Bheed: Plucky portrayal of migrant workers' plight during lockdown starkly juxtaposed with caste discrimination

India experienced an unprecedented time during the Covid-19 pandemic. A nationwide lockdown was imposed by the Government of India on 25 March 2020. During those times, many of us were within our homes, while some were stuck in other cities including students, employees, etc., and then there were migrant workers, who were extremely clueless about the sudden happenings, feeling stranded in the big metro cities where they came to earn a livelihood, leaving their native villages.

Rajkummar Rao’s ‘Bheed’ made it to the theatres on 24^th March 2023. This thrilling depiction of lockdown times is directed and produced by Anubhav Sinha. The story of this film was given by Anubhav Sinha, Saumya Tiwari, and Sonali Jain. Film stars Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana, Kritika Kamra, Pankaj Kapur, and Virendra Saxena. This multi-starer film will keep you on your seats, hooked to the screens throughout its screen time of 1 hour 52 minutes.

Lockdown wasn’t just about the right way to prepare ‘Dalgona Coffee’

The film starts with an unnerving scene of migrant workers walking barefoot on the railway track to reach their native lands because roads and all means of transport were put on a hold to cope with the lockdown imposed. Here is when the cinematographers of the film did an excellent job to make the viewer uncomfortable and remember the tough times, there’s a shot of a train approaching these migrant workers who are tired and are sleeping on the tracks, and just after this there comes a data displayed on screen saying, “16 migrant workers were found run over by a train.”

After the scene, one knows what is about to come, and it impacts the audience in a way that they’ll be forced to think of the dire circumstances during the lockdown times and feel privileged for the times that they got with their family members.

Anubhav Sinha left no stone unturned in portraying the grim situation of the lockdown times, film has migrants stranded on the roads, a mother craving to bring her daughter back from another city, a politician, a front-line doctor, a policeman, and reporters bringing the plight of ordinary men. The film shot in black and white shows the exact colors of the misery that migrant laborers had to face. It is as raw as it can get.

The covid-19 lockdown led to the exodus of about 10 million migrant workers. Anubhav Sinha displayed a tragedy of mass scale through ‘Bheed’, it shows the struggle of migrant workers on the state border, with their children crying for food, and them feeling absolutely helpless.

Watch out for the scene when a cement mixer is stopped from crossing the border, there comes the absolute tragic scene of laborers coming out from the mixer. This scene will leave a lump in your heart. The raw truth of the misery that migrant workers had to face. The utmost helplessness that they felt at the moment.

Crucial look at social divide and caste/class system in Indian society

Pankaj Kapur through his extraordinary acting kept his character alive throughout. Pankaj plays the role of an upper-class watchman wanting to reach his village along with fellow workers, he’s quite a rebel in his role. In the film, Pankaj does every possible thing to manage food for the children traveling with him.

In a desperate bid to arrange food, he even manhandles policemen Surya Kumar Singh Tikas (Rajkummar Rao) who’s in charge of the check post set up at the border to stop migrant workers from entering the area, this is when the emphasis is laid on caste division, Pankaj’s character hails from Pandit community and he downcast Surya (Rajkummar Rao) because of his lower caste, saying in a dialogue, ‘Vardi nahi hoti na, tab batate tumko tumhara aukaat (would have shown you where your class belongs if you weren’t in Police uniform),’ to which Surya froze for a bit thinking about all the discrimination he had to face because of his lower caste.

There are many instances in the film that shows the class divide in India, Bhumi Pednekar playing Surya’s (Rajkummar Rao) girlfriend belongs to the Sharma community and Surya is seen getting insecure about his belonging to a lower caste in front of his girlfriend. There are scenes where both are seen discussing their future, where it is made evident that the upper caste family of his girlfriend will never accept a lower caste man to be the husband of their daughter.

Apart from this, there’s also a scene where a politician from the upper caste asks Surya (Rajkummar Rao) to let him cross the border, to which Surya isn’t able to reply and comes back saying, “humko adat nahi hai itna badaa log humse kuch maange, humesha humne sabke order mane hain, laga yahi kaam hai humara (I’m not habitual to grant permission to upper caste people, I have always followed their order and it gets bizarre when they ask me for a favor)”

Anubhav Sinha has very correctly pressed on the issue of the caste divide in Indian society and has shown it from every possible angle in the movie.

Fake news and lack of proper knowledge led the migrant workers to turmoil

The movie also talks about WhatsApp forwards and Facebook posts containing rumors and fake information. Back-and-forth migrant laborers in the film are talking about WhatsApp forwards and Facebook posts their children tell them about. It is seen in the movie how they believed in each and every piece of information provided to them during those unprecedented times.

In the middle of the film, there are cases shown of migrant laborers falling sick, having high fevers, and other workers were seen hiding them from the authorities, thinking the authorities would take their loved one’s away from them. This is when the audience realizes the intensity of the moment that how unaware the migrant workers were during the time.

Anubhav has covered the details perspicuously, there is a scene when a medical officer wearing a PPE kit comes to examine a worker ridden with high fever to which Pankaj reacts and calls it a ‘nautanki’ saying “sirf sardi khasi hua hai usko corona thodi hai,” this line instantly reminds the audience of the time when no one had an exact idea of the symptoms that Covid-19 carried.

‘Bheed’ will leave you speechless, and full of emotions. You will leave the theatres with baggage of multiple feelings. Every character has played a major role in the compilation of the whole movie, the essence remains intact and the story doesn’t get lost mid-way. Anubhav Sinha showed the raw and unsettling truth of those homeless during the tough times of covid pandemic.