At any other time in India’s history, the title
Kaagaz would have meant just “paper”, literally. Alternatively, in the context of this film, it would have specifically and only meant the document on which a corrupt UP village official declared a living human being called Lal Bihari dead in the 1970s, having accepted a bribe to do so from the man’s uncle and cousins who then usurped their relative’s land. In today’s India though, where the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) have been widely criticised for their potential to disenfranchise rightful Indian citizens,