Dalit Protagonists

Indian cinema and the Dalit identity: Kaala represents resurrection of masses in world of cinematic stories

It is not the case that Indian movies have never dealt with political subjects or politics in their stories, but they lacked aesthetics from the lives of the masses. Kaala breaks this monotony.

Indian cinema and the Dalit identity: Chamm spurs viewers to think rationally about emotional complexities of exploitation

Chamm establishes a truth about today’s Punjab with every frame: that this Punjab is not “grand” anymore, it is organically deprived.

Indian cinema and the Dalit identity: Kammatipaadam deftly unravels the connection between land and caste

Kammatipaadam is a 2016 Malayalam movie directed by Rajeev Ravi, which captures in a simple yet profound manner what land means to Dalits.

Indian cinema and the Dalit identity: How Masaan confronts us with a truth caste norms would have us negate

In post-constitutional India, the meeting points of two castes or of people from two historically opposed castes, has become a vantage point for understanding the process of society’s democratisation.

Indian film and the Dalit identity: Perariyathavar is the cinema that a caste-society needs to become humane

Perariyathavar’s biggest achievement is that it takes us into a long-invisibilised world, through the eyes of a man (played by Suraj Venjaramoodu) employed as a sweeper, and his son.

Indian cinema and the Dalit identity: The groundbreaking defiance of Nagraj Manjule's Fandry

Fandry is a rigorous cinematic exercise for viewers to contemplate on: what kind of society we have become; what kind of cinema this society has produced; and what kind of society cinema has constructed, in which a man is denied love just because he is Dalit.