Ambedkar, on a device near you

The year 2023 will be remembered in the history of Indian cinema for many blockbusters. Films like Pathan, Gadar, Jawan and Animal crossed the Rs 1000-crore milestone, setting new benchmarks for commercial success. The industry grew in range too, with spectacular action dramas, song and dance entertainers, and emotional narratives vying for attention. But it will be remembered for one other thing. It was the year when both B.R. Ambedkar and the issue of caste were able to make an entry into the mass cultural landscape.

Even though Babasaheb Ambedkar is one of the founding figures of the nation, he has been systematically neglected by Indian cinema over the years. Similarly, political and social narratives associated with Dalit communities have been conspicuous by their absence. Even when the Hollywood director, Richard Attenborough, made his magnum opus Gandhi, he left Ambedkar out of the film. For the longest time, historical films on the anti-colonial struggle, nation-building or nationalism offered rich tributes to iconic figures such as Gandhi, Nehru, Bhagat Singh, and Subhash Chandra Bose, but kept out Ambedkar’s heroic anti-caste struggles, social reform movements, and the precarious socio-economic conditions the Dalits perpetually inhabited.

Until the early 1990s, Ambedkar’s name or photograph was hardly seen on the screen. Although the art-house or parallel cinema movement on occasion engaged with issues of Dalit atrocities (Nishant, 1975), caste exploitation (Paar, 1981) and violence (Damul, 1985), it too overtly neglected Ambedkar and his involvement in national life. Surprisingly, it was in the mid-1980s that Bombay saw the birth of the powerful Dalit Panthers’ Movement that electrified Dalit consciousness with a new energy. But Bombay’s cinema, ironically, paid no attention to this impressive arrival of Dalit youths into mainstream political discourse. Similarly, when the Bahujan Samaj Party made a strong political assertion in Uttar Pradesh in the same decade, the political narratives of cinema continued with the concerns and interests of the social elites.

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It was after the 1990s that a small shift could be seen—when the politics of social justice got national attention with V.P. Singh’s United Front government. In 1994, in association with the social justice ministry, a biopic titled Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar directed by Jabbar Patel was produced, and it had a limited release in the theatres. Around the same time, a few regional biographies on Ambedkar were also made, such as Bhim Garjana (1990) in Marathi and Dr. Ambedkar (1992) in Telugu, providing a significant entry for Ambedkar’s iconography in mainstream cinematic culture.

In 1994, Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen on the real-life struggle and triumph of the bandit Phoolan Devi provided a creative engagement with the life of a Dalit-Bahujan icon. However, these films from the 1990s decade seem like aberrations in the national cinematic culture, with the Dalit question hardly finding any resonance in mainstream films.

The mainstreaming of Ambedkar

It is only in the past decade, especially with the arrival of filmmakers, technicians, and artists from Dalit-Bahujan backgrounds, that new meaning and substance has been added to Ambedkar’s on-screen image. For example, Nagraj Manjule used portraits of Ambedkar, Phule, and Shahu Maharaj in Fandry (2013) as a satirical artefact to demonstrate the unchanging nature of caste relationships in rural India. In his latest Hindi film Jhund (2021, featuring Amitabh Bachchan) Manjule has showcased the mass celebration of Ambedkar Jayanti, where people dance with ease and joy on the day. Such representations elevate the image of Ambedkar not only as an anti-caste icon but also as a metaphor of inspiration and celebration for the new generation.

Ambedkar is now more visible on the screen. We see his photo hanging inside police stations, courts, or government offices. Although his portrait is used as a “prop” to represent the passivity of state institutions, the use of it is expanding to newer terrains as well. Beyond the routine symbolism, Ambedkar has emerged as a motivational force that influences characters and narrative churns, building a genre that can be tentatively identified as “Dalit Cinema”. In Amit Masurkar’s Newton (2017), we see Ambedkar’s photograph on screen only for a tiny second, but it is a significant clue to the protagonist’s commitment to constitutional duty and the rule of law.

Tamil film director Pa. Ranjith foregrounds Ambedkar’s name, photograph, statue, slogans, and the colour blue, along with other Dalit symbols in his films. | Photo Credit: SHAIKMOHIDEEN A

Tamil film director Pa. Ranjith has been more courageous. He foregrounds Ambedkar’s name, photograph, statue, slogans, and the colour blue, along with other Dalit symbols in his narratives. For example, in Kabali (2016), the protagonist (played by Rajinikanth) admires Ambedkar’s dress sense and suggests that good clothes are a symbol of being human. Ambedkar’s photograph is not used in Ranjith’s films as a passive prop to decorate the background but highlights the social and political significance of the symbol, and is often about the readiness of the marginalised people to contest the oppressive elite junta for their perpetual injustices.

We see a similar approach in Shailesh Narwade’s Jayanti (2021) where he introduces Ambedkar as an intellectual guru whose writings and speeches become the crucial force that motivates the protagonist to fight injustice, and turns him into a courageous and heroic person. Such direct reference to Ambedkar is new to Indian cinema, where his ideological values and Dalit political consciousness are highlighted to present the main story.

T.J. Gnanavel’s Tamil film Jai Bhim (2021, with Suriya) narrates the story of a man from a nomadic tribe who is violated and tortured by the police and gets justice only after a long battle in court. The film uses an Ambedkarite perspective to examine the problems of poverty, police brutality, and discrimination that the worst-off social groups experience just for everyday survival. It suggests that it is the Constitution that can provide justice to vulnerable groups. Similarly, in Mari Selvaraj’s recent film Maamannan (2023, Tamil) the Dalit hero is not docile or powerless but acts as a dignified agent of social and political change, a radical idea that borrows heavily from Ambedkarite political movements.

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This year also saw the release of two important films on caste and the Dalit question. Guthlee Ladoo (2023) and Kasturi (2023) are two fascinating tales of Dalit children who survive in a society that belittles and discriminates against them due to their birth. Guthlee is the story of a Valmiki boy who faces harassment when he wants to enrol in a school. Ambedkar envisaged modern education as having the capacity to elevate Dalits from the precarious dungeon of poverty and social bondage and to allow them to enjoy the profits of development and political change. The aspiration for education among Dalits, and seeing it as a crucial instrument for social and economic mobility are ideas associated with Ambedkar’s founding teachings.

Guthlee is the story of a Valmiki boy who faces harassment when he wants to enrol in a school. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

Kasturi is a sincere and creative take on the social and psychological trauma that makes the Dalit life miserable. Here, we see a Dalit boy who is deeply ashamed of the menial sanitation job that he and his family are engaged in. He is in search of the Kasturi, the divine fragrance, with the hope that its touch will liberate him from the nauseating smell that he feels permeates his body. It is a heartrending tale of Dalit suffering, which is not only physical but also excruciatingly mental suffering.

Both stories revolve around the discriminatory nature of the caste system that Ambedkar had diagnosed deeply to arrive at an understanding of the deep social ills that are inherent to Hindu society. When these stories are used in mass media, they not only educate the wider audience but also inspire and encourage marginalised social groups to contest injustice and caste-based inequality, making Ambedkar and his thoughts deeply relevant in the present.

Ambedkar on the small screen

If OTT platforms have done one thing right it is that they have democratised themes and ideas, and challenged what we conventionally watch on the small screen. With censorship as yet a manageable challenge, creators often produce content that is disturbing and rebellious. This has given opportunities for stories and narratives that are from the lives of the masses, including the Dalits. One sees a sudden rise of Ambedkar’s presence and of stories revolving around Dalit lives on OTT platforms, a development that can be understood with the logic that a powerful Dalit-Bahujan audience is now available that can be expected to watch stories that explore the history and cultural values of their social past, their icons and legendary tales.

Long web series are streaming on three OTT platforms, which depict events from Ambedkar’s life. First, there is Ek Mahanayak-Dr. Ambedkar (2020) on Zee5, among the longest tele-series running (27 seasons and 250-plus episodes), a biographical story that takes certain artistic liberties (similar to populist versions of classical myths and religious stories). The series has impressed critics with its creativity, production quality, and artistic representations. Then there is Dr. Ambedkar-Ek Mahamanvachi Gauravgatha (2020) on Disney+Hotstar, an impressive Marathi web series. Here, incidents from Ambedkar’s childhood are portrayed, with an element of melodrama, to create myths around his prodigious talent. Sony LIV has a one-hour musical piece titled Remembering Ambedkar, which showcases heroic aspects of Ambedkar’s personal, social and political life.

Ek Mahanayak-Dr. Ambedkar, on Zee5, is among the longest tele-series running (27 seasons and 250-plus episodes), which is based on the life of Ambedkar. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

Neeraj Ghaywan’s “The Heart Skipped a Beat” in the web series Made in Heaven is the most impressive addition to the Dalit repertoire. Pallavi Manke (Radhika Apte) is a proud Dalit professor, working in an Ivy League university, who has no hesitation to flag her former “untouchable” Indian identity. Although married to a sensitive and progressive Indian-American lawyer, she faces social burdens and anxieties when she wants to add a Buddhist ritual to her marriage ceremony. The event itself is beautifully showcased, with Ambedkar’s photograph kept at the centre, representing the principles he wanted to establish in India’s social life.

Similarly, other web originals such as Serious Men (Netflix), Maharani (Sony Liv), Paatal Lok (Amazon Prime), Dahaad (Amazon Prime), Aashram (MX Player), and films like Kathal (Netflix) and Pareeksha (Zee 5) present a new take on Dalit characters, showing them as conscious of their social identity, asserting it in public, and demanding social justice and equal respect.

Social documentaries

These fictional narratives are supplemented by inspirational real-life films taken from actual social habitats. For example, Netflix has a four-part documentary Daughters of Destiny (2017), which tells the impressive story of Dalit school students who struggle to learn in a heavily discriminatory and humiliating social atmosphere. Although documentaries on social ills, poverty, and exploitation are many, we see very few that map the caste hierarchies that mainly produce the violence and discrimination of marginalised groups. Stalin K’s India Untouched (2007) is one of the first well-made long documentaries to showcase Dalit precarities, social exclusions, and the exploitative conditions in which the large population survives.

Anand Patwardhan’s Jai Bhim Comrade (2011, 3 hours 20 minutes) presents the journey of two decades and the nuanced socio-cultural history of the Dalit Panthers’ movement in Maharashtra, tracing the rise and fall of this youthful Ambedkarite group.

A new generation of documentary makers, especially from Dalit-Bahujan social backgrounds, is contributing significantly to the oeuvre, and has elevated the discourse on Ambedkar’s personality and ideas in the mainstream artistic sphere. For example, Jyoti Nisha’s BR Ambedkar: Now and Then (2023) is a long feature-length documentary that explores the predicament of Dalit lives in India. Nisha, a Bahujan-feminist filmmaker, offers a new lens with which to understand the ongoing Ambedkarite struggle for justice and dignity, intertwined with the fight against patriarchy.

Somnath Waghmare’s Chaityabhumi (2023) is an excellent addition to this genre, and explores how the site of Ambedkar’s cremation in Mumbai has now been elevated into a historic monument that inspires and engages millions of his followers.

The emergent Dalit-Bahujan media culture

That after such a long exclusion Ambedkar is slowly entering popular cinema, TV and OTT platforms is an acknowledgement that Dalit-Bahujan cultural values are slowly being integrated into mainstream media. While still nascent, it has the capacity to initiate a dialogue for the democratisation of the film industry and adopt more narratives that are sensitive to and sensible of socially marginalised groups.

Ambedkar’s persona has the capacity to inspire global movements for human rights and social justice. An acknowledgement of this is seen in Hollywood director Ava DuVernay’s new film Origin (2023, based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste), which explores Ambedkar (played by Gaurav Pathania) as a lynchpin for the understanding of racial discrimination and hatred against the Jews. It brings Ambedkar to an international audience, introducing the West to the Dalit-Bahujan movement and Ambedkar’s contribution to the fight against social hierarchies and the caste-based Hindu order.

The cultural industry, especially cinema, has stayed dominated by traditional social elites, serving their social and political interests without much resistance. The marginalised groups are a passive recipient of entertainment that hardly speaks of their lives or interests. Such an arrangement needs a democratic reform. Ambedkar’s emergence on screen and the arrival of a nascent Dalit Cinema genre has the potential to bring about a new and socially responsible cinematic culture. It has the potential to truly democratise the film industry.

Harish S. Wankhede is Assistant Professor, Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Ambedkar, on a device near you