Beyond the fence: ‘Borderlands’ is a heartfelt exploration of people’s lives at India’s borders

Bringing together tales of people from six different border regions of the Indian subcontinent, ‘Borderlands', directed by non-fiction filmmaker Samarth Mahajan, reminds the viewer of the tender humanist connections that bind the society, rendering political borders porous for many. The award-winning documentary is a ‘Camera and Shorts' and ‘Rainshine Entertainment' production. The film has made rounds at multiple film national and international festivals and will be screened at Mumbai's Prithvi Theatre this Friday.

An enlightening attempt at urging people to think beyond the binary of the establishments that raise political fences, it is also a multi-faceted film unfolding layers of invisible borders of gender, sex and ability that divide the society. From the story of Deepa, a Pakistani-Hindu migrant living along the Jodhpur border, who aspires to become a nurse and has to adapt to a completely new education system to that of Dhauli, a Bangladeshi migrant in a border town Nargaon yearning to meet her family from across the border once a year and Noor, a Bangladeshi girl trafficked to India, who finds love in another woman in the shelter home and explores her bi-sexuality, while awaiting repatriation; the tales are personal and intimate.

Samarth Mahajan, director of Borderlands. Image courtesy: Ritagnik Bhattacharya

Through the journeys of six characters living at the borders of Rajasthan, Punjab, Nepal, Manipur and West Bengal, the film offers a glimpse into the complexities of human relationships and its exploitation by state actors. Mid-day Digital spoke to Mahajan to know more about the director's creative process, challenges faced during the shoot and the treatment of the core subject. Here are the edited excerpts from the interview:

Why did you choose borders as your subject for the documentary?

Mahajan: There are two factors. One of them is my experience during my previous project ‘The Unreserved'. It's a documentary which we did while traveling in general dabbas (unreserved train compartments) around the country; a collection of personal stories where we travel in general dabbas and just talk to people. One of the stories of a Kashmiri man and his idea of patriotism, which was linked to fulfilling basic needs of employment, as opposed to the mainstream media image of a Kashmiri youth as a ‘stone-pelter', left me in thoughts about borders in general.

I come from a border area myself. The popular narratives on border areas portray a violent masculine and unidimensional--where you have only the army and terrorists-- image of borders. But for me, it was always more complicated than that, because there are people like my mother and me. So when our politicians talk about borders, they don't give space to those people, to their everyday lives and the conversations are binary. It's always confrontational, at least off late it has been like that. So that was another tipping point and there was also need to talk about these stories, because in our whole mainstream narrative, nationalism is being built around the idea of borders, confrontation at the borders and creating this image of the "other".

Second, there needs to be some visibility of our own people, you know, Indians who live in border areas. So that was another trigger. What we need to do is one, go beyond the India-Pakistan binary, explore different borders, such as let's travel to more borders than just India and Pakistan.

A still from the film. Dhauli, a Bangladeshi migrant in India sending oranges for her mother in Bangladesh through a stick during ‘Milan Mela', an annual event at the North Bengal border. Image credit: Rainshine Entertainment

Tell us something about the creative approach towards the film.

Mahajan: So we are exploring the reality of politics being personal. You enter politics through personal stories. We are not only talking about physical borders, but we are also talking about borders, which are not physical, like gender, sexuality, class and nationality, and even ability because one of the characters in the film battles polio. One will witness that every story explored, there is a metaphorical or invisible border. One can say physical borders divide countries, but these borders also divide our society to an extent. So it's that kind of attempt. This is how we're dealing with, when I say binary, intimacy, intricacies and personal stories.

What you see in border areas has been happening for decades. It is not a current occurrence. We wanted to avoid the whole Congress-BJP binary, because the people in the film have been facing the same problems, irrespective of the party. So the film had to be about personal stories. We did not want to have a very romantic idea of borders. There are a lot of partition projects going on, focusing on nostalgia, which is important, because these narratives also need to be documented.

