On 11 July 1997—on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the nation’s ‘independence’—a statue of Dr B.R. Ambedkar is desecrated with footwear in Mumbai’s Ramabai Nagar. Dalits stage a protest; and the police officer in charge, Manohar Kadam, asks the men of State Reserve Police to open fire. Ten unarmed protesters are killed and many injured. Horrified at this injustice, Vilas Ghogre, a Dalit poet-singer kills himself. This provided the trigger for documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan to begin asking questions and seeking answers with his camera. After 14 years, after an inquiry commission, after various factions of the Ambedkar-founded Republican Party of India making improbable compromises with Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena and BJP, after the unwavering voice of the Dalit Panther ideologue Bhai Sangare is silenced, after many rallies, after Modi, after Khairlanji, after witnessing one atrocity being piled upon another, Anand Patwardhan decided to complete his film in 2011, calling it Jai Bhim Comrade.