Semkhor: First Dimasa Feature Film Lets Down the People It Claims to Represent

Dimasa groups have accused filmmaker and actor Aimee Baruah of 'misrepresenting' the community.

(Semkhor has sparked protests from the Dimasa community of Assam)

(Still from the trailer of Semkhor)

(This article may contain spoilers)

Semkhor, directed by and starring Assamese actor Aimee Barua, is the first feature film in the Dimasa language. But it has sparked a furore among the Dimasa community of Assam for “misrepresenting” their customs and traditions in the film.

The film was screened at national as well as international film festivals and was awarded the Rajat Kamal at the 68^th National Film Awards. It was commercially released on 23 September 2022.

One of the authors of this piece was present at the film’s screening at Delhi’s India Habitat Centre during the Habitat International Film Festival in May 2022.

Informed by Dimasa friends about the screening, we were excited to watch and support a movie made in our language. By then, the trailer of the film had been circulated widely on various social media platforms.

We waited for the film with great excitement as we thought it would be telling our story, for the first time, on a bigger screen. But the film left a deep sense of betrayal for us as Dimasa viewers. We found its portrayal of Dimasa customs and traditions, prejudiced.

So How Has the Film Misrepresented Dimasas?

The film, in the director’s own words, “attempts” to capture Semkhor’s Dimasa inhabitants in their essence: their environment, their traditions and customs, and their way of life.

The dialogues and costumes in the movie seem authentic. As it was shot on location, using Dimasa actors, each scene has a veneer of authenticity. However, behind this veneer there is a great deal of misrepresentation.

The Semkhor Dimasas are shown as isolated people, hostile even to Dimasas who are residents of another village.

In the film, they are shown as shunning modern medicine and education. The premise of the film is the ‘practise’ of ritualistic infanticide. It shows that when a mother in this community dies during childbirth, her baby is not allowed to live as she is considered to be a bad omen.

At the time of the mother’s cremation, the baby is buried alive by the family members. More than three scenes in the movie depict such infanticide. It is also shown that these babies are female, though it is not clear in the movie whether the community practises female infanticide only.

The protagonist (Aimee Baruah) of the film is deeply disturbed by this practice, and is compelled to go against her village, endangering her own life to save a baby from meeting such a horrific fate.

This storyline of infanticide immediately after the mother’s death has angered Dimasa public the most.   No such ritual is practised by Dimasas so what is shown in the film is nothing but a fabrication.

As we will argue later, the whole characterisation of the Semkhor Dimasas is untrue as well. The director has resorted to employing stereotypes about tribals while representing one of the oldest communities of Assam.  

Therefore, while it has been received favourably in the film festival circuit, the Dimasa community organisations have demanded that its screening be withdrawn.

The makers of the film were reckless in the casting an infant to play the baby who Aimee Baruah’s character “saves” in the climax of the movie.

The 84-day-old baby died around a week after shooting, which took place in tough weather conditions along the bank of the Panimur River. Dimasa organisations have blamed the filmmakers for the death of the infant.

The maker of this film, Aimee Baruah, made minimal effort to sensitise the audience. The movie begins with a disclaimer that it is a fictional story. However, it fails to say that this practice of infanticide was never a part of the Semkhor Dimasas’ culture.

(Dimasa youth protest against Semkhor)

(Dimasa Boys Facebook Page)

Therefore, the fabricated premise of the movie is shown as a fact. During media interactions with the director, Aimee Baruah has repeatedly pointed out that this practice is part of the Semkhor Dimasas’ culture.

She has claimed that Semkhor Dimasas have shunned development interventions, and destroyed roads to prevent outsiders from entering their village.

Aimee Baruah further took to social media to defend the film by stating that the story is ‘completely fictional.’ She wrote on her Facebook page ‘the plotline of my film Semkhor was created on the basis of information that we collected from newspapers, books, magazines and a few individuals.’

She further claims that the attempt of her film was ‘to draw the attention to our society to the beauty of the location, the local language, the attire and so on.’ The Dimasa public remains dissatisfied with the statement made by the film-maker.

