Presenter
Pazhani Aadhavan - Department of English and Creative Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United KingdomPanel
38 – Anti-caste Experiments in Indian Cinema: Figures, Aesthetics, and TechnologyAbstract
‘Who is a Tamil?’, ‘What determines Tamil identity?’ are questions central to political, social, and cultural discussions in the Tamil country since the late 18th century (Geetha, 2015). Shaped by such debates in Tamil Nadu and Tamil liberation activities in Eelam, Tamil identity has been forged in cinema too. In this paper, I locate narrations of that identity in significant phases of Tamil cinema, such as the Dravidian, Nativity/ ‘Scent of the Soil,’ and the Left-wave cinemas, before focusing on contemporary anti-caste cinema. With the recent arrival of Dalit and Bahujan filmmakers, the identity question based on homogenous determinants such as language, race, and region has been interrogated. I argue that Pa. Ranjith’s Kabali (2016), Kaala (2018) and Thangaalan (2024), and Vetrimaaran’s Asuran (2019), Viduthalai 1 & 2 (2023,24) rethink, inter alia, affiliation and affect through anti-caste ideology. Whilst the construction of Tamil identity in other lingo-regional cinemas have been critically analyzed (Edacharya, 2013, Aidasani, 2013), as well as the anti-caste nature of certain films (Rajangam 2016,19, 23, Manoharan, 2021), an inquiry into how anti-caste arguments, settings, landscapes, historical frameworks, and imaginations of the past in contemporary cinema enrich the Tamil identity question is yet to be realized. I investigate how these films, based on the thoughts and movements of the local Left, Dr. Ambedkar and Pandit Iyothee Thass, suggest new ways of being Tamil.
