Dalit Storytelling

I’ve been fine tuning the synopsis for the documentary Jes and I are producing this summer, and began shooting at the opening of Dalan last Friday. Dalan is a 24 episode Dalit produced and focused tele-serial to be aired on Nepali National television. It feels good to hold the camera again, especially when documenting such a monumental event. A feel a scene a-brewing.

One of the most dramatic, beautiful, and geographically diverse countries in the modern world is also one of the poorest and most socially divided. Nepal, renown for its pristine Himalayan backdrop, has annals of untold and unrepresented stories of caste discrimination. The practice of untouchability, where upper castes will not consume anything ‘polluted’ by the touch of a Dalit (lowest caste, untouchable), has been illegal for fifty years but often remains a way of life for the fifth of the Nepali population who are Dalit. Clean Hands explores a variety of Dalit experiences throughout rural and urbanized Nepal with a focus on the young activists who are raising their voices for equality for all Nepalis.

The documentary follows my own experience of teaching a group of young Dalit journalists, all age 20-30, to use digital media to create narratives. Often excluded from the privilege of image creation, Dalits have relied on others to tell their stories. By teaching this outcast population how to use visual media, we learn about their successes, hardships, failures, joys and griefs, directly through their own unique voices. The characters include: the first Dalit woman journalist hailing from the prostitution caste, a teacher turned journalist after being disfigured for his low caste, an actress in the first Dalit-based nationally televised tele-serial and human rights activist, and the editor in chief of an internationally distributed e-bulletin. The final version of the film will weave the co-production of all our stories.