Deswa, the film and the movement: taste, industry and representation in Bhojpuri cinema

Abstract

In the last decade, the Bhojpuri film industry has made its presence felt across most of north India, but also in many large cities of peninsular India. However, this emergence has also brought to the fore various questions around taste, class, region and representation. Nitin Chandra’s ‘unreleased’ Bhojpuri film Deswa sought to alter the ‘vulgar’ orientation of this industry, but had to wait for nearly four years to finally release as a Hindi film. Arguing that the vibrant debate that took place on the fundamental distinctions of Deswa is animated by Chandra’s persistent desire to narrate Bihar’s lost glory and utmost disrepair, I assess in this paper the industrial constraints that shaped the journey of Deswa. Drawing contrasts and parallels with the Hindi film industry, and drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical modeling of the field of cultural production, I locate the Deswa debate as a key moment in the contestations over subject positions, industry infrastructure, and linguistic affinities.