1.KAALA
👉He is the good hearted mafia don who challenge the authority of the rulling class in mumbai.
👉 Land as source of marginalization- where land is one of its central features.T huuhe movie starts with narrating how land had been playing a significant role all through the history of human civilisation.
👉 the complexity of evictions — attempts of forceful dispossession in terms of law, the complexity of negotiations involving different actors and thier inner conflicts. ( Land as symbols of power in modern state land as social status ).
👉the movie ends with the protest slogan “Land is our right”, showing how land continues to be an unsettled conflict in an unequal society. where land is ‘Power’ for the ruling class and ‘Survival’ for the historically deprived castes and the working class.
👉Political timbe bombs :-the urban development policies are framed from the ruling class perspective rather than reflecting the interests of the marginalised and improving their living conditions.( Dipankar gupya calls slum as political time bombs, political promise development to slum dwellers and promise removal of slum to city dwellers. ) Example- implementing pure Mumbai scheme in Dharavi which is the state beautification project.
👉 Legal lag :- The movie also brilliantly narrates how ‘the legal’ have constantly failed the oppressed, especially in terms of land ownership and their subsequent dispossession and disenfranchisement.
*👉the movie depicts two extreme perspectives through which the question of land is approached — (1) one is Kaala who represents the Dalit-Bahujan’s standpoint where land is their rights, and (2) Hari Dhadha who represents the caste elites for whom slums are just illegally occupied land that needs to be secured and ‘cleansed’.
👉 It highlight how the movie reflects on the Brahminical notion of purity. ( How it reproduce caste capital and land accumulation and the resultant marginalization of dalit bahujana.)
The movie highlights the importance to approach the new development policies critically within the purview of social justice and anti-eviction, rather than the dominant notion of high class infrastructural development and a constructed image of the ‘global city’.
2.KABALI
👉 Dalit is the leader of Malaysian migrants and struggle of Malaysian tamil against repression by the Malaysian state. - tamil nationalism.
👉 It show the how political assertion of intermediate caste groups has played out on the big screen- Dalit politics - internal divisions of caste.
👉 Solidness of Inter caste marriage :- marriage between kavali and his wife survives 25 years of separation is a solid counter.
👉 As long as films show the unique history and traits of the Dalit movement and disassociate themselves from the OBC dominated non-Brahmin movement, like Kabali did, there will not be acceptance.
👉 Glorification of the dalit community as a category-
👉 Gender equation in the community is quite unique , women labour as much as men.- how Radhika Apte role has been constructed.she stands right next to Rajinikanth during the protest for bette wages.
3.ASURAN
👉He is an angry men who uses violence to protect his family against feudal lords.
👉 Caste based violence - death of his family member who are victims of caste based violence.
👉Caste discrimination :- In one of the moving scenes, Sivasamy’s fiancée Mariyammal (Ammu Abirami) is humiliated for wearing slippers to her school — a scene not part of the original novel( tamil novel - Vekki ). but the director has taken it from real life examples of caste-discrimination.
Example :- In June 2013, a Dalit schoolboy in Vadugapatti in Usilampatti taluk was paraded and forced to carry his footwear on his head. The incident happened when he went to check his exam results wearing footwear, and ‘offended’ the upper caste for ‘breaking the tradition of Dalits remaining barefoot’.
👉There are a lot of strong scenes that depict the horrible practices that promoted untouchability, casteism and discrimination that were prevalent in the 80s.
As I concluded then, Asuran is not a revenge drama; “it is the rebel biopic of an entire community, who from being called untouchables have recently shed their victimhood; who’ve adapted democratic means and asserted that with education a world with justice, fraternity and liberty is possible.” Where revenge dramas end with the killing of the enemy, Asuran tells the story of “how Dalits live, each day in their own way, fighting, resisting, trying to make sense of what comes from Ambedkar: educate, organise, agitate.”
4.KARNAN
👉He is a village rebel who kills a police inspector in a Revenge ful act of justices -police brutality.
👉The social opposition to radical ideas as opposed to more comforting ones that ensure preservation of the status quo is evident in this film.
👉Caste - politicians and the subjugation of marginalized communities.
👉The film shows Dalits being denied even thier most basic needs- right to live, right to education and right to livelihood and better wages.
👉The names of the characters in the movie represent a trend that is followed by marginalised sections defying the caste hegemony enforced upon them even in naming themselves. Mahabharat - karnana -who is an illegitimate son of the sun god and
These are violent stories about Dalits social struggle, as aspirations and quest for justice.in these films the dalit characters emerge as a the equal claimants of popular heroic virtues.
