Indian cinema is often divorced from the purpose of social education. Filmmakers treat cinema as a matter of mindless entertainment and not purposive engagement on social complexities to bring substantive change. For them, the audience is a mere consumer of violent, patriarchal and hyper-emotive dramas, and not a critical mass. Cinema's popular cultural signifiers overtly serve the political interests and cultural values of the ruling elites and hide the atrocious social realities, especially the hierarchical caste relationships and the atrocious living conditions of the Dalits and the Adivasis. Dr BR Ambedkar's personality and political philosophy are simply alien in such a conservative space.
Therefore, it was interesting to watch a few recent films, especially Article 15 (Hindi), Jai Bhim (Tamil) and Jayanti (Marathi) as they portray the grotesque social inequalities, narrate the tales of feudal exploitation, caste atrocities and show the struggles of marginalised communities to secure human rights. Such films can be marked as the beginning of a new 'Dalit cinema' genre as it narrates stories not to serve the ideological values of the social elites but to represent the Dalit-Bahujan perspective. Importantly, these films are also a sign of the arrival of Babasaheb Ambedkar's social vision in mainstream cinema. This is a crucial development, as for a very long time, Indian cinema has ignored the iconic presence of Ambedkar and has remained disengaged from the claims of the Dalit movement.
Indian cinema is often divorced from the purpose of social education. Filmmakers treat cinema as a matter of mindless entertainment and not purposive engagement on social complexities to bring substantive change. For them, the audience is a mere consumer of violent, patriarchal and hyper-emotive dramas, and not a critical mass. Cinema's popular cultural signifiers overtly serve the political interests and cultural values of the ruling elites and hide the atrocious social realities, especially the hierarchical caste relationships and the atrocious living conditions of the Dalits and the Adivasis. Dr BR Ambedkar's personality and political philosophy are simply alien in such a conservative space.
Therefore, it was interesting to watch a few recent films, especially Article 15 (Hindi), Jai Bhim (Tamil) and Jayanti (Marathi) as they portray the grotesque social inequalities, narrate the tales of feudal exploitation, caste atrocities and show the struggles of marginalised communities to secure human rights. Such films can be marked as the beginning of a new 'Dalit cinema' genre as it narrates stories not to serve the ideological values of the social elites but to represent the Dalit-Bahujan perspective. Importantly, these films are also a sign of the arrival of Babasaheb Ambedkar's social vision in mainstream cinema. This is a crucial development, as for a very long time, Indian cinema has ignored the iconic presence of Ambedkar and has remained disengaged from the claims of the Dalit movement.
Source: The Quint
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