Anubhav Sinha on ‘Bheed’, Bhushan Kumar, and changes to trailer

The director addresses the murmurs and controversies surrounding ‘Bheed’ and what it took him to make a film on the 2020 migrant crisis in India

It’s been a crucial couple of weeks for Anubhav Sinha. His new film, Bheed, is releasing in theatres on March 24. But on March 15, the film’s official trailer was made unavailable on YouTube. Headlined by Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar, Bheed — shot in stark black-and-white — revisits the hardships and humiliations of the 2020 migrant crisis in India, when lakhs of daily wage workers and seasonal labourers had to walk back home from big cities during the coronavirus pandemic.

The film’s trailer, which first dropped on March 10, began with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address announcing the first phase of the nationwide Covid-19 induced lockdowns, over images of chaos and apathy.

When the trailer reappeared a few days later, the voice-over was replaced. Also gone was a line comparing the scale and devastation of the migrant crisis to something like 1947, when the country was partitioned on religious lines and millions of people were displaced. This added to another confusion; the absence of T-Series and producer-presenter Bhushan Kumar’s names in the film’s trailer and subsequent promos.

Bheed has generated positive pre-release buzz for highlighting an important chapter of India’s recent past. However, the film has also received backlash on social media, with Sinha being accused of sensationalising a mass tragedy and portraying the country’s response in poor light.

In an interview with The Hindu, Sinha—known for Mulk, Article 15, Thappad and Anek—spoke on the various controversies surrounding Bheed and his journey of bringing the film to fruition. Excerpts....

In May, 2020, you tweeted an image of migrant labourers clambering onto a truck with the caption ‘paap lagega’. What moved you about the unfolding situation?

It was devastating. These images that were pouring in of the migrants. And the fact that no one thought about them; not even you and I. I’m not just talking about the government. We presumed it was the migrants’ problem. We thought that their immunity was high, and because they are the labour class, they are used to hard work and going hungry. And the worst news was that they came back at the same price, because they don’t have a choice I suspect. That was the rudest shock.