The barely heard voices

Dalit stories and caste-based narratives were barely seen in mainstream cinema, not until last couple of years. With films like ‘Masan’ and ‘Sairat’, the stories have found new voices, but are they loud enough?

“Joota pehen ke sahib banega,” barks a mukhiya at Dasarath Manjhi (Nawazuddin Siddqui), a man from moosahar (a low caste) community, who wears shoes. Enraged by the act the mukhiya orders his men to nail a horseshoe to Manjhi’s foot. “Isko aise joote pehnao ki uske jaroorat na pade,” he orders. This heart-wrenching scene from Ketan Mehta’s ‘Manjhi: The Mountain Man’ depicts the oppression of the downtrodden community by upper castes.

In Nagaraj Manjule’s acclaimed debut film ‘Fandry’, the climax scene, where Somnath Awghade’s Jabya throws a stone at upper caste boys, who call him fandry (pig), closes with the stone that appears to be coming at the audience, which is not only a victim but also a carrier of the exploitative caste-based social system.

There is anger and anguish in the community, whose voices has been lost in the nation’s most popular medium – Cinema. Dalit issues for reasons unknown have become a taboo subject for mainstream movies. Rarely the subject was touched, and even if it was touched, it was to show the secular credentials or largesse of the protagonist.

For example, N Shankar’s ‘Jayam Manadera’ (2000), though brushes upon Dalits not being allowed in temples and other such issues, it was more about Venkatesh’s Mahadeva Naidu liberating them.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s ‘Eklavya’ (2007) has presented radical Dalit in the shape of DSP Pannalal Chauhar. Sanjay Dutt walked the park with the character. The scene in which, he enters the palace has some memorable lines which Dutt delivers with élan.

Taking to his assistant, “Ghabra math. Ye democracy hain, ab ye sirf ghar ka raja hain. Hamara danda iske talwar se majboot hain,” he says and this statement is viewed as a testimony to the change in the attitude of the Dalits. Dutt enters the palace and takes his seat, even without the king’s consent. When the king was about to call him ‘Chauhar’, “Chauhar math bolna Ranaji. Democracy mein Chauhar ko Chauhar bolna jurm hain,” he warns.

The film could have made all the right noises, but it was all lost in the extensive focus on using 800 camels in an action scene, indicating Bollywood’s obsession for glamour and chutzpah.

The success of Franz Osten’s ‘Achhut Kanya’ (1936) led many to believe that the Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar starrer was the first film to talk about Dalit issues. However, two films - Nitin Bose’s ‘Chandidas’ (1934) and V Shantaram’s ‘Dharmatma’ (1935) spoke about Dalit issues, but they were confined to only upper caste protagonists accepting Dalits rather than making a strong social statement.

Coming to movie ‘Achhut Kanya’, it is a tragic love story between a Dalit girl and a Brahmin boy. The film was a runaway success and it attempted to portray travails of a submissive Dalit woman.
Post-‘Achhut Kanya’, Bollywood and Indian cinema ignored Dalit issues as a premise for the movies. Despite these issues forming an important storyline of parallel cinema; commercial cinema never had space for them.

Bimal Roy’s classic ‘Sujata’ (1959) is perhaps the first film that talked about the essential family-as-nation and nation-as-family ideal. Coming to the premise, Sujata is born into a Dalit family, whose parents die, and she is brought up by a Brahmin overseer. The overseer’s wife learns that Sujatha is from Dalit community and starts introducing Sujatha by saying, ‘she is like my daughter’. This leads to Nutan’s Sujatha creating a shell of self-imposed silence as an expression of her feelings of betrayal by her foster-mother, and also as her voice of rebellion.

While Bimal Roy’s ‘Sujata’ talked about soft rebellion, Shyam Benegal in his debut feature ‘Ankur’ (1974) provides a broader view of Dalit women. Shabana Azmi’s Lakshmi acts according to her needs and whims. The adultery she commits is a bold attempt from a Dalit woman in the conservative Indian society. She breaks the social taboos regarding female sexuality encoded in a social institution and claims her demand on her own body. This movie is again embedded with the hypocrisy of the upper caste and class.

