Why caste is seen so little in cinema

The objections to ‘Phule’, biopic of the Maharashtrian social reformer couple Jyotirao and Savitribai, again highlight the challenges of portraying social hierarchies on the big screen, writes M K Raghavendra

The release of Ananth Mahadevan's Phule, based on the lives of social reformers Jyotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule, has been delayed because of objections raised by Brahmins, although the CBFC has cleared it.

The Phules were social reformers campaigning against caste practices and it is natural for caste to be raised in the film, but nonetheless, there have been objections, mainly due to the use of caste names, and some stronger visuals invoking caste discrimination. All of this only alerts us to how little caste has actually been portrayed in cinema. Maybe this is the right time to look at how caste divisions are portrayed and how they are not.  

The most common kind of caste portrayal seen in Hindi cinema is inter-caste romance, the earliest being 'Achhut Kanya' (1936). In this film, Mohan, a Brahmin, is saved by Dukhiya, a Dalit and railway guard, when Mohan is bitten by a snake and the poison has to be sucked out. The two become fast friends as do their children Pratap (Ashok Kumar) and Kasturi (Devika Rani). Although the two love each other and spend time together, they cannot marry outside their caste. They are both faithful to their spouses but they come under suspicion, and Kasturi dies trying to save Pratap at the railway crossing when he gets into a fight with her husband. The story is told in flashback when two motorists at the crossing see the monument to Kasturi’s sacrifice, and a passing holy man relates its history.    

Except for Bimal Roy’s Sujata (1959), which has a happy ending, inter-caste romances seem doomed, and more recent examples would include Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat (2016) and Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan (2015). Another factor about inter-caste romance is that the lovers are played by upper-caste actors. There has been a move in the US to include caste discrimination under racism, which implies that physiognomies depend to some extent on the castes people belong to, but this aspect is generally ignored by filmmakers even when they are themselves Dalit, which is also the identity of one of the lovers.

The social attitudes of the two lovers are not shown to be markedly different—as though the way one lived had no bearing on one’s social mindset. Indirectly, this means that caste discrimination is nothing more than irrational prejudice; caste is seen as having no bearing on appearance or attitude. Cultural capital is a key aspect to be considered, but films like Sairat bypass it altogether. 

A more radical kind of film about caste deals with the exploitation of Dalits, and such films were most seen in the Indira Gandhi era. The films I have in mind are Benegal’s Ankur (1974) and Satyajit Ray’s Sadgati (1981), although neither of them succeeded — largely because of the cast. Shabana Azmi as a Dalit woman from rural Andhra is too ludicrous to merit much comment. Ray’s film uses Bombay actors whose faces and acting styles are too familiar, and the film also has none of the irony of Premchand’s story. The actors self-consciously impersonate or caricature the people they are playing –because of their lack of involvement in the portrayed system–while Premchand’s characters are deeply implicated in it.  

Hierarchy is one aspect of caste, but much more ubiquitous is caste affiliation. Its representation is rarely in evidence; even in an inter-caste romance, the lovers are treated as atomised individuals. The caste census has now become a hot topic because a measure of jati grouping indicates how caste affects elections. But the most important inference from it is that ideology is of less importance in the political process than jati, the most likely basis of mass voting, and the fulcrum of the relationship between the leader and his or her constituency. The former extends patronage to jati members in various ways in exchange for their continued electoral support. 

Jati identity unifies and leaders seek occasions when their constituencies can be addressed. Since cinema has such a wide reach, issues involving cinematic representations get attention, and protests play a part here. Even an innocuous allusion to a jati becomes an opportunity for its leaders to address their jati constituency. The more dominant and powerful a jati, the more vociferous the reaction will be, and the fact that Brahmins are a relatively small group means that 'Phule' will not create major disturbances.  

Another reason for caste as hierarchy not featuring in Indian cinema, as it should, is perhaps that filmmakers dealing with social issues, especially those with Marxist sympathies, tend to see economic class as the determining factor in natural affinities. In India, two people who are economically marginalised are more likely to place themselves hierarchically in relation to each other on the basis of their respective jatis. Classical political theory assumes that human beings make rational choices and filmmakers like Mrinal Sen are guided by that in their portrayals; but this is like creating a picture of the world using matchsticks when there is scarcely a single straight line to be found in nature.

(The author is a well-known film critic)