K Chandru and the real story behind ‘Jai Bhim’

Hyderabad: As ‘Jai Bhim’ celebrates the success of its release following unanimous positive reviews from both critics and audiences through word of mouth, the focus now shifts to how filmmaker TJ Gnanavel came up with a movie of this scale and what prompted him to make a movie rather than showcase it as a documentary of former advocate and Madras High Court Judge K Chandru who fought for the downtrodden bringing about a change at the administrative and judicial level.

The film is inspired by the true incident that happened way back in 1993. 

A man named Rajakannu from the Irular tribe was falsely framed in a theft case. The horrific death of Rajakannu due to the custodial torture was a challenging and landmark legal battle for K Chandru when the victim’s wife Sengani (real name Parvathi) came to the lawyer for help.

On several occasions, Chandru admitted that the police involved in the case had tried to bribe him as well as the victim’s wife for an out of court settlement. 

Choosing to take up a legal career was an accident for Chandru to be active in student politics. A leader during the Left Movement, Chandru wanted to be in community service and help people. 
It was during the emergency years in the ’70s, he felt that the law should be a tool to win the rights of people. In his long stint as a judge, Chandru has disposed of 96,000 cases, a feat that he achieved only because of meticulous planning, organisation and classification of cases. 

When Chandru first watched the film ‘Jai Bhim’, he said the scenes portraying actor Suriya as the advocate kept reminding what he was 30 years ago. 
With a few sequences that have cinematic liberties, the former Judge says ‘Jai Bhim’ has been truthful to the story without exaggerating custodial violence and government’s apathy towards human rights violation.