Il numero di maggio 2022 della rivista digitale australiana Senses of Cinema include uno speciale dedicato al cinema popolare hindi, Welcome to Bollywood, con la seguente motivazione: 'This dossier is an attempt to complicate and diversify the monolithic concept of ‘Bollywood’, to break it out of its critical ghetto in Western film criticism and challenge the Eurocentrism of film studies that fails to recognise Bollywood as an artistic phenomenon'. Gli articoli sono decisamente interessanti. In testi diversi, riporto degli estratti, ma vi consiglio di leggere le versioni integrali.
THE CASTE BLINDNESS OF BOLLYWOOD NRI GENRE FILMS, Dr. Vikrant Kishore:
'Understanding caste
The Hindu jat or jati system (caste) subdividing communities is based loosely on the fourfold varna hierarchical classification - Brahmins (scholars, priests), Kshatriyas (rulers, warriors), Vaishyas (agriculturalists and merchants), and Shudras (workers, labourers, artisans). The most oppressed ended up being outside the varna system and were termed as avarna or the lowest/oppressed caste groups (who were mistreated as untouchables); each of these caste groups have numerous sub-castes. The term Dalit is widely used to denote the oppressed castes. (...) It is important to note that other religions of South Asia also carry the elements of caste division, and casteism. (...)
Many wondered why the Dalit character in the Oscar nominated Hindi/Bollywood film Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001) was named Kachra, which means garbage or filth, and found it offensive and discriminatory, but the film was portraying what was prevalent during that period. The biographical Marathi language film Kachru Mazha Bapa (My Father’s Name was Garbage, Mukesh Jadhav, 2016) analyses deep-rooted caste discrimination and oppression prevalent in the Caste-Hindu society in India and how taking on a respectable name was deemed a crime, and thus many from the oppressed castes had names that denoted filth, unwanted, outcaste, beggar etc. (...) In this article, I analyse how casteism is perpetuated in Hindi films of the NRI genre and assess why mainstream Hindi film narratives are all about Savarnas (high castes). Thus, understanding the name and surname convention is very important to understand Hindi cinema and the characters it portrays, as the surnames (mostly) prominently spell out the caste one belongs to.
NRI film genre
NRI is the abbreviation used for Non-Resident Indians by the government of India. India’s economic liberalisation in the 1990s, alongside the rise of an aspirational, ambitious, upwardly mobile, and predominantly English-educated urban middle class, and the strong growth of the Indian diaspora communities in the West that provided a lucrative market for Hindi films beyond India, witnessed a shift in Hindi cinema’s storytelling, and its lead characters. The 1970s and ‘80s action-oriented “angry young man” films gave way to the frothy romance and family drama set in Western countries, with stories of the affluent and well-settled Indian diaspora as the centrepiece. (...) These were referred as NRI-centred films in the media, and with their increasing popularity by the late 1990s, NRI Films were acknowledged as a genre of Hindi cinema. (...) Unfortunately, what these films did not address was the caste divide and any acknowledgement of caste issues within the Indian/South Asian diaspora in the West. Filmmakers such as Yash Chopra and Yash Johar, who had earlier utilised picturesque locations in Western countries for their song-dance sequences, realised the potential of the Hindi film-crazy South Asian diaspora market in the West, and created stories based on NRI experience to strengthen this market. The 1995 blockbuster Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (Aditya Chopra, 1995) paved the way for big-budgeted NRI-focused films.
Caste representation in Hindi Cinema
Any discussion of caste representation in mainstream Hindi cinema throws up the names of just a handful of films such as Acchut Kannya (Himanshu Roy, 1936), Sujata (Bimal Roy, 1959), Bandit Queen (Shekhar Kapoor, 1994), Bawandar (Jag Mundhra, 2000), Article 15 (Anubhav Sinha, 2019), and Aarakshan (Prakash Jha, 2011). This in a way explains how underrepresented the stories of Dalits are in Hindi films. The mainstream Hindi cinema not only evades or ignores the issue of caste, but it perpetuates a caste hegemony through its representation. (...) Unfortunately, to date Dalit protagonists in Hindi films are a rarity, especially in the mainstream popular films. (...) Commercial Hindi cinema has failed to address the caste system and casteism. With the economics of Hindi cinema controlled mainly by the Savarnas, Dalits’ participation in film production on-camera and off-camera is miniscule. Furthermore, there is no proper study of or research undertaken on the participation of Dalits in the creative industries, especially films. Neeraj Ghaywan, a celebrated filmmaker hailing from the Dalit community, and winner of two Cannes Film Festival awards, finds, “the handful of caste-based films made in the history of Hindi cinema have all been made by Savarnas. There’s not a single acknowledged Dalit artist that you can name here, even though Dalits make up 25 percent of the population. Whereas in America, you have so many Black directors, artists, singers, songwriters - and the Black American population is 13 percent! The irony is that this industry is not bigoted or casteist, it’s just that we’re ignorant”.
