1st Edition
The Routledge Companion to Caste and Cinema in India
This companion is the first study of caste and its representation in Indian cinema. It unravels the multiple layers of caste that feature directly and indirectly in Indian movies, to examine not only the many ways caste pervades Indian society and culture but also how the struggle against it adopts multiple strategies.
The companion:
• Critiques Indian cinema production through the lens of anti-caste discourse;
• Traces the history of films beginning from the early twentieth century, focusing on caste representations across India, including Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil as well as silent films;
• Makes a foray into OTT media;
• Includes analysis of popular films such as Padmaavat, Masaan, Fandry, Sairat, Sujata, Article 15, Chomana Dudi, Lagaan, Court, Ee.Ma.Yau, Kaala, Pariyerum Perumal, Perariyathavar, among many others, to critique and problematise the idea of caste.
A major intervention, this book alters traditional approaches to ‘caste’ in Indian cinemas and society and explores new political strategies implemented through cinematic creation and aesthetics. It will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of film studies, social discrimination and exclusion studies, human rights, popular culture, and South Asian studies. It will also be of interest to enthusiasts of Indian cinematic history.
List of figures
List of contributors
Acknowledgments
Shifting the Gaze
Introduction
Joshil K. Abraham and Judith Misrahi-Barak
From Spectatorship to Agency
1. Dalit Representation in Hindi Cinema
Harish S. Wankhede
2. To Kill or To Allow to Live: Caste Necropolitics, Ozhivudivasathe Kali, and Malayalam Cinema
Rajesh James, Binu K. D., & Aswin Prasanth
3. The Oppositional Bahujan Agency
Jyoti Nisha
4. Magizhchi! ‘The Casteless Collective’ and the Sensorial Exscription
Dickens Leonard and Manju Edachira
Making the Invisible Visible
5. Historiography and Historiophoty in Anubhav Sinha’s Article 15
Debjani Banerjee
6. Arakshan and Article 15: Is there any Transformation in the ‘Brahminical Gaze’?
Runa Chakraborty Paunksnis
7. Visualising the Invisible: Decoding Caste Pride and the Casteist Slur in Bollywood Films
Sumit Rajak
The Bigger Picture
8. Over-the-top: Online Media, Chromatics, and the Transnational Travels of Caste
Purnima Mankekar and Sucharita Kanjilal
9. Indian Cinema, Hunger, and Food: Family, Class, and Caste
Swarnavel Eswaran
Caste and Gender
10. Re-cast(e)ing the New Woman: Caste and Gender in Contemporary Indian Cinema
Megha Anwer and Anupama Arora
11. The Construction and Representation of Lower Caste Women in Bollywood Films
Farhana Naaz
12. P. K. Rosy and Devaki Bai: Cast(e)ing the Malayalam Silent Film Actresses
Geetha
13. Examining the Domain of Caste, Gender, and Sexuality through Select Films of Jayan K. Cherian
Ved Prakash
Caste on Trial
14. Dalit Subjectivity, Democracy, and Radical Equality or, What Bollywood Could Learn from Ambedkar
Chinmaya Lal Thakur
15. The Constitution of/and Caste: Portrayal of Caste and Legal Justice in Three Contemporary Indian Films by Savarna Filmmakers
Rituparna Sengupta
16. Beyond Violence and Non-violence: A Study of Dalit Resistance and Accommodation in Cinematic Popular Justice
Ram Kumar Thakur
The Entanglements of Caste and Nature
17. The Caste of Nature: Wholesome Bodies and Parasites in Bimal Roy’s Sujata and Gogu Shyamala’s ‘A Beauteous Light’
Nicole Thiara
18. The Pig, the Black Sparrow, and the Sheep: Human-Animal Entanglements in Fandry and Khwada
Shalmali Jadhav
19. Landless, Homeless, and Nameless: Locating Caste in the Environmental In/Justice in Perariyathavar
P. Rajitha Venugopal
Not Two but Three States
20. Framing Local Legends and the Caste Matrix in the Tamil Cinema of the late 1980s
Stalin Rajangam and P. Aadhavan
21. The Alienation of the Other: Examining Marginal Narratives in Select Punjabi Films
Amandeep Kaur & Sahil Sharma
22. Caste, Voyeurism and Kannada New Wave Cinema
Mahima Raj C.
From Closer Up
23. Exploring Caste on Screen and Beyond: A Study of Chomana Dudi
Jaishree Kapur
24. Screening Caste: ‘Untouchable’ Body, Labour and Remuneration in Lagaan
Purnachandra Naik
25. The Untouchable Rajputs of Padmaavat and Beyond: A Cas(t)e Study
Tanya Singh
26. Masaan, a Tale of Forbidden Love
Ravinder Singh Rana
27. Beyond Narratives of Modernity, Pain and Pathos: Dalit Aesthetic in Kabali and Kaala
Reju George Mathew
28. ‘Ella Manusanum inga onnu illa’: Imag(in)ing the Claustrophobia of Caste in Pariyerum Perumal
B. Geetha
29. Caste, Coast, and Christianity in Kerala: Analysing the Visual Representation of Latin Catholics in Ee.Ma.Yau.
Grace Mariam Raju
Filmography
Select Bibliography
Index
Biography
Joshil K. Abraham is an independent researcher. He is currently working on the Open University project for Cornerstone OnDemand.
Judith Misrahi-Barak is Associate Professor at Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, France. She teaches in the English Department and is a member of the research center EMMA.
