Ashish Avikunthak's Film Vidhvastha Premieres at Rotterdam, Interrogating Violence Through Hindu Texts

Ashish Avikunthak's 15th film, Vidhvastha (Devastated), premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year. The work explores human violence through a middle-aged Hindu policeman who confesses extrajudicial killings of Muslim men to his wife and lover. Parallel narratives draw from the Bhagavad Gita's Samkhya Yoga section, where Lord Krishna advises Arjuna to fulfill warrior duty without attachment. Avikunthak cites Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar's 1927 critique that the Gita metaphysically justifies violence and caste oppression. The filmmaker incorporates footage from Kali Puja animal sacrifices, CIA interrogation techniques from the Kubark manual, and classical Odissi dance performances. Dialogues were sourced from Hindutva online forums advocating violence against Muslims. Avikunthak notes the Gita's varied interpretations by figures like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Mahatma Gandhi, and even influenced Heinrich Himmler. The film examines hypocrisy through characters whose actions contradict beliefs, such as a vegetarian policeman who eats meat. Ritual self-mortification practices by lower-caste groups are juxtaposed with state violence. Avikunthak describes his approach as rupturing assumed relationships between image and meaning in narrative cinema.