The mainstream Hindi cinema frequently utilises the class divide, at the expense of concealing the caste issue in its narrative. There is a tendency to highlight high caste identity, caste pride, and caste privilege, but the cinema fails to even pay lip service to the issues that plague oppressed castes. There seems to be a huge discomfort when it comes to representing the oppressed castes. (...) The representation of Dalit women is equally problematic; barring a handful of alternate and parallel films, Dalit women are rarely the cynosure of the mainstream Hindi cinema. (...) The everyday violence that is perpetrated in the name of caste is most often on Dalit women, beating, raping, torturing, mutilating, and murdering them to send warning signals to the oppressed castes not to challenge or question Savarna hegemony and status, or make any demand for their basic rights. Mainstream filmmakers keep away from these issues and prefer storylines with an escapist formulaic structure. The 1980s Hindi potboilers exploited rape situations for titillation, and sexualisation for their revenge-based plotlines. The women raped in these films were generally the upper caste hero’s sister, wife, or a relative, as this provided a straitjacketed storyline to get into the revenge mode, instead of struggling to elaborate on the socio-economic divide, and the political dimensions of suppression, oppression, discrimination and subjugation of the marginalised women.
Another issue surrounding the politics of representation is that most of the films that capture the stories of Dalits are told through a Savarna gaze; thus, they tend to be highly superficial, do not delve deep into the complexities of caste/ism, do not assess the social structure and hierarchies, and mostly end up decontextualising the story as per their narrow interpretations. (...)
Many found Ayan, the Brahmin protagonist in Article 15, represented a “white saviour” complex. In an interview with the film critic Anupama Chopra, Ayushmann Khurrana, the lead of Article 15, tried to justify the Brahmin character, “in Article 15, there has to be a Brahmin or a so-called upper caste who is fighting for the Dalits or the reserved category. He is the one who is leading by example. It is obvious that the downtrodden will fight for themselves, but in our country, you need to have that ‘hero’ who can fight for them”. In Khurrana’s defence, he does talk at length about caste discrimination, and how no one wants to talk about it; he goes on to say, “it is like a social responsibility as an artist, you should do a film like this.” Chopra further questions, why do you think Hindi cinema has chosen to be caste blind? Khurrana responds, “It is not just Hindi cinema, we are also caste blind, especially in urban India, (...) but in rural India it is so rampant, it is crazy! ...the so-called upper caste thinks that nothing like [casteism] is there, it doesn’t exist, we’ve blinders on, but it does exist everywhere”. It is rare for any Hindi film star to say something like this in recent times and acknowledge the inherent casteism. (...)
Khurrana feels that any film should have an intriguing value so that people are interested in watching a film that is entertainment at the same time. The sanitisation of caste into a rich-poor binary has been easy for Bollywood to handle and wash their hands of challenging discussions vis-à-vis caste. Khurrana finds this approach of Bollywood is nothing but “playing safe for commercial gains”. But what I find problematic is when Chopra asks Khurrana regarding the Savarna gaze of the film, he initially respond to it by saying, “the film is being made by a sensitised and aware citizen, who inspires the upper castes to end discrimination”. Unfortunately, Khurrana gets defensive and blames the critics for “reverse casteism”; both Chopra and Khurrana laugh it off and move to the next question nonchalantly. On one hand Khurrana talks about the problems faced by one of his college mates due to reservation and casteism, on the other hand, he declares, Bollywood is a secular space where there is no casteism, and scoffs, “there is no reservation either”.
NRI films: The song and dance of the savarnas
Much has been discussed about the success of the NRI genre, with many scholars pointing out how these NRI films represented the diasporic Indians, negotiating their ethnic identity, their connectedness with the motherland, upholding Indian values, and following their religion and culture primarily in Western countries. What remains elusive is the discussion around caste, and caste practice within the diaspora. The NRI films are concerned with only the successful upper class and upper caste Indian diaspora in the West, and their limited challenges. (...) The focus simply remains on the rich, affluent and the cultured (upper caste Hindus). (...) These star-driven NRI films remain unconcerned with the caste factor; watching these films makes one wonder if India (and its diaspora in the West) ever encounter any caste issue. While analysing NRI films in detail, most scholars do not acknowledge the whitewashing of caste, this can be a result of a privileged Savarna gaze, that is unable to see or recognise the caste divide.
