Gaurav J. Pathania: The Academician Who Portrays Baba Saheb in 'Origin,' Hollywood's First Movie Centered on Ambedkar

"Origin," a film by Ava Duverney, is taking Ambedkar to Hollywood. The film is based on the novel "Caste: The Origin of Our Discontent." Ava wrote the script of the film in two years after conducting research on caste, racism, and the Holocaust (anti-Semitic pogrom). Ava travelled to India for her research on caste and was assisted by the International Dalit figure Suraj Yengde, who also appears in the film as himself.

Her sojourn in India helped her prepare an assiduously refined script that tries to connect caste, racism, and the Holocaust. Most of the shooting of the film took place in Savannah, Georgia, in the United States. Subsequently, the team went to Germany to shoot sequences related to the Holocaust and then to India to capture powerful scenes related to Ambedkar.

The Mooknayak spoke to Gaurav J. Pathania, an Assistant Professor at Eastern Mennonite University, who is playing the role of Ambedkar. He was born and brought up in Kurukshetra to an Ambedkarite father who worked in a bank. Pathania says that during his childhood, the movement of Kanshiram was at its peak, and it helped in developing consciousness. The professor-turned-actor is a versatile personality and also has many poems to his credit. The poems carry the twinge of Dalit oppression and are loaded with Dalit assertion; his poems have an imprint of Dalit literature. During his college days, he came close to Dalit literature with the help of "Yuva Hastakshar," a magazine run by Rajendra Bangujar.

Financial conditions forced Pathania to drop out of studies after his MA. Gaurav resumed his studies with a vengeance and joined the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University for an M.A. in sociology. The professor says, “I think JNU is a very good place, and there should be more universities like this in India. It brings a lot of awareness to the students. From Professor Vivek Kumar, I came to know about new avenues of Ambedkarism. He told us that an academician should also engage in activism, especially for a sociologist because we need to know about the people on whom we are doing research. I think it is rightly said that once you are in JNU, you are an activist for life. Pathania went on to complete his Ph.D. from JNU in sociology, but his father could not live to see him achieve that feat. “He died just 20 days before my Ph.D. defense,” says Pathania wistfully.

The professor secured the role of Ambedkar in an open casting call made by Duverney. Notably, the casting call had stated that people from marginalized communities would be preferred for the role, as Ambedkar himself belonged to an untouchable caste. An interesting paradox is that the films made on Ambedkar in Bollywood had non-Dalits playing the role, and it took a Hollywood movie to let a Dalit play the role of Ambedkar. Pathania says, “I was apprised of the role by Siddharth Varicharli, a Las Vegas-based Ambedkarite. I applied and bagged the role, despite being a non-actor.

Origin" sets the tone for discourse on caste and race. The movie is all set to release in theaters in the US and Germany in December and January. Subsequently, it will be released online when the Indian audience will be able to watch it. Gaurav says that the movie brings the discourse of caste and racism on one screen, and he urges the Indian audience to watch the film and join the discourse of caste and racism. He emphasizes that if you believe that caste is a global problem, then you will also have to understand race and the history of the Holocaust. He said that one would be able to move in the direction of the "Annihilation of Caste" as visualized by Ambedkar in his book of the same name if one engages in the discourse. “I think this is a very timely movie with a noble cause.”

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