[2] The film includes a song by Dalit poet and activist Vilas Ghogre, followed by a shot of a newspaper clipping describing his suicide in reaction to the Ramabai killings in 1997.

[2] The documentary then describes the killings; on 11 July 1997 a statue of B. R. Ambedkar in the Dalit colony of Ramabai had a garland of footwear placed over it, an act considered to be a desecration.

Commentators stated that the violence was motivated by caste-based prejudices, as the leader of the police team stood accused of several cases of mistreatment of Dalit people.

The film describes the complicity of the Shiv Sena in the Ramabai killings, and shows Bal Thackeray at a public rally stating that Muslims need to be exterminated.

Part of the reason it took that length of time was that Patwardhan wanted to wait for the outcome of the trials that followed the Ramabai incident before finishing the documentary.

[4] The review also commented that some Dalit activists had begun to associate with the Shiv Sena despite its leader Bal Thackeray making hate-speeches against Muslims, and contrasted them with the Kabir Kala Manch, which was the "new hope on the horizon.

[8] A review in The Guardian said that the film "exposed the glaring realities...about the continuing oppression of the poorer castes," and that it could be seen as "a capstone to Patwardhan's extraordinary career.

"[9] The anthropologist Deborah Matzner said that the film contrasted the "thetrical Hindutva" of the Shiv Sena with the "poignant and defiant" political music of the Kabir Kala Manch, and said that "blatant and appalling hate speech [of Bal Thackeray] serves as the dark corollary to Dalit leaders’ skillful, rousing oratory and song.

[10] British-Ghanaian writer and filmmaker Kodwo Eshun voted for the film on Sight & Sound's poll of "The Greatest Documentaries of All Time", as did two other critics (Julia Lesage and Cheuk To-Li).