Broken Gods

Alice Tilche is a Lecturer in Anthropology, Museums and Heritage at the University of Leicester and an associate researcher in the Anthropology Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Trained in anthropology at SOAS and Oxford, Alice has conducted extensive research in rural India, among its indigenous groups and among India’s diaspora communities in the UK. Her recent work speaks to one of the most pressing issues of our times, the use of culture in the name of religious nationalism. Alice has also worked extensively on indigenous art, and on issues related to agrarian change and migration. Her work has been published in several top academic journals and her manuscript on Art and Hindu Nationalism is in production with the University of Washington Press. Broken Gods is Alice’s second documentary film and collaboration with Dakxin Bajranje Chhara.

Dakxinkumar Bajrange is an award winning filmmaker, playwright, director and an activist from the Chhara De-notified Tribes of Ahmedabad in the western part of India. He recently awarded National Award by National Human Rights Commission, Govt. of India for his writing on Human Rights. He is a recipient of Ford Foundation International Fellowship (2010-11) for a Masters Degree in ‘Theatre and Global Development’ at the University of Leeds, England and recently his book ‘Budhan Bolta Hai’ (Budhan Speaks) is got first prize for Mahatma Gandhi Best Creative Writing on Human rights by National Human rights Commission (NHRC) for 2010-11. He is also a recipient of Rajiv Gandhi Arts Fellowship (2004-05) and Bhasha Fellowship (2002-03) to study art forms of nomadic and de-notified communities in Gujarat. Currently, he works at Budhan Theatre as a director, which is a community theatre group of the Chhara de-notified tribe of Gujarat and also works as freelance filmmaker and Theatre educator. As a Filmmaker, he directed 70 fiction and non-fiction films on various development and political issues of India. His films are widely screened in…