The film on the North-East Delhi riots following protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) got embroiled in a row when Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi held a press conference on 26 January, urging the Election Commission to halt its release.
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The party alleged that ‘2020 Delhi’ was meant to influence the electorate ahead of the polls and portray the Muslim community in a bad light.
Malviya has refuted the Congress’s charges and denied any BJP involvement in the film. “Those who are opposing the film don’t want the hard truth to be out, and we all know who can benefit by hiding the unpleasant truth of the riots. The truth should come out,” he told ThePrint Wednesday.
On the row over the release timing, he said: “In India, elections are always on in one state or another every six months. Producers can’t fix release dates on the basis of the election schedule.”
At Sunday’s press conference, Singhvi had said the party “would like to ask all our political opponents, especially in the context of the Delhi elections, are you not confident of your candidates in the election campaign?”
“Are you so depressed at the certain defeat staring at you in the face? You are falling back on a communally-motivated film, intended to incite, divide, and mislead voters,” he added.
Many other leaders of the Congress have also questioned the timing of the film’s release.
BJP spokesperson R.P. Singh told ThePrint that the party was anyway winning in Delhi. “We don’t need a film for victory. The Congress is making a non-issue an issue,” he said.
Malviya too asserted that the movie’s release timing has “nothing to with the Delhi polls or favouring of the BJP”, adding that “one of the messages behind the film is to expose fault-lines within society”.
“When the protests were on in Delhi and after that when the riots started, the gravity of the matter struck me and I start conceptualising and researching,” he explained. “We (filmmakers) thus got the idea of making a movie on the real events of the Delhi riots.”
He also said that “Muslims need to admit mistakes of the past for peace in society”.
Also Read: Were 2020 CAA-NRC protests & riots a ‘terrorist act’? Depends on which Delhi HC bench you ask
Communal dialogues
Set against the backdrop of the communal riots, ‘2020 Delhi’ chronicles the anti-CAA protests that started in Shaheen Bagh, the visit of US President Donald Trump to the national capital and how violence broke out at the same time. The film focuses on events of a single day and tells the story of common people who got trapped in the violence and the “conspiracy behind the riots”.
A three-minute trailer has several dialogues of communal colour, such as ‘mussalman par haath daalne ka nateeja kya hota hai (what is the repercussion of targeting a Muslim)’, and ‘80 percent Hindu hain is desh mein, lekin savere se jaan bach ke bhaag raha hai kaun? (There are 80 percent Hindus in this country, but who is running for life since morning?)’.
Slogan such as ‘hum lekar rahenge aazadi (we will take freedom)’ and ‘Bharat tere tukde honge (India, you will be divided)’ play in the background of the teaser.
It also mentions the plight of Hindu minorities in neighbouring countries, and issues such as rape, murder and forced conversions.
A day after BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya shared the trailer of the film on social media, the Delhi Congress posted on ‘X’ about “blatant crude attempts of parties—during and just before the electoral process—to subordinate and sabotage it and distort democracy”.
“Let’s take into account the release of the film 2020 Delhi,” it said. “The film has been promoted by BJP leaders as if they are co-directors/investors/producers in the film. They are promoting it with crude propaganda. The trailer for the film was shared on the social media handle of Mr Malviya of the BJP. Needless to add, it contained a grossly exaggerated and distorted sequence of events.”
Also Read: BJP sees ‘conspiracy’ in Delhi riots erupting during Trump trip, wants timing investigated
‘Admit mistakes of past, only then peace can exist’
Devendra Malviya, who is making his debut as director with ‘2020 Delhi’, explained his thought-process behind the making of the film.
“When the CAA was brought in, a debate started about protection of rights of persecuted minorities. The law was for persecuted minorities but a campaign started against the Act and riots took place. As a filmmaker, this true event struck my mind and we started researching the subject,” he told ThePrint.
“Our duty was to open the multiple layers of this incident. If a person has cancer, the cancer doesn’t go away by hiding from it. In our country, forgetting the past has been celebrated while those reminding about the past have been called communal. We have addressed this issue in the film and tried our best to open different layers of the riots.”
According to Malviya, he has directed 500 documentaries, 200 ad films, the campaign of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, and played a key role in VFX for blockbuster films ‘Jawan’ and ‘Animal’.
“Why do we fear the truth of the past?” he asked. “And who will be benefited by hiding the truth? If one community made mistakes in the past, it should come out. There is no harm in admitting past mistakes. Peace can only be established if the Muslim community admits its past mistakes.”
He told ThePrint that “both (Hindu and Muslim) communities need to show a big heart to establish harmony in society, but it can only be established when Muslims are ready to admit their previous mistakes”.
“If there is a temple at any place, and the Archaeological Survey of India says there is enough evidence of the existence of a temple, one community is not ready to accept that claim and their past mistake. They need to have a large heart for peace in society. Where there is onus on Hindus, they too will show a large heart,” Malviya said.
When asked whether he was planning a special screening of the film for the BJP leaders, Malviya denied having any such plans.
In 2020, ahead of the February assembly elections in Delhi, several BJP leaders were heard referring to the anti-CAA protesters as “anti-nationals”.
During an election rally, BJP MP Anurag Thakur raised the slogan of ‘Desh Ke Gaddaron Ko‘ to which the crowds responded with ‘Goli Maro Salon Ko’. Another MP Parvesh Verma said that protesters at Shaheen Bagh “can enter homes and rape our daughters and sisters”.
BJP leader Kapil Mishra, who is contesting the Delhi polls, had posted on ‘X’ in January 2020 that “Pakistan has entered Shaheen Bagh, mini-Pakistan has been created in the city, Pakistani rioters are occupying Delhi roads”.
Mishra’s decision to hold a pro-CAA rally in North-East Delhi’s Jaffrabad was said to have triggered the communal riots in the national capital.
On 23 February that year, Mishra gave an ultimatum to the police to remove the anti-CAA protesters blocking roads and asked people to gather in reply. Violent clashes subsequently broke out between pro and anti-CAA protesters near Jaffrabad that later turned into a full-fledged communal violence. The riots claimed 53 lives.
‘Unique cinematic experience’
Speaking to ThePrint, Malviya pointed out that his film had been “shot in a single-shot, which makes it a unique cinematic experience”. “It immerses the audience, making them feel as part of the story. Shooting in a single shot to portray true events is challenging and takes time in post-production,” he said.
‘2020 Delhi’ is being promoted as India’s first single-shot Hindi feature film. The technique was said to have been used in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’ in 1948, although limited cuts were hidden in it, hence it remains a subject of debate among film scholars.
The first one-shot unedited feature film was ‘Russian Ark’ (2002), made by Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov.
One-shot filming has been placed in the category of realism as it gives “uninterrupted viewing experience” to the audience, hence filmmakers choose it for sensitive subjects.
“We have used this technique so that the audience can deeply understand the conspiracy behind the anti-national riots based on tolerance,” Malviya said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: PM Modi appeals for peace in riot-hit Delhi, but BJP leaders’ tweets are far from pacifying