Article 15

Anubhav Sinha's Article 15 takes its title from the provision of the Indian Constitution that prohibits discrimination on grounds of caste, religion, race, sex, or place of birth. The irony is deliberate: the film is about how that article is violated daily, with impunity, in rural India.

Ayushmann Khurrana plays Ayan Ranjan, an urban, upper-caste IPS officer whose first rural posting forces him to confront a caste system he has spent his life insulated from. The film is loosely inspired by the 2014 Badaun gang-rape and murder case, in which two Dalit girls were found hanging from a tree — their families allege they were raped and murdered by upper-caste men, but the investigation was widely criticized for its caste bias.

Article 15 is a police procedural in structure but a moral reckoning in effect. Its most devastating scene — a Dalit man forced to sweep the road while upper-caste officers look on — is based on real incidents documented by human rights organizations. The film sparked debate about whether an upper-caste director and star can authentically tell this story; the question itself is part of what makes the film necessary.