The Context

The film has taken its name from a village called Semkhor located in Dima Hasao district of Assam. The word ‘Semkhor’ comprises two Dimasa words ‘Sem’ meaning salt and ‘khor’ means well.

The people living in the village identify themselves as ‘Semsas’ and are a part of the Dimasa tribe. The Dimasas are among the few tribal communities in India (including Todas) who follow a system of double descent lineage consisting of both patrilineal and matrilineal clans. Dual descent from both the mother and the father allows women and men to have an equal position and respect in Dimasa society.

(Semkhor is situated about 30 km from Maibang, that's on the national highway)

(Wikimedia Commons)

The film gives an impression of the remotely located landscape of Semkhor village; unspoiled and untouched by any form of modernity.

Semkhor is situated about 30 km from the nearest town and district sub-division Maibang where the East-West Corridor highway lane connecting Silchar with Porbandar passes through.

Unlike what the film-maker Aimee Baruah has claimed about the isolation of Semsa people, the history of interactions of Semkhor inhabitants with the outside world has been old and can be traced from the British period.

Semkhor being located on the hilltop was strategically important for the British to keep an eye on the raiding tribes from neighbouring hills into tea gardens in Cachar. Ethnographer J.P. Mills had collected many photographs of Semkhor in 1927.

By the Government of India Act 1935, Dima Hasao (erstwhile North Cachar Hills) was administered as an ‘Excluded Area’ (excluded from reform and normal administration). In the post-independence period, the district was declared as Autonomous Council district – a provision provided under 6^th Schedule of the Indian constitution.

Anthropologist Dipali Danda’s Among the Dimasa of Assam (1977) is the first ethnographic account on Dimasas. She stated that Dimasas were very hospitable and usually entertained guests with tea. This was observed by her even in the village of Semkhor as well (p.127). No known practice of female infanticide was recorded in her study. Even today, Semkhor villagers frequented the weekly market at Maibang mainly on foot for their everyday needs by bringing their bamboo crafted products. A local politician had even built a resting place some years back at the centre of the market for the Semkhor people. 

Semkhor does have its share of problems, like many regions in India. According to the 2011 Census, its literacy rate is an abysmal 9.2 percent compared to 72.19 percent in Assam overall. Its child sex ratio was 880 females per thousand males, pointing to gender discrimination.

Its infrastructural needs are not met. The nearest hospital is 30 km away. But the causes of these problems should not be pinned down on the Semkhor Dimasas’ alleged reluctance to change, as Baruah seems to have depicted. 

She resorts to the stereotypes of backward, isolated, self-indulgent tribe while promoting her film. In her media interactions session at 52^nd IFFI 2021 held in Goa, Baruah narrated a story about the “unfriendly attitude” of Semkhor inhabitants towards developmental processes such as roads, healthcare system, schools and so on.

This is problematic and undermines the marginalised community both socially and culturally. Or an apt inversion of an individual hailing from a dominant identity to hegemonise most of the discourse on a minority group. It reveals the long-held images and stereotyping of a tribal society as static, changeless and savage.

These statements from the film-maker’s interview reeks of a ‘civilising mission,’ undertaken much like the colonial state, where the tribes were presented as primitive, dangerous and often characterised as ‘criminal tribes.’ Representation and views on Dimasas by the film-maker remains at the core of this ‘othering’ process. Thus, Semkhor continues the process of ‘othering’ of people living in the margins of society against the dominant majority as those who need to be rescued or given agency as they can’t stand up for themselves. And it is very clearly evident from the interviews of the film-maker.

 As films are said to be a powerful tool in the construction of an identity, films such as Semkhor do provide a case of misrepresentation of a tribal community (in this case, the Dimasas) in the mainstream consciousness. The film failed to capture the subjective realities, does not explore the actual lifestyle and worldviews of Semkhor inhabitants.

(Diksha Langthasa is a civil servant and Santosh Hasnu teaches history at a college in University of Delhi)