This obituary is part of a series about people who died from the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.
NEW DELHI – Vira Sathidar played the role of a protest singer caught up in India’s frustrating legal system in Court, a 2014 film that won awards in India and around the world. Still, Mr. Sathidar, a lifelong injustice activist with little screen experience, was uncomfortable calling himself an actor.
Acting, he said, was just another tool in the protest toolbox – besides organizing, pamphleting, editing, writing poetry, and singing.
“Singing and dancing were a weapon of our struggle,” he once said. “It still is.”
Mr Sathidar died on April 13 in a hospital in Nagpur, Maharashtra state, as a result of Covid-19, said his son Ravan. He was 62 years old.
Mr. Sathidar agitated against the deeply rooted caste system in India, under which the lowest – its Dalits or Untouchables – are systematically abused. A high school dropout, he wrote books and articles, edited magazines, and organized street performances. For a short time he ran a bookcase. He was the head of the Maharashtra Chapter of the Confederation of Human Rights Organizations.
“It was a living library,” said his friend Nihal Singh Rathod, “about political science, about social science.”
Vira Sathidar was born on June 7, 1958 in the village of Parsodi near Nagpur, the son of Rauf and Gangubai Sathidar. His father, a farmer, was a staunch supporter of BR Ambedkar, one of India’s most influential thinkers and political figures. Mr. Ambedkar, himself a Dalit, was part of the Indian independence movement and played a central role in drafting the constitution for the future republic. He was also a tireless opponent of the caste system, and Mr. Sathidar often cited his influence to set him on the path to activism.
Mr. Sathidar said his father wanted him to be a scholar. But he was a distracted student and left school after 10th grade to work in a cotton thread mill.
Mr. Sathidar’s activism began when he was a union organizer at the mill. In the 1990s he worked with the radical Maoist movement called the Naxalites.
He went underground for a while but became disillusioned. His friend Pradeep Maitra, the Nagpur correspondent for the Hindustan Times, said in an interview: “He was disappointed with the Naxal movement because it emphasized the classless society and ignored the Ambedkar notion of casteless society.”
Together with his son, Mr. Sathidar, who lived in Nagpur, his wife Pushpa Viplav Sathidar and three brothers and a sister survive.
Mr. Sathidar became more widely perceived after the “court”, an investigation into the injustices that India’s labyrinthine legal system perpetuates against the marginalized. The director Chaitanya Tamhane was looking for a cast of largely unprofessional actors.
For months, his team made casting calls in several states, trying to recruit theater groups and street performers. He struggled to star, Narayan Kamble, a Dalit protest singer and poet accused of performing songs that caused a sewer worker in Mumbai to commit suicide.
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Then Mr. Tamhane discovered Mr. Sathidar through a group of activists. He threw it just before filming began.
“I thought they would include me in the film because they couldn’t find a good actor or didn’t have enough budget,” Sathidar said in a video interview. He said he was impressed with how much his character Narayan looked like him.
“He worked in a factory, I worked in a factory,” said Mr Sathidar. “He writes articles, I also write articles. He’s an editor, I’m an editor too. He works in a union, I also work in a union. He sings songs, I also sing songs. He’s going to jail; I’ve also been to jail many times. His house is being raided, my house is being raided too. “
“What he shows is my life,” said Mr. Sathidar. “What surprised me was that he wrote all of this without meeting me.”