Benegal followed ‘Ankur’ with ‘Nishant’ (1975) and ‘Manthan’ (1976), and without glamorising or celebrating the casteist issue, he focused mainly on how caste plays havoc with the lives of those belonging to low-caste, who are also crippled by poverty and illiteracy. He also talks about four-cornered struggle — among the untouchables, the traditional middle-class, the rising rural capitalists and the new cooperatives led by middle-class agents of change.

Govind Nihlani’s ‘Aakrosh’ (1980) is a landmark film when it comes to championing Dalit issues. The movie’s end made viewers realise the harsh lives of the Dalits in the hands of upper castes. Om Puri’s Lahanya Bhiku is accused of murdering his wife Nagi and jailed.

In fact, Smita Patil’s Nagi has been gang-raped by big wigs of the village and she ends her life. The trauma leads Lahanya into silence and he even refuses to speak with his lawyer. On death row, he is brought to perform last rites of his dead father with hands and feet shackled. As he circles the burning pyre, he lets out a final cry of anguish and slays his young sister, lest she befalls the fate his wife did. This silence stands on its own.

Post - violent and bold ‘Aakrosh’, it was Prakash Jha’s ‘Damul’ (1985) that talked about castiest and capitalist politics in rural pockets. In this boldest film on oppression till date, a basti is held at ransom; its residents are stopped from casting their votes, they are subjected to repay debts they have not taken, they were driven to an extent of stealing cattle for the landlord and if anyone realises the landlord’s wicked ways, he is hacked.

After ‘Damul’, barring films like Priyadarshan’s ‘Aakrosh’ (2010) and Prakash Jha’s ‘Aarakshan’, not many films touched upon Dalit issues, until the last couple of years.

In recent times, there has been an interesting crop of films coming from young, debutant directors that added new layers to the caste narratives. Bikas Ranjan Mishra’s ‘Chauranga’ (2014), Chaitanya Tamhane’s ‘Court’ (2014) and Neeraj Ghaywan’s ‘Masaan’ (2015) are some examples.

In regional cinema, Gurvinder Singh’s ‘Anhey Ghore Da Daan’ (Punjabi, 2011), based on novelist Gurdial Singh’s novel, captures the humiliation and discontent in the lives of the downtrodden. Jayan Cherian’s English-Malayalam film ‘Papilio Buddha’ (2013) is about displaced Dalits in the Western Ghats, who embrace Buddhism and become Ambedkar’s followers in order to escape oppression.

Nagaraj Manjule’s ‘Sairat’ talks about the life of a Dalit youth, the tribulations he has to go to win love.

More recently, Rahul Bose’s ‘Poorna’, which captured the heroics of Telugu pride Malavath Poorna, who conquered Mt Everest, is a testament to Dalit empowerment. Bose’s RK Pravin Kumar and Aditi Inamdar’s Poorna the main protagonists are Dalits and their trials and tribulations are captured in a heart warming way.

Talking about why caste issues form the core of his films, Nagaraj Manjule in an interview says, “Caste is the foundation of our society; discrimination is in the air we breathe. These are our realities. I didn’t include them deliberately, but could not have avoided them either.”

Social scientists and new age directors believe that cinema is an escapist and larger than life world, which is Brahminical in its ethos to give space for caste narratives.

The new age films are very low-key, they are devoid of tropes of commercial cinema - romance, action, suspense, and song-and-dance numbers. Everything in these movies is real and raw, much like the parallel cinema of the 70s and early 80s. Will more films be made on caste narratives and social issues?

“It will be difficult,” says director Prem Raj, whose recent outing ‘Saranam Gachchami’ talked about reservations. “Nagaraj Manjule could accurately depict the travails of Dalits because he faced them. It was his pain that audience got to see through the characters in the film,” he noted.

Prem Raj says only people from Dalit community can accurately portray the oppression by upper castes. “Pa Ranjith, who made ‘Atakatti’ and ‘Kabali’ has to be lauded for bringing caste-based issues into mainstream cinema,” he opines. He echoes with Nagaraj Manjule and states that film industry is largely upper caste in its mindset, and it rarely allows caste-based narratives in cinema.