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 onlythe 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 Anwerand 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

Joshil K. Abrahamis an independent researcher. He is currently working on the Open University project for Cornerstone OnDemand. Judith Misrahi-Barakis Associate Professor at Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, France. She teaches in the English Department and is a member of the research center EMMA.