'Jai Bhim' Is An Indian Film That Overtook 'The Godfather' On IMDb

Users on IMDb have had their say. They've rated Jai Bhim, a Tamil language film, so high that it's gone on to beat classic Hollywood movies like The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather. The movie title translates to "Long Live Bhim," a slogan made popular by the followers of BR Ambedkar, a Dalit scholar, and leader. Ambedkar was also the chief architect of India's constitution and also the country's first law minister.

The movie is a hard-hitting film about how a lawyer helps a woman find her husband and seeks justice for them. The pregnant woman asks for help after her husband was placed in police custody and later declared missing. The legal drama focuses on the struggles of Sengani, the woman from a tribal community, in seeking justice. It highlights the repression against Dalits who are at the bottom of a rigid Hindu caste hierarchy, reports BBC. 

The film is based on true incidents from a case that took place in 1993 when Justice K Chandru was practicing as a lawyer, reports The Hindu. Speaking to the outlet, he shared, "In normal circumstances, the victims, or the affected people, without being tutored, will tell the correct sequence of events. Only if you start adding your own masala to their story will they be confused and, when confronted, make a spectacle of themselves. Therefore, when the woman came to me, I recorded whatever she said about the event leading to the disappearance of her husband and prepared my case on that basis. Later, I read out her statement and translated this into Tamil, and got it verified by her. Therefore, when she was put on the witness stand, she said exactly what was in her petition without being contradicted even once by the other side."

The film has received much admiration from viewers who have left a 9.6 user rating on IMDb. "In the last 30 years, beginning with the observance of Ambedkar's centenary in 1991, the Dalit movement has been growing in Tamil Nadu," said film historian S Theodore Baskaran, as per BBC. "Forgotten Dalit ideologues of the 20th Century were redeemed from history. The ideas of [social activist and politician] Periyar and Ambedkar spread through the writings of many Dalit writers. In the last decade, some of the writers moved to cinema and made films. But they used the usual ingredients like songs, fights, and melodrama."

Adds Dalit filmmaker Ranjith, known as Spike Lee of the Tamil film industry, to The Wire in 2020. "The representation of Dalit characters was painful. Either they were written out, or just their inclusion in the story was considered 'revolutionary.' In this context, I had to reflect on what my stories could say," he added. "I wanted to show that my culture itself is based on discrimination and violence…Today, directors are more conscious when they write Dalit characters."