Re-Visioning Caste in Indian Cinema

Abstract

Abstract:Adding nuance to the accusation of sustained caste blindness against Indian cinema, this article situates Nagraj Manjule's Marathi blockbuster Sairat (2016) within the trajectories of Marathi cinema, and vis-à-vis the historical traffic between the Hindi film industry and its southern counterparts. The article grapples with sociological and formal valences of realism and melodrama, which co-constitute Sairat, so as to argue that the re-visioning must address the "invisible" embeddedness of caste in universalized abstractions; or more appropriately, in its (mis)translations away from the "limiting" particularity of caste politics to be subsumed under more universally legible aesthetic of social justice.