Anand Silodia A few days ago, Richa Chadha shared the poster of her new movie, ‘Madam Chief Minister’, and it was immediately criticized for the depiction of the dalit protagonist. The protagonist, played by Chadha, was shown to be wearing a dirty t-shirt and holding a broom[1]. The gist of the criticism was that …
Covid-19 plus Ramayan: Adding insult to injury
Amarnath Sandipamu & Deepu Myneni (Round Table India is doing a series to put together the Bahujan perspective on the Coronavirus pandemic) Anu Ramdas: It is well known that pandemics can and do facilitate totalitarian regimes to accelerate their ideologies when society is under the threat of the disease. We wanted to document the …
The ‘Dirt’ in The Dirty Picture: Caste, Gender and Silk Smitha – Part 2
Jenny Rowena Continued from here. My only preparation was to constantly tell myself that I love my body. And I was going to use it as a tool to get what I wanted in life and I was not going to be apologetic about it. So that was what Silk is for me. Therefore there is …
Popular Culture and Ideology: The Phenomenon of Gaddar
P Kesava Kumar (First published in February 2010) The cultural sphere has its own advantage over politics in terms of pulling people into its fold. Through his songs and cultural performances, Gummadi Vittal Rao, popularly known as “Gaddar”, the Telugu poet singer, maintains the historical continuity of people’s lives and their struggles. He brings politics into everyday life situations and …
The Touch of Ambedkar (part I)
by Thamburaj Dharmaraj The assignment is of performing the story of Ambedkar in a folk art form, shadow puppetry. Shadow puppet theatre is widely held in the southern districts of Tamilnadu. Though it is prevalent in most of the South Asian countries it is habitually getting ostracized in the villages and performance opportunity is on …
The angry young man wasn’t an outcaste
Kuffir ‘I am not a believer in the caste system‘ says Amitabh Bachchan. This is not the first time that he has repudiated caste. He had spoken out against the caste census earlier when he said his caste was ‘Indian‘. It is another matter that the Kayasthas aren’t willing to let go of him. …