Ramchand Pakistani is derived from a true story concerning the
accidental crossing of the Pakistan-Indian border during a period (June
2002) of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two
members of a Pakistani Hindu family belonging to the 'untouchable'
(Dalit) caste, and the extraordinary consequences of this unintended
action upon the lives of a woman, a man, and their son.
The singular
theme of the film is how a child from Pakistan aged eight years learns
to cope with the trauma of forced separation from his mother while
being held prisoner, along with his father in the jail of a country
i.e. India, which is hostile to his own, while on the other side of the
border, the wife-mother, devastated by their sudden disappearance
builds a new chapter of her life, by her solitary struggle for sheer
survival.
The film portrays the lives of a family that is at the
bottom of a discriminatory religious ladder and an insensitive social
system, which is nevertheless tolerant, inclusive and pluralist. The
irony is compounded by the fact that such a family becomes hostage to
the acrimonious political relationship between two neighbor-states
poised on the brink of war.