In 1949, while writing the most important book in the country, Dr BR Ambedkar made some bits autobiographical. In Article 15, he put his thoughts and personal experiences to paper and spoke of the birthright of citizens: no citizen can be discriminated against on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex and place of birth. In 2014, a few Hindu men from Badaun, UP, who hadn't read that section, raped two teenagers and hung them out to dry from a mango tree. In 2017, filmmaker Anubhav Sinha sat down to write his first draft of Article 15, a story that includes all of that, and a story that has been 2,000 years in the making.

Releasing this week, with actor Ayushmann Khurrana in the lead, Sinha tells us that his film is actually based on several incidents. "When you see the film, and if you've been reading newspapers, you'll see all those cases. Government data tells you it happens once a day." In the film, the teenagers are raped and murdered because they demand a raise of three rupees. "When I wrote this, my CFO, Dubeyji, who is a Brahmin, said, 'Nahi sir, aisa nahi hota.' So I called a friend from Delhi, whose been a journalist for 20 years, and put her on speakerphone. She said, 'Within 15 minutes from Delhi, this could happen to a girl for three rupees.' It's not about three rupees; it's about 'I will tell you what you deserve. And if you have a voice against it, I will show you your place'."