Sheena and Sonum Sumaria Even the Crows: A Divided Gujarat

About

Even the Crows is a transnational documentary film that probes into the murky past of India's new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and the rise of Hindu nationalism in India and among its diaspora in the UK and the US. In 2002 anti-Muslim riots took place in India's North-Western state of Gujarat. Hundreds of Muslims were killed, and an unknown number of women raped, when Hindu nationalist groups supported by the state government unleashed widespread violence against the Muslim minority following the death of 59 Hindus in a train fire in Godhra in Eastern Gujarat. Over a decade after the riots, the filmmakers travel to Gujarat, where the effects of the violence are still visible: Thousands of Muslims are still confined to the ghettos, and those responsible for the violence have not been tried. Meanwhile, Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, the then-Chief Minister of Gujarat, who is accused of encouraging the riots, prepares for national elections to become India's next Prime Minister. Although he was previously banned from entering the UK and the US, recent invitations for him to speak have sparked severe fierce controversy between his supporters and his critics within the diaspora. Through the intimate stories of American-Gujarati Nishrin, whose father, a prominent Muslim MP, was butchered during the 2002 Gujarat riots, and British-Gujarati Imran, who was the sole survivor when he was attacked along with his two uncles while on holiday in the state, Even the Crows explores Modi's link to the violence and the minority community's ongoing struggle for justice. There will be a brief Q&A after the screening with one of the film directors, Sheena Sumaria, and author and journalist Salil Tripathi. For more information please see: www.eventhecrows.com