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When Jayanti was released in 2021, it felt like something genuinely new in Indian cinema, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film received an unusually warm response, earning praise for its director and cast while generating considerable writing and discussion around it. Nearly five years later, director Shailesh Narwade returns with a sequel. We watched Jayanti 2 at its premiere, followed by a brief conversation with the cast.

The film is cinematically assured. Watching it, one is struck by the fact that even in an age of heightened censorship, someone can still choose to say what they mean without flinching. During the post-screening discussion, Narwade shared with us that the film had been held up by the CBFC for several months and finally received its certificate only after 22 cuts. It was released on September 11.

And yet, despite everything that has been trimmed from it, the film has lost none of its weight. If anything, the cuts sharpen the very question the film seems to be asking: the harder one tries to suppress an Ambedkarite cinematic voice, the more forcefully it will rise and make itself heard.

It would not be an exaggeration to call Jayanti 2 a masterclass in representing caste discrimination within educational institutions, as well as in exploring questions of identity, whether Adivasi, gendered, linguistic or geographical. This makes the film particularly urgent at a moment when the “remove reservation” movement is once again gaining ground.

The myths and misconceptions that dominant-caste society has long constructed around reservation, and more recently around the sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, have been persistently challenged by Bahujan intellectuals through factual arguments. Jayanti 2 lays out these debates with remarkable sensitivity. The film also carries forward Kanshi Ram’s well-known socio-political principle that those whose population is greater should have a proportionately greater share, without ever allowing the argument to become merely didactic.

This could easily serve as required viewing in educational institutions, particularly for building awareness and empathy. At one point, Payal Markam, the film’s Adivasi protagonist, says that although human beings live outside the forest, Manuski (humanity) still exists within it. It is a small line, but a powerful one. Narwade makes his case for equality and for the importance of reservation through concrete, practical examples, and manages to do so without ever losing the audience.

Also read: A Historian Watches ‘RRR’: The Meaningless Anti-Colonialism of the Global Blockbuster

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