But, the conversations that happen around borders; one extreme is the war narrative, which is violent and the other extreme is the whole romantic idea that borders should not exist taking us into pre-partition nostalgia. We forget to track the present amidst this. So we were very clear about focusing on stories unfolding in the present; about everyday people, and their daily lives.

Since the film involved shooting at the borders, what were the major challenges for you and your team?

Mahajan: Every location had its own challenges. We were trying to get proper permissions, which even required us to take trips to the Border Security Forces (BSF) office in Delhi. I think in general, the government is distrustful of documentary filmmakers. And since we are a documentary crew, we couldn't even give them a precise script. So, permissions were a big challenge.

Ultimately, we figured we need to do this informally. Essentially we went on the ground and met the local commanding officers like the BSF outpost at the borders, talked to them in Hindi, they would bond over language familiarity, because I believe they feel very secluded in these remote areas. We developed a bond with them. They also never agreed to give us written permission, but there was this implicit understanding, until we did not end up causing a disturbance.

We had to convince them of our story's focus and assure them that it is not about politics or the army and that the film is about local people and their personal stories. So we were informally there in the area, but with restrictions. So it was a two-way process, where we interacted with the officers as well, listened to their stories and anxieties, which revealed a lot about their mental health as well.

A still from the film. Kavita, one of the girls from an NGO working for prevention of human trafficking, keeping an eye on suspicious traffickers at the Nepal border. Image credit: Rainshine Entertainment

Tell us something about your process of reaching out to people featured in the film.

Mahajan: First, if we found the story of a not-for-profit, we tried seeking possibilities of meeting our potential characters through them. For example, we read an article about the fact that a lot of Nepali girls join NGOs, where they work as border guards, and their job is to stand at the border to look at suspicious people who might be trafficking girls. So we went to Nepal and met some of these organisations, who introduced us to the girls who are doing this work. And out of those girls, one of the girls featured in the film.

Second method was to reach out to villagers and sarpanchs. For example, we found out that the ‘Milan Mela' - an annual event for people from India and Bangladesh to meet their family across the fence--happens in a certain stretch of the borders in North Bengal. We found and reached out to journalists from the area and went down for ‘recce' (research visit). Through the journalists, we were able to meet the sarpanchs, who then introduced us to people who would meet their relatives at the fair. We would always ensure our entry point would be someone trusted by our potential characters, so that we are not barging into someone's house.

Do you think artists, in present times, need to safely navigate methods to escape censorship when the subject doesn't fit majoritarian political views?

Mahajan: I am greatly inspired and impacted by Iranian filmmakers, who have a humanist approach to storytelling. So even in ‘The Unreserved', we say a lot of political things without making it obvious, but I think if you have to read into it, you will read into it. For example, the Kashmiri narrative, we are trying to say it's not so binary. The moment the Kashmiri man (in the film) says, ‘I support Pakistan', one may imagine a stone pelter, but, by the end, he's also saying that 'I actually don't mind supporting India also if I get a job'. So, people are complex and this kind of storytelling makes it inclusive and does not authorise a section of the audience. Interestingly, if I was to categorize audiences as left wing or right wing, I have seen that audiences with both thoughts have appreciated this film, because the storytelling is hinged on emotions and not so much on dogma, that's my personal take.

I believe an artist must follow their heart. There are artists who actually say the things that they want to say best when it's said in a binary way. There is no one right way of doing it. I do believe that our country is becoming more authoritarian, there's more censorship and definitely, we need to develop new ways of telling stories. The flip side is that the politics may become so layered that sometimes it becomes too subtle for a strong impact. Every artist has a voice and for me, we are able to convey certain messages through personal stories. Since personal is layered with political, political automatically comes through. So that works for me , but not everyone has to do this. Artists should follow their heart and tell their stories in the best way possible.

Documentary screening
Date: October 28, 2022
Venue: Prithvi Theatre, Juhu
Time: 7 pm
Cost: No entry fee

Also read: Diwali 2022: Here's how these organisations in Mumbai are helping people manage dry and edible oil waste