To understand the caste representation in the NRI genre films, I selected 14 films which were focused on NRIs or had a prominent NRI character, from 1995-2005, and featured in the top ten highest grossing list in the year of its release. (...) To keep it simple, instead of delving into specific castes, I analyse the caste surnames of the lead characters in terms of Savarnas and Dalits. A basic analysis of the story structure of the films is undertaken to evaluate if the caste issue features in any of these films. In addition, I look at the lead actors and their caste/religion to assess if any Dalits were featured in these films in lead roles.
Caste blindness in NRI films
International Dalit Solidarity Network in its research claims that “evidence has been found that South Asians who have relocated to the United Kingdom, tend to bring the caste system, and inherent discrimination, with them when they move. Caste discrimination is therefore reproduced within South Asian communities in the UK. It has been estimated that there are at least 250,000 Dalits living in the UK”. Similarly, the USA-based Equality Labs in its ground-breaking report Caste in the United States: A Survey of Castes Among South Asian Americans, finds caste discrimination existing in the USA in all walks of life, from school, workplace, religious places, local business, to food preferences, and interpersonal relationships. Equality Labs also notes, “26% of Dalits who responded said they had faced physical assault in the United States based on their caste”. (...) All these reports point to the strong caste divide in the Indian diaspora, yet, one does not find any mention of casteism, or caste practices, even passing in these Hindi NRI films.
An analysis of the surnames in the selected NRI films provide some noteworthy insights. The most common surnames in these films are Malhotra, Kapoor/Kapur, Mathur, Khanna, Singh. Malhotra surname appears in six films, Kapoor in four, Mathur in three, Khanna, and Singh in two. (...) Malhotra, Mehra, Kapoor, and Khanna surnames are repetitively used in Bollywood, especially in the films of Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions. This can be attributed to the fact that many controlling the production and distribution network belong to these Savarna castes, and thus find it easy to capture stories featuring their caste (privileged) brethren. The other surnames that the lead protagonists of these films carry are - Arora, Birla, Bhargava, Chopra, Malik, Pandya, Patel, Rampal, Raichand, Sahani, Saxena, Sharma, Srivastava, and Vora; again, all Savarnas - from Brahmin, Kshatriya, and Vaishya caste groups. Dalit representation remains unspoken, they are just depicted as the house help/servants, labourers, and other menial workers in the background. Kantaben, the house helper in Kal Ho Naa Ho is there for comic relief at the expense of homophobia. (...) Her conservative outlook (belonging to a low class/caste) is used for a laugh. (...) Kantaben the house helper does not need her surname spelt out; being a house helper is enough to denote someone from an oppressed caste.
A close analysis of the surnames of the lead actors in these NRI films also point to a domain strictly occupied by the Savarnas; even the Muslim stars are from the Ashraf group (the high caste of Indian Muslims). Dalits do not find any space among the Hindi film stars, nor is there any attempt to provide them any representation in a film business structure that is predominantly owned by the Savarna families and business groups.
NRI films: A neo-traditional celebration of Hindu & Punjabi culture
Most of the NRI films (that were analysed) follow a similar trajectory depicting heterosexual love stories, built around family or friends, and issues such as belongingness, nostalgia and connectedness, with the culture of the motherland figuring prominently. The only exception is Kaante. (...) These star-driven films also play on the stereotype of good Indian and bad Western. (...) This “Indianness” melded with the Hindu traditional ethos drives most of the NRI films. (...)
These neo-traditional films construct an imaginary of mythical India; for example, DDLJ presents an idyllic, virtually pre-industrial rural Punjab, airbrushed and shorn of violent conflict. In Pardes, NRI Kishori Lal visits India in search of a “traditional Indian” girl for his son Rajiv and finds his friend Suraj Dev’s daughter Ganga a perfect epitome of an Indian upper caste Hindu girl. The first 18 minutes of the film focus on the stereotypes associated with the perfect Hindu upper caste girl by showcasing Ganga’s reverence and respect for her elders, love for her younger siblings and relatives, her caring nature, her religious and social values, her various skills from dancing to cooking, and most importantly her love for the “motherland”. (...) Films such as, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Yaadein, Mujhse Dosti Karoge, and Swades, are all embedded in the same framework of a neo-traditional Hindu family, celebrating culture, and Indianness. Yes, there are strong class tensions (as in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Pardes), but within their own high castes. These NRI films, while depicting the diasporic terrain in the West, is embedded deeply with its own (high) castes and class. (...) Both DDLJ and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai operate within the safe structure of upper caste and upper class; the other castes are hardly depicted, and characters from other religions play second fiddle roles such as aunt, (...) family friend, (...) or as a comic relief. (...)
Most of these films work on the binary depiction of good Indian, and bad Western. (...) Unfortunately, in the process of glorifying the motherland, the foreign land and Western culture are vilified in most of these films.
NRI films vs small town stories
The recent trend of small-town stories in Hindi cinema provided an opportunity for exploring the caste divide in the society, but unfortunately these films have become a prime example of overlooking the marginalised castes, with their extreme focus on the high caste protagonists. In these small town-based films, one will notice how almost all the characters are from the upper caste Hindu Brahmins, with surnames such as Sharma, Mishra, Dubey, Trivedi, Tiwari and Shukla. The plot of these films, be it marriage, celebration, or funeral, mostly limits its engagement to the community it represents. (...) Unfortunately, even the small-town Hindi films fail to represent the diversity that it operates in, or the demography that defines a small town in India; the 30% upper caste population is given preferential treatment, while the other backward class (41%), Scheduled Castes (20%), and Scheduled
Tribes (9%) find hardly any representation or mention in these films.
NRI films, while showcasing and celebrating Indian/Hindu culture embedded and assimilated in the western world, yet strongly rooted and connected with the “motherland”, do not acknowledge the diversity of Indians in the diaspora. Racism encountered by upper caste Indians in the Western world are highlighted prominently in these films, but unfortunately, they fail to capture or acknowledge caste prejudices and biases, thus creating a contradiction.
The NRI film genre film especially in the 1990s and 2000s garnered tremendous popularity, with top Bollywood stars featuring in these stories that captured the life of the Indian diaspora and their connectedness with the homeland. The analysis of the 14 NRI films in terms of caste representation clearly reveal that these films perpetuated caste and cultural hegemony. The lead protagonists’ high caste is flaunted in your face, their privilege, access, and success are glorified, and their high culture celebrated. Dalits do not figure in these escapist fares, their aspirations, ambitions never considered. The explicit understanding by most filmmakers, that films featuring Dalits must focus on caste conflict and caste oppression and highlight them as a victim of the society and the system, is disconcerting. The filmmakers clearly do not consider the wider demographic within the Indian diaspora and turn a blind eye towards the strong presence of Dalits in these diasporic communities. It highlights its clear bias, and a deliberate attitude to overlook the Dalits. Hindi cinema not only lacks diversity in terms of the names of characters, but also, the actors and filmmakers. The control of the film business strongly in the hands of Savarnas helps keep the Dalits out of the competition, and does not provide them with a level playing field. (...)
Unfortunately, this lack of diversity is seldom questioned in the media or academia, and often caste issues are subsumed under the discussions of class. (...) There is a need for Dalit (...) filmmakers to lead from the front and tell their stories. In recent years, Marathi, Tamil, and Malayalam filmmakers have paved the way for telling stories featuring Dalit protagonists in an evocative and thought-provoking manner; in their narratives, they move beyond the stereotypes attached with the representation of Dalits, and though only a handful, this a good start. Tamil filmmakers such as Pa. Ranjith (Kaala [2018], Sarpatta Parambarai [2021]), Mari Selvaraj (Pariyerum Perumal [2018], Karnan [2021]), and Vetrimaaran (Asuran [2019]) have already displayed how Dalit protagonists can take the centre stage and challenge the stereotypes; importantly, they give prominence to the female voice in their films. Similarly, thought-provoking films of Marathi filmmaker Nagraj Manjule (Fandry [2013], Sairat [2016]) have been highly commended for their aesthetical storytelling. Manjule’s recent foray in Bollywood with Jhund (2022), starring Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan, exploring the story of Mumbai’s downtrodden slum youths, not only received rave reviews, but also brought attention to the issues of marginalisation and systemic oppression. These filmmakers have not only created a space for themselves, but have captured the angst, aspirations, and stories of Dalits like never before. It is being noticed, applauded, and followed; as Mari Selvaraj asserts, “when a new generation creates art, there will be tremors”.
Note, I utilise the term Bollywood and Hindi cinema interchangeably, but specifically, I refer to post-1990 Hindi cinema as Bollywood. It is after 1990 that the brand name Bollywood became popular'.
Vedi anche:
- Welcome to Bollywood: Critica internazionale e Nazionalismo. Il testo raccoglie i link a tutti gli articoli della serie.
- Madurai Formula Films, 25 gennaio 2024
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