King's India Institute invites you to the screening of 'Land of My Dreams' and a conversation with the film's director Nausheen Khan.

About the film

In 2019, the Indian government enacted the Citizenship Amendment Act. Viewing this as discriminatory, intergenerational, multi-faith women gathered in Shaheen Bagh, a Muslim neighbourhood in Delhi, to form a non-violent sit-in that grew into a nationwide movement.

The documentary follows stories of these women who sustained a peaceful pro-democracy movement for over a 100 days, galvanising resistance across the country. The film recounts how they weathered institutionalised and societal repression to redefine nationalism and provide a precedent for a new form of public dissent in modern India.

Drawing on her identity as a Muslim woman, the filmmaker questions contemporary notions of belonging, patriotism and identity in India by examining shared human responses to exclusion, polarisation and repression.

Running time: 75 minutes

Speaker

Nausheen Khan

Nausheen Khan is an independent filmmaker based in India, working on gender perspectives amid conflict and political unrest in contemporary times. Land of My Dreams is her first feature-length documentary film. It won Best Long Documentary at the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala in 2023, and the Citizen's Prize at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in 2023.

Chair

Mohsin Alam Bhat

Mohsin Alam Bhat is a Lecturer in Law (Assistant Professor) at Queen Mary University of London. He specialises in constitutional law and human rights. He is particularly interested in the study of minority rights, religious regulation and the law of democracy, from comparative, socio-legal and cross-disciplinary perspectives.

His work has focused on several areas of contemporary interest at the intersection of law, religion and politics. His work on secularism interrogates the ways in which post-colonial dilemmas of national identity, state-formation and constitutional reform shape religious regulation. He is currently working on a book manuscript on the history of legal mobilisation for affirmative action among subordinated groups among India’s minority Muslims. The book draws from extensive field work among these vulnerable communities to show how the marginalised adopt equal and secular citizenship, and offers a dynamic picture of popular constitutional practices of ordinary citizens in Global South settings.