Cinema as Constitution: The Courtroom Narrative of Tamil film Jai Bhim
Authors-Dr. Aniket Parmar
Keyword-Jai Bhim, B. R. Ambedkar, habeas corpus, Article 21, Dalit cinema, constitutional justice, custo-dial violence, caste, Irular community.
T. J. Gnanavel's Tamil film Jai Bhim (2021) functions as a powerful cinematic enactment of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's constitutional and legal philosophy. The film's deployment of habeas corpus, Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, and its dramatisation of custodial atrocity together translate Ambedkar's written guarantees of liberty into lived, affective experience. The film constitutes a jurisprudential argument about the distance between constitutional promise and ground reality, showing how marginalised communities can reclaim the Constitution as a living instrument of liberation. Drawing on Ambedkar's primary writings, the Indian Constitution, and scholarship from film studies, Dalit Studies, and constitutional law, this paper argues that the courtroom in Jai Bhim serves as an Ambedkarite arena where law is restored to its proper function as a tool of social transformation.