and to act as a catalyst for the implementation of the Supreme Court order setting up shelters for the homeless in each district and to regularly audit these shelters by independent credible agencies.
“Ideally, we need a law at the center that goes beyond the law and makes it redundant, where the real activism is taking place. We are hoping that through the film we will be able to sensitize the MPs, bureaucrats and other stakeholders, apprise them of the issues and seek their support in scrapping the harsh law,” says Khurana.
Known for his highly acclaimed docu-feature, Saeed Mirza: A Leftist SufiIn 2015, Khurrana was invited to Aspire Circle, a fellowship program that includes a group of India’s top social leaders. In this group, Khurana met a very young man, Tariq Mohammed, who ran a small but dedicated organization – Koshish (an affiliate of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences) – that worked with the homeless.
The effort was seen in 2018, when it exposed large-scale sexual abuse at a government institution in Muzaffarpur during a social audit assigned by the Bihar government.
“Tariq’s sharing was so evocative and powerful that every time he shared sordid stories from his life or about the homeless, tears rolled down my cheeks. His presence made me more vulnerable to marginalized people. It was then that I decided to make a film, not only to support the cause but also to grow as a person,” says Khurana.
Edited excerpt:
What do you have to say about the law banning begging in a welfare state and its implementation in big cities?
This is an absolutely unconstitutional law which was made by the law makers who neither understood the issues nor wanted to solve it. They just wanted to wish the homeless go away. Begging is not an option, it is a last resort. and in that, if we criminalize Poverty of millions, it is a matter of shame. Imprisonment for being poor is causing even more pain to a distressed and struggling soul living on the edge.
YouYou have tried to look at the issue of begging from many angles but there is an NGO at the centre. Bewoo Did you come across this form?
One of the main objectives of the film was to humanize the homeless and the people who worked with them. I decided long ago that if I just made a film on the homeless and their issues without the human element, it would become more like a regular, Talking Heads documentary. I wanted the film to touch, move and inspire. Apart from showing abject poverty, I wanted the film to depict Asha. And, in Tariq, I found an incredibleA leader worthy of exceptional integrity and commitment who had the wisdom to address the issue at the level of advocacy, and also the heart to live physically with the homeless and understand their problems on the ground.
There are many provocative moments in the documentary as an old woman does not recognize her son. how did you get it?
We knew that Koshish had repatriated 75,000 people, some of whom are visiting their families decades later. The reasons for separation or estrangement may be different but the reunion is almost always tearful. We had to be extremely alert and patient to move fastY when such an opportunity came. During our shoot, Koshish sent some people home and it was heartbreaking, but we didn’t have the consent of their families and we had to respect that. So when this opportunity came, I didn’t know who we were going to meet, what we were going to shoot. We had to pack our equipment and left in less than an hour. And of course, as you can see in the movie, it’s an incredibly magical moment.
tell about Delhi Section where are the street performers often behaved like a beggar.
The anti-beggar law implies that anyone without any direct means of livelihood can be arrested on suspicion of begging. the profession of drumming at weddings or street playss are not considered gainful employment as per the interpretation of the law, so many of these people were arrested in Delhi in the past. However, the Delhi High Court has struck down the anti-beggar law and no arrests are taking place in the city. Also, Delhi now has enough shelters for the homeless, so a lot of progress has been made. We are hoping that the rest of the country will also follow this and the 22-23 odd states where the law against begging is being implemented will also show leniency.
You have used your skills in animation to enhance the story but in a very limited way.
Animations have been used only in the section where we wanted to recreate the Muzaffarpur audit incident where Every day 36 girls aged 6-16 years were being raped and tortured. We had a choice – either treat the segment as a docu-drama and shoot the sequence as a fantasy or find some other tool to recreate the audit. Not wanting to compromise the authenticity of the film or to sensationalize or dramatize a heinous crime in a dramatic way, I chose animation as a medium.
At a time when OTT platforms have rekindled the documentary genre, how do you see its progress?
While the documentary genre has been around for a long time and the West is making some outstanding impact, documentaries are, unfortunately, a huge part of our country influenced by Bollywood and general TV fare, leaving little room for subtle, meaningful content. One was expecting that with the advent of OTT this would change. This is to some extent, but not enough, and most OTTs are clearly moving forward as an expanding branch of Bollywood.
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