Caste and Cinema: A Study of Marathi Cinema with special reference to ‘Sairat’and ‘Fandry’

As the cliché goes, cinema, like all art, is considered as a mirror of society; but caste, which is deeply rooted in Indian society, has never found strong enough reflection in cinema, barring some exceptions. In most of the Hindi movies, the characters are casteless or from the upper class/caste. If we look at Indian Hindi film history we can find that films like ‗Achhut Kanya‘, ‗Sujata‘, ‗Ankur‘, ‗Aakrosh‘, ‗Sadgati‘, ‗Manthan‘, ‗Damul‘, ‗Bandit Queen‘, and in recent times ‗Aarakshan‘, ‗Swades‘ and ‗Masan‘ have touched the issue of caste. The list is not exhaustive. But the point here is that not many movies talk about such an integral character of our society. Hence it is important to study the portrayal of the ‗Dalits‘ or so called ‗lower castes‘ in cinema, which is the most popular medium of communication. The situation of Marathi cinema is not better than the mainstream Hindi cinema. Most of the Marathi cinema shows the dominance of ‗Brahnimical‘ or Pune-Mumbai urban culture. But in 2016, the film titled ‗Sairat‘ was an exception in this case. It broke all records on the box office and became the most successful Marathi film, and it triggered a discussion on caste and cinema. Directorial ‗Sairat’, directed by Nagraj Manjule, talks about the love affair of an upper caste girl and a lower caste boy. In this film Manjule has tried to break the conventions about the popular film. His directorial debute ‗Fandry‘, which won five national awards, also talked about the aspirations of a lower caste young boy. Director-writer Nagraj Manjule himself is from a lower caste and he likes to throw light on his realities and he strongly believes that cinema is a powerful medium to talk about these issues. Through content analysis and interviews of some experts, the authors will try to analyze portrayal of caste in Marathi and Hindi movies in general, with special references to Fandry and Sairat, films directed by Nagraj Manjule