Round Table India brings together perspectives from Dalit and Bahujan communities.
‘Main Wapas Aavunga’ Symphonies of Sorrow, Silences of Caste
‘Captain Miller’: Resistance against Brahminism and Colonialism
Vaibhav Kharat The first installment of a trilogy directed by Arun Matheswaran, ‘Captain Miller’, features Dhanush, Shiva Rajkumar, Nassar, Sundeep Kishan, and Nivedhithaa Sathish in key roles. Initially released in theaters, the film later became available on Amazon Prime Video. Penned by Arunraja Kamaraj and Madhan Karky, it was produced by Sathya Jyothi Films. As …
12th Fail: Yet another attempt to justify the socially unjust EWS
Prerna Singh The recent movie ’12th Fail’ has captured immense attention, becoming one of the most captivating and thought-provoking films in recent times. It tells the story of a poor Brahmin youth from a village, struggling to crack the UPSC exams. Featuring characters like Manoj Sharma, Pritam Pandey, Shraddha Joshi, and Gauri Bhaiya, the film …
De-Casteing Love: Pa Ranjith’s ‘Natchathiram Nagargiradhu’
Jitendra Suna Separation of love and Indian cinema is an impossible task. On one hand, our society abhors love; on the other hand, Indian cinema exploits the conditions of lovelessness that exist in our society. A critical study of 2013 on the judgement of various rape cases in seven district courts of Delhi by Rukmini …
‘Jhund’ is like a spark that celebrates the essence of Being
Neeraj Bunkar The movie Jhund is based on the life of Vijay Barse, who transformed the lives of slum children through football in Nagpur. Although the story of the movie is predictable, the way Nagraj weaves in anecdotes really takes it to another level. Nagraj Manjule, a committed storyteller, wrote and directed this movie …
Gehraiyaan – A story of ‘Caste(less)’ characters
Neeraj Bunkar The movie Gehraiyaan is directed by Shakun Batra who has also written the script with Ayesha Devitre, Sumit Roy and Yash Sahai. The movie stars actors like Deepika Padukone, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Pandey, Dhairya Karva, Naseeruddin Shah, and Rajat Kapoor in the lead roles. Gehraiyaan has a lot of layers, subplots and …
‘Life of an Outcast’- A challenge to the popular Hindi cinema
Neeraj Bunkar Cinema is the reflection of the society, which manifests the realities of the actual world. There are multiple methods of filmmaking. In the popular Hindi cinema, caste-based realities are often ignored. In the case where caste is being discussed, it is a high probability that Dalits will be shown as submissive …
Kaala: A Bahujan Grammar for Cinema
Vinay Shende At the outset, let me say that this is not a film review and I am no expert on the technicalities of film making. I won’t be talking about the plot of the movie. If anyone sees it as only a gangster movie, then they are missing the point. Director Pa Ranjith weaves …
Parched and Feminism: Are All Women’s Stories the Same?
Asha Singh In the past few days, I have noticed that a few of my Dalit-Bahujan friends are engaged in an uncritical celebration of Leena Yadav’s feature film titled ‘Parched’. I would like to talk about Parched, based on the content of the film and the interview of the Director conducted by National Dastak.i …