Kannada cinema and the question of identity

Any popular cinema addresses a constituency and in most national cinemas of the world that constituency is a national public. In India with the various regional language cinemas we could propose that while Bollywood has traditionally addressed the pan-Indian identity, regional language cinema addresses the language identity as well as the Indian one, the two overlapping and sometimes coming into conflict. Tamil films like ‘Parasakhti’ (1952) can show the courtroom (an emblem of central state authority) as a sacred site and be highly critical of Congress rule in erstwhile Madras state. In the Tamil version of ‘Roja’ (1992), the abducted hero saves an Indian flag from being burned by militants but his wife screams in Tamil at Hindi-speaking soldiers blaming them for his plight — cleverly suggesting the language conflict between Tamil Nadu and ‘India’ and asserting regional identity.  

If the protagonist represents the self-image of the region’s constituent as is reasonable to assume, Hindi films in the early years of the new millennium (Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, 2011) celebrated the spending power of rich Indians while Kannada cinema favoured gangster films about poor migrants into Bengaluru taking to a life of crime (Jogi, 2005) and being liquidated by the police. At that time many people who owned land around Bengaluru had sold it off cheap to corporates to be in vastly reduced circumstances; the resentment of the Kannadiga in Bengaluru — as someone homeless in the state’s capital — shows in the films.  

This brings us to another issue which is whether the ‘regional identity’ in cinema is inclusive in the sense of being pan-Kannada. The answer is that Kannada popular cinema was a largely Mysore cinema initially and the same continued until the arrival of Dakshina Kannada cinema through the Shettys (Rakshit, Rishab and Raj B). One does not, for instance, find fruitful romances in the older cinema between people from Old Mysore and the rest of Karnataka (Dakshina Kannada, Gulbarga, Belgaum, Kodagu) and it is as though former Mysore is a territory by itself. The failed romance in ‘Mungaru Male’ (2006) can be interpreted as the impossibility of a union between someone from Mysore and a Kodava. In ‘Muthina Hara’ (1990) both protagonists are Kodavas but what is the key is revealed at the end when the dying hero drinks Cauvery water reminding ‘India’ (the film is a patriotic one about the army and war) that the river rises in Karnataka — just when there was a dispute over the sharing of its waters with Tamil Nadu. Since the source of the river was in Kodagu it was necessary to make the protagonists Kodava. 

The hegemony within the linguistic state was even more extreme in Telugu cinema where Telangana Telugu was mocked. In Kannada cinema there is an unequal treatment of Mysoreans and Kannadigas from outside. If local Brahmins were portrayed as rich people with sophistication (as in Puttanna’s ‘Belli Moda’, 1967) the Brahmin of Dakshina Kannada was given the status of a cook (Sharapanjara, 1971). In ‘Kittur Chennamma’ (1961) the heroine (from Belgaum) speaks Mysore Kannada but the ministers who betray her speak Kannada from Belgaum. One could argue that former Princely Mysore still exerts cultural hegemony in Bengaluru; the Cauvery is projected as more important than the other rivers flowing through the state. 

With Old Mysore becoming a thing of the past in 1956 its culture was celebrated through the adaptation of literature and it is significant that the literature adapted was from writers like A N Krishna Rao (Anakru), T R Subba Rao (TaRaSu), Triveni, all from Old Mysore. It should be noted that Kannada art cinema stands apart and its directors like Kasaravalli, Karnad, B V Karanth and P Sheshadri have adapted Kannada literary works from outside Mysore. Indian art cinema may be in the regional language but it is pan-national in its address.

Where 1947 is the key event for Hindi mainstream cinema, Independence does not have such an impact upon the Kannada film. More important is linguistic reorganisation in 1956 after which there was an attempt (through the towering presence of Rajkumar) to include the other territories culturally. Rajkumar’s roles in the 1960s were used to define Greater Mysore. When Kannada cinema had favoured endogamy as the basis of marriage (implying marriage within the jati) B R Panthulu’s ‘Schoolmaster’ (1958) features a romance between a Brahmin boy in Malur (Kolar district) and a Lingayat girl from Shimoga implying a knitting together of territories, though both these are in Old Mysore. It is also significant that the romance takes place in Bangalore. Another motif found in the early 1960s cinema (Kittur Chennamma) is the second marriage of a king with the first wife’s approval. This is a way of allegorising the state’s enlargement through the accession of territories outside. The King as embodying the region is a carry forward from Princely Mysore since ‘King’ is ‘Country’ in a monarchy.

The cultural hegemony of Old Mysore within Karnataka is widely reflected; the preponderance of Chief Ministers from the territory — unless candidates from outside are imposed by a strong centre — is also an indication of that. But hegemony within any body of culture is unavoidable and Bollywood, in which the Cow Belt once dominated the stories — largely tells stories about urban and Anglophone Indians. This happened after 2000 when the spending power of English-speakers became significant and they were targeted. Mainstream Hindi cinema may be ‘national’ but the nation itself is hence asymmetrically constituted. The dominant constituency is decided by economic factors and the rise of Dakshina Kannada cinema (which is local within the regional) owes to the region’s prosperity when spaces like Belgaum, Gulbarga and Dharwad have not yet become so. All these factors make us to question the notion of regional identity as monolithic and recognise the various conflicts within something that could look more uncomplicated.

(The author is a well-known film critic.)