Runtime : 27 minutes
Genre : Documentary
Film Language : Hindi, English, Marathi and Sanskrit, with English subtitles
Director : Lalit Vachani
Cinematography : Ranjan Palit
Editor : Reena Mohan
The Boy in the Branch is a film by Lalit Vachani set at the RSS Headquarters in Nagpur, India. The film follows the details regarding the indoctrination of Hindu boys by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It juxtaposes the activities of two different RSS shakhas through games, sports, stories, rituals and highlights how a right-wing ultra-nationalist community proselytizes the transformation of innocent children to communal militants.
The film was a permitted RSS film shot in 1992. The production was funded by Channel 4, a British public service network. Vachani had no plans of landing with a propaganda film for RSS and his idea reflects in the film. In 1993, just after the demolition of Babri Masjid, the film was released and received heavy criticism from the RSS leaders. They even tried to stop the project in the middle of the shooting schedule as they somehow perceived the film would affect their image negatively. However, Vachani managed to convince the leaders that he has followed their guidelines strictly and there is no use of external footage or audio in the film.
Vachani has done an exceptional job at putting together a half an hour film from 15 hours of footage which he had collected in the year 1992. The film reflects almost no opinion about RSS by concentrating on the innocence of young kids who are being trained at the Sangh and still manages to reveal the true political agenda of the nationalist community.
Reena Mohan has done a great job as an editor at making this semi-permitted movie by building a coherent piece out of bits and pieces. The cuts have a language of their own. The background score justifies the flow of the film but the on-location sound has fallen short of the parameters set. The conversations and interviews have been recorded perfectly but the sound involved in the B roll is either overpowering or sometimes very low.
Although the documentary has a lot to say and question, it hardly moves outside the theme set by the director which is also revealed in the title 'The Boy in the Branch'. All the perspectives of the RSS community have been explored from the purview of young kids. The portrayal of 'Hindutva' as a primary agenda of this national group and its devious incorporation in the kids who do not even know the true meaning of the word is lamentable.
Runtime : 98 minutes
Genre : Documentary
Film Language : Hindi, English, Marathi and Sanskrit, with English subtitles
Director : Lalit Vachani
Cinematography : Ranjan Palit
Editor : Shikha Sen, Lalit Vachani
The Men in the Tree
When in 1992 Lalit Vachani was filming 'The Boy in the Branch' with Wide Eye Film team, he felt a connection with those RSS kids and later saw that a lot was missing in the film. In 1992 the central character of the film Kali was 9 years old who had joined RSS because it was a fun place to be at, where they could play interesting games after school every day. Instead of receiving the images of fascism what was found in the film was unsettling in its simplicity. The story moved around young kids, their dreams, fears and anxieties.
45 days after the completion of the shoot in 1992, Babri Masjid was destroyed by the members of RSS and their affiliates. Lalit was shocked to see that one of the communities he has been working closely with for over a year was involved in this massacre. Nine years later he decided to return to Nagpur in search of all the characters involved in the first film to see how these boys and the branch has changed.
The Men in the Tree deals with the changes in the dynamic of the branch and is an open attack on the political agenda of the RSS and the fascism it follows. The film argues about RSS being an organized political group, which used the club strategy for moulding the identity of the individuals.
The film is an exercise in reminiscence in the form of a documentary where the filmmaker revisits the locations, issues, characters and everything that has been left behind. This political documentary is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on the memories and is a personal reflection of the earlier film. The second part is about building the characters of the boys we met in 'The Boy in the Branch'. Part three deals with stories in the RSS and is the informative section of the film. It reflects the RSS ideology towards the minorities in India. The last part is the current state of RSS during the filming, and how after 3 consecutive bans RSS is striving to survive.
The film ends while covering the story of the horrifying genocide which occurred in Gujrat, where over 2000 Muslims were killed by the members of the Hindu right-wing community. It strongly arguments about the RSS community but at some points, the film takes a critical turn when putting in particular information or shots. The essence of the film is the grown-up kids from the boy in the branch and how RSS has shaped their life in the 30s. All the interviews revolving around RSS and its foundation question the nature of this right-wing organization and its working.
The Boy in the Branch and The Men in the Tree while being informative documentaries may also serve as a visual treat for the audience who have some understanding of the RSS. Although ‘The Boy in the Branch’ is a 27 minutes short film, it looks more intact than ‘The Men in the Tree’ which leaves you almost on the edge of your seats. For someone completely unaware about the facts or existence of RSS, some references may be hard to understand but the contradictory conversation often highlighted through cuts would unquestionably give you barrel of laughs. Apart from this, all you would take home is loads of research to do and opinion on the functioning of any religious community, especially when involved in politics. The key takeaways from the film are starting points for deeper research, and questions that the documentary so effectively raises about religious groups and how they function when they are inevitably involved in politics.
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