Malayalam cinema has failed to engage with Dalit issues properly, choosing to hide them under other issues, rather than talking about them directly, filmmaker Bijukumar Damodaran has said.
He was speaking at a debate on the representation of caste in cinema and literature, organised by Research Margins here on Friday.
Scene in Marathi
“We have seen how caste is addressed effectively in Marathi films like Fandry and Court . But in Malayalam cinema, even those films which talk about caste cover it with other issues. We have to think why no film has yet been made in Malayalam on the Muthanga or Chengara struggles, or why there has been no biopic on people like C.K. Janu,” said Dr. Biju.
He said the mainstream cinema in Malayalam was at the other extreme, being anti-Dalit and anti-woman. “Even where there is hardly any Dalit subject in Malayalam cinema, one has to look at the pattern in mainstream cinema. No other language has made so many films with a clear anti-Dalit, anti-woman slant. Dalits and women are made fun of in most comedy programmes in television. Malayalam cinema began its journey by ostracising a Dalit woman who dared to act. Ninety years later, we still stay in the same uncultured space. Superstars now nurture criminal gangs who would hurl racial abuses non-stop at those who criticise them,” he said.
Fillmmaker and editor B. Ajithkumar said that caste, although very much present, had remained invisible in our society until recently, a fact which had contributed to such subjects being absent from our cinema.
“Even in media, only right wing ideas have visibility. It was achieved through money and political power. But Dalit narratives have much currency now, even without money or political power. There is a mass which is now slowly getting visible. It is these masses whom films like Kaala are tapping into,” said Mr. Ajithkumar.
Activist Geethanandan said that a film like Kaala was able to communicate with people everywhere where there is a struggle